China: clothing giant Shein admits two cases of child labor

Today's news: Modi in Kiev to revive peaceful solution to conflict with Moscow. Indonesian court orders pharmaceutical companies to compensate families for victims of bad cough syrup. Oil revenues at lows in Saudi Arabia despite production cut to support price. In Moscow increasingly difficult for Central Asian migrants to enroll their children in school.

CHINA

Chinese clothing giant Shein has admitted to finding two cases of child labor in its supply chain last year, and pledged to step up checks on companies that make the clothes it sells. The revelation-contained in the 2023 Sustainability Report-comes as Shein is believed to be planning to place shares on the stock exchange. The company has been repeatedly criticized for conditions faced by workers in factories in its supply chain.

INDIA

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected in Kiev today where he will meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in the first visit by an Indian premier to Ukraine. At the center of the trip is the search for a peaceful resolution to the ongoing conflict between Ukraine and Russia, which has raged since the Russian invasion began more than two and a half years ago. In a statement before his visit, Modi said that “No problem can be solved on a battlefield” and expressed India's support for “dialogue and diplomacy for the restoration of peace and stability as soon as possible.”

THAILAND

A plane carrying five Chinese and four Thai tourists, including the two pilots, crashed 100 km southeast of Bangkok, 11 minutes after losing contact with ground control after takeoff. All the people aboard the Cessna are presumed dead, said Chonlatee Yongtrong, governor of Chachoengsao province, the crash site, as rescue teams are reassembling the remains and authorities investigate the cause of the crash.

INDONESIA

An Indonesian court has ordered two local companies to pay up to 60 million rupiah (,850) to each family whose children died from acute kidney injury or were seriously injured after consuming cough syrup. More than 200 children in Indonesia have died from these ailments and another 120 have been disabled. The judges cited poor oversight by pharmaceutical companies, but cleared of any charges the country's Ministry of Health and Food and Drug Agency (BPOM), which had been sued by the families.

SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Arabia's revenues from oil exports plummeted to their lowest in three years, testing the kingdom's ability to sustain prices by cutting supply. Saudi Arabia earned only .7 billion from oil sales abroad in June, or 9 percent less than in the same period last year and 12 percent less than in May, according to government data. In the same month, according to Bloomberg, it exported only 5.6 million barrels of oil per day, just 250,000 barrels more than it was exporting at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, when demand plummeted. The International Monetary Fund estimates that Saudi Arabia needs an oil price of .20 to make ends meet, up from now.

RUSSIAN-ORTHODOX

Russian Orthodox Archbishop Kallistrat (Romanenko) circulated a confidential letter  from Moscow Patriarch Kirill (Gundjaev) in his Novorossiysk eparchy , made public by the “Christians Against War” Telegram site, asking priests to make themselves available as military chaplains at the front, where “at least 250 more are needed for two-month shifts.”

CENTRAL ASIA -RUSSIA

Central Asian migrants working in Moscow are finding it increasingly difficult to enroll their children in school, as applications are turned down on a wide variety of grounds, due to incomplete documents or lack of vacancies, or even for no reason at all, and they unsuccessfully try to turn to their countries' consulates for support.

• AsiaToday