Israel: Ben-Gvir orders removal of Palestinian flags from public spaces

Today's headlines: 185 Rohingya refugees arrived in Indonesia; Malaysia's conservatives against bikinis, alcohol and gambling; Chaos in northern India due to cold and fog; The Orthodox Patriarchate of Moscow has definitively lost control over the Kiev Cave Lavra.

ISRAEL - PALESTINE

Israel's new far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, instructed the police to remove Palestinian flags from public spaces, calling them an instrument of 'terrorism'. Israeli law does not ban Palestinian flags, but police and soldiers have the right to remove them in cases where they feel there is a threat to public order.

MALAYSIA

In the increasingly conservative state of Kedah, ruled by the Islamist PAS (Pan-Malaysian Islamic Party), local authorities criticised the bikini and gambling ban and announced that the sale of alcohol would also be limited, especially in Langkawi, a popular tourist destination. Observers see this as an attempt by the Perikatan Nasional - the coalition of which PAS is a member - to position itself as the champion of Islam in view of the state elections to be held by August.

INDONESIA

A boat with 185 Rohingya refugees arrived on the coast of the Indonesian province of Aceh yesterday. More than half are women and children. The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said that 2022 could be one of the deadliest years at sea for the Rohingya, an ethnic group of the Islamic faith in Myanmar.

INDIA

In the north of India, a cold snap and thick fog are causing chaos in airports and railway stations and severe problems for the population. The authorities in the capital Delhi have asked schools to extend their winter holidays and cancel classes. The temperature in some parts of the city dropped to 1.9 degrees yesterday.

PAKISTAN

A delegation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will meet the Pakistani finance minister on the sidelines of a conference in Geneva. The IMF has yet to approve the release of USD 1.1 billion that was originally supposed to be disbursed in November last year. Pakistan was thus left with only enough foreign exchange reserves to cover one month's imports.

AFGHANISTAN

The ban on women working in NGOs could translate into a return to child labour: this is what Save the Children, one of the humanitarian organisations forced to suspend its services to the Afghan population after the imposition of the latest ban by the Taliban, has said. Female aid workers make up 50 per cent of the organisation's workforce and are crucial in reaching women and girls who, for cultural reasons, cannot interact with male aid workers.

RUSSIA - UKRAINE

The Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate, to which many believers and part of the clergy remain attached in Ukraine, has definitively lost control over the Lavra of the Kiev Caves, the first historical monastery of Rus', in which the Christmas holidays were celebrated by the autocephalous Epifanyj of Kiev. The pro-Russian Metropolitan Pavel, superior of the Caves on the Moscow side and called 'Paša-Mercedes' for his love of luxury, was turned away by entry controls.

UZBEKISTAN

The director of the 'Uzbekneftegas', Khusniddin Turaev, guaranteed that Uzbekistan has sufficient gas reserves for a long time, with two trillion cubic metres of natural gas available, which is extracted to the extent of 50 billion cubic metres annually, enough for the next 40 years, and the forecast can only be corrected upwards.

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