India: farmers march on Delhi again, police blockade

Today's news: Indian-made drones also in the Israeli offensive on Gaza; China will have a surplus of nearly 2 million teachers in 2035 due to population decline;  Motion of no confidence in PM Marape in Papua New Guinea; Online summit between the US and Central Asian countries on the race for raw materials.

INDIA

Farmers from Punjab and Haryana have announced a march on Delhi today to protest against the failure to fulfill the promises made by the Union government when repealing the farm laws in November 2021. The Haryana government, led by the BJP, has sealed the borders with Punjab at three places to prevent farmers from entering the state. Delhi Police also erected barricades at the city limits.

ISRAEL-INDIA-GAZA

The Israeli military is also set to include Indian-made Hermes 900 drones in its unmanned aerial vehicle fleet, in a move that human rights activists and defense analysts say will further embroil India in the war of Israel against Gaza. The delivery of the Hermes 900 drones comes as Israeli airstrikes hit Rafah ahead of a major offensive against the densely populated Palestinian urban area.

CHINA

The People's Republic of China will face a surplus of 1.5 million primary school teachers and 370,000 middle school teachers by 2035. Newborn births in China have fallen since 2017, with declining numbers of students of kindergarten for the first time in nearly two decades in 2021.

JAPAN

In an experiment that raises delicate questions from a bioethical point of view, a Japanese team has successfully bred three genetically modified pigs to be used for human organ and cell transplants. The safety of this type of interspecies transplant will for the moment be studied with further tests on animals. There are currently about 16,000 people registered waiting for organ donations in Japan, but only about 3 percent receive them each year, according to the Japan Organ Transplant Network.

PAPUA NEW GUINEA

Papua New Guinea's opposition party has tabled a motion of no confidence in Prime Minister James Marape in the first sitting of the Pacific island nation's parliament since January's riots that claimed many lives. According to Parliament's rules, the vote cannot be held for another week. Marape said he was confident he had the numbers to defeat the motion.

CENTRAL ASIA – UNITED STATES

An online meeting was held between representatives of Central Asian countries and the US State Department, at the initiative of President Joe Biden himself, to discuss critical raw materials. As reported by the Minister of Industry of Kazakhstan, Kanat Šarlapaev, "we want to unite our region with the global chains of the sector".

RUSSIA

The Orthodox hieromonk Petr (Stefanov) of Baškortostan, a priest for four years, announced via the social network VKontakte that he had decided to leave the Church of the Patriarchate of Moscow, due to the corruption of the hierarchical leaders and support for the war in Ukraine. “You have turned against God and dedicated yourself to the service of Satan, squandering Grace,” he wrote.

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