Why Putin’s first Kuril Islands visit matters as Russia-Japan ties hit new low

File photo: Russian President Vladimir Putin watches a military exercise from the board of the Varyag missile cruiser of the Pacific Fleet near Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk, on Sakhalin Island, Russia Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the disputed Kuril Islands for the first time, travelling to Iturup as Moscow’s relations with Japan remain deeply strained over Russia’s…

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How 280,000 volunteer-planted trees transformed New Zealand’s Tiritiri Matangi from a degraded island into a conservation sanctuary

Rangitoto framed – Tiritiri Matangi Island Off the coast of Auckland, in New Zealand’s Hauraki Gulf, lies an island that looks like a slice of untouched wilderness. Dense native forest blankets its hills, rare birds call from the canopy and visitors walk along quiet tracks surrounded by ferns and flowering shrubs. Yet just a few…

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Leavitt to leave White House podium to become MAGA warrior mom

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt The TOI correspondent from Washington: For a White House that has never been shy about deploying its best-looking and sharpest tongue, Karoline Leavitt was something of a two-for-one political bargain: the photogenic face of the Trump White House, vaporising critical reporters with verbal volleys before they finished the question….

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Time to turn promise into permanence

India’s Dhruv Jurel gets bowled by Afghanistan’s Mohammad Saleem on day two of a Test cricket match between India and Afghanistan, in Mullanpur. (PTI) TimesofIndia.com in Galle: At the Nondescripts Cricket Club (NCC) Ground in Colombo, Dhruv Jurel was sitting by himself when a chirpy Sarfaraz Khan, who had joined the team just hours earlier,…

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