Canada likely sitting on the largest housing bubble of all time: Strategist - BNN Bloomberg (www.bnnbloomberg.ca)
Swedish cities hit by four residential explosions in an hour (www.theguardian.com)
Putin's colonel killed in drone strike while mowing lawn at his Russian residence (globalpulsenews.com)
Kyrgyzstan moves to ban TikTok over child welfare concerns (bne.eu)
India Has Killed Off the Remains of Kashmir’s Free Press (www.thenation.com)
Russia is demanding Norway pay up to $4.4 million in compensation after 42 Norwegian reindeer wandered across the border (www.businessinsider.com)
US embassy in Haiti urges citizens to leave country 'as soon as possible' (news.yahoo.com)
Malaysia, India and Taiwan reject China's new territorial map (asia.nikkei.com)
Iran bans weightlifter for life for shaking Israeli athlete’s hand (www.cnn.com)
CBC: Sask. woman with terminal cancer seeks new home for 3 dogs (regina.ctvnews.ca)
ABCNews: Iceland says commercial whaling can resume after temporary ban (abcnews.go.com)
Japan’s defense ministry requests nearly 12% budget increase to bolster military’s strike capability (apnews.com)
Japan’s defense ministry is requesting a nearly 12% budget increase that includes two warships with advanced radar and long-range cruise missiles as it further fortifies the nation’s military in the face of North Korean threats and Chinese military advancement....
Third of Japan's 18-year-old women may never have children: study (www.japantimes.co.jp)
Ukrainian Counteroffensive Pierces Main Russian Defensive Line in Southeast (www.wsj.com)
PAYWALL...
Rural areas sacrificed for Xi Jinping’s new city, satellite imagery shows (www.washingtonpost.com)
Satellite imagery and firsthand accounts show the damage wrought when Chinese authorities opened floodgates and dams this month, sacrificing whole villages to spare politically important cities....
Johannesburg building fire kills at least 73 people, many believed to be homeless (www.cbc.ca)
Rwanda, Cameroon make major changes in their military positions after Gabon coup (www.africanews.com)
Rwanda and Cameroon have unveiled significant shifts in their security forces, impacting senior military personnel....
Gabon election results were a ‘smokescreen’ for soldiers to oust unpopular president, analysts say (apnews.com)
The ouster of Gabon’s president by mutinous soldiers appears to have been well organized and capitalized on the population’s grievances against the government as an excuse to seize power, analysts said....
Modi-linked Adani family secretly invested in own shares, documents suggest (www.theguardian.com)
Offshore records suggest associates of wealthy Indian family spent years acquiring stock during rise of founder to be worth $120bn
Antoinette Sandbach: Ex-MP asks to be removed from slavery research (www.bbc.co.uk)
A former Conservative MP has asked to be removed from an award-winning academic’s research presented in a TEDx Talk that connects her to a slave-owning ancestor
China's Xi likely to skip G20 summit in India (www.reuters.com)
Chinese President Xi Jinping is likely to skip a summit of G20 leaders in India next week, sources familiar with the matter in India and China told Reuters....
HS: International film crew leave €1m bill unpaid in Finnish Lapland (yle.fi)
Ukraine investigates corruption in medical exemptions from military duty (www.aljazeera.com)
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has called out what he described as systematic corruption in the country’s medical exemptions from service in the armed forces, saying the system was subject to widespread bribe-taking and the flight of people overseas....
Workers stage Japan's first strike in decades over department store sale (www.reuters.com)
Workers at a major Tokyo department store went on strike on Thursday after talks with management over the planned sale of their company broke down, marking the first major walk-out the country has seen in decades....