USA – CHINA
The FBI has arrested a 34-year-old Californian estate agent who was about to board a flight to China: according to the charges, Wanying Zhang surveilled the home of the son of Taiwan’s president and sent photos, videos and information to the Chinese government in Beijing. The US Department of Justice believes the case forms part of China’s attempts to identify and persecute pro-democracy activists living in the United States.
SRI LANKA – SAUDI ARABIA
Whilst Saudi government forces have reported that they have recaptured the port city of Mocha, near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, from Houthi control, and Turkey and Pakistan have agreed to the deployment of military personnel to Saudi Arabia, calls are mounting to spare a Tamil migrant worker from Sri Lanka from the death penalty, Anojan Sivarasa, aged 24, who is being held in Riyadh after being found guilty of blasphemy against Islam for a comment posted on Facebook during a dispute between Hindus and Muslims. The case has deeply shaken Sri Lanka, sparking widespread concern and petitions from civil society, but the family has had no news of Anojan since 28 September, although it is not yet clear when the sentence will be carried out.
TAJIKISTAN – IRAN
Tajikistan has begun importing oil and petroleum products from Iran in an attempt to diversify its supplies, which have long been dominated by Russia. The volumes, prices and routes of these imports remain unknown, raising questions about the commercial scale of the trade and the risk of incurring secondary sanctions from the United States. The potential switch to Iranian supplies could offer Dushanbe significant development prospects, although the economic and logistical conditions for transport remain rather uncertain, given that Tajikistan is landlocked.
THAILAND
The city of Bangkok is expecting the arrival of 15,000 delegates who are due to attend the annual meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. However, to coincide with the summit, the Thai capital could receive around 50 mm of rain per day from 11 to 13 October, with the risk of further flooding following last month’s events. In fact, the reservoirs are still more than 90 per cent full.
VIETNAM
Vietnam has extended various tax breaks until the end of the year to help curb inflation and keep fuel prices low in response to supply disruptions from the Middle East, at an estimated cost to the government of 13,800 billion dong ($530 million). The government aims to curb inflation in a bid to grow the economy by at least 12.5 per cent in the coming quarter to meet its ambitious growth target of 10 per cent for 2026.
JAPAN
In recent days, police raided the town hall in Toyama, in western Japan, as local officials may have inflated the resident population figures by falsifying census data. Local authorities have long been under pressure to maintain stable population levels to counter the ageing population. The mayor of Toyama, Hirohisa Fujii, apologised in a statement issued on 3 October and said that city officials would cooperate with the investigation.
RUSSIA
Dmitry Glukhovsky, a Russian writer now living abroad due to his opposition to the war, has written a new novel entitled ‘Registration’, which has sparked an unprecedented heated debate. The story is set in present-day Russia during the war: the protagonist, Uljana, the pregnant girlfriend of contract soldier Saša, discovers that he has gone missing and is in a critical condition in a Moscow hospital; she then transforms from a confused and dependent figure into someone who begins to exploit the system to her advantage, including using AI to write complaints to the FSB.
