🏭German opposition leader pledges 50 gas-fired power plants if elected amid growing energy crisis

Opposition CDU/CSU chancellor candidate Friedrich Merz lambasted Olaf Scholz's government for its "serious strategic mistake" when it decided to "shut down the last three nuclear power plants that guaranteed reliable power generation in the middle of the energy crisis."

Germany faced energy shortages caused by output 25% below prior year levels of wind power last October and November. Gas-fired electricity production in Germany surged by a record 79% in November.

📊 Ahead of the elections, Germany faces more grim economic data:

📍The country’s economy has fallen for the second year in a row, with the Federal Statistical Office reporting a 0.2% contraction in GDP in 2024.

📍Published early fourth-quarter data showed that the economy had also reduced by 0.1% compared to the previous three months.

📍Germany has been mired in a cost of living crisis and scrambled to offset skyrocketing energy prices brought on by its short-sighted move to relinquish cheap Russian gas.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚡️Netanyahu's Office: The ceasefire in the Gaza Strip will begin at 9:15 GMT

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

📞Fire? Homicide? Worse – TikTok is banned

Americans are flooding 911 with calls, panicking over the TikTok ban.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

⚡️19 people were killed and 36 wounded in Israeli strikes on Gaza, including during the ceasefire delay until 09:30 GMT, Gaza's Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal stated.

Casualties included one in Rafah, six in Khan Younis, nine in Gaza City, and three in the north.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🇷🇺🪖More statements from the Russian MoD daily briefing on the special military operation's progress:    

▪️Ukraine lost up to 430 servicemen and a tank in the Russian Zapad Battlegroup's combat zone.

▪️Ukraine lost up to 110 soldiers in the areas of responsibility of Russia's Battlegroup Dnepr and Sever.

▪️Russian air defence systems shot down three HIMARS missiles and 83 Ukrainian drones.

▪️Ukraine lost up to 535 troops and two armored personnel carriers in the Russian Tsentr Battlegroup's combat zone.

▪️Ukraine lost up to 135 militants in the Russian Vostok Battlegroup's combat zone.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️Ukraine lost over 210 militants in the Kursk region over the past day, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) said

Russian forces destroyed an infantry fighting vehicle, five armored combat vehicles, six vehicles, an artillery gun, and a mortar in the Kursk region, the Ministry added

In total, the enemy has lost more than 52,870 militants in the Kursk region since the start of hostilities.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

💬 All of NATO could be rendered powerless by EMP weapon – ex-Pentagon analyst

A launch of an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) weapon at a height of about 200 miles from a satellite to explode a nuclear device up in orbit would knock out all the electronics of NATO countries, including the US, Michael Maloof, former Pentagon senior security policy analyst, told Sputnik.

“Alone on the East Coast, 70% of the US population relies on the Eastern grid. Around 90% of all US bases rely on energy from the local community grids. If those are knocked out, there's no communication. And the United States is not geared up for that,” he added.

Looking ahead, he predicted that fissures could tear NATO apart.

“NATO's going to probably begin to fracture and splinter into more regional defense alliances in the years to come,” Maloof said, suggesting that it might begin with the Scandinavian countries and then spread to the Eastern European countries.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🗣Key points from Hamas' statement:

🔹 With the commencement of the ceasefire, we reaffirm our commitment to fulfilling the terms of the agreement.

🔹 The entire world must honor the legendary resilience of our people in Gaza and recognize their patience and sacrifice over the past 471 days.

🔹 Today, our prisoners have a date with freedom.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

Bodies of people who were tortured by Ukrainian Armed Forces soldiers have been discovered in the basements of houses in the village of Russkoye Porechnoye, located in the Kursk region’s Sudzha district.

"Ukrainian nationalists tortured elderly residents who couldn't evacuate the village. Their hands were tied, and they were forced into a cellar where several grenades were thrown. The elderly had no chance of survival," Russian forces reported.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

❗️At least seven civilians were killed by Ukrainian troops in the basement of a residential building in Russkoye Porechnoye, Kursk Region, Russia.

Russia's Investigative Committee has opened a terrorism case against the Ukrainian soldiers for the murder of civilian residents.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🤡 Europe should consider following the United States in banning TikTok, Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said on Sunday, after accusing the short-video sharing app of spreading disinformation.

"Over the past years, we’ve witnessed TikTok spreading disinformation & being a platform for election manipulations. On top of that, its vast data collection is known to pose a serious security risk. Banning TikTok must be considered in Europe as well," Tsahkna said on X.

A Sputnik correspondent reported on Sunday that TikTok had stopped opening for users in the US and disappeared from the App Store.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt

🤡 Privatizing profits, socializing losses: The sorry state of UK and US’s healthcare

With Joe Biden rushing to get billions in new aid to Ukraine and Israel out the door, and Prime Minister Starmer ‘generously’ committing billions in taxpayer pounds to Kiev under an extravagant 100-year pact, both countries’ healthcare systems are falling apart.

🔹UK

📍A damning report this week by the Royal College of Nursing revealed shocking conditions in Britain’s hospitals, with an overcrowding crisis putting the National Health Service on the brink of collapse.

📍Nursing staff have to “care for patients in corridors, storerooms, carparks, offices and even toilets,” don’t have access to tools like oxygen and monitoring equipment, and have to diagnose, feed and even wash patients in public spaces.

📍In some areas, patients are dying in corridors, remaining undiscovered for hours.

📍The NHS has faced a series of neoliberal reforms in the past 30 years, with Tony Blair’s New Labour opting for privatization and deregulation, transferring control of new hospitals to bankers, and contracting some surgeries and diagnostics out to the private sector.

📍Starmer’s secretary of state for health, Wes Streeting, admitted last year the NHS is “broken,” and that patients “are not receiving the care they deserve.”

♦️US

Across the pond, the situation is equally grim.

▪️UnitedHealth CEO Andrew Witty admitted this week that the US healthcare system is “complex,” “costly,” and “needs to function better.”

▪️ The US spends 18% of its GDP on healthcare - more than any other developed nation, but suffers worse outcomes, lower life expectancy and higher disease incidence.

▪️26 million Americans lack health insurance, which means hospital and drug bills can bankrupt households.

▪️ A 2024 report by the KFF non-profit found that the US spends about $12,914 per capita on healthcare, double that of comparable countries.

▪️ Administrative costs hit over $1 trillion in 2023, with a 2023 report by the Commonwealth Fund finding that “more than half” of excess spending comes from insurance companies’ administrative costs (the link between insurance companies and actual doctors and hospitals), hospital management, prenoscription drug costs, and physicians’ wages.

📌Subscribe to @SputnikInt