India: Supreme Court denies higher compensation to Bhopal victims

Today's headlines: Suicide rates rise in Japan; China ponders new reitirement age; In Thailand drought uncovers a Buddhist stupa from the waters of the Mekong; Pakistani Taliban are using  weapons abandoned by Americans in Afghanistan; Turkmenistan awaits opening of Israeli embassy.

INDIA

India's Supreme Court has rejected an application for more compensation for the victims of the 1984 Bhopal disaster, stating that the issue 'cannot be resolved 30 years after the settlement'. According to government figures, 3,500 people died immediately from a gas leak from an industrial plant at the time, while 15,000 perished afterwards, a number that activists put at least 25,000. In 1989, Union Carbide, owner of the plant, had agreed to pay 470 million dollars while the government had demanded 3.3 billion.

PAKISTAN - AFGHANISTAN

According to experts, the sophisticated weapons and equipment left behind by the US and coalition forces in Afghanistan have ended up in the hands of the Pakistani Taliban (Ttp), who use them to carry out attacks against law enforcement agencies in Pakistan. In 2022, at least 118 police officers were killed in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province alone. Before the reconquest of the Taliban, the former Afghan government owned .12 billion worth of military equipment.

THAILAND

Due to the Mekong drought, a Buddhist stupa (a monument preserving relics or commemorating episodes related to the Buddha) has emerged from the waters in the north-eastern province of Nong Khai in Thailand. The monument is thought to have been built 700 years ago, but fell into the river in 1847. Many tourists have made pilgrimages in small boats to see the stupa, which is damaged in places.

JAPAN

The number of people who took their own lives in Japan last year was 21,881 with male suicides seeing the first increase in 13 years. The number of women committing suicide, on the other hand, rose for the third year in a row, up by 67 people to 7,135. According to experts, the trend was fuelled by the pandemic. Among children and young people, the numbers rose from 499 suicides per year in 2020 to 514 in 2022.

CHINA

China is planning to gradually increase the retirement age to cope with the country's rapidly ageing population. China's retirement age is among the lowest in the world at 60 for men, 55 for female employees and 50 for female factory workers. Li Qiang, the country's new premier, has stated that the government will conduct rigorous studies and analyses to implement the policy under discussion.

BELARUS

In Belarus, the National Association of Journalists, founded in 1995 and made up of voluntary, non-partisan citizens, was declared an 'extremist formation'. It had obtained state registration in 2006, and has always monitored data on freedom of expression and the press, as it had also done during the 2020 presidential elections.

TURKMENISTAN - ISRAEL

The opening of the Israeli embassy is expected in Ašgabat, for which Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen is scheduled to visit, after a decade in which there was only temporary representation. A cooperation agreement on health and cyber security will also be signed, in a relationship that Cohen describes as 'strategic' for the entire region.

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