A glass igloo café in the middle of snow-covered mountains opens in Gulmag, Kashmir

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💬 Russia's ex-President Dmitry Medvedev vows retaliation as Ukraine threatens to strike Crimea

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🇹🇷🇸🇪 Terrorist organizations are blocking Sweden's path to NATO membership, with Stockholm deliberately stepping on these "mines," although the country could resolve this issue at will, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.

The minister also stated that Ankara had called off the third round of trilateral talks between Turkey, Sweden and Finland on NATO membership in response to anti-Turkish provocations in Sweden.

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🔥A freight train has been on fire for the past 24 past hours, sending up heavy smoke, after the cars were derailed. The accident has resulted in an evacuation order and declaring a state of emergency in a town in Ohio, near the state line with Pennsylvania in the US.

The police said the train consisted of more than 100 cars, 20 of which were said to be carrying hazardous materials - cargo that could pose any kind of danger “including flammables, combustibles, or environmental risks”.

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Report to Congress Warned About Potential Aerial Surveillance Last Month, Reports Say

Suspected instances of rival powers using advanced aerial technology to spy on the United States were outlined in a classified report to Congress prior to the Chinese balloon incident, US media reports citing officials.

The report on unidentified aerial phenomena submitted last month discussed the use of unknown cutting-edge technology for alleged surveillance. Two American officials familiar with the research told the newspaper on Saturday that the surveillance was likely conducted by China, but the report does not attribute the incidents to any country.

The incidents covered in the report involved balloons and quadcopter drones, while Naval Air Station Fallon in Nevada and Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan were among the sites mentioned as the potential surveillance targets, according to one US official.

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Scientists Discover New Form of Ice, Say It May Help Understand Secrets of Water

A team of scientists has discovered the existence of a new form of ice. This ice looks like a fine powder but is more like liquid water in its properties and structure. Such ice can't form naturally on Earth, but it might do so in space and on the cold moons. The study of this new form will help advance the understanding of all water's properties.

Researchers at University College London and Cambridge University have cooled ordinary ice in a ball mill to liquid helium temperature and ground the ice into a powder, causing the near-complete destruction of the crystal structure. The output was ice with an amorphous structure, like water, and most surprisingly, the density was about the same as water - about 1 g/cm3.

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Japan to Authorize Deployment of US Missiles if Washington Initiates Talks, Reports Say

The Japanese government is ready to consider the deployment of US medium-range missiles on its territory if Washington initiates official negotiations on this matter, Japanese press reported, citing an informed source.

The United States so far has raised this issue only on the sidelines of formal meetings over the past three to four years, and this question was never officially discussed between the countries’ leadership, the newspaper reported on Saturday.

Washington indicated that the Long Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) and Tomahawk cruise missiles, which are currently under development, are potential candidates for deployment, the report said.

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🇷🇺🇮🇳Russia is successfully cooperating in the Arctic with India, Russian Ambassador says

🗯 "Russia is successfully cooperating in the Arctic with India on the Vostok Oil project, with China on LNG projects and in the development of transportation along the Northern Sea Route," Russian Ambassador to Denmark Vladimir Barbin said.

📈 The diplomat stressed that among the non-Arctic states there is a growing interest in cooperation with Russia.

👉 Follow our LIVE UPDATES on the Ukrainian crisis

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20 years since the US lie about Iraqi WMDs: Speech that defined Washington's invasion

Then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech, and the famous image of him holding up the vial, has since become a universal symbol representing false pretexts serving as justification for war. He later called his UN speech a "great intelligence failure" and a "blot" on his record, but the consequences of it scarred the Middle East forever.

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Kofi Annan Never Accepted US Claims About WMDs in Iraq: Ex-Adviser

"I do not believe Kofi Annan ever agreed with the position of the United States on its handling of the Iraqi crisis and in particular on its assertion that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction," one of his former advisers told Sputnik.

The then-UN Secretary General, the source added, never supported the pretexts and misinformation provided to justify the invasion and destruction of Iraq.

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UK PM Sunak Risks Trade War With Brussels by Abolition of 2,400 EU Laws, Reports Say

At the same time EU leaders are reportedly preparing their own “unilateral rebalancing measures” in secret meetings in Brussels. Sources suggest that these measures could include the option of imposing tariffs on UK goods entering the EU single market, according to media reports.

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A total of 43% of US citizens believe the classified documents that were found in President Joe Biden’s home and former office were "probably deliberately kept" by him and/or his staff, according to a Redfield & Wilton Strategies poll commissioned by US weekly.

Meanwhile, 34% of those sampled think that the classified documents were kept there "probably mistakenly," with another 23% undecided.

The poll also found that 42% of the respondents believe "the story has been overblown." A further 65% of those polled are in favor of searches of all Biden's properties by the Federal Bureau of Investigation

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❗️Russian MoD briefing on the progress of the special military operation in Ukraine:

▪️The Russian military has destroyed more than 4,000 Ukrainian field artillery systems and mortars since the start of the special operation;

▪️Russian troops eliminated over 120 Ukrainian servicemen in the Krasny Liman direction;

▪️Russian forces assumed more advantageous positions in the Donetsk direction, eliminating over 115 Ukrainian servicemen;

▪️The Russian Army eliminated up to 35 Ukrainian servicemen in the Kupyansk direction;

▪️Russian forces thwarted six Ukrainian sabotage and reconnaissance groups in the Kupyansk direction;

▪️Russian air defenses shot down two UAVs and 11 Uragan and HIMARS rockets;

▪️The total losses of Ukrainian troops in the South Donetsk and Zaporozhye directions amounted to 130 servicemen.

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🇨🇳🇺🇸 US officials confirmed that an F-22 Raptor fighter jet took down the wayward Chinese balloon with an AIM-9X Sidewinder missile on Saturday.

▪️The price of one AIM-9X Sidewinder missile: over $380,000.

▪️One hour of Raptor Flight Time to shoot down a “Chinese Spy Balloon”: $85,325.

💎Finding out the spy craft was really just an errant weather balloon? Priceless.

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Armie Hammer broke his silence more than two years after finding himself in the epicenter of a scandal involving allegations of rape, sexual abuse, and cannibalistic fantasies.

In a wide-ranging interview with a US weekly, Hammer denied any criminal wrongdoing, arguing that all the sexual encounters with women accusing him of sexual abuse were consensual.

🗣️ "Every single thing was discussed beforehand. I have never thrust this on someone unexpectedly. Never. That’s a very important part of the BDSM world. The consent. Because you’re doing things that are pushing envelopes. You’re doing things that are beyond the [realm of] ‘Let’s have missionary sex with the lights off.’ You have to have that trust. You have to have that vulnerability with someone. You have to have that aspect of ‘I am willingly giving my control over to this person,'" he continued

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Colin Powell's Career-Ruining UN Testimony

💬 "In my experience, Colin Powell had always represented the personification of a man of character who would always do the right thing. But as I watched him spout lie after lie, I immediately saw him for what he truly was—an inadequate man who proved unworthy of the responsibilities given him," Scott Ritter, a military analyst and former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, writes.

❗️“Colin Powell had once said that his experience in Vietnam taught him that those in positions of power and authority could never again allow lies to shape policy when the lives of American servicemembers was on the line. On that day, February 5, 2003, Colin Powell put the lie to that statement. He failed the American people. He failed the world. He failed himself.”

Read the full op-ed here

⚡️Kiev plotting large-scale provocation in Kramatorsk to accuse Moscow of 'war crimes,' Russian MoD says

The Kiev regime plans a controlled explosion at medical institutions in Kramatorsk in order to accuse Russia of a deliberate strike on civilian facilities. Accompanied by Ukrainian forces, Western journalists have arrived in Kramatorsk in order to cover the planned provocation, the ministry added.