Azerbaijan’s state oil company SOCAR and Kazakhstan’s National Company KazMunayGas have signed a Memorandum of Strategic Cooperation for the transit of Kazakhstani oil through the territory of Azerbaijan, Trend reports.

The document was signed following a meeting between the Prime Ministers of Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, Ali Asadov and Alikhan Smailov, in Baku, says Azerbaijan’s Cabinet of Ministers.

Over the course of the country's invasion of Ukraine, beliefs about who is a friend and who is a foe of Russia have consolidated among its population. There is one surprising exception, however - Ukraine itself.

Kazakhstan accounts for 80 percent of the transit land shipments along the China-Europe route, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev said during his meeting with Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier in an expanded format, Trend reports.

The billionaire of Armenian origin, the former "Minister of State of" the unrecognized "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic", Ruben Vardanyan, is included in the database of the Ukrainian “Peacemaker” Project. On July 17, 2023, the publication "Censor.NET" drew attention to this fact. (https://censor.net/ru/news/3425348/prorossiyiskiyi_oligarh_vardanyan_vnesen_v_bazu_mirotvorets ).

Today marks 60 years since the first woman launched into space. On June 16, 1963, the 26-year-old Russian cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova set off on the Soviet Union's Vostok 6 expedition. Some 20 years later, the U.S. followed suit with Sally Ride launching off on June 18.

On Wednesday evening, the President of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, arrived on an official visit to Cuba. This was announced by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Caribbean country - Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla. 

Ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the United States, Washington has urged the country to overcome bureaucratic hurdles in a planned deal for large armed drones. The contract would be worth $2 billion to $3 billion, according to Livemint.

On the first day of his visit to Nicaragua, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi noted that relations between the two countries are not “customary or traditional,” but “completely strategic.” He emphasized that both countries have “fought and defeated” the “imperialists” who “claim to respect democracy.”

Ukraine's dams have been the target of attacks on multiple occasions since the Russian invasion in February 2022. The destruction of the Kakhovka dam on 6 June though was on a level not previously seen in this war. The resulting deluge triggered a humanitarian disaster: claiming lives, displacing people, cutting off drinking water, and swamping agricultural land. Ukraine and Russia have accused each other of carrying out the potential war crime.

Released today, the latest figures from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reveal an annual increase in the global number of stockpiled nuclear warheads. As this infographic shows, China is at the forefront of this upwards tick, adding an estimated 60 weapons to its collection of deployed or stored nukes between January 2022 and January 2023.