Japan on Tuesday demanded Russia apologise for detaining a diplomat over alleged espionage, denying the charge and accusing Moscow of blindfolding and pinning the man down in ‘unbelievable acts’. Motoki Tatsunori, a Japanese diplomat based in the eastern city of Vladivostok, was deemed ‘persona non grata over illegal intelligence activities’, top government spokesman Hirokazu... 

Tagesspiegel newspaper reports that a sudden loss of pressure in three natural gas pipelines between Russia and Germany is likely to have been a “targeted attack” carried out by either Russia or Ukraine. Pressure in the Nord Stream 2 undersea gas pipeline dropped from 300 to 7 bars on Sunday night, followed by a similar occurrence in Nord Stream 1’s on Monday afternoon. The sudden drop of pressure... 

Vladimir Putin announced a “partial” mobilisation on September 21 with 300,000 reservists to be called up – but reports said up to one million people could be enlisted. Russian soldiers have reportedly been sent to war with “rusty and mouldy” weapons. After Vladimir Putin announced a “partial” mobilisation earlier in September, thousands of Russians have been drafted into... 

Kazakhstan has risked the wrath of Putin by offering to ‘care for’ Russian men fleeing conscription due to the ‘hopeless situation’ back home. Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, president of the ex-Soviet state, also offered muted criticism of Putin’s war – saying that the ‘territorial integrity of states must be preserved’ as the despot moves to carve up Ukraine... 

Ukraine has discovered two more mass graves containing the bodies of hundreds of people in the the northeastern town of Izyum, which Kyiv recaptured from Russia this month. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the mass burial sites were found in Izyum in the Kharkiv region – days after the area was liberated by Ukrainian troops having spent four months under Russian occupation. Ukraine... 

In a public referendum, over four million Cubans chose to support the government’s proposed changes to the island’s Family Code, according to Havana officials on Monday. The proposal to legalize same-sex marriage, surrogacy, and the adoption of children by homosexuals, among other things, was supported by more than 66% of those who cast ballots, according to preliminary figures. Approximately... 

Russian troops have been deployed near the border with Georgia today even as the Kremlin tries to stamp out rumors that Putin is about to introduce martial law and ban people from leaving in order to avoid being conscripted into the army. Many are fleeing to Finland as well, about 17,000 already fled to Finland. Russia is getting empty… its citizens are fleeing. Soon there will be only Putin... 

Putin’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov has repeated threats that Russia would be prepared to use nuclear weapons to defend annexed Ukrainian territories. Russia’s top diplomat was addressing the UN General Assembly and the world’s media in New York yesterday, amid condemnation of referendums being held in four eastern Ukrainian regions aimed at annexing territory it has taken by... 

President Joe Biden declared on Friday that the US will “never recognize” the referendums that took place in the Donbass republics and two regions of Ukraine that are under Russian control. Washington and its allies will seek to impose “severe economic costs” on Moscow over the referendums, he added. The joining Russia referendums, which began on Friday, were called “a... 

Texas Republican Gov. Greg Abbott is tired of waiting on the Biden regime to secure the border because he knows that’s not going to happen. As such, he is taking bold new action on his own to protect Texans from an onslaught of illegal aliens and deadly fentanyl smuggling. On Wednesday, Abbott announced that he has signed an executive order designating the Mexico-based cartels as terrorist organizations... 

In light of the recent sharp increase in occurrences of gonorrhea and syphilis, two sexually transmitted diseases, US health officials have urged for expanded preventive and treatment initiatives. Dr. Leandro Mena of the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it was “imperative” that the US seek to “rebuild, innovate, and extend” STD prevention during a speech... 

The Kremlin appears to have sent soldiers to force Ukrainians to vote in its staged referendums at gunpoint, according to residents who say troops came to their homes in occupied territories to enforce the ‘vote’. ‘My family was just forced to vote at gunpoint in Russian cosplay of a “referendum” in southern Ukraine,’ said Maxim Eristavi, journalist and co-founder of... 

Iran’s president has called for a ‘decisive’ crackdown on the mass protests that have sent the Islamic theocracy reeling over the past week after the death in custody of a woman detained by the Islamic Republic’s morality police. The call for harsh measures come as the country’s ayatollahs scramble to get to grips with violent countrywide demonstrations that have seen... 

Manufacturers associations have written an open letter to the German government warning that the fresh and frozen food industries in Germany are experiencing their “worst crisis since the end of the Second World War” and could experience a wave of bankruptcies and production restrictions, resulting in gaps on store shelves. The historic industrial powerhouse of Central Europe has been... 

A former Chinese deputy policing minister has been jailed for life in a huge crackdown on dissent by Chinese despot Xi Jinping. Sun Lijun was handed life imprisonment, with no possibility of parole, but did have his death sentence commuted ahead of a Communist Party conference next month. State press agency Xinhua reported that Sun, 53, was convicted of collecting 646 million yuan ($91 million) in...