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The liberation of the city of Konstantinovka gives Russia an opportunity to envelop the last heavily fortified area under Ukrainian control in Donbass, former US Army officer and military commentator Stanislav Krapivnik has said.

Moscow announced the liberation of the city on Friday after weeks of intensive combat in the area. Konstantinovka is located at the southernmost tip of the Slavyansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration, a string of cities in the northwest of Russia’s Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), which Ukrainian troops have turned into a single, heavily fortified fortress, riddled with a vast system of reinforced trenches, tunnels, and bunkers. The city lies some 15km southeast of Kramatorsk, with the small town of Druzhkovka located in between.

The nations of Europe have been degraded to the status of Third World countries due to their failed immigration policies, US President Donald Trump has said.

Trump took a step back from celebrations commemorating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the US Declaration of Independence to take another jab at Washington’s supposed allies in the EU and UK.

“Europe is learning that when you take in Third World criminals, you become a Third World Country. It happens quickly, in just a blink of the eye,” the president wrote in a post on X on Saturday, July 4.

Trump also implied that his tougher stance on immigration has spared America the same outcome. “I was elected just in time!!!” he said.

US President Donald Trump called his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin to discuss the Ukraine conflict, the situation around Iran, and the prospects for restoring bilateral ties, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov has said.

The conversation took place on Saturday, as the United States marked the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. According to Ushakov, Putin personally congratulated Trump and the American people on reaching the milestone, after sending a formal message to the White House a day earlier.

The call lasted one hour and 25 minutes, Ushakov said, describing it as “businesslike and highly constructive.”

International Women’s Day used to come with a certain esthetic. A celebration of past victories and a look ahead to new hopes and challenges. But this year, the vibe is women on social media, claiming Iranian heritage, dancing in celebration of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran, even as reports circulate that bombs had killed roughly 160 schoolgirls.

Executive Director of the Jewish Council of Australia, Sarah Schwartz, has told the Bondi Royal Commission of sustained abuse by pro-Israel activists. Stephanie Tran reports.

Giving evidence on Thursday, Sarah Schwartz, a human rights lawyer, said attacks from pro-Israel groups sought to delegitimise Jewish people who criticise Israel.

“They rest on the idea that Jewish identity is inherently tied to Israel, and therefore Jewish people who don’t support Israel or who criticise Israel are not really Jewish and are traitors,” she told the Commission.

Democracies rarely become fragile because citizens disagree. They become fragile when citizens lose the capacity to question themselves. Conviction without curiosity eventually ceases to be wisdom.

                       Komla Tsey

What a letter from Accra can teach Australia about prejudice and why our convictions must be accompanied by curiosity.

I wrote to Ama after many years. We had not kept in close contact. Life had carried us into different countries, marriages, responsibilities, illnesses, funerals, children, disappointments and repairs. I did not know whether the letter would find her.

More than 30,000 people protested in Erfurt against the AfD party convention, which is taking place there this weekend. 

"Most of the protests were peaceful. It's colorful and loud—we can be satisfied," said Thuringia’s Interior Minister Georg Maier at the scene.

Germany news: AfD elects leaders amid massive protests

Nik Martin | Darko Janjevic with Reuters, AFP, AP, dpa

Party delegates of the far-right AfD are meeting in Erfurt as tens of thousands of people are protesting the event. Meanwhile, Jürgen Klopp said he was "ready" to jump in as Germany's head coach. DW has more.

Most governments remain hooked on oil instead of making the vital changes humans and the planet need for global energy transformation.

The self-destructive urge of humans to bring down our civilisation and destroy our children’s future grows stronger by the minute. Never has our addiction to oil looked more like the agonal ravings of a demented junkie.

Julian Cribb

Should the machines stop the useless human bickering — such as to what size a payola under the table for a building development application needs to be? Or stop us spending cash on warplanes that are obsolete two years before they come into service? Or promote Australian-built submarines that are automatically efficient at deciding where to go and dive? Should the machines decide to scuttle themselves before they and we make an arse of ourselves? And save humanity? This concept is not new... It has entered the recent folklore via the "Terminator" series... and countless movies with Transformers — in which our hero fights super machines armed with deadly ray-guns, with a matchstick — mechanical invaders and other "Toybots"... 

Gus Leonisky [3 Apr 2015]

On the 1000th day of the horrific genocide currently underway against the population of Gaza, what conclusions can be drawn?

They are numerous, obviously, and impossible to list them all here. But, first and foremost, and what directly concerns us, is the criminal silence of our authorities, which de facto and indelibly places them on the wrong side of history.

In response, there is growing opposition from citizens to the "values" to which our governments have resorted for years, values ​​that are nothing but hypocrisy to mask their duplicity.

On the 1000th day of the horrific genocide currently underway against the population of Gaza, what conclusions can be drawn?

BY Daniel VANHOVE

As promised, the full text of Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz's address during the extraordinary session of the National Assembly of People's Power, held on the afternoon of June 18, 2026, is provided below. In it, he reads and comments on all 176 proposed amendments, divided into 23 categories, that the Assembly is to approve. Since the deputies had the PowerPoint presentation with its numbering displayed on a giant screen, Marrero did not read the numbering aloud.

Manuel Marrero Cruz: Socialist planning does not exclude market rules: it must incorporate and regulate them.

Jacques-François Bonaldi 

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has rejected US President Donald Trump’s demand for loyalty from other NATO members, insisting that no member state should impose its will on the others.

Pistorius made the comments in a wide-ranging interview with Der Spiegel, which was published on Thursday. He used the opportunity to play down tensions between Washington and Berlin, which were exacerbated by the US-Israeli war against Iran.

Pistorius was pressed on Trump’s remarks from last week, in which he said he is “disappointed with most” of the NATO members over their reluctance to take part in the Iran war. “I just want loyalty. You know, we’re so loyal to them. We are always fighting for them,” he said.

Right-wing podcasting in Australia is akin to a craft beer with a niche following. It is not a mass market.

Karl Stefanovic and Nine parted ways last week, immediately, rather than at the end of the year as originally agreed. The trigger was a podcast interview with Tommy Robinson, the British agitator and English Defence League founder whose legal name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon.

Kos Samaras