Breaking News, 19th of November, 2018

Yoshihide Suga, the Secretary General of the Japanese government, announced the plans of Tokio regarding the negotiations on a peace treaty with Russia. Tokio hopes that if the South Kuril Islands ‘Habomai’ and ‘Shikotan’ would be transferred to Japan — they would receive Japanese sovereignty. He also noted that Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe agreed to speed up the negotiations on a peace treaty based on the 1956 Soviet-Japanese Declaration. Earlier, Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow and Tokyo resumed the negotiations on the basis of this declaration.

2 Yemen The »Ansar Allah» movement announced the suspension of their rocket attacks on Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their allies in Yemen. The rebels stopped their drone attacks as well, TASS reports with a reference to Reuters. Apparently they want to «deprive» the United States, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and their allies of »any excuse for the continuation of their aggression or blockades.» The rebels are “ready to freeze, and even stop the military operations on all directions, and come to a just peace” — the Ansar Allah Supreme Revolutionary Committee announced in a statement.

3 Kazakhstan An international meeting in Astana dedicated to the resolution of the situation in Syria will be held on 28th and 29th of November, TASS reports. The Foreign Minister of Kazakhstan, Kairat Abdrakhmanov, told to the reporters on Tuesday. According to him, this meeting is planned «in the traditional format, with the participation of delegations from the countries-guarantors, the government of Syria and the Syrian armed opposition. Observers are also invited on the meeting — namely the UN and Jordan.»

4 Russia and China Russia and China proposed to create a working group that would revise the proposals for the expansion of the mandate of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons — says the draft decision, which will be considered during the 23rd session of the Conference of the State-Parties of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, which takes place on Monday in Hague, RIA News reports. Earlier, at the end of June, during the special session of the Conference of the State-Parties of the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons in Hague, the State-parties voted »for» on the UK proposal of expansion of the mandate of the OPCW, which would allow the organization to identify the culprits of the chemical attacks.

5 Ukraine The former deputy chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian army, retired Lieutenant-General Igor Romanenko announced that the US advise Kiev to create a “revolutionary situation” in the Donbas, the ‘Observer’ reports. “The Americans are suggesting to Ukraine to firmly close the borders: Don’t let anyone and anything in or out, even electricity and water. That will create a revolutionary situation in short time, which is unacceptable for Russia. Russia won’t be able to deal with it, and thus the situation in the region will be shifted from a stand still» — he explained.