North Asia

Because of the war in Ukraine, the country is drifting into an era of denial and distancing from the "enemy", to assert spiritual, moral, political, and economic "orthodoxy". Today, new "global models" are being imposed, which are not easily digestible, not only in Russia or the East, but also in Europe and in English-speaking countries. The persona of the president now overlaps with that of the tsars of the past.

Today's headlines: Qatar and Bangladesh sign a memorandum on migrant workers. Myanmar’s military retakes a village on the Mon-Karen border. Taiwan denounces Chinese military activities after Blinken's departure. Syrian woman gets seven life sentences over the Istanbul attack of November 2022. Russia has lost its dominant position as India’s main arms supplier.

In Kaliningrad, the local governor talks about the necessary 'Russian interpretation of Kantianism', amidst gastromic festivals and bots answering questions from the audience by referring to the philosopher's writings. While Russia's leading neo-Kantian philosopher Viktor Vakštein is demoted to 'foreign agent' and forced to emigrate to Israel.

Since 2023, a well-equipped branch of the Moscow Federal Medical-Biological Agency (Fmba) has been opened on the peninsula in Yalta, bringing a large team of specialists to the site. In addition to medical and epidemiological analyses, ecological ones are also being developed to counter - the Russians claim - 'American biological experiments on the territory of Ukraine'.

The question of post-colonialism in Russia is the great underlying theme imposed by the Russian war in Ukraine. Behind the claims of the 'Russian world' are the aspirations of the many peoples who for centuries have been subjected to the imperial domination of different ideologies, from the Tsarist to the Soviet, and today by the Kirill-Putin Eurasian vision, which by taking on Ukraine has in fact uncovered the Pandora's box of all Russian history.

At an international forum held in Novgorod, Prof. Fen Yu Shun of Shanghai's Fudan University openly stated that in his opinion the invasion of Ukraine is bound to end in a fiasco for Russia. 'Moscow wants to destabilise the world order by forceful actions, Beijing wants to recompose it'.

There are over 8,000 people imprisoned for political reasons and over 300,000 who have been forced to leave the country for the same reasons in a land of just 10 million inhabitants. And ever since the Lukasenko regime forced citizens abroad to return to their homeland to reissue their passports, the number of stateless Belarusians around Europe and the world has multiplied exponentially.

In many regions of the two countries, rivers have been flooding since the beginning of April. Among the worst affected areas are the Kazakh region of Atyrau and the Russian city of Orsk. Astana rejects the criticism that it did not manage the discharge of snow accumulations properly. There is controversy over the Russian civil defence not taking measures to mitigate the impact of the water.

Having archived the historic friendship between Putin and Netanyahu, the change in Russian-Israeli relations did not begin on 7 October 2023, but when Israel began openly supporting Ukraine more than a year earlier. And on the Moscow-Tehran-Beijing axis, Middle Eastern issues are both symbolic and practical.

According to the head of the Levada Center, Russia's leading sociological research institute, “only 10 per cent of Russians are actively interested in politics, and the war involves a super-politicisation of a minority in the face of the depoliticisation of the masses.” Only 30 per cent of Russians are willing to trust people outside their ever-shrinking circle of relatives and friends.

Today's news: over 243 million children in East and Southeast Asia at risk from heat waves:; Beijing denies top management access to two US companies for selling arms to Taiwan; The Taliban want to black out Facebook (and social media) by blocking the few sources of information; Islamabad negotiates the renewal of the rescue plan with the International Monetary Fund; Over 98,000 people evacuated in Kazakhstan due to flooding.

Today's news: Hong Kong denied access to a Reporters Without Borders representative, who was searched and then deported; At least 16% of the candidates in the first phase of the Lok Sabha vote have pending criminal cases; Taiwan earthquake death toll rises to 16, over 1100 injured; The Houthis claim an attack on four boats in the Gulf, also a 'US warship'.