Author: Ramalaan Nasser

Russia has trained its troops for a potential attack on Japan and South Korea, according to a report by the Financial Times. Leaked military files show detailed plans for strikes on civilian infrastructure in event of war. The British outlet reviewed 29 Russian military documents and uncovered a strategy devised by Moscow to target the two Asian nations. The email, dated March 17, was sent by the agent, dubbed the Wind of Change, to Vladimir Osechkin, a Russian human-rights activist who runs the anti-corruption website Gulagu.net, and is now exiled in France. The FSB agent writes regular dispatches to Osechkin, revealing…

Millions of Iranian families will celebrate the ancient Winter Solstice festival on Friday evening, though many have scaled back their budgets for the occasion, with businesses reporting a notable drop in sales. Yalda Night, or Shab-e Chelleh, marks the longest night of the year and is one of the most significant events on the Iranian calendar. Similar to Nowruz, the celebration of the Spring Equinox and the Iranian New Year, Yalda’s origins trace back to at least the Achaemenid era (circa 500 BC). The word “Yalda,” however, is derived from ancient Syriac and means “birthday.” The celebration of Yalda, like…

At least 32 people were killed and another 85 injured after a collision between two trains caused a derailment near the Greek city of Larissa late Tuesday night, authorities said. A fire services spokesman confirmed that multiple carriages skipped the tracks just before midnight after the trains – one for freight and the other carrying 350 passengers – collided about halfway along the route between Athens and Thessaloniki. “Thirty-two people have been found dead,” spokesman Vassilis Vathrakogiannis told reporters, adding that efforts to rescue people still trapped were ongoing. “Of the 85 people injured, 53 people remain in hospital.” An…

Many blamed the Turkey government’s stuttering response to the country’s worst disaster of its modern era for a death toll that has now surpassed 50,000. However, the fury is gradually giving way to a mixture of fatalism and reviving trust in the man this province gave three-fourths of its votes to in the last general election in 2018. Latif Dalyan offers shirts and sweatpants at knock-down prices to Turkey’s earthquake victims from a storefront surrounded by piles of debris. The last person the 58-year-old shopkeeper wants to blame for his ruined city’s troubles is the country’s president. “If there is…

“They were plotting to kill a huge number, tens of thousands of people at this concert, I am sure many Americans,” CIA Deputy Director David S. Cohen said “Tens of thousands” of fans were the target of a thwarted terrorist attempt at Taylor Swift’s recent Vienna shows, a CIA official told reporters on Wednesday, Aug. 28. CIA Deputy Director David S. Cohen shared new details of the thwarted terror plot that canceled all three of the 34-year-old pop star’s planned Eras Tour concerts in Austria earlier this month during the annual Intelligence Summit just outside Washington, D.C., reports The New York Times and NBC News. “They…

Russia has reportedly lost a staggering amount of troops over the past 24 hours along with dozens of tanks and armoured vehicles as bloody fighting takes its toll on Vladimir Putin’s men. Russia lost a staggering 1,740 troops in a single day, the highest tally of casualties for Moscow since the start of the invasion in 2022, according to Ukraine. In the previous 24 hours, Ukraine also claimed Russia had lost 30 tanks and 42 armoured vehicles. Death toll and military hardware statistics are difficult to assess with both sides giving different or little information. However, Ukraine’s armed forces have claimed Russia has so far lost an eye-watering…

The primary purpose of Xi Jinping’s three-day visit to Hungary might be to ensure that Hungary can help China gain market share in the EU, as Beijing and Budapest prepare to sign a total of 16 bilateral agreements. The Chinese president has arrived in Budapest late Wednesday, in the third and last stop of his European visit. During his three-day stay, Xi Jinping and his delegation are expected to conclude a series of economic agreements with Budapest, as China sees Hungary as an important bridgehead in conquering European markets: among other things, Chinese companies are building electric car and battery factories.…

On the first anniversary of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’s deadliest border war, marked in September, irascible Kyrgyz national-security chief Kamchybek Tashiev aired his frustrations at the slow progress in talks aimed at demarcating the disputed frontier. Tajikistan, said Tashiev, was making “territorial claims” against Kyrgyzstan in the talks. “But our answer is that there should be no such claims,” Tashiev fumed, noting ominously that Kyrgyzstan had found “new documents” related to the border. “Based on those, we know that many parts of Kyrgyzstan had been given to Tajikistan,” he claimed. “If [Tajikistan] does not renounce its territorial claims against Kyrgyzstan then…

“The situation in the Gaza Strip and especially in Rafah is deadly.” Dr Marwan al-Hams is the director of Rafah’s Martyr Mohammed Yusuf al-Najjar Hospital, which has 63 beds but is currently caring for 145 patients. The hospital is operating at more than twice its capacity because Rafah, which lies on the border with Egypt, is now home to about one million displaced Palestinians, on top of the pre-war population of 300,000. “The lack of medicine is catastrophic and there is no space in hospitals,” Dr Hams told the BBC. After nine weeks of war between Israel and Hamas, only…

The foreign secretary has said he would like to see a “sustainable ceasefire” in the Israel-Gaza conflict. Lord Cameron also warned “too many civilians have been killed” in Gaza. More than 18,000 people have been killed, including thousands of children, according to the Hamas-run health ministry. His intervention in a Sunday Times article marks a shift in tone from the UK government, but stops short of calling for an immediate ceasefire. Penning a joint article with Germany’s Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, Lord Cameron said he supported a ceasefire only if it was sustainable in the long term. He said: “Our goal cannot…