GAZA-ISRAEL
Dozens of people were killed or injured in Gaza in an extensive fire in a refugee camp after an Israeli Air Force raid on the Rafah area. Israeli Defence Forces said they targeted two senior Hamas leaders in one of the group's compounds; from there the flames reportedly spread to the shelters. The attack came hours after Hamas fired eight rockets from Rafah towards Tel Aviv, the first long-range strikes on the city since January.
KOREA-JAPAN-CHINA
Japan, South Korea and China jointly declare the importance of the denuclearisation of North Korea. This is the position expressed during the ongoing trilateral summit in Seoul, just hours after Pyongyang announced plans to launch a rocket capable of carrying satellites by 4 June. The launch could involve the use of ballistic missile technology, a violation of UN Security Council resolutions.
CHINA
China generated 32.85 zettabytes of data in 2023, an increase of 22.44% over the previous year. This was revealed in a report released at the 7th Digital China Summit in Fuzhou, in the southeastern province of Fujian. The survey points to explosive growth in unstructured data production, linked to the rapid development of 5G and AI technologies, along with the widespread use of smart devices.
JAPAN-BRAZIL
The Brazilian Commission for Historical Truth about the Past is considering an official apology for human rights violations in the internment of immigrants and people of Japanese descent after World War II. The issue will be examined on 25 July, but President Enea Almeida has already expressed a positive opinion in an interview with the Yomiuri Shimbun. An estimated 2.7 million people of Japanese descent currently live in Brazil, home to the largest community of Japanese outside the country.
PAKISTAN
Pakistani authorities said they arrested 11 Islamic militants involved in the suicide bombing that killed five Chinese engineers in March in the north of the country, on the border with Afghanistan. The arrested men belong to local Taliban groups, also known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), a formation that brings together dozens of Sunni Islamists and sectarian militant groups.
TURKMENISTAN
In Turkmenistan, which plans to become the first completely tobacco-free country in the world next year, cigarette prices have been doubled. A packet of Mond International, the most popular brand, has risen from 50 to 100 manat (more than 26 euro), partly because of the floods that devastated the warehouses in Ašgabat, and ruined ones sell for 35-40 manat.
RUSSIA
The court in Omsk in Siberia has decided to permanently close the Greek-Catholic parish of the Most Holy Mother of God, in which 57-year-old priest Igor Maksimov had placed an icon with the figure of Stepan Bandera and other Ukrainian nationalists, with the sentence of 'open and untestable violations', while Fr Igor is on trial for 'rehabilitation of Nazism' and 'vilification of religion'.
