🇵🇰🤝🇮🇷 - Pakistan says it will not comply with unilateral sanctions on Iran, emphasizing that sanctions must go through the United Nations.

Islamabad is following bilateral agreements with Iran and while trade between the two neighbors remains robust, “there is a desire to expand,” Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson said. The two countries are working to boost their annual bilateral trade from ~$3 billion to $10 billion.

Pakistan is also leveraging it's position as mediator to request for a $10 billion financial facility from Washington to alleviate the country fiscal crisis.

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🇧🇩📞🇵🇰🇹🇷🇸🇦 - Bangladesh views the Mecca Defense Pact between Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan as a positive development, saying it will positively consider joining the alliance if invited.

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⚡️🇷🇺🇺🇦 – The Ukrainian regional governor of Kherson, the southern city where 280,000 people live, urged residents to evacuate in the face of relentless Russian bombardment.

Oleksandr Prokudin called particularly upon families and the elderly to evacuate due to an "extremely difficult security situation" caused by intensifying Russian attacks, which threaten prolonged outages of electricity and heating.

This comes as Ukraine is progressively less able to down Russian projectiles amid a severe shortage of advanced air interceptors.

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⚡️🇳🇵 – The death toll from the floods in Nepal has risen to 469, and over 1,300 people, including around 700 foreigners, remain missing.

The rainy weather has created worries that a dam created during the landslide in China's Gyirong County could breach and cause even more flooding while search and rescue operations continue.

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🇶🇦🤝🇮🇷 - Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani pledged to support the Iranian people through hardships during his visit to Tehran on Thursday.

Qatar does not want the Iranian people to face difficulties while the countries of the region merely watch. We will provide any assistance possible to alleviate the hardships of the brotherly Iranian people.

Doha also emphasized it's commitment to restore calm and stability to the region.

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⚡️🇺🇦🇷🇺 – Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine's Chief of the Military Intelligence, said technical talks on peace with Russia could start soon, although it would be "unrealistic" to expect the war to end soon [before the winter].

Budanov is Ukraine's representative in the talks and a top presidential adviser. The last rounds of negotiations which involved the U.S. took place in February, before all diplomatic attention turned to the war in Iran.

📝 During an interview for a YouTube project, Budanov said:

"I think everyone will see the negotiations happening very soon. But this will mainly concern the technical side of things and preparations ​for something big, which I hope we will eventually get ​to."

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🇮🇱❌🇵🇸 – The IAF launched an unusual airstrike in Jenin, in the West Bank, and eliminated Qais Bitawi and two other men. The IDF claimed all three were part of a terrorist network tied to Hamas, both in the Gaza Strip and abroad.

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⚡️🇳🇵🏥 – The Red Cross has said over 93,000 people are in "great need" following the devastating floods in Nepal and Tibet, while the death toll has risen beyond 540 people and around 1,900 remain missing.

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🇷🇺❌🇺🇦 – Ukrainian intelligence believes Russia is now using longer-range Iskander ballistic missiles for strikes on Kyiv.

The new Iskander variant, 9M723-2 ballistic missiles dubbed ‘Iskander-1000', have a range of around 550 kilometers by Ukrainian estimates—that's 160 kilometers (100 miles) more than the range of the previous variant, the 9M723-1.

This will make it harder for Ukraine to counter the missiles by destroying their launching systems. Ukraine estimates Russia can produce around 60 9M723 missiles every month, and can sustain a launch rate of 50-70 missiles of this type per month.

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