UN: concern over arrests of environmentalists in Vietnam

Today's news: official Riyadh delegation in the West Bank, an Israeli minister visits Saudi Arabia for the first time. Evergrande president under police control. A suicide attempt and the wounding of a protester during protests in Bangalore over a water dispute. Pyongyang ready to reopen borders to foreigners, closed since first phase of Covid-19 pandemic. Chinese holding company presents project to pump and distribute drinking water from the Kyrgyz-Uzbek basin.

VIETNAM - UN
The United Nations human rights office has expressed its concern to Hanoi over the arrest of Ngo Thi To Nhien, environmental and green energy expert, head of the energy transition project (VIET), former collaborator of UN agencies and the United States . A stop a few days after the visit of US President Joe Biden, celebrated for the agreements on trade and human rights.

SAUDI ARABIA - PALESTINE - ISRAEL
For the first time in over 30 years, an official delegation from Riyadh visited the West Bank yesterday, to assure the Palestinians of their intention to defend their cause, even following the normalization of relations with Israel. Cooperation between the Wahhabi kingdom and the Jewish state is increasingly evident: Israeli Tourism Minister Haïm Katz will go to Saudi Arabia for two days, the first public visit by an Israeli minister to the country.

CHINA
Billionaire Hui Ka Yan, president of Evergrande, is under surveillance by the police. A source reports that officers picked him up earlier this month and he is being monitored in an unknown location under "residential surveillance". The measure does not imply formal detention, but it remains impossible to leave the place or meet and communicate with others without authorization.

INDIA
Police arrested some protesters yesterday in Bangalore, India's technological centre, after a suicide attempt and an injury among those who took to the streets to protest against the sharing of water from a river that crosses two states. The demonstrations forced multinational employees to smart-work from home, schools and universities remained closed. Some farmers are threatening to continue the protests and spread them across Karnataka.

NORTH KOREA
Pyongyang is reportedly ready to allow foreigners to enter for the first time since its borders were closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020. In the past, tourism was an essential source of foreign exchange for North Korea strong in the country. According to initial information released by Chinese CCTV, visitors will have to undergo quarantine for two days.

RUSSIA
From the facade of the Lutheran church in Priozersk, in the Leningrad region, the memorial stone of the Finnish soldiers who fell in the Russo-Finno battles of the two world wars, dating back to before the occupation of the area in 1940, was dismantled and removed by unknown persons. In many other cities have been defaced and monuments to Polish soldiers from the twentieth century wars have been destroyed.

ARMENIA - AZERBAIJAN
There are at least 30 thousand, equal to a quarter of the enclave's population, Armenian refugees who fled Nagorno Karabakh and are being identified for the assignment of a refuge, while reception places are being prepared throughout Armenia. A meeting announced in Granada (Spain) on 5 October between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Pašinyan and Aliev, the Frenchman Macron, the German Scholz and the EU commissioner Michel.

UZBEKISTAN - KYRGYZSTAN - CHINA
The Chinese holding Sinomash has presented a project for pumping and distributing drinking water from the Kyrgyz-Uzbek basin of Kempir-Abad to the city of Fergana in eastern Uzbekistan, where it is already active in the reconstructions of all social structures in the region, with a financing of 300 million dollars for a period of 20 years.

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