Japan hangs “Twitter killer” hanged in First execution since 2022

Today's news: The United States has approves million in funding for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation; Investigators have downloaded flight data from the black boxes of the Air India Boeing 787 Dreamliner; Washington and Beijing have reached a trade agreement on Chinese rare earths; Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan: coup foiled.

JAPAN

Japan has hanged a man convicted of the serial murders of nine people in 2017 near Tokyo, the government has announced, marking the country's first execution since July 2022. The death sentence of Takahiro Shiraishi, 34, nicknamed the Japanese “Twitter killer”, was confirmed in 2021 after he withdrew his appeal. He was found guilty of killing, dismembering and storing the bodies of his nine victims in his apartment in Zama, Kanagawa Prefecture.

GAZA - IRAN

The United States has approved the first direct funding of million for the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), supported by Israel in the Gaza Strip, and has urged other countries to follow suit. The GHF, supported by US contractors armed alongside Israeli troops on the perimeter, began operations in late May, marked by scenes of chaos, killings and fears about neutrality. Meanwhile, Iranian authorities continue theirwave of arrests and several executions of people suspected of having ties to Israel.

INDIA

Investigators have downloaded data from the flight recorders (flight data and cockpit voice recordings) relating to the Air India plane crash that killed 260 people. This is a long-awaited step towards understanding the world's worst air disaster of the last decade. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner, bound for London, crashed moments after take-off from the Indian city of Ahmedabad on 12 June, killing 241 of the 242 people on board, as well as numerous people on the ground.

USA - CHINA

The United States has reached an agreement with China on how to speed up shipments of rare earths to the United States, as part of efforts to end the trade war between the world's two largest economies. During trade talks between the United States and China held in Geneva in May, Beijing pledged to remove non-tariff countermeasures imposed against the United States since 2 April, such as a ban on exports of minerals and magnets, although it was unclear how some of these measures would be lifted.

ARMENIA

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that law enforcement agencies had prevented a coup attempt being prepared by the pro-Russian “Holy War” movement led by Armenian Church bishop Bagrat Galstanyan, a representative of the “oligarchic clergy” whose sole aim is to “destabilise the republic” with a series of attacks that were to take place before the local elections in November.

INDONESIA

The Indonesian Attorney General's Office has signed an agreement with four telecommunications operators to install interception devices, raising questions among analysts about the possible impact on privacy and surveillance. The agreement would allow prosecutors to access telephone records and exchange data for crime-fighting purposes. The Indonesian police and anti-corruption agency are already authorised to use interception.

RUSSIA

The Moscow Duma has made it mandatory for manufacturers of mobile phones, tablets and laptops to install the RuStore app, allowing payments to be made through it, especially for Apple smartphones, which have not formally left the Russian market and which block all Russian banks from App Store services in accordance with sanctions.

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