North Asia

Today's news: Covid-19 dismissed, North Korea decorates streets with (fake) flowers to celebrate Kim Il Sung; Recently released Vietnamese political prisoner Phan Kim Khanh denounces labour exploitation in prisons; Tomorrow evening, daylight saving time also strikes in Lebanon; in parks and public places in Russia, civil defence films are broadcast with warnings in case of a nuclear attack; In Uttar Pradesh Hindu radicals prevent Muslims from praying for Ramadan.

Vepsy, Ižory and Vožani could lose their lands. Already repressed in the Stalin era. They have affinities with Baltic and Finnish peoples. With war on Ukraine, they are back in the crosshairs of the authorities. Accused of separatism, extremism and of being 'foreign agents'.

Sri Lanka is considering building small, offshore and onshore reactors, deeming nuclear power an environmentally and economically viable option. Currently, its electricity comes mainly from hydroelectric power plants. The government is vetting an existing contract between Rosatom and Bangladesh.

Today's headlines: Singapore premier on official visit to China, the first since the pandemic; Taliban block a march of women activists in Kabul for women's right to study; Myanmar's coup leader moves against 'acts of terrorism' by armed groups fighting against the army; First 'controlled' demonstration in Hong Kong; In five months more than 25,000 Russians reached the USA across the Mexican border.

The Chinese launch the new 5+1 format for dialogue with the former Soviet republics in the region. The focus on communication campaigns in Kyrgyzstan. The risk of being dragged into the geopolitical competition between the West and the China-Russia duo.

We are incapable of learning from history, otherwise there would be wars. But while one wonders how to finally succeed in bringing the fires to an end, one can still find inspiration in a distant date, when in 1686 the war between the reign of the Czar of Russia and the Polish-Lithuanian kingdom of Reczpospolita was ended.

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I supports the creation of a new ecclesiastical jurisdiction on Lithuanian soil. It will give autonomy to the Lithuanian Orthodox who no longer want to depend on the Moscow Patriarchate. Analogy with the Ukrainian Autocephalous Church founded in 2018. A response to Patriarch Kirill's support for the Putin war against Ukraine.

Russia’s leader highlights the building of the Power of Siberia 2 pipeline by 2030, but China keeps it out of the final declaration. While willing to buy more Russian gas at discounted prices, Beijing also wants to keep its traditional suppliers. The Chinese are already in talks with the Turkmens for another pipeline.

Some Cossack groups claim their own entity independent of Moscow. The risk of disintegration is one of the effects of the Russian war on Ukraine. The first attempts at a Cossack state after the Bolshevik revolution. Difficult to determine how many people belong to the community.

The team that participated in the European Championships consisted only of refugees from Chechnya. They fled with their families at the time of the Putin war against Chechen separatists. It is now normal in sports for national teams to be multi-ethnic. Moscow attacks.

For years he denied being the founder and commander of the "Wagner Company," which he now glorifies as the "best army in the world." His biography - from prison to catering to today's railings against the rest of the Kremlin elite - is a synthesis of late and post-Soviet history.

Russia and the United States are the main movers. Real parliamentary opposition is unlikely to emerge. Moscow claims rights over Russian-speaking regions in northern Kazakhstan. Ethnic hostility actually favours the stability of Tokaev's power.