Today's headlines: Hun Sen blocks Radio Free Asia and other news sites on election eve; Tens of thousands of people evacuated in South China and Vietnam as Typhoon Talim passes through; in New Delhi  Yamuna River flooding displaced return to their homes;  Ukrainian counteroffensive attacks target Crimea, Moscow is threatens a Wagner mercenary attack on the Suwalki corridor.

MALAYSIA

A Selangor state court has brought charges of sedition - that is, posing a danger to law and order and the country's monarchy - against opposition leader Muhammad Sanusi Md Nor, a popular Islamist PAS party politician and prime minister of Kedah state. Sanusi pleaded "not guilty" to the two charges brought against him-both of sedition-for some remarks he made in a political speech in early July aimed at Malaysian monarchs. Monarchs serve a ceremonial role and as custodians of Islam in a Muslim-majority country, but-as in Thailand-there is a strict law on lese majesty that prohibits any form of offense against them.

CAMBODIA

Prime Minister Hun Sen's government has ordered Internet service providers in Cambodia to block the Web sites of Radio Free Asia and other media outlets ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for Sunday the 23rd. The media outlets were accused of "harming the reputation and prestige of the government and failing to comply with the Ministry of Information's conditions for doing business." Sites blocked ti include RFA's Khmer and English online platforms and RFA's Khmer-language Twitter page. The regulator also ordered the blocking of the Kamnotra website, produced by the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, CCIM.

TYPHOON VIETNAM - CHINA

Talim is the fourth typhoon to hit China's southern coast and Vietnam this year with winds of nearly 140 km/h. Vietnam has evacuated about 30,000 people from the centers of Quang Ninh and Hai Phong, while tens of thousands have been secured in Guangdong, and among them more than 8,000 are fish farm workers brought back ashore. Local authorities have also ordered the closure of dozens of coastal tourist destinations. Talim is causing waves of up to six meters, with storm surges leading to the cancellation of hundreds of flights and trains. The typhoon is expected to lose power today in China and dissipate definitively over northern Vietnam on Wednesday.

INDIA

People living near the Yamuna River that flows through India's capital began returning to their homes on Monday evening as floodwaters began receding five days after the flood began. Last week the river reached its highest level in 45 years. Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated to relief camps set up by the New Delhi government to escape the floods. These families will be given compensation of 10,000 rupees (130 euros) and schools will provide books and uniforms to children who lost them to the floods.

UKRAINE

Attacks by the Ukrainian counteroffensive are focusing on Crimea and the Kerč Bridge, the main access even for tourists, who were already in sharp decline, and are now "invited" by Russian authorities to reach the peninsula via "land routes," choosing between endless queues at the bridges and hours of adventurous routes through mountains and valleys, between the occupied territories.

RUSSIA - EUROPE

The head of the Moscow Duma's defense committee, Andrej Kartapolov, said that mercenaries from Evgenij Prigožin's Wagner Company are concentrating in Belarus on seizing the Suwalki corridor, a strip of border territory between Poland and Lithuania about 70 kilometers long. In this way Putin would establish direct communication with the Russian enclave in Poland's Kaliningrad region, and separate the Baltic states from their NATO partners.

SRI LANKA

A year after the country, having run out of foreign exchange, was at risk of default, Sri Lanka's economic crisis would appear to be showing signs of improvement. However, a government report on the past 12 months indicates that-for example-electricity has increased by 65 percent since the removal of the state subsidy and "many middle-class households have slipped below the poverty line." According to the World Bank, this situation is likely to continue for a while: "Poverty is expected to remain above 25 percent in the coming years," the report says. The financial institution meanwhile has extended a 0 million loan to Sri Lanka for budget support, of which 0 million is earmarked to support the poor and vulnerable.

IRAQ

President of the Republic of Iraq Abdul Latif Rashid, who withdrew Patriarch Luis Sako's "institutional recognition" of the office, met yesterday with the Chargé d'Affaires of the Apostolic Nunciature Fr. Charles Lwanga Ssuuna. During the meeting , Fr. Ssuuna stressed that the administration of ecclesiastical property-as provided for in the Iraqi Constitution-should continue to be exercised freely by the referents of the Churches even on the practical level, that is, before the Iraqi Courts and Government offices, while the Apostolic Nunciature does not intend to comment on whether this should be guaranteed by presidential decrees.

JAPAN - UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

Japan and the United Arab Emirates have signed an agreement for cooperation in technology to jointly address climate change. The agreement was signed during Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida's visit to the UAE. It is his second stop in the region on the East Asian country's premier's international "tour" focused on energy supply security and promoting green technology.

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