🌏 Russia Illegally Annexed 1/5 Of Ukraine, Women Around The World Protest For Mahsa Amini And More

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Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced the country is annexing four partly occupied areas of Ukraine during a ceremony on Friday Sep. 30 after holding sham referendums in the regions.

The four regions include Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhia, which border Russia in western Ukraine, where people in the four occupied areas allegedly voted in favor of joining Russia over five day referendums that were illegal under international law, according to CNN.

The referendums have been denounced by Kyiv and the West as a sham.

In his almost 37-minute speech on Friday Sep. 30, Putin announced that people living in the four Ukrainian regions will become Russian citizens “forever”.

He also called on Ukrainian forces “to immediately end hostilities” and “return to the negotiating table”.

The United States, members of the European Union and the United Nations have condemned the annexation.

During the ceremony, Putin also attacked Western values calling it “outright Satanism”.

He even took a jab at LGBTQ rights in the West, claiming it lead to “perversions”.

Putin’s move could further escalate the Ukraine-Russia war, which first started on Feb. 24 under the pretense to “demilitarize” Ukraine.

Also Happening Around The World

🇷🇺 Also in Russia, at least 15 people have been killed and 24 have been injured after a gunman wearing a swastika opened fired at a school in Izhevsk on Monday September 26.

🇮🇹 Italy has elected its most far-right government since World War II, and far-right politician Giorgia Meloni is set to become Italy’s first woman prime minister.

🇪🇸 Sex workers in Spain held a protest against a new bill that aims to abolish sex work on Monday Sep. 12.

Widespread protests have erupted in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian-Kurdish woman who died after she was arrested by “morality police” in Tehran over the country’s mandatory hijab law.

Amini, who died on Sep. 16 after spending three days in a coma, was allegedly beaten up by the police inside the van while being taken to the detention center, according to eyewitnesses.

And from Beirut to the UK, Chile to Toronto, people around the world are also gathering in demonstrations in solidarity with Iranian women, who are standing up for their rights.

More Women You Should Know About

🇪🇨 Women in Ecuador are protesting and calling for an end to violence against women after the body of a lawyer who went missing after she was last seen visiting a police training school was found.

More than two-thirds of Cubans have voted to legalize same-sex marriage and allow same-sex couples to adopt children after a national referendum on Sunday Sep. 25.

Around 74% of the population voted in the referendum and more than 3 million people, 66.87% of the valid votes, approved the new Family Code.

The 100-page referendum aimed to reform the Family Code and will provide more rights to the LGBTQ community, women, children and the elderly.

The current government backed the reforms, urging people to approve it.

The Cuban president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, tweeted on Monday, “Love is now the law”.

He said that passing the law was a way to “pay a debt to various generations of Cubans whose domestic plans had been waiting years for this law,” according to the New York Times.

“As of today, we will be a better nation,” he said.

However, the reform faced serious backlash from the evangelical movement, which opposed increasing LGBTQ rights to protect the concept of a “traditional family.”

At the beginning of Fidel Castro’s rule in the late 1950s, gay men and lesbians were sent to “re-education” work camps.

Homosexuality became legal in Cuba in 1979, but conservative ideology and sexism has led to ongoing discrimination to LGBTQ people.

More Good News For Your Week

🌏 Young people around the world took to the streets as part of a global climate strike on Friday Sep. 23, the latest in the Fridays for Future movement.

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