Gaza: Biden supports Israeli ceasefire proposal, positive response from Hamas

Today's news: Tensions with China at defence chiefs' forum in Singapore; Thailand wants to use mini nuclear reactors for power generation; Skilled foreign workers in Japan tend to stay; Volcano alert in Indonesia; In Russia, May frosts decimated fruit and vegetable production. Relatives of Kazakh prisoners in Xinjiang prevented from entering the Chinese consulate in Almaty.

GAZA - ISRAEL - USA

US President Joe Biden supports Israel's three-step proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza, saying ‘it is time for this war to end’ and getting an initial positive reaction from Hamas. The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he authorised the presentation of the agreement, ‘while insisting that the war will not end until all its objectives are achieved, including the return of all our hostages and the destruction of Hamas’ military and government forces and capabilities’.

PHILIPPINES - CHINA

Speaking during a security forum in Singapore attended by defence chiefs from around the world, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. warned China not to cross the red line in the South China Sea, where, the death of a Filipino citizen would be considered an ‘act of war’, he added. At the same meeting, a Chinese colonel, Cao Yanzhong, asked the US Defence Secretary, Lloyd Austin, whether the US was planning to build an alliance in the Asia-Pacific similar to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, saying that NATO enlargement had led to the Ukraine crisis.

THAILAND

Thailand is considering the use of mini modular nuclear reactors to diversify energy production. ‘Our green transition goal is one of the most ambitious in Southeast Asia and we have a comprehensive roadmap to have 50 per cent of power generation renewable by 2040,’ Premier Srettha Thavisin said yesterday. Under the current energy development plan, Thailand aims to meet 53 per cent of its energy needs with natural gas, 36 per cent with renewables and 11 per cent with coal and other fossil fuels.

JAPAN

Around 40% of highly skilled foreign workers choose to stay in Japan after five years, says a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which also highlighted the problems of the national labour force augmentation programme: excessive tariffs and the practice of using middlemen in the countries of origin have led to some workers arriving already burdened with debts, wages have not increased and in some cases employees are ‘vulnerable to exploitation’.

INDONESIA

Mount Ibu, on the eastern island of Halmahera, erupted a five kilometre high ash cloud this morning, alerting the Indonesian Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), which warned local authorities of potential secondary disasters, such as flooding in rain or cold lava flows.

RUSSIA

Fruit and vegetable production in Russia, which concerns farms and private gardens in country dachas, lost between 70 and 100 per cent of the future harvest due to the abnormal frost in May, according to the vice-president of the National Union of the sector, Vitalij Khramušin, and in many areas not only the fruit but also the trees were lost.

KAZAKHSTAN - CHINA

For the umpteenth time, relatives of Kazakh prisoners in Xinjiang were prevented from entering the Chinese consulate in Almaty, with the deployment of police forces and the dispatch of an Akimat officer, Rita Ermanova, who declared the meeting as ‘illegal’, but those present remained on the premises all day, with no response from the consulate.

• Asia
• Today