 Hello and welcome to the International Daily Roundup by People's Dispatch, where we bring you major news developments from around the world, our headlines. Israeli forces killed 41-year-old Palestinian man in the occupied West Bank, U.S. drone program, whistleblower Daniel Hale sentenced to 45 months in prison, but even attorney general concludes that there was no electoral fraud in 2019, and in our video section, we take a look at the significance of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. In our first story, at least 105 Palestinians were injured by Israeli forces during overnight protests in the occupied West Bank. People had gathered near the village of Betah following the killing of 41-year-old Shadeel of the Salim. He was shot by Israeli forces on July 27, when he went to open the main water supply to the village. Salim was a municipal water technician and was on his way home when he was killed. As per local reports, he had been working to improve water supply to Betah as most of it had been monopolized by the Israeli company Merkrot. The Palestinian Recrecent Society reported that Israeli soldiers opened fire as villagers began to protest the killing. At least one person was injured with a live bullet and 19 with rubber coated bullets. 14 others were injured and 72 suffered due to tear gas inhalation. The violence on Tuesday followed just days after the killing of 17-year-old Mohammed Munir Altamimi. He was shot by Israeli forces during an anti-settlement protest in Betah last week. Palestinians in the area have been fighting against an illegal Israeli settlement on the Jabal Saber Mountain. While occupation authorities removed settlers from the area, the land has now been taken over by the Israeli military. 17 Palestinian families who relied on the land to grow olive trees will lose their livelihood. People in the area continue to hold protests and what are called night confusion activities against the occupation. Hundreds of people had gathered in Betah for another protest on July 23. The Recrecent reported that 320 people had been injured including 21 by live rounds by Israeli occupation forces. In our next story, former US intelligence officer and whistleblower Daniel Hale has been sentenced to 45 months in prison. He was a signal analyst in the US Air Force and was deployed to Afghanistan's Bagram Air Base in 2012. After being discharged, he worked as a defense contractor in the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency. It was here that Hale printed out several documents and shared 17 of them with a journalist for the Intercept. These revealed how targets were selected for US drone strikes. It showed that the process was not precise in avoiding civilian casualties. Nearly 90% of the people killed during a 5-month operation in Afghanistan were not the intended targets. Hale was also linked to a leaked rulebook showing how the government placed people on watch list. Over 40% of people in the database of suspects had no recognized advice group in affiliation. Hale was subsequently charged on several counts under the Espionage Act, each carrying a maximum sentence of 10 years. He appeared guilty to one count in March. He was sentenced to prison by Judge Lea McGrady of the District Court for the Eastern District of East Virginia on July 27. The prosecution had demanded a 9-year sentence claiming that the disclosure risked serious damage to US national security. However, a former CIA executive had confirmed that the leak did not pose any substantial risk. Hale also submitted a 11-page letter explaining his motivations and the violence he witnessed under the US drones program. His defense team had sought a sentence of 12-18 months followed by a period of supervised release with mental health counseling. Hale is still facing four other charges. In our next story, Bolivia's attorney general has concluded that there was no manipulation of the 2019 election results. Juan Lancheepa stated on July 27 that the deficiencies observed did not pose a risk to the integrity of the electoral process. The announcement was based on an expert report presented by the Deep Tech Lab of BISITE at the University of Salamanca. It showed that there was no manipulation of the data from the official count of the TRP. The system had broken down for 24 hours on election day. Former President de Bo Morales' movement for socialism had won with 45% and 8% of the votes. However, the organization of American states claimed that they had been serious irregularities and called for new elections. President Morales was eventually ousted in Nakuwa on November 10, 2019. So far, 13 soldiers, a former police officer and three civilians, including Kurida Jionin Anes, have been arrested. The most recent arrest was that of General Pablo Arturo Guerra Camacho on July 25. He was a member of the High Command of the Armed Forces appointed by Anes. Camacho, along with two other former commanders and the former director of the National Hydrocarbons Agency, have been accused of the Senkata massacre. Supporters of the memorials had gathered outside the Senkata Hydrocarbons plant on November 19. However, at least 10 people were killed after security forces opened fire at the protesters. Massacres took place just a few days after 11 people were killed during an anti-coup march in Saqaba. It has been revealed that the government of former Argentine President Mauricio Macri sent arms to the Anes regime days before these massacres. Argentine prosecutors have now opened an investigation into the matter. And for our final story, we look at the Nord Stream 2 pipeline project. The $11 billion pipeline will transport natural gas from Russia to Germany. It will run under the Baltic Sea and will become an alternative to traditional routes that go through Ukraine. The US has been long opposed to the project and it even threatened sanctions. However, President Joe Biden has now signed a deal with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. It states that Germany will push for actions, including sanctions, if Russia uses energy as a weapon or commits aggressive acts against Ukraine. Here is Prabir Purkayasar to talk more about the pipeline and its implications. Why should the US even be concerned? What is essentially a bilateral issue between Germany and Russia? So the question is that this did not become only a bilateral issue because US was threatening sanctions or the Nord Stream 2 project. There is a Nord Stream 1, which is not as large as this one, this pipeline threatens to be for what the United States considers as helping Russia. So effectively, this was something that the Americans wanted to stop. Why did they want to stop this? I'll come to that later. But what they were threatening is continuously sanctions. And there have been a lot of contractors who are working on the pipeline who withdrew because of the threat of sanctions. And they have been threatening Russian entities with sanctions, also German entities with sanctions, though the sanctions had been temporarily waived. This is a threat they were holding. In spite of that, the Nord Stream 2 project didn't stop and it's near completion. Now the question is, does the United States accept a fair company? Or do they try to do some face-saving and still retain some leverage? What they seem to have done is done face-saving in the sense that we've drawn the threat of sanctions from Germany. That was the real threat for Germany. Germany didn't buckle under. Angela Merkel staked a lot on this issue because she thinks that it's important for Germany's energy independence to have this pipeline. And the second thing is that she has conceded, Germany has conceded that this pipeline will not be used to stop Ukraine supplies or Russian supplies through Ukraine. There's a pipeline agreement there till 2024. It was extended, I think, in 2019. So that agreement has to be extended beyond 2024. And Germany has said that they will see to it that this extension does take place. How much leverage Germany has or will have is another question. But that is a promise they have made that they will keep Ukraine in the place, so to say, in this gas train which Russia does with European Union and other countries in Europe. So that's the big issue. So one is, of course, what did the US gain out of it? The US continues, therefore, to have some leverage in German-Russia relationship. And that will also mean with Ukraine coming into the picture. Ukraine has always been the picture. In fact, Ukraine has always been strongly against Nord Stream 2 because then they lose their leverage vis-à-vis Russia because a large part of the European supplies were being sent through the Ukrainian pipeline. And Ukraine has stopped it a number of occasions as it's claimed by Russia, stolen gas from it. They have, by virtue of sitting in the middle, they have extracted their pound of flesh periodically on this. So they get a lot of money from the transit of the gas. Yes, so the extension of this would be important for them. You see, Ukraine believed that they were getting gas-free. That was par for the course. But they should be paid in international currency. Now, that didn't work out for them. So that's the genesis of the problems of the economy and problems of Russia as well. But I'm not going to repeat the Ukraine-Russia problem here. But the clear issue is that Nord Stream 2, continuing in this form, means that the European and Russian energy markets will come together in some way. Of course, Russia is a much bigger energy market and is also supplying to China. It has huge reserves of gas. The Siberian gas reserves are well-known. So if you look at all of that, the European interest in Russian gas is more than Europe's interest in the European Union market. Because they have the Chinese market also. And that threatens to be a much bigger market in the future. So I think given all of this, it will be interesting to watch which way Europe goes. Does Europe go with the United States trying to contain Russia, which is what they have been doing till now? Do they keep on continuing their play in Eastern Europe and the Baltic states? Do they want to extend NATO further? All of this is in play or has been in play. And which is one of the reasons that Russia is also now deciding that this cannot be allowed to go on. And they are going to respond in some way or the other. So I think that's a bigger picture that we see. But interesting times because finally, Biden may have taken out the more blatant use of force which Trump was doing using sanctions. But the underlying policy really has not changed, which is to keep Europe on the boil, keep Eastern Europe and the Baltic states in play against Russia and use the sanctions card against Russia continuously. I think that still remains. That's all we have time for today. We'll be back tomorrow with more news from around the world. Until then, keep watching People's Dispatch.