Hong Kong Court sentences fourteen pro-democracy activists

Today's news: Four Pakistanis killed in a shootout on the border with Iran; Netanyahu surpasses Gantz in an Israel poll for the first time since October 7; Hun Manet announces the start of work on the Funan Techo canal in August; In Kaliningrad, Rosatom top management and the IAEA discuss the Zaporižja nuclear power plant.

HONG KONG

Fourteen members of pro-democracy movements were convicted and two acquitted in the first verdict of a trial that came to a close over the 2019 crackdown on protest movements implemented under the National Security Law. The ‘subversion’ offence charged is that of organising primary elections to win as many seats as possible in the Legislative Assembly, with the intention of toppling the government then led by Carrie Lam by rejecting the budget.

IRAN-PAKISTAN

Four Pakistanis were killed and two wounded in the late evening of 29 May when Iranian forces opened fire in Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan. The shooting occurred near the border between the two countries in the Washuk district. The late former Iranian president Ebrahim Raisi had travelled to Pakistan in April for a three-day official visit, seeking to mend fences after unprecedented military attacks earlier this year. Iran and Pakistan have had a history of strained relations, but the January missile attacks were the most serious incidents in recent years.

ISRAEL

For the first time since the start of the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu overtook his main antagonist, War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz, as the electorate's preferred choice in a poll. The poll broadcast by Channel 12 marks a recovery for Likud and punishes the uncertainties of Gantz, who is incapable of presenting a real alternative. On the left side of the political spectrum, the poll assigns 10 seats (out of 120) to the announced alliance between the Labour Party and the peace party Meretz, led by the newly elected Labour leader, former general Yair Golan.

CAMBODIA

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet announced that work on the construction of the Funan Techo Canal will begin in August. The infrastructure is contested by Vietnam - which fears repercussions on the course of the Mekong River - and is viewed with concern in the West as a further sign of advancing Chinese interests in Cambodia. Hun Manet has replied that the Funan Techo will be built on Cambodian territory to serve the interests of the Khmer people, while most of the investment capital is also Khmer.

INDIA

Chennai-based space start-up Agnikul Cosmos this morning successfully launched from a private platform in Shriharikota for the first time in India. The SOrTeD rocket uses a combination of gas and liquid fuel and has the world's first one-piece 3D printed engine, designed and built in-house.

RUSSIA-UKRAINE

In Kaliningrad, in a hall at the Khrabrovo airport, talks began between the head of the Russian agency Rosatom, Aleksej Likhačev, and the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, to discuss the situation at the Zaporižja nuclear power plant, following a number of prior meetings in Moscow, St Petersburg and Soči, including with Putin.

KAZAKHSTAN

Kazakhstan's Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliev said that the new nuclear power plant planned in the country would be awarded through a competition, for which companies from South Korea, Russia, China and France had passed preliminary examinations. Other suitors could be added to the list, including the US and Japan.

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