South Asia: 5 years less life expectancy due to pollution

Today's headlines: Putin will not attend the G20 in New Delhi; Japan wants to sue China at WTO over seafood import ban after Fukushima water release; Anti-crime mayoral candidate wounded in attack in Nazareth; Georgian 6th-century monastery buried by a landslide.

SOUTH ASIA

Rising air pollution could reduce life expectancy by more than five years per person in South Asia, one of the most polluted regions in the world. This is stated in a report by the Energy Policy Institute (EPIC) of the University of Chicago in its latest Air Quality Life Index. The region, which includes Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan, is responsible for more than half of the years of life lost globally due to pollution.

INDIA-RUSSIA

With a phone call to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin officially announced that he will not participate in the G20 summit scheduled in New Delhi on 9 and 10 September. He will be replaced by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. In the call, Modi and Putin discussed several "regional and global issues of mutual interest," India said in a statement.

JAPAN-CHINA

Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi said the Japanese government could lodge a complaint with the World Trade Organization (WTO) over China's decision to ban all imports of Japanese seafood after radioactive treated water began to leak. be released into the sea from the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Hayashi urged Beijing to immediately lift the "not scientifically based" ban.

CHINA

Sun Zhigang - another high-ranking Chinese Communist Party official - was placed under investigation for suspected "serious violations of discipline and the law," a euphemism for corruption. Sun, 69, was a former head of China's health care reform and former party chief in the southwestern province of Guizhou. This is the second ministerial-level official arrested by the anti-corruption watchdog since the party's 20th National Congress held in October.

ISRAEL

In Nazareth, a mayoral candidate in local elections scheduled for October 31 and two other men were shot and wounded. Musab Dukhan was taken to Rambam Medical Center in Haifa in stable condition. The shooting came in the context of a wave of violent crime in Israeli Arab communities, against which Dukhan had recently taken a stand on the election campaign.

RUSSIA

In the official coding of the topics admitted for the high school diploma in Russian schools, the topics relating to "democracy", "international law", "civil society" and "alternative civil service" have been removed while the topic "special military operation" has been inserted . Even writers like Pushkin, Lermontov and Gogol will be replaced by Russian works on the war.

GEORGIA

A landslide caused by floods buried the medieval monastery of Šiomgvime in Georgia, located in a narrow valley about 30 km from Tbilisi, next to the historic town of Mtskheta. Several civil protection teams rushed to the area, also because it is not known whether there are people left under the ruins. The origin of the monastery dates back to the 6th century.

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