Russia

After the plebiscite re-election of the Russian president in the midst of the war even the former Soviet republics of Central Asia are wondering about the repercussions. Many experts believe that in the new mandate there will be a renewed interest of Moscow in the whole area. The knot of Asian migrants.

In contrast to Europe, Turkey is increasingly focusing on fossil fuels taking advantage of falling prices. According to Ember, coal use for power generation in the country has gone from 25 per cent in 2013 to 36 per cent today. In 2023, more than US$ 3.7 billion were spent on coal imports.

As Russians go to the polls, the outcome of the presidential election and the turnout have already been decided. The dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is virtually interred in a Siberian concentration camp, described the support for Putin's regime as nothing more than the product of “terror and apathy". The eternal tsar is but the face of a system that excludes the human soul.

Today's headlines: Senior doctors in South Korea join trainee doctors’ protest. India's foreign exchange reserves reach their highest level in two years. Iran is beset by a severe nursing shortage with more than 3,000 emigrating abroad a year. Thailand is considering legalising casinos. The Chinese are quietly occupying Siberia, raising concerns among local Russians.

Baek Kwang-soon, 53, is being held on espionage charges. The Love Rice Sharing Foundation, a Protestant charity he works for, says that “all sorts of Russians, Thai and North Korean workers” are “in need, and we provide them with clothes, food, and gospel.” Last month, North Korea sent 300 workers, despite a UN ban.

In Moscow a meeting sponsored by the Foreign Ministry with representatives of member countries of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and members of the Orthodox Patriarchate. Cooperation in the defense of traditional values but also other common goals on the geopolitical level under discussion.

The latest data on international arms transfers over the past five years come from Sweden-based SIPRI. India is the world's top importer, while the United States, for the first time in 25 years, is Asia’s largest supplier. Driving rearmament, experts explain, is the perception of a Chinese threat (which continues to boost its war production).

A stronghold of the Wagner Company, the Afewerki regime at the UN consistently votes on Moscow's side in resolutions on the conflict in Ukraine. Economic cooperation between the two countries grows steadily from year to year, while a monument to the Russian poet Pushkin has even been erected in Asmara.

Naval'nyy has once again succeeded in overcoming repression and with his death has brought a new 'flower revolution' to the streets. They bring a flower to the small grave in one of the capital's most peripheral and neglected cemeteries where the heart of Russia now stands, the counterbalance to Lenin's mausoleum on Red Square, in front of which the guns and cannons parade.

Today's news: consumer prices in China rise for the first time in six months, driven by the New Year; Punjab, blasphemy: 22-year-old student sentenced to death for Whatsapp messages, a 17-year-old to life imprisonment; UN enquiry: Iran responsible for 'physical violence' that killed Mahsa Amini; Settlement and settler attacks in the West Bank reacheshttps://www.channelnewsasia.com/business/china-economy-consumer-prices-february-chinese-new-year-4183161 record levels.

Patriarch Bartholomew has welcomed into his clergy Fr. Aleksej Uminskij, reduced to the lay state by Patriarch Kirill for refusing to recite war prayers. He had already done so with Russian Orthodox priests who refused to support the war. Moscow does not recognise Constantinople's right to rehabilitate expelled priests, which the Ecumenical Patriarchate instead claims as a tradition of ecclesiastical 'last resort' from the earliest times.

Defence Minister Šojgu - lashing out against those who oppose Moscow's presence "in countries traditionally our friends" - equates Isis terrorists and large pro-Western NGOs. While Kyrgyzstan approves a law "on non-commercial organisations" that is a photocopy of the Russian one and puts foreign financing in the crosshairs.