WASHINGTON -- WASHINGTON (AP) — Kamala Harris went to a Philadelphia suburb on Wednesday night for a CNN town hall, where she faced questions from undecided voters. The event was arranged after Donald Trump declined to participate in a second debate with her. 

With less than two weeks to go until the election, here are some key moments from the town hall.

South Korea’s president said his government “won’t sit idle” as North Korea allegedly sends troops to support Russia’s war on Ukraine, as he met with the leader of Poland to discuss expanding defence cooperation amid the ongoing conflict.

The meeting between South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and Polish President Andrzej Duda came a day after US and South Korean officials said they believe around 3,000 North Korean troops have been deployed to Russia and are training at several locations.

South Korea’s spy agency told legislators that North Korea likely aims to send a total of 10,000 troops to Russia by the end of the year.

Both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the presence of North Korean troops.

IMF upgrades Russia to world’s fourth-largest economy
The country is outperforming Japan in terms of purchasing power parity, according to the Washington-based organization

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has ranked Russia as the world’s fourth-largest economy based on purchasing power parity (PPP).      

PPP compares economic productivity and standards of living between countries by adjusting for differences in the cost of goods and services.  

In its World Economic Outlook published on Tuesday, the IMF said Russia’s gross domestic product (GDP) in 2024 amounts to 3.55% of global GDP in terms of PPP, outperforming Japan, which has 3.38%.   

According to the report, Russia ranks fourth in terms of PPP after China (18.8%), the US (15%), and India (7.9%).    

LA Times editor quits after Harris endorsement blocked
Mariel Garza claims that the outlet’s refusal to back the Democratic presidential candidate could appear “sexist and racist”

The head of editorials at the Los Angeles Times, Mariel Garza, has resigned after the outlet’s owner vetoed the editorial board’s plans to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris ahead of next month’s US presidential election. The journalist explained that she was “not okay” with the outlet choosing to remain silent in “dangerous times.”

Australia now has a government and parliament wanting timely transition to net zero. We have a government and parliament wanting to build Australia as the renewable energy superpower of the zero-carbon world economy. For the time being, we have favourable international settings for using our opportunity.

The government of Australia has embraced this superpower narrative, taken some big steps towards supporting its emergence, and articulated sound principles for guiding further policy development.

Neither Democrat Kamala Harris nor Republican Donald Trump could possibly get elected in Belarus or Russia with their empty rhetoric and personal attacks against each other, Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko said on Wednesday, calling both candidates “idiots.”

Lukashenko made the remarks in an interview with Russian broadcaster VGTRK on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit in Kazan when asked if he was monitoring the upcoming US presidential election and whether he favored any candidates.

According to physicists, the two existential (live-or-die) policy-issues are to prevent a World War Three (WW3) — a war between nuclear superpowers, which would kill-off more than half of the global population within two years after the explosions — and to prevent runaway heat-up of our climate.

BY Eric Zuesse

The horrifying images from Gaza last week of fire consuming a Palestinian teenager confined to his hospital bed with an intravenous drip may come to define Israel’s genocide, as completely as earlier images of human depravity have defined the world.

NATO, Migrants in the EU and the Coming War in Moldova

by Thierry Meyssan

While we have often shown that the EU is only a NATO checkpoint, this is illustrated for the first time by a decision of the Court of Justice of Luxembourg. According to it, the EU cannot return migrants awaiting an asylum decision to third countries whose legal borders do not correspond to their real borders. It follows that Italy cannot transfer Egyptian and Bengali migrants to detention centres in Albania. All this in anticipation of a mass exodus of Moldovans to justify a war in Transnistria.

GUSNOTE: BEFORE CONTINUING WITH THIERRY MEYSSAN ARTICLE WE SHOULD VISIT:

EU hopeful ‘falsified’ membership referendum – Moscow

Leaked internal documents from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, whose British founder, Morgan McSweeney, is advising Vice President Kamala Harris, have revealed the group’s plans to “Kill Musk’s Twitter.” The CCDH documents were published by Paul Thacker and Matt Taibbi at Taibbi’s outlet, Racket News.

The leaked documents consist of the CCDH’s monthly agenda notes, which list both monthly and annual priorities. The annual priorities of the group across multiple months includes the goal to “Kill Musk’s Twitter” and to “Trigger EU and UK regulatory action,” presumably against X.

BRICS countries strongly oppose and condemn the practice of unlawful politically motivated sanctions that undermine the development of other states, according to a joint declaration adopted at the 16th BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia.

Entitled ‘Strengthening Multilateralism for Just Global Development and Security,’ the 33-page ‘Kazan Declaration’ was released on Wednesday following a range of multi-format meetings by the BRICS leaders. 

“We are deeply concerned about the disruptive effect of unlawful unilateral coercive measures, including illegal sanctions, on the world economy, international trade, and the achievement of the sustainable development goals,” the declarationreads.

The BRICS Summit in the Russian city of Kazan signals that the world is “tired”of the dictates of the US-led collective West, RT Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan has said. The gathering also exposes the West’s failed attempts to isolate Russia, she added.     

Speaking on Tuesday at an event marking the anniversary of diplomatic relations between Russia and China, the RT editor-in-chief recalled the words of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who once said that his country does not need foreign “masters” who attempt to interfere in internal affairs on the pretense of human rights concerns. The same can be heard in Russia from President Vladimir Putin, Simonyan stated.   

Weekend news that “Neocon Nikki” Haley is in talks to hit the campaign trail for Donald Trump should raise red flags to everyone cautiously optimistic that Trump 2.0 will avoid some of the personnel disasters that Trump 1.0 fell into time and time again. 

It seemed that everyone on one side of politics has been clamouring to hear from Jordan Peterson, the reactionary Canadian psychologist best known for apocalyptic ramblings about the death of Western civilisation and life advice for teenage boys who just can’t seem to get a girl. But alas, the big guy was a no-show at his own conference in Sydney on Tuesday.

Peterson’s Alliance for Responsible Citizenship, a conservative think tank which counts a number of past and present Coalition figures on its advisory board, held its annual conference at the International Convention Centre on Tuesday, with the star attraction forced to Zoom in after failing to get an Australian visa. What are the chances?