Today's headlines: Important Shia holiday celecrated in Kashmir for the first time in over 30 years; Schools closed in China due to typhoon Doksuri; The USA deploys a coast guard ship in Papua New Guinea; In Turkey, environmentalists protest against the expansion of a mine; Japanese diplomacy in the Global South continues; Belarus bans education in the language of an ethnic minority; Families with orphans increase by 30% in Russia.

 

BHUTAN – AUSTRALIA

The reopening of Australia's borders to international students after the pandemic has triggered an exodus from Bhutan, with more than 12,000 arrivals in 11 months, representing about 1.5% of the population of the small South Asian country, where the rate of youth unemployment is 28%. Most have settled in Perth in Western Australia.

INDIA

Yesterday the procession of the eighth day of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar, a Shiite holiday commemorating the martyrdom of Husayn Ibn Ali al-Hussein (grandson of the Prophet Muhammad), was held in Kashmir for the first time in 34 years. died 680 at the Battle of Karbala in Iraq. India, which administers the disputed territory with Pakistan, had banned the event in 1989, when the armed insurgency against New Delhi began.

JAPAN

Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi will visit Sri Lanka and the Maldives today and tomorrow, part of a six-country tour of South Asia and Africa. His journey, which began in India and ended with visits to South Africa, Uganda and Ethiopia, underscores Japan's new diplomatic thrust in the global South. The visit to Colombo has probably been watched closely by Beijing, Sri Lanka's biggest creditor.

CHINA

Due to Typhoon Doksuri, which has so far killed at least 12 people in the Philippines and Taiwan, China has decided to close schools and suspend transport along the Fujian coast. The Chinese government has also urged local meteorological authorities in neighboring Fujian provinces, including Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangxi, to increase their emergency response levels to prevent disasters.

NORTH KOREA

According to some experts, the military parade organized yesterday by North Korea to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the Korean War armistice served to "promote the legitimacy of Kim Jong Un's government and internal unity in this economically difficult moment". said University of Norwich professor Yangmo Ku. But Pyongyang is also "trying to send a signal to the United States and its allies that, thanks to strengthened ties with Russia and China, North Korea is militarily ready to deal with strategic threats from its enemies"

USA – PAPUA NEW GUINEA

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the deployment of a US Coast Guard vessel to Papua New Guinea, ostensibly to counter illegal fishing and exploitation of marine resources, adding that Washington is not looking for a permanent base, but according to commentators the move aims to limit the Chinese presence in the region.

TURKEY

For the fourth day in a row, some environmental activists have protested against the felling of some trees in the province of Mugla where an expansion of a coal mine is planned. Armored vehicles and security forces have been deployed to prevent protesters from entering the woods and so far 14 people have been arrested after clashes with police. According to environmentalists, the entire Akbelen forest will be destroyed by July 31 without intervention.

RUSSIA

The issue of Ukrainian children deported to Russia intersects with the data on the growth of orphans throughout Russia, as can be deduced from the data on the granting of free public apartments to "families with orphans", increased by over 30%, in a dimension "gray" of the registers for these assignments, which does not allow to verify all the relative documentation.

BELARUS

Belarus, like other former Soviet countries, has also approved a new law on the "state language", prohibiting the possibility of receiving education in an ethnic minority language, a measure aimed above all at the use of the Polish language in the eastern part of the country, while official documents may be reproduced "in Belarusian, Russian and English".

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