US official accuses Russia and China of blocking Asia leaders’ statement
WASHINGTON, Oct 12 (Reuters) – Russia and China blocked a proposed consensus statement for the East Asia Summit drafted by Southeast Asian countries, mainly over objections to language on the contested South China Sea, a U.S. official told Reuters on Saturday.
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MANILA (Reuters) – The United States has no immediate plans to withdraw a mid-range missile system deployed in the Philippines, despite Chinese demands, and is testing the feasibility of its use in a regional conflict, sources with knowledge of the matter said.
US Keeps Missile System in Philippines as China Tensions Rise, Tests Wartime Deployment
Previously:
Philippines aims to acquire Typhon missile launcher as regional arms race intensifies
Outgunned and outnumbered, Ukraine’s military is struggling with low morale and desertion
Serhiy Tsehotskiy, an officer with the 59th Separate Motorized Infantry Brigade, told CNN the unit tries to rotate soldiers in and out every three to four days. But drones, which have only increased in number over the course of the war, can make that too dangerous, forcing soldiers to stay put for longer. “The record is 20 days,” he said.
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Ukraine’s Kursk incursion has raised flagging morale among its troops and restored its initiative along a patch of the front.
59th Motorized Brigade (Ukraine):
“Chosen Company”, a group of volunteers from the United States, Australia, and several other countries, is attached to the 59th Brigade as an assault detachment within the brigade’s reconnaissance company. The unit, which was formerly a part of the International Legion, conducted reconnaissance and assault operations during the 2023 counteroffensive. In 2024, a New York Times article reported three incidents where members of Chosen Company killed Russian POWs, based on statements made by former members of the company.
‘Kill-Crazy’ Foreign Mercs in Ukraine Bragged About Murdering Russian PoWs – Report
The warning appeared online last week in Arabic beneath pictures of U.S. warplanes: “Do not take up arms against the United States or its partners,” it said, noting that America “will protect its partners in the face of threats from the Iranian regime and its proxies.”
U.S. military, on Tinder, says to swipe left on Iran-backed militants
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Some new Ukrainian soldiers refuse to fire at the enemy. Others, according to commanders and fellow fighters, struggle to assemble weapons or to coordinate basic combat movements. A few have even walked away from their posts, abandoning the battlefield altogether.
While Ukraine presses on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, its troops are still losing precious ground along the country’s eastern front — a grim erosion that military commanders blame in part on poorly trained recruits drawn from a recent mobilization drive, as well as Russia’s clear superiority in ammunition and air power.
Poorly trained recruits contribute to loss of Ukrainian territory on eastern front, commanders say
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Reuters: Russia and Ukraine report gains as some Ukrainians flee strategic city
But although the incursion is an embarrassment for Russia, Moscow’s forces have continued their gradual advances of the past few months against tired Ukrainian troops in eastern Ukraine worn down by 2-1/2 years of heavy fighting.
Moscow said its troops had taken control of the village of Mezhove in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, and that they had beaten back an attempt by a Ukrainian force to infiltrate its border in a different region to Kyiv’s Aug. 6 incursion.
Ukrainian authorities say Russian troops are now just 10 km (six miles) outside Pokrovsk, an important transport hub in eastern Ukraine, and this week started evacuating elderly residents and children.
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Moscow’s capture of Pokrovsk, which lies at an intersection of roads and a railway line, would give Russia options to advance in new directions and also cut supply routes used by the Ukrainian military in the Donetsk region.
WSJ: Ukraine Moves to Encircle Russian Troops in Kursk and Digs In for Long Fight
The incursion hasn’t, so far, shifted the dynamic on the war’s main battlefields in eastern Ukraine, where Russia is advancing in toward Pokrovsk, a key Ukrainian logistical hub, and Toretsk, a city on strategically important high ground.
The US Is Sending $125 Million in New Military Aid to Ukraine, Officials Say
The F.B.I. raided the homes of two prominent commentators on Russian state television channels as part of an effort to blunt attempts to influence November’s election.
U.S. Investigating Americans Who Worked With Russian State Television
An anonymous group of junior staff members has modeled its effort on an internal State Department messaging system, hoping to create an outlet for calls for a cease-fire in the war in Gaza.
Aides in Congress Create Dissent Channel to Protest Support for Israel
Related:
A recent article appearing in the US-based Business Insider titled, “Russia’s showing NATO its hand in the air war over Ukraine,” would provide a showcase of the deep deficit in military expertise driving increasingly unsustainable, unachievable foreign policy objectives. The article summarizes a number of interviews conducted with Western “airpower experts,” exhibiting a profound misunderstanding of modern military aviation, air defenses, and their role on and above the battlefield.
The West is Learning the Wrong Lessons about Airpower in Ukraine
To support Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) and despite any ideological or political differences, thousands of fighters from four other Palestinian factions have been fighting against the Israeli occupation forces in Gaza since last October.
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“Currently, we are all facing the same catastrophe(…) The Israeli enemy does not differentiate between a Palestinian who follows Fatah and another who belongs to Hamas. For him, everyone is a target. The Israelis want to eradicate the Palestinian people, without exception,” the officials said.
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“Although the Al-Qassam Brigades and the Al-Quds Brigades are the strongest on the ground, fighters from other factions joining the fight has created a balance not only on the field but also politically, especially since Israel has always bragged since the beginning of its war that it is only fighting Hamas, which it described as similar to ISIS, to justify its crimes against all the Palestinian people,” Wasef Erekat, a Ramallah-based Palestinian military expert, told TNA.
“The presence of diversity in the fighters’ ideological and political backgrounds and tactics in confronting the Israeli occupation prevents Israel from being able to commit even more crimes against the Palestinians and debunks their claim that they are only fighting ‘extremists’ and Hamas,” Erekat said.
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“Israel and the United States have long tried to stamp out Palestinian armed resistance and hold Hamas fully responsible for the 7 October attack. They ignored the violations against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem, and Gaza for decades and considered the 7 October attack a ‘crime against humanity’ and mobilised international and, unfortunately, some of the Arab opinion against Hamas,” remarked Iyad al-Qarra, a Gaza-based Palestinian analyst.
Related:
Not Only Hamas: Eight Factions at War With Israel in Gaza
Regarding the ‘Belligerents’ in the Israel–Hamas war and Hamas in Syria
The Palestinians’ inalienable right to resist
Why doesn’t Amnesty recognize Palestinians’ right to resist?
China tells ICJ: Palestinians have the right to use ‘armed force’ against Israel
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 
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