Syria: clashes between government forces and Assad loyalists

Today's news: Pyongyang closes its borders to recently resumed tourist travel; South Korea's government ends dispute with doctors, while a court cancels the arrest warrant for Yoon; Funds for Rohingya food ration cut; Malaysian court rules offense against religious sentiments a crime.

SYRIA

Forces linked to the new Syrian government have clashed with loyalists of former dictator Bashar al-Assad in the coastal cities of Tartus and Latakia, strongholds of the Alawite minority, where a curfew has been imposed. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 70 people have been killed so far, and there are reports of clashes in Homs and Aleppo too.

SOUTH KOREA

This morning the South Korean Ministry of Education announced that it had agreed to freeze the number of new medical students at around 3,000 per year, in an attempt to end a dispute that has lasted 13 months. At the same time, a South Korean court cancelled the arrest warrant issued against President Yoon Suk-yeol, putting an end to a detention considered illegal. In the coming days, the Constitutional Court will rule on the indictment while the court cancels the arrest warrant for Yoon.

NORTH KOREA

A few weeks after reopening its borders to international tourism, North Korea has sealed them again. Last month some western tourists were able to visit the eastern city of Rason. In the last few days the local authorities have informed travel agencies, without giving any explanation, that all tourist visits have been cancelled until further notice.

ROHINGYA

After the announcement that food rations for the Rohingya hosted in refugee camps in Bangladesh will be reduced from 12 dollars per person per day to six dollars, the United Nations has announced that due to the cuts imposed by US President Donald Trump on USAID, they will not be able to provide healthcare and cash assistance to the 925 Rohingya refugees who have recently arrived in Indonesia.

MALAYSIA

A Malaysian court has ruled that ‘hurting religious feelings’ is a crime, in a judgement relating to the film ‘Mentega Terbang’ which tells the story of a teenager who questions some ideas in different religions. The film was released in 2021, but then, two years later, its distribution was blocked.

GEORGIA

The Tbilisi parliament has approved a new ‘communications’ law that effectively introduces censorship and control over all opposition media and television channels in Georgia, prohibiting any foreign funding that incites ‘the dissemination of information contrary to national interests’, and in any case any audio and video recording and broadcasting must be agreed with the competent authorities.

BELARUS

The Belarusian president Aleksandr Lukašenko has invited Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyj to Minsk, to conduct peace negotiations ‘without noise and without shouting’, and the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitrij Peskov, commented that ’ there has been no talk of such a three-way meeting so far, but Minsk is undoubtedly the best place for negotiations in our view’.

• Asia
• Today