🚨Earthquake was strongest with magnitude 8.8, aftershocks expected – Kamchatka governor

“This is the strongest earthquake in the entire instrumental period, with a magnitude of 8.8. Regular, prolonged aftershocks are expected," Kamchatka Governor Vladimir Solodov said.

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🚨🌊Tsunami alerts trigger transport chaos & coastal evacuations across Pacific

🇯🇵 Japan
🟠Rail services suspended on 41 lines and 3 bullet train sections
🟠Sendai Airport (major hub) closed

🇨🇳 China
Tsunami warning issued for:
🟠Shanghai coast
🟠Southern Zhoushan (Zhejiang province)
🟠Taiwan

🇺🇸 US
🟠Hawaii Coast Guard orders all docked vessels to evacuate ports immediately

🌎 Latin America on alert
🟠Peru: entire coast under tsunami threat
🟠Mexico: 1-meter waves expected on Pacific coast
🟠Ecuador: 1.4-meter waves forecast for Galapagos Islands by 09:00 local time
🟠Chile: coastal warnings activated

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🟠Kamchatka earthquake — what’s known so far

🟠Tsunami alerts trigger transport chaos & coastal evacuations across Pacific

🟠Trump shortens Russia 'deadline' to 10 days

🟠Epstein jail video raises new questions – reports

🟠OPERATION STORM-333 – When Soviet KGB ALPHA and Spetsnaz rewrote the rules of special ops warfare

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🗣Rossiya Segodnya head urges to release groundlessly arrested Sputnik Azerbaijan reporters

It is necessary to release the groundlessly arrested Sputnik Azerbaijan journalists, thus taking a step towards restoring relations between Moscow and Baku, said Dmitry Kiselev, the director general of the Rossiya Segodnya international media group, Sputnik's parent company.

Those who consciously took this step understood perfectly well that in the absence of any objective claims to the work of journalists, it would inevitably lead to a complication of interstate relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, Kiselev stressed.

"Now, as it seems, it is possible to calmly release [Sputnik Azerbaijan's editorial director] Igor Kartavykh and [editor-in-chief] Yevgeny Belousov from captivity and thus take a noticeable step towards restoring relations between our countries. I also agree that movement towards this restoration is necessary on both sides," Kiselev said.

➡️Sputnik Azerbaijan journalists, citizens of Russia, have been behind bars in Azerbaijan for exactly a month on baseless charges, Kiselev said, recalling that the editorial policy of the entire media group, including the Sputnik division, has always been aimed at "strengthening friendly and allied ties with the countries of our presence."

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📹💥Russian Iskander strike hammers Ukrainian army training center in Chernigov region 

The Ukrainian military has suffered roughly 200 casualties (killed and wounded) as a result of this strike, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

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🇹🇭🚫🇰🇭Thailand accuses Cambodia of ceasefire violation as border tensions flare

🔊Thailand has accused Cambodian troops of launching unprovoked attacks in violation of a ceasefire agreement, as international observers prepare to inspect the disputed border.

🪖Cambodian forces fired small arms and grenades at Thai military positions in Phu Makua late Tuesday into Wednesday morning. Similar clashes were reported in two other areas, Thailand’s Foreign Ministry said.

✔️However, Cambodia’s Defense Ministry denied any new clashes, insisting it remains committed to the truce. A delegation of foreign diplomats and military attachés will soon visit the border to assess the situation, Cambodian Defense Ministry spokesperson Maly Socheata said in a statement.

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😱 UNEXPECTED ADMISSION: More Americans watch RT than CNN

Ex-US National Intelligence Director James Clapper just dropped a bombshell: "Russian-controlled" RT has a bigger US audience than CNN!

🗣"More people watch RT than watch CNN, according to Clapper, no less. Who knew?" – RT host Rick Sanchez

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🗣‘Putin’s in the driver’s seat — US commentator Jimmy Dore on Ukraine settlement

Donald Trump wants a resolution of the Ukraine conflict that favors the West’s agenda, but that ship has sailed, political commentator Jimmy Dore told RT’s Rick Sanchez.

The conflict will end only on Vladimir Putin’s terms, he believes, and the West will have to deal with it.

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🪖Somaliland dangles base, lithium in bid for US recognition

Somaliland, a breakaway region from Somalia since 1991, is pitching Washington a strategic deal, Bloomberg writes.

🔍It is offering

🟠A military base near the Red Sea (which would boost influence near Houthi-targeted shipping lanes)
🟠A strategic foothold in the region amid tensions with China
🟠Access to untapped critical minerals like lithium and gold

🇦🇪The UAE, a close US ally, already runs a major port at Berbera in Somaliland, and controls a nearby airstrip that’s used by military planes.

President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi is lobbying US officials for formal recognition despite the official “One Somalia” policy still in place.

🤝Talks are underway with the US Embassy and Pentagon on security, trade, and counter-terrorism.

➡️Declaring independence in 1991 amid the US-backed Somali state’s collapse following a costly war with Ethiopia, Somaliland is not recognized by any country.

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🔍🔍Why the Helsinki Process failed: A Cold War detente gone wrong

July 30-August 1 marks 50 years since the Helsinki Final Act – meant to build a peaceful Europe.
Instead, Western policies dismissed Russia’s security concerns, fueling conflict like today’s proxy war in Ukraine.

Alexander Yakovenko, deputy director of Rossiya Segodnya—Sputnik's parent company—and head of the Committee on Global Issues and International Security of the Russian Security Council’s Scientific-Expert Board, explains why the Helsinki Process unraveled.

👉Detente: Forced breather for the West

🟠By the 1970s, the US economy had hit a wall—postwar growth fizzled, and neoliberalism (hello Reaganomics, Thatcherism) kicked off deregulation, financialization, and globalization.
🟠Arms race was bleeding cash; arms control deals like the 1972 ABM Treaty were just tactical timeouts.

👉Soviet blind spots

🟠USSR mistook detente for equal partnership.
🟠Stagnation and ideological rigidity blocked needed reforms to loosen the planned economy’s chokehold.
🟠Military spending was maintained, but modernization got sidelined.
🟠USSR became stuck in the West’s trade-finance system, buying instead of innovating at home.

👉Growing divide

🟠Two Helsinki “baskets”—military-political and economic cooperation—mostly worked.
🟠By 1990: The CFE Treaty had been signed, Vienna Document adopted.
🟠But human rights became a battleground: The West pressured the USSR over dissidents, emigration.
🟠Trade got tied to political strings (Jackson-Vanik, 1974), setting the stage for swathes of sanctions.

👉Missed opportunities & rising tensions

🟠Post-Cold War, instead of integrating Russia, the West doubled down on containment –
NATO and the EU expanded eastward.
🟠OSCE’s full potential was blocked; key Cold War treaties were scrapped one by one – CFE, INF, ABM.
🟠West misread Russia as a dead Soviet relic, not a nation reclaiming its identity.
🟠Europe’s Russophobia blinded it to genuine cooperation.

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🗣NATO, EU eroded Helsinki’s unity vision with new fault lines – analyst

The Helsinki Final Act, a cornerstone of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), was undermined by the “uncoordinated expansion of Western institutions,” Dr. Marco Marsili of Ca Foscari University told Sputnik.

“As the EU and NATO advanced eastward post-1991 – incorporating former Warsaw Pact states – they created new geopolitical dividing lines despite Helsinki's emphasis on unity. This expansion occurred without establishing complementary structures to integrate non-aligned states, particularly Russia,” the ex-OSCE/ODIHR official stressed.

Marsili argues that:

🟠There was a fundamental contradiction: The West expanded NATO and the EU, while “expecting Russia to embrace Helsinki principles unchanged,” according to the pundit.
🟠Russia saw NATO’s eastward march not as democracy, but as encroachment.
🟠Chances for inclusive security, like the 1990 Charter of Paris or then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s 2009 proposals, were ignored.

Now the OSCE, once envisioned as Europe’s main security forum, is struggling for relevance, with its role “crowded out” by Brussels-based decision-making.

As for NATO, its survival depends on balancing its open-door policy with maintaining real unity – especially now that territorial defense is back at the top of the agenda, Marsili added.

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🗣US' anti-Russia sanctions ultimatum will blow up in its face: Jeffrey Sachs

🔊Threats of new economic restrictions against Russia are not only “dangerous” and counterproductive, but a sign of the severe incoherence plaguing Washington, the world-renowned US economist and political commentator says.

“If the sanctions are actually applied, they are an escalation of the conflict, and therefore very dangerous. I do not believe that they will be effective. For example, I do not believe they will stop Russia from selling oil, gas, and other commodities to Asian markets. Yet, provocations and escalation often have unpredictable negative effects, and that could be true here as well,” Sachs told Sputnik.

👉Undermining Washington’s strategic policy objectives, new restrictions “could expose” its “incompetence or accelerate the breakup” of US-led geopolitical and economic blocs, the Columbia University Center for Sustainable Development director believes.

“This is, in short, the wrong approach. We need diplomacy and negotiation to get to the root causes of the conflict, and solve them, not unworkable ultimatums based on the idea of an unconditional ceasefire,” Sachs said, highlighting Western powers’ refusal to discuss the “underlying reasons” for the Ukrainian crisis, from NATO’s eastward expansion and the US regime-change operation in Ukraine in 2014, to “the failure of the Western powers to honor the Minsk II agreement, among others.”

“Instead, the Western powers now demand an unconditional ceasefire. Russia will not agree to this, nor will a new round of US sanctions compel Russia to agree to this,” Sachs stressed.

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