10 months after the death of Mahsa Amini, Iran's moral police return to the streets

Today's headlines: in South Korea the number of victims of monsoon rains rises to 39; China's economy grows, but at a very slow pace and may not reach the minimum target set by the Party; Tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan flare up again in Nagorno Karabakh; In the Yemeni waters of the Red Sea, the UN ship operation to recover crude oil from an oil tanker begins.

IRAN

The Iranian authorities announced a new campaign to force women to wear the hijab, the Islamic veil, and the morality police returned to the streets 10 months after the death of Mahsa Amini, the girl who died after being taken into custody for not wearing her veil properly. Saeid Montazeralmahdi, Iranian law enforcement spokesman, confirmed on Sunday that police patrols were now operating on foot and in several vehicles to arrest people whose headscarves are misplaced or whose behaviour is deemed inappropriate in the Islamic Republic.

SOUTH KOREA

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol said the authorities' response to the floods in recent days was a failure. The toll has risen to nine people missing and 39 dead, including a dozen people trapped Sunday in a subway in the city of Cheongju after a riverbank collapsed. The government was accused of failing to ban access to the subway, as the floods were widely predicted. Climate change has made the cloudbursts of the last two years the most intense in 115 years.

YEMEN

A UN ship arrived in Yemeni waters on Sunday to carry out the transfer of oil packed in a supertanker that has been anchored off the coast for several years. The aim is to prevent it from spilling into the Red Sea. After intense diplomatic negotiations and the raising of tens of millions of dollars, the ship Nautica, purchased by the United Nations in March, left the coast of Djibouti, on the other side of the Red Sea, on Saturday. But the threat of a natural disaster is not averted because off the port city of Hodeida temperatures of around 45 degrees and the presence of sea mines threaten the operation.

CHINA

China's economy grew at a very slow pace in the second quarter of 2023, due to a drop in both domestic and foreign demand. The post-Covid momentum is faltering rapidly, increasing pressure on policymakers to provide more stimulus to support activity. This is a downturn not a decline: GDP grew, but only by 0.8% between April and June compared to 2.2 in the previous quarter. Beijing is aiming for 5% economic growth in 2023, but some analysts believe the target may be missed.

INDIA

The states of Jammu and Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh lead the Indian rankings in terms of licensed gun owners and the number of gun licences issued in the country. Even in 2016, the states with the highest number of licensed gun owners were still Uttar Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, followed as today by Punjab. This is despite the fact that in Jammu and Kashmir a ban on the issuance of gun licences was imposed in 2018, which was lifted only this year. The total number of people who can carry firearms in Uttar Pradesh now stands at 5 million. At the last available survey in 2016, there were over 3.5 million.

RUSSIA - POLAND

Russia closed the Polish consulate in Smolensk in response to the Warsaw government's 'unfriendly and anti-Russian actions', as stated by the foreign ministry in Moscow. After the closure of the Finnish consulates in St. Petersburg and the Italian consulates in Moscow, the most active along with the Polish one, it will be increasingly difficult for Russians to obtain Schengen visas.

ARMENIA - AZERBAIJIAN

The Armenian Minister of State of Nagorno Karabakh, Gurgen Nersisyan, stated that "it is time to start an uprising of all the people of Artsakh", which will begin with a mass rally on the Resurgence Square in Stepanakert, "hoping to get the necessary support from Mother-Armenia and the Diaspora this time", because "our resources are not unlimited, and no matter how much we try to save them, we are heading for catastrophe".

JAPAN

In recent hours, two more dolphin attacks on swimmers have been recorded in Japan in Fukui prefecture. Similar incidents have occurred in recent months in the country and have baffled local authorities and scholars. Since the start of the summer season in the Sea of Japan, police said they have received at least six reports of dolphin attacks on humans, and authorities have warned local citizens and tourists to avoid entering the water when the mammals are present. Similar incidents also occurred last year in the same area.

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