Palestinian director of ‘No other land’, beaten by settlers and then arrested

Today's news: in Turkey the mayor of Ankara is also under investigation; Compensation of 1.3 million euros for the Japanese man held innocent for more than forty years on death row; In India, an area of forest equivalent to the size of the metropolis of Delhi has been cut down over the last nine years; Orthodox priest arrested in a church in St. Petersburg for speaking out against the war.

ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Palestinian filmmaker Hamdan Ballal, who won an Oscar three weeks ago for his documentary ‘No Other Land’, was violently attacked by what his Israeli colleague Yuval Abraham described as a ‘lynch mob’ of Israeli settlers on Monday evening in the Palestinian village of Susya, south of Hebron in the West Bank. Despite being wounded, he was taken away by the Israeli military and is still in detention. Abraham said in a post that masked settlers ‘attacked the village of Hamdan and continued to attack the American activists of the Center for Jewish Nonviolence present in Masafer Yatta, the Palestinian village at the centre of the film, breaking their car with stones’.

TURKEY

The Ankara Governor's Office has authorised an investigation into 33 of the 130 concerts organised by the Ankara Municipality between 2021 and 2024, citing potential financial mismanagement. The move came just one day after the mayor of Ankara Mansur Yavaş informed the public that there was no investigation into the Municipality of Ankara Ee after the arrest of the mayor of Istanbul Ekrem İmamoğlu and other district mayors, as well as dozens of people for alleged links to terrorism and corruption.

JAPAN

The Japanese man who spent the longest time on death row for an unjust murder conviction has been awarded compensation of 1.3 million euros. This corresponds to 12,500 yen (approximately 76 euros) for each day of the more than 40 years that Iwao Hakamada spent in detention. The former boxer, now 89 years old, was acquitted last year of a quadruple murder that took place in 1966, after a tireless campaign led by his sister and other friends.

SOUTH KOREA

A motorcyclist who fell into a large chasm that opened last night in Seoul was found dead this morning by rescue teams. The man was riding his motorbike along a road in the district of Gangdong when the asphalt gave way. Rescuers found his body underground about 50 metres from the point where he had fallen.

CHINA-ASIA

The Boao Forum for Asia - the Chinese event considered the equivalent for the East of the Davos Forum - has released its new estimates according to which the growth of the Asian economy in 2025 will be 4.5%, slightly higher than the 4.4% recorded last year. According to the report, Asia's share of the global economy will continue to increase, reaching 36.4% at market exchange rates, and 48.6% at purchasing power parity.

INDIA

Between 2014-15 and 2023-24, over 173,300 hectares of forest were cut down in India, an area larger than the entire metropolitan area of Delhi. This was announced by the Ministry of the Environment, presenting data obtained from satellite images to the Indian parliament. The data show that the largest area of forest has been taken from Madhya Pradesh, with over 14 thousand hectares.

RUSSIA

In Saint Petersburg, an Orthodox priest, Father Nikolaj Savčenko, was arrested in a church for ‘displaying forbidden symbols’, for a photo he posted on his VKontakte social network page in 2014, 11 years ago, in which he is holding a Ukrainian flag accompanied by a quote from the Bible: ‘Thus saith the Lord: do not make war with your brothers’.

KAZAKHSTAN

Kazakhstan aims to definitively defeat tuberculosis by 2035. Current data shows a 4.6-fold reduction in the disease, with a drop in mortality of over 20%. According to the WHO, the leader in this infection remains India with 26%, followed by Indonesia with 10%, China and the Philippines with 6.8% and Pakistan with 6.3%. Updates and master classes are being held in Kazakhstan with the best specialists in the world.

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