WASHINGTON, 12 July 2022, (TON): The White House said “it believes Russia is turning to Iran to provide it with hundreds of unmanned aerial vehicles, including weapons-capable drones, for use in its ongoing invasion of Ukraine.”

US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said it was unclear whether Iran had already provided any of the unmanned systems to Russia, but said “the US has information that indicates Iran is preparing to train Russian forces to use them as soon as this month.”

He told reporters “our information indicates that the Iranian government is preparing to provide Russia with up to several hundred UAVs, including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline.”

Sullivan said “it was proof the Russia’s overwhelming bombardments in Ukraine, which have led it to consolidate gains in the country’s east in recent weeks, was coming at a cost to the sustainment of its own weapons.”

KYIV, 12 July 2022, (TON): Ukraine’s general staff said “Russia opened fire with artillery, multiple rocket launchers and tanks around Ukraine’s second-largest city Kharkiv and shelled cities in the east, where an earlier strike killed 15 people in an apartment building.”

Authorities said “an apartment building in Kharkiv was hit by a missile overnight, but no casualties have been reported.”

A rocket strike on a five-story apartment building in the eastern town of Chasiv Yar killed 15 people and left two dozen people feared trapped in the rubble.

President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, said “the strike was another terrorist attack and that Russia should be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.”

ATHENS, 12 July 2022, (TON): Greece’s prime minister called on Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to clarify whether a map displayed by a nationalist ally of Erdogan’s that showed several major, inhabited Greek islands as Turkish is official Turkish policy.

Greece and Turkey have been at loggerheads for decades over a series of issues, including disputes over undersea exploration rights in the Aegean Sea and the sovereignty of uninhabited islets.

The two neighbors have come to the brink of war three times in the past half century.

Tensions have again increased over the past two years. Recent quarrels have focused on Greek islands off Turkey’s coast, where Ankara accuses Athens of maintaining a military presence in violation of treaties.

Greece counters it is acting according to international law and is defending its islands in the face of Turkish hostility.

JAKARTA, 12 July 2022, (TON): China’s foreign minister Wang Yi warned during a policy speech in the Indonesian capital that countries should avoid being used as chess pieces by major powers in a region at risk of being reshaped by geopolitical factors.

Speaking at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations secretariat in Jakarta, Wang, who was speaking through a translator, said many countries in the region were under pressure to take sides.

He said “we should insulate this region from geopolitical calculations… from being used as chess pieces from major power rivalry and from coercion.”

He added “the future of our region should be in our own hands.”

Southeast Asia has long been an area of geopolitical friction between major powers given its strategic importance, with some countries in the region wary of choosing sides in the current U.S-China rivalry.

ROME, 12 July 2022, (TON): Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Italy believes that the solid relationship between the two countries has been relaunched with the recent visit to Riyadh of Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio.

In an interview with Italian financial daily Milano Finanza, Ambassador Faisal bin Sattam bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud said “the pair are exploring new areas of cooperation and partnership after the 12th session of the Saudi-Italian Joint Commission, co-chaired last month in Riyadh by Di Maio and Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan.”

The Saudi envoy to Italy said “2022 marks the 90th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two nations. Italy was one of the first countries to recognize the Kingdom’s status.”

ROME, 12 July 2022, (TON): Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Italy believes that the solid relationship between the two countries has been relaunched with the recent visit to Riyadh of Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio.

In an interview with Italian financial daily Milano Finanza, Ambassador Faisal bin Sattam bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud said “the pair are exploring new areas of cooperation and partnership after the 12th session of the Saudi-Italian Joint Commission, co-chaired last month in Riyadh by Di Maio and Saudi Finance Minister Mohammed Al-Jadaan.”

The Saudi envoy to Italy said “2022 marks the 90th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two nations. Italy was one of the first countries to recognize the Kingdom’s status.”

KHARKIV, 12 July 2022, (TON): As Russian missiles struck a key Ukrainian city, Russian President Vladimir Putin expanded a fast-track procedure for obtaining Russian citizenship to all Ukrainians, another effort to strengthen Moscow’s influence over war-torn Ukraine.

Until recently, only residents of Ukraine’s separatist eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions, as well as residents of the southern Zaporizhzhia and the Kherson regions, large parts of which are now under Russian control, were eligible to apply for the simplified passport procedure.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Klueba said Putin’s signing of a passport decree, which also applies to stateless residents in Ukraine, was an example of his predatory appetites.”

Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry added in a statement “Russia is using the simplified procedure for issuing passports to tighten the noose around the necks of residents of the temporarily occupied territories of our state, forcing them to participate in the criminal activities of the occupying administrations and the Russian army of aggression.”

TOKYO, 12 July 2022, (TON): Days after former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s assassination, his party vowed to use its victory in a parliamentary election to achieve his unfinished goals.

While the comfortable majority secured Sunday by the governing Liberal Democratic Party and its junior coalition partner Komeito could allow Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to rule uninterrupted until a scheduled election in 2025, the loss of Abe also opened up a period of uncertainly for his party.

The promised constitutional amendment, for one, faced an uphill battle.

In a country where gun crime is vanishingly rare, Abe’s shooting shook the nation, and Japanese flocked to a Buddhist temple Monday to mourn their former leader, while police looked into a possible motive.

NEW DELHI, 12 July 2022, (TON): The Indian High Commission in Colombo categorically denied speculative reports in sections of media and social media about India sending her troops to Sri Lanka.

High Commission tweeted “these reports and such views are also not in keeping with the position of the Government of India.”

High commission added “spokesperson of Ministry of External Affairs of India clearly stated that India stands with the people of Sri Lanka as they seek to realize their aspirations for prosperity & progress through democratic means & values, established institutions & constitutional framework.”

DHAKA, 12 July 2022, (TON): District Administration said “a total of 20,125 flood-hit people celebrated Eid at the at 269 shelters in Sylhet.”

According to sources “the flood water in the Surma basin has receded a lot but the water level in the Kushiyara basin is declining slowly.”

Therefore, the residents of Fenchuganj, Balaganj, South Surma and Beanibazar upazilas of Sylhet are in danger.

Sajjad Ali, 50, a resident of Shiorkhal Government Primary School shelter in Balaganj, said “they were somehow staying in the shelter for the past 20 days due to rising water in their houses.”