NORTH KOREA - SOUTH KOREA
The North Korean army destroyed, with several detonations, some symbolic roads of inter-Korean cooperation connecting the peninsula and ‘is carrying out further activities using heavy equipment’, Seoul's joint chiefs of staff told local journalists. Last week, North Korea had announced a plan to ‘completely separate’ the territories and accused Seoul of sending three drones over Pyongyang in the past month.
PAKISTAN
The meeting between government representatives of the members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation begins today in Islamabad. Several leaders from China, Russia, India, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus are present to discuss regional security. Maximum security measures in the Pakistani capital for today and tomorrow after the attacks in recent days in Belucistan.
MIDDLE EAST
Lebanese authorities reported that at least 21 people were killed in an Israeli attack in the north of the country that targeted a residential building in Aitou, a predominantly Christian village. Meanwhile, according to sources, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told the US administration that he had no intention of striking Iranian nuclear power plants or oil targets. Yesterday, Unicef reported that at least 400,000 children had to flee their homes in Lebanon in the past three weeks.
AFGHANISTAN
The Taliban have banned television stations, both public and private, from broadcasting images of living beings. This is a directive derived from a strict interpretation of Islamic law. According to the Afghanistan Journalists Centre, television channels in Takhar province have ceased operations. Local authorities have also been ordered to avoid video appearances, but to provide information only in audio or written format.
INDIA - CANADA
Yesterday, Canada (again) expelled six Indian diplomats, including the ambassador, because of new investigations that indicate Indian agents were directly involved in the murder in June last year of Hardeep Singh Nijjar, a Canadian citizen and activist for Sikh independence from Delhi. India denied all charges and expelled six Canadian diplomatic representatives from its territory.
TURKMENISTAN
A number of single mothers with many children from the Gammar Baba province in Turkmenistan's Mari region are protesting to local authorities who are not allocating them housing to which they are legally entitled, as all kommunalke, the communal houses of Soviet heritage, have been privatised by state officials to rent them out at high prices.
RUSSIA - UKRAINE
As the Russian human rights ombudswoman, Tatiana Moskalkova (known for her pro-Kremlin stance), informed us, 112 thousand people were evacuated from the Kursk region after the Ukrainian attack, and at the moment about 12 thousand, including 3.5 thousand children, are accommodated in temporary gathering points, but 40 thousand inhabitants of the area have refused evacuation, and many have already returned to their homes in Ukrainian-occupied territory.
