Panama Canal: Hong Kong company sells two ports to the USA

Today's news: Twin suicide attack in Pakistan; Campaigns for the recognition of marital rape gain strength in India; The Arab League approves Egypt's plan for the reconstruction of Gaza; A Russian website has collected 60,600 requests for information on soldiers who disappeared in Ukraine.

USA – CHINA

The Hong Kong company CK Hutchison Holding, which manages two ports in the Panama Canal, one on the Atlantic Ocean and one on the Pacific Ocean, has agreed to sell the majority of its shares to a group led by the US investment company BlackRock for 22.8 billion dollars. Founded by billionaire Li Ka-Shing, the company is not owned by the Chinese government, but has controlled the ports since 1997.

PAKISTAN

At least 11 people, including several children, were killed in a twin suicide attack in Bannu, in the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The walls and roofs of some houses collapsed due to the intensity of the explosions, burying dozens of people under the rubble. Pakistani security forces later reported killing six attackers. Those responsible are believed to belong to a faction of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP).

INDIA

Following the acquittal of a man who had raped his wife, who died a few hours after the attack, campaigns for the recognition of marital rape have gained momentum in India. Rape within marriage is not considered a crime in India, according to a legal provision dating back to the colonial era and kept intact in the recent Indian Penal Code. For Mariam Dhawale, general secretary of the All India Democratic Women's Association (AIDWA), it is ‘a declaration of patriarchy that tells the wife she has no rights over her body’.

MIDDLE EAST

The countries of the Arab League approved a billion plan for the reconstruction of Gaza over five years at an emergency summit in Cairo. The Secretary General of the Arab League, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, without specifically referring to the ideas put forward by US President Donald Trump, emphasised that ‘the Arab position is to reject any displacement, whether voluntary or forced’ of the Palestinian population.

PHILIPPINES

A religious movement calling for the impeachment of Vice-President Sara Duterte, on the occasion of the beginning of Lent, burned the ‘seven sins of Duterte’, in reference to the Catholic tradition of burning the palms of the previous year to obtain the ashes on Ash Wednesday. At the same time, a campaign was launched to collect a million signatures and put pressure on the Senate to immediately start the process of impeaching the daughter of the former president of the Philippines.

RUSSIA – UKRAINE

60, 600 requests regarding soldiers who disappeared in Ukraine without being found; in January alone there were 8,500, and they mostly concern citizens of nationalities smaller than Russia, Bashkirs, Komi, Buryats and Tuvans, often volunteers who went to the front out of desperation, unemployment, conviction and other reasons.

ARMENIA

The president of the Armenian party ‘Country for Life’, Mane Tandilyan, has announced that she will publicly go on hunger strike in Freedom Square in Yerevan, in support of the former State Minister of Artsakh, Ruben Vardanyan, who is on trial in Baku, Azerbaijan, and in critical health conditions precisely because of a hunger strike against ‘false accusations’.

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