Iran’s president and foreign minister who died in a helicopter crash were among those responsible for Lebanon’s paralysis. In Beirut many believe that their death will not have any impact on the conflict between Hezbollah and Israel on the country’s southern border, nor on its presidential election. Things could be different if the incident was deliberate.

In Bishkek, notices are circulating promising earnings of up to ,000 a week, twice the average monthly salary of a Kyrgyz worker, for “jobs” that are actually recruitment for drug couriers. Drug trafficking charges in Russia can carry a sentence of 20 years to life imprisonment. Many prisoners are sent directly to the front lines in Ukraine.

While the eyes of the world are on the negotiations between China and the United States, Chinese-backed ethnic militias control new unregulated rare earth deposits. Beijing's priority is clear: to secure control over strategic resources, including through growing interventionism that is fuelling the country’s civil war and causing serious environmental damage.

According to the latest data from the Pew Research Center, Buddhism is the only religion to have fewer believers in 2020 than in 2010, a drop of 18.6 million, largely due to a low birth rate in predominantly Buddhist countries as well as changes in youth culture in Southeast Asian societies. At 40, the average age among Buddhists is the highest among various religions.

The Catholic charity is the fourth recipient of the Human Dignity Award by Nanzan University, a Catholic institution. Caritas President Card Kikuchi, archbishop of Tokyo and a former student, collected the prize. In his address, the prelate mentioned Caritas’s missionary origins, and its transformation into a confederation of 162 national chapters, involved in ongoing emergencies, like Gaza, Ukraine and Myanmar. He noted that the organisation does “not act for the poor – we act with them". It is never a "stranger", but always "part of the community".

For the Jordanian expert, the picture is “negative” with Israel “operating on multiple, non-bordering fronts,” perhaps soon even inside Iran. The United States orders the evacuation of its embassy in Iraq, the most exposed in the event of conflict. The IAEA approves a resolution against Iran, raising the possibility of fresh sanctions.