Snip:

Malian civilians showed extraordinary courage by defending their cities against armed terrorists with their bare hands, Vice President of the country’s Transitional Council Defense Commission Fousseynou Ouattara told TASS.

"The population took to the streets in Bamako, Kati, and other cities to confront well-armed terrorists using nothing but their bare hands," he said.

Ouattara rejected Western media claims that the citizens' loyalty to the authorities stemmed from coercion. "This is not 'Stockholm syndrome,' but patriotism and love for their army. The people, parliament, and defense and security forces of Mali stand and will stand united," the politician said.

Snip:

“You cannot hear it while it’s coming,” and countermeasures – from the Merkava’s Trophy system on down, are powerless to stop it – these are the reasons why the militia’s new drones are so effective, Lebanese Hezbollah strategy analyst Ali Hamie.

The cheap, fiberoptic cable-tethered, RPG grenade-fitted FPV UAVs are “very effective right now,” Hamie told Sputnik, pointing to reports and footage of their use showing that enemy forces can’t see them coming, detect them or map their trajectory before arrival.

Plus, precision controls allow them to be taken straight “to the tank gun opening, the muzzle of the cannon,” inside the hatches of armored vehicles, etc.

Snip:

A poll published by Israel’s Public Broadcaster (KAN) on 28 April found that a majority of Israelis believe the state has failed to secure victory in any war since October 2023.

According to the survey, 57 percent of respondents said no victory had been achieved, while 28 percent believed success had been reached in at least one arena, and a further 15 percent said they were unsure.

The findings come after more than two years of Israel’s genocide in Gaza – which Israel threatens to reignite – during which Tel Aviv waged multiple offensive military campaigns against Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran, alongside attacks in Yemen and Syria and a campaign of destruction and displacement in the occupied West Bank.

Confidence levels across all the fronts remain low, with only 17 percent viewing operations in Syria as successful and 16 percent saying the same for Gaza and Iran.

Snip:

Russia’s Permanent Representative to the international organizations in Vienna, Mikhail Ulyanov, has said that Washington’s long-standing policy of negotiating from a position of strength through military threats and illegal sanctions has failed against the Islamic Republic of Iran and must be abandoned.

In a statement on Sunday that aligns with Tehran’s consistent position, Ulyanov stated that the United States has no choice but to drop the elements of blackmail, ultimatums and artificial deadlines if it truly wishes to move forward in any engagement with Iran.

“The US is accustomed to conduct negotiations from the position of strength, threatening to use military force or tighten sanctions. It is obvious that this scheme doesn’t work with Iran,” Ulyanov stated.

“The best way ahead for the US under the current circumstances is to drop all those elements of its position which look like blackmailing, ultimatums and deadlines,” he added.

Snips:

The damage inflicted by Iran on US military bases in the Persian Gulf region, including from a successful attack on a US base by an Iranian fighter jet, is far worse than publicly acknowledged by the White House, NBC News reported on 26 April.

[...]

Most notably, an Iranian F-5 fighter jet successfully evaded layered US air defenses to bomb the US base Camp Buehring in Kuwait during the early days of the US-Israeli war on Iran, the NBC report stated.

The successful strike directly undermined US President Donald Trump's repeated claims that the Iranian Air Force had been “completely obliterated.”

[...]

The last incident of an enemy warplane successfully hitting a major US military base reportedly occurred in 1953, during the Korean War. North Korea's air force carried out a low-altitude night raid in April of that year that killed two US soldiers on Cho-do Island. For more than 70 years following that incident, the US maintained near-total air superiority over its military bases.

Snip:

State Duma Speaker Vyacheslav Volodin, at a meeting with Jo Yong Won, Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme People's Assembly of the DPRK, expressed gratitude to the Korean people and the country's leadership for their assistance in the fight against neo-Nazi invaders.

[...]

Volodin noted that, at the initiative of Chairman of State Affairs Commission Kim Jong Un, a Museum of Military Exploits of the Heroes of the Foreign Military Operation, as well as a memorial complex, have been opened in Pyongyang.

"This is a monument to Russian-Korean brotherhood in arms, developed jointly by specialists from Russia and the DPRK," Volodin said.

In this regard, he also expressed gratitude for the DPRK's careful preservation of the memory of the Soviet soldiers and officers who liberated Korea.

Snip:

The cost of the US operation against Iran has exceeded $61 billion, according to the Iran War Cost Tracker.

The portal updates data in real time and calculates the funds required to maintain personnel, ships deployed to the region, and other related expenses. The calculation methodology is based on a Pentagon report to Congress, which stated that the first six days of the operation cost $11.3 billion, and further expenses will amount to $1 billion per day.

Snip:

Moscow will continue supplying Cuba amid the US blockade squeezing the island, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Friday.

In late March, Russia delivered 100,000 tons of crude to the island, which has faced severe fuel shortages and power cuts since late last year, when Washington began to escalate its decades-long trade embargo into a full-blown oil blockade. Russian Energy Minister Sergey Tsivilev has indicated that a second tanker is on its way.

“We will continue to provide humanitarian aid to our Cuban friends during this difficult period,” Zakharova said in a press briefing.

Snip:

The Government of Mexico demands that the United States provide a detailed explanation as to why US intelligence agents were operating illegally in the northern state of Chihuahua, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said on Thursday.

"We are bewildered in regard to what happened and request information so that we are informed on what exactly these people were doing upon entering [the country], and everything related to them," Sheinbaum said at a news conference.

Sheinbaum stressed that in line with Mexican national law, foreign representatives arriving on official security missions are not allowed to cooperate directly with regional authorities while bypassing the Mexican Foreign Ministry and national federal protocols.

[...]

The Washington Post daily reported earlier in the month citing its unnamed sources that two employees of the US Embassy in Mexico, who had been killed on April 19 in a car accident in northern Mexico, were CIA agents.

Snip:

While the colonialism of old involved “the looting of gold and silver and the ransacking of nations,” digital age neocolonialism is all about “forcing citizens and countries to use certain technology while extracting their personal data,” Facebook whistleblower and censorship expert Ryan Hartwig tells Sputnik.

The Internet has become an instrument of digital commerce for Global South countries, while its users’ data is being harvested and sold for profit.

[...]

Through massive investments in digital infrastructure projects in the Global South, Western big tech companies are able to influence policy decisions and economic development in those nations.

“The United States, through its proxies such as Facebook and Google, has already effectively enforced a global dictatorship on the world and enslaved millions of individuals by controlling their data,” Hartwig remarks.

Snip:

Building and maintaining data centers and undersea communication cables, as well as AI infrastructure, is expensive, so many countries choose to rely on those made and controlled by US corporations.

Widespread reliance on US-controlled payment platforms such as Visa and Mastercard affords the US influence over other countries’ digital financial infrastructure.

Software provided by companies like Google helps make countries reliant on foreign tools. “Once your critical administrative functions run on Google’s infrastructure, the exit cost is enormous. Migration, retraining, procurement cycles. You’re hooked,” explains Hilse.

US companies that own and control this hardware and software enjoy almost unrestricted data that flows through it – data that can be quietly harvested for marketing or intelligence purposes.

Snip:

In Poland, 45 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that “Israel’s actions against Palestinians are no different from the Nazis’ treatment of Jews.” Only 18.7 percent disagreed, while 36.2 percent said they had no clear opinion.

The research was conducted by specialists in Holocaust studies across Eastern European universities, and found similar patterns were recorded across the region, with a sizable portion of the population viewing Israel’s actions toward Palestinians as comparable to Nazi treatment of Jews.

In Austria and Germany, over 40 percent agreed with the comparison, while around 25 percent disagreed.

Slovakia also saw over 42 percent agreement, while only around 15 percent opposed the notion.