🇨🇦 Canada's surging debt payments add to Trudeau’s polling woes

With 2025 reelection plans in his sights, Justin Trudeau has hoped splurging on social programs might prop up his plunging popularity ratings.

However, the Bank of Canada’s higher interest rates have elevated the cost of debt for the federal government to the extent where the prime minister may have to rethink spending plans, Bloomberg reported.

A sluggish economy, looming risk of stagflation, and now rising debt payments are threatening to put a spoke in the wheel for the Liberal Party leader. As it stands, he trails Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre on the issue of who would be the best PM, recent polls show.

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🇺🇸 New $100 million aid package for Ukraine that includes air defense munitions and anti-tank weapons was announced by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

"I announced today another $100 million drawdown, using presidential drawdown authority, to provide additional artillery munitions, additional interceptors for air defense and a number of anti-tank weapons as well. So our support continues," Austin said after meeting with Ukrainian officials in Kiev during a surprise visit.

The weapons package includes additional HIMARS rocket artillery systems and ammunition, TOW missiles and Javelin man-portable anti-tank launchers.

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🇺🇸🩻 A physician for former US President Donald Trump has indicated the former commander-in-chief is in "excellent health."

🚢 Israeli or not? What we know about car carrier hijacked by Houthis in Red Sea

Yemen’s Houthi militia seized the Galaxy Leader commercial car carrying vessel in the southern Red Sea over the weekend, believing the ship to be linked to Israel. The IDF assured the ship is not Israeli.

Where was the ship sailing from? Where was it headed? Who owns it? Who’s on board?

👉 Sputnik did a bit of digging to find comprehensive answers

Business council official talks industrialization opportunities that BRICS expansion in Africa offers the continent

🗣 "We have, I think, amongst the BRICS nations some of the top ten largest economies represented in the BRICS nations. And we can learn from their policies, from how they implemented their policies," Busisiwe Mabuza, chairman of the Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa told Sputnik Africa on Africa Industrialization Day.

She also added with BRICS, African countries "can learn how to grow their businesses" and seize "opportunities in global markets to develop their own economies."

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📉 Ukrainian population down by 4Mln to 19Mln in 2 months, Ex-Ukrainian PM Nikolai Azarov said.

"According to the most modest calculations, only 19 million continue to live in the territory controlled by the regime in Kiev. It’s a scary figure," he wrote on social media.

He attributed the population decline to a massive outflow of workforce, in addition to combat casualties.

"Imagine that peace will be restored tomorrow. And a border of some sort will be drawn. Ukraine will need to be rebuilt! Who will do it if there is now a gaping workforce deficit?" Azarov added.

The former minister complained about a breakdown in services in Ukraine. He said Ukraine would need highly skilled workers, such as engineers and technologists, to rebound from the conflict.

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🇵🇸🇮🇱 Hamas leader Haniyeh says his group is close to reaching a “truce agreement” in talks with Qatar and Israel that would clear the way for the release of some hostages

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🇸🇰🚜 Slovakia is ready to extend the ban on the import of agricultural products from Ukraine, valid until the end of the year, if the European Commission does not propose a solution to this problem, Slovak Agriculture Minister Richard Takac said

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🇺🇸🛩 US Navy P-8A Poseidon at Hawaii Marine Corps base overshoots runway and ends up in shallow waters

Nine people were aboard the aircraft at the time but no injuries were reported.

The P-8A Poseidon is considered a workhorse of US Navy operations. It can carry both torpedoes and cruise missiles, while conducting antisubmarine and antisurface warfare and intelligence gathering missions.

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🇩🇪 German Defense Minister Pistorius arrives on unannounced visit to Kiev, talks with Zelensky planned

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🇷🇺🪖 Russian artillerymen from Battlegroup Zapad quash Ukrainian troops in Kupyansk direction

A reconnaissance group made their way to the line of contact to adjust artillery fire. A UAV tracked the temporary deployment of Ukrainian forces units.

The coordinates were then immediately transmitted to the artillery group, and the D-20 crew launched a strike on the target with further corrections.

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🇵🇸🇮🇱 IDF hit 250 Hamas targets in Gaza Strip over past 24 hours

Among the targets struck dozens of militants, rocket launchers, and military infrastructure, the IDF said.

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🇺🇸 Catastrophes in Ukraine and Palestine stem from actions of “warmongering” elements that have taken over the US administration, Paolo Raffone told Sputnik

The director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels underscored the hypocrisy of Joe Biden’s claim in his op-ed for The Washington Post that the US will continue to back Ukraine and Israel for the sake of "peace" and "democracy".

“Biden’s op-ed in the WP is a sign of the delirium that reigns in the US administration,” he said, adding:
“Biden’s current presidency and his past roles in the US administration have achieved nothing but these unnecessary catastrophes affecting masses of innocent people caught in the trail of a lost hegemonic power incapable of handling the events properly.”

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🇵🇸🇮🇱 Latest updates on the Palestine-Israel conflict:

▪️Palestinian movement Hamas expects Qatar to announce details of the deal on the release of hostages in the coming hours, Al Arabiya broadcaster reported, citing a representative of the movement.

▪️The IDF hit 250 Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip over the past 24 hours

▪️Netanyahu's adviser says Israel’s deadly attack on Gaza's Indonesian Hospital was "in complete compliance with international law" and that the IDF made a "clear" distinction between civilians and "terrorist" targets.

▪️A major explosion happened near Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in central Gaza, Arab TV channel Al-Mayadeen reported.

▪️At least 17 people were killed in Israeli shelling of a residential building in the central Gaza Strip, Al Jazeera broadcaster reported

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🇷🇺💥 Russian forces eliminate Ukrainian troops and equipment on right bank of Dnepr River

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🇵🇸🇮🇱 The Gaza contact group, which includes senior diplomats of Turkey, Indonesia, Nigeria, Jordan, Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, as well as the secretary-general of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), will hold talks in Moscow on Tuesday as part of its diplomatic tour, the Turkish Foreign Ministry said

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