TOKYO- Japan’s government plans to sign a peace treaty with Russia based on the solution of the territorial issue, said Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, speaking at the opening of Japan’s parliamentary session on Wednesday.

"Relations with Russia are in abnormal state. The two countries have been without a peace treaty for more than 70 years," he said. The prime minister noted that the agreements reached during Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Japan in December 2016 are being gradually implemented, Tass  reported.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte have held a joint press conference following a meeting during which the sides discussed the state of relations, prospects for the development of Russian-Italian cooperation, and exchanged views on international and regional issues, including the situation in Syria and Libya.

Sputnik reported that  Conte arrived in Moscow on Tuesday to pay his first official visit to Russia. In addition to meeting with Putin, he has held talks with Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and met with Italian businesspeople working in Russia. Conte's trip to Russia was preceded by visits of Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini and Foreign Minister Enzo Moavero Milanesi.

The US Secret Service has intercepted "potential explosive devices" that were sent to former US President Barack Obama and former presidential candidate and first lady Hillary Clinton.

The explosives sent to Clinton were found late Tuesday while the one addressed to Obama was found early Wednesday, the Secret Service said in a statement on Wednesday.

“The packages were immediately identified during routine mail screening procedures as potential explosive devices and were appropriately handled as such." the agency said, according to Press TV.

 MOSCOW- Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday had a 90-minute meeting with visiting US National Security Adviser John Bolton. The sides agreed that dialogue between the two nations is needed, despite the gaps in their positions, Itar Tass reported.

 Bearing this in mind, the Russian leader suggested a meeting with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, be organized on the sidelines of the next international event in Paris on November 11.

 "Naturally, it would be useful to offer direct dialogue with the president of the United States, first of all, on the sidelines of upcoming international events, say, in Paris," Putin said, obviously referring to the celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I. "Of course, if the American side is interested in these contacts."

 Bolton reassured Putin that President Trump would be glad to see him. He agreed that dialogue between Moscow and Washington would be useful, despite the existing gaps.

 Putin’s last meeting with Trump and their only full-scale bilateral talks were held in Helsinki on July 16. Before that, the two leaders had a number of brief meetings on the sidelines of international summits.

 Senseless sanctions

 The Russian leader noted that Moscow is surprised by unfriendly steps the United States has taken following a quite constructive summit in Helsinki in July.

Body parts belonging to murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi have been found, according to Sky News sources, who added that he had been “cut up” and his face “disfigured.”

With no photographic evidence to support the Sky News sources’ claim, gruesome and unverified images of body parts – supposedly Khashoggi’s – have been making the rounds in Arabic media, RT reported.

The news comes after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan demanded Saudi officials reveal the whereabouts of Khashoggi’s remains, after the Saudi government admitted Khashoggi had been murdered, albeit in a “fist fight” with officials inside the consulate in Istanbul.

MOSCOW- Issues of strategic stability, the situation in Syria, in Ukraine and in Afghanistan, as well as aspects of the settlement on the Korean Peninsula were the focus of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s talks with visiting US National Security Adviser John Bolton, the Russian Foreign Ministry said on Monday, according to Itar Tass.

"The sides exchanged views on topical international problems, including the situation around Syria and Afghanistan, the conditions in Ukraine and on the Korean Peninsula," the foreign ministry said. "They also discussed prospects for cooperation between our countries, including in the interests of finding solutions to regional conflicts, efficient fight against terrorism and maintaining strategic stability." The 90-minute meeting was held behind closed doors.

MOSCOW- Russia will respond to the United States’ practical steps following its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) rather than to the very fact of such withdrawal, a senior Russian lawmaker said on Sunday.

"We should respond not to the very fact of Washington’s withdrawal from the treaty but rather to its practical steps when it is free to do whatever it wants. And, as our president has said, Russia has all the military technical premises for that, its reaction will be rapid," Konstantin Kosachev, chairman of the international committee of Russia’s Federation Council upper parliament house, said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel, according to Itar Tass.

A huge crowd has gathered in central London to demand an end to Brexit amid immense uncertainty over how Britain will manage to leave the European Union in March 2019, Press T.V reported.

Organizers said tens of thousands had joined the long-anticipated march which is the latest and last bid to push for a reversal of a referendum in June 2016 in which Britons voted 52-48 for their country to leave the EU after more than 40 years.