Hiroshima mayor warns of new atomic 'global tragedies' amid fears from Ukraine to Gaza
Today's headlines: Iran arrested a street female performer for singing in public without headcover. Purges continue in Vietnam, where a tycoon was sentenced to 21 years for fraud. Tomorrow in Jeddah, the OIC will meet to discuss Haniyeh’s assassination at the request of Pakistan and Iran. Cambodia’s prime minister is set to launch the controversial Funan Techo project. China and Kazakhstan plan to jointly build a lunar station.
JAPAN
On the 79th anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb, Hiroshima Mayor Kazumi Matsui warns that the many wars in the world, particularly in Gaza and Ukraine, raise fears of new nuclear " global tragedies” like the one that devastated the Japanese city. He spoke at the memorial service for the victims of the bomb dropped on 6 August 1945, which killed about 140,000 people. A few days later, a second bomb hit Nagasaki, killing 74,000 people, bringing the Second World War to an end at a high price.
IRAN
Iranian authorities recently arrested Zara Esmaili, a talented street performer for singing in public in a Tehran street without mandatory headcover. Her repertoire included the well-known Back to Black by Amy Winehouse. At present, little is known of the fate of the young woman held by security forces in one of the country's prisons.
VIETNAM
A Vietnamese court has sentenced tycoon Trịnh Văn Quyết to 21 years in prison after he was convicted of fraud and stock market manipulation worth US$ 146 million. His 49 co-defendants (including two of his sisters) received up to 14 years. This is the latest in a series of trials for large-scale corruption involving the country's political and financial elites.
PAKISTAN – MIDDLE EAST
The foreign ministers of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will hold an emergency meeting tomorrow in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, at the request of Pakistan and Iran, to discuss the killing in Tehran of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh. The OIC, which includes 57 Muslim countries, will also discuss the “crimes of the Israeli occupation”.
CAMBODIA
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet has launched a controversial project aimed at building a 180-km canal at a cost of US$ 1.7 billion, to connect the Mekong to the sea. Funan Techo, which will run south of Phnom Penh to the Gulf of Thailand, is expected to be completed by 2028. It will reduce the transit of goods through Vietnam's ports from about a third to less than 10 per cent.
KAZAKHSTAN – CHINA
Beijing and Astana have signed a memorandum on cooperation to build a joint scientific and research base on the Moon, sharing experience and knowledge. This will allow Kazakhstan to develop its own space technology. One of the objectives of the Central Asian country is the installation of a Kazakh near-lunar telescope to study lunar soil.
RUSSIA – INDIA
At a regular meeting in New Delhi, UNESCO's World Cultural Heritage Committee has added the Kenozersky National Park in Russia’s Arkhangelsk region on its list of World Cultural Heritage. The area, which covers some 70,000 hectares, has a rich biosphere and ancient cultural heritage, such as wooden churches with ceilings painted to look like skies.
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