Dario Salvi

Today's headlines: Fukushima on alert for partial melting of protectivebarrier; new South African variant causes stock market to plummet; Pyongyang bans leather clothes, imitation of Kim deemed "disrespectful"; in Istanbul, police attack women demonstrating against violence.

The senior official was elected today during the general assembly in Istanbul. In the past he was Asia representative of the organization, after a long career in the institutions of the Emirates. Activists and NGOs accuse him of having endorsed violence and abuse in prisons. In the past he had called for a modern reform of Interpol.

Today's news: Hong Kong is removing hundreds of texts "unwelcome" to Beijing from library shelves; Taiwan approves additional defense spending in anti-Chinese mode; India's fertility rate drops, below replacement level; Vietnam remains prime destination for trafficking in African wildlife products.

The nuns started with three or four children and now help some 800 children who are without parents or far from home. Now they run six boardings houses, which have become a reference point for the area. Sister Y B remembers that “In the beginning, we didn't even have milk to offer these children.” Now they grow food and raise funds.

The bottom under the Turkish currency continues to fall with a further 15 per cent decline. Since the start of the year, the lira has lost 42 per cent of its value. President Erdogan insists on interest rate cuts and exports to "win the war of economic independence”, but at home, a rising cost of living is weighing heavily, sparking protests in Istanbul, Ankara, and other cities.

Behind the proclamations of dialogue and development, the shadow of an opaque financial policy revealed by the "Pandora papers". A free zone for laundering dirty money and doing business even used by companies linked to the Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei. Economic interests outmatch regional, political and confessional issues.

Today's headlines: A 20-year-old Hong Kong student activist Tony Chung will have to serve three years and seven months in prison; China's birth rate plummeted in 2020, marriages also at a low; Pakistan grants transit to Indian aid to Afghanistan; Tokyo and Hanoi strengthen military cooperation to counter Beijing.

Peaceful protests broke out yesterday in the city of Shahr-e Kord in front of the governor's residence. Other rallies have taken place in Isfahan, central Iran. Many people are getting drinking water from tanker lorries, but there is no water to irrigate farmland. Meanwhile, the government has promised solutions "in the next months.

AsiaNews has gathered the testimonies of some of the 450 young people who participated in the meeting promoted by the Chaldean Church in Baghdad. The hope of overcoming wars, violence and the pandemic. The ideal of belonging to a community at the service of others, including Muslims, in a "spirit of charity".

Today's headlines: former dictator Chun Doo-Whan, the butcher of Gwangju, died at the age of 90 in Seoul; the first of three trials for the 2019 Easter massacres opened in Sri Lanka; Burma's shadow government raises money to fund the fight against the military junta; the IAEA chief in Tehran for nuclear talks; Kiev services: Russia ready to invade Ukraine between January and February.

In today's headlines: Chinese tennis player Peng Shuai holds video call with the IOC president saying she is safe; in India, a 45-year-old man survives night in a mortuary freezer; Jerusalem, a march of support for the Hamas bomber who killed an Israeli and wounded three others; in Uzbekistan, 26,000 people suspended from work because they were not vaccinated.

Today there are only 22 institutes linked to the Greek, Armenian and Jewish communities.The estimate needs at over three million euros to be allocated in the 2022 state budget. The request made by an Armenian MP was rejected by the Parliament with a contrary vote of the government majority. Institutional crisis linked to the collapse of minorities.