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Europe
Russia
Sunday, 10:25 PM CEST, July 21, 2024 Russia claims gains in the east. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said today that its troops had taken control of two villages: Pishchane Nizhne in the Kharkiv region and Andriivka, sometimes referred to as Rozivka, in the Luhansk region. Russia and Ukraine trade drone, missile and shelling attacks today. Overnight into Sunday, Ukraine’s air defenses intercepted 35 of the 39 drones launched by Russia, according to air force commander Oleschuk. Russia launched three ballistic missiles and two guided air missiles, which did not reach their targets, he said. In the Kharkiv region two people were wounded when a village was hit by Russian shells. Three people were wounded by Russian drone strikes in southern Ukraine’s partly occupied Kherson region. Officials in the northern Sumy region said today that Russia launched a missile strike on “critical infrastructure facilities” in the city of Shostka, “Two heating facilities” had been destroyed. Russian air defense systems overnight destroyed eight drones over the country’s Belgorod region and over the Black Sea, the Russian Ministry of Defense said. Russian air defense also shot down two long-range ballistic ATACMS missiles in the sky over the Kherson region heading for Russia-annexed Crimea. Nine people were wounded over the previous day in shelling in the town of Shebekino in Russia’s Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine. Ukrainian shelling of Russia-held areas of the Donetsk region killed two people in the village of Horlivka. (Source: apnews)
North America
United States
Sunday 21 July 2024 at 10:41pm Biden has announced he will withdraw from the 2024 US presidential race and endorsed Vice President Harris to replace his as the Democratic Party nominee. Calls for his withdrawal from the presidential race have only grown in the wake of a series of gaffes, including at this month's Nato conference in which he introduced President Zelenskyy as "President Putin'. Trump was quick to comment following Biden's announcement, writing on his Truth Social platform: 'Crooked Biden was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve - And never was!" He added: 'All those around him, including his Doctor and the Media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being President, and he wasn’t.'It comes as Trump this week accepted the Republican Party's nomination, days after a failed assassination attempt on his life. Biden, who remains at his Delaware beach house 'after being diagnosed with Covid-19 last week', said he would address the nation later this week to provide 'detail' about his decision. 'President Biden completed his eighth dose of Paxlovid this morning,' Dr O’Connor said. 'He continues to perform all of his presidential duties.' Former President Obama and former House Speaker Pelosi are both reported to have expressed concerns in recent days about the likelihood of Biden securing a second term in the White House. Biden will go down in history as a man who accomplished significant achievements in his four-year term, Funny Girl star Streisand, 82, said in a post to X. 'We’ve lived through many ups and downs, but nothing has made us more worried for our country than the threat posed by a second Trump term. He has promised to be a dictator on day one, and the recent ruling by his servile Supreme Court will only embolden him to further shred the constitution, Former US president Clinton and ex-secretary of state Hilary wrote. They endorsed Harris and praised the president as one who 'restored our standing in the world'. (Source: itv *)
* Channel 3, a British public broadcast television network.
Sunday 21 July 2024 22:44, UK Today, the US president announced that he will no longer be seeking a second term and has thrown his support behind Harris to take on Republican nominee Trump. After a disastrous debate performance and a series of high-profile gaffes, including mistakenly referring to President Zelenskyy as "President Putin', Biden has conceded to the calls within his own party to step aside. US presidents who decided not to seek a second elected term include: Polk - 11th president (1845-1849); Buchanan - 15th president (1857-1861); Hayes - 19th president (1877-1881); Coolidge - 30th president (1923-1929); Truman - 33th (president 1945-1953); Johnson - 36th (president 1963-1969); Biden - 46th (President 2020 - )
(Source: sky *)
* Sky News, a British television news channel. Headquarters London, United Kingdom
Sunday 21 July 2024 21:02 BST Biden announced withdrawal from 2024 race in post on X today - he will ‘stand down” from election ’to focus solely on Presidential duties’. Trump claimed the Democrat will go “down as the single worst president by far in the history of our country.” He told CNN he believes that Vice-President Harris will be easier to defeat than Biden should she now head the ticket. Biden “was not fit to run for President, and is certainly not fit to serve,”, the former president argued in a post on Truth Social. “We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly,” Trump added. Harris owns the entire leftwing policy record of Biden, Trump Jr wrote in a post on X today. ’The only difference is that she is even more liberal and less competent than Joe, which is really saying something. She was put in charge of the border and we saw the worst invasion of illegals in our history!!!’ Musk, who announced this month he plans on giving $45m per month to a pro-Trump political action committee, celebrated the decision. “I believe in an America that maximizes individual freedom and merit,” he wrote on X. “That used to be the Democratic Party, but now the pendulum has swung to the Republican Party.” (Source: the-independent *)
* (United Kingdom)
Sunday, 21 July 2024 President Biden announced that he is dropping out of 2024 presidential race. Biden’s letter in full shared on social media today. (Source: the-independent *): https://tinyurl.com/5cv2rt9p
* The Independent, a British online newspaper. Headquarters London, United Kingdom
NATO
12:00 AM EDT, Sun July 21, 2024 Several European nations have reintroduced or expanded compulsory military service ’amid Moscow’s mounting threat’. ’We are coming to the realization that we may have to adjust the way we mobilize for war and adjust the way we produce military equipment and we recruit and train personnel,’ said Hamilton, head of Eurasia research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), who served as a US Army officer for 30 years. ’It is tragically true that here we are, in 2024, and we are grappling with the questions of how to mobilize millions of people to be thrown into a meatgrinder of a war potentially, but this is where Russia has put us,’ he said. ’Whether this is a new Cold War or an emerging hot war is unclear,’ Clark (Ret.), who served as NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe, said. 'We’ve got to rebuild our defenses. Those efforts include conscription, he says. NATO relies on American forces to meet its target. With conscription remaining an unpopular topic in some countries, NATO is struggling to meet its new goal of having 300,000 personnel ready to be activated within one month and another half a million available within six months. That target would only allow NATO to fight a relatively short conflict of up to six months. ’We have put in place the most comprehensive defense plans since the Cold War, with currently more than 500,000 troops at high readiness,’ NATO spokesperson Dakhlallah told. There is still work to be done in a number of areas. Those include industrial capacity, defense spending and societal resilience – where the question of conscription would come in. During peacetime, the Finnish Defence Forces employs about 13,000 people, including civilian staff. Finland, has the capacity to activate more than 900,000 reservists, with 280,000 military personnel being ready to respond immediately if needed. In Germany Defense Minister Pistorius presented a proposal in June this year for a new voluntary military service. ’We must be ready for war by 2029,’ he said. In Latvia, compulsory military service was reintroduced on January 1 this year, after being abolished in 2006. Male citizens will be put up for the draft within 12 months of reaching the age of 18, or graduation for those still in the education system. Since the country reintroduced compulsory military service in 2015, in Lithuania about 3,500 to 4,000 Lithuanians between the ages of 18 and 26 are enlisted each year for a period of nine months. In April, Norway presented an ambitious long-term plan that will nearly double the country’s defense budget and add more than 20,000 conscripted soldiers, employees, and reservists to the armed forces. Conscription in Norway is mandatory and since 2015 the first member of the NATO to conscript both men and women on equal terms. Norway is maintaining significant numbers of reservists. Sweden, NATO’s newest member, is maintaining a numbers of reservists, though not as many as Finland. In Sweden conscription is now gender-neutral. It called up around 7,000 individuals in 2024. The number will rise to 8,000 in 2025. In the United Kingdom the Conservatives floated the idea of military service in their ill-fated election campaign The way military personnel are recruited and trained is a decision for individual nations, Dakhlallah said, adding: ’Around a third of NATO members have some form of compulsory military service.’ “Some allies are weighing up conscription. However as an alliance we do not prescribe mandatory military service,” he said. “The important thing is that allies continue to have capable armed forces to protect our territory and our populations.” (Source: cnn)
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