Mindanao: shooting at polling stations

Today's headlines: China has admitted new military exercises near Taiwan; a tungsten mine reopens in South Korea ; coal shortages lead to blackouts in India; about 4 million have left Russia; Assad flew to Iran yesterday.

PHILIPPINES

Shooting in Buluan, on the island of Mindanao: on presidential election day, gunmen killed three police officers shortly before polls opened. Mindanao is known to be an unstable region and it is not the first instance of election related violence.

INDIA

Coal shortages are saprking continuous power outages in India that can last up to 14 hours. Three-quarters of India's electricity is still generated by coal. Diesel generators are three times more expensive. Heat waves in recent weeks have exacerbated the situation worse.

SOUTH KOREA

After 30 years Seoul has reopened  the Sangdong mine to extract tungsten and counter China's monopoly of mining and use of rare metals, the minerals used to make batteries and renewable technologies. Demand for rare metals is expected to increase four-fold by 2040 or 30-fold for some types of minerals.

CHINA - TAIWAN

Over the weekend, the Chinese military conducted another military exercise near Taiwan. At least 18 Chinese aircraft entered the island's air defense zone (adiz), the People's Liberation Army command admitted.

NEPAL

Kami Rita, 52, broke his own record and climbed Everest for the 26th time. The climbing route followed by the Sherpa of Nepal is the one discovered in 1953 and the most popular. This year the Nepalese government issued 316 permits to climb the mountain; last year there were 408.

RUSSIA

Russia's FSB services have published data on "traitorous" Russian citizens who left the country in the first four months of 2022, amounting to about 4 million, one million to the Caucasus alone, over half a million to Central Asia, more than 300,000 to Ukraine. In the previous 20 years, 5 million people had left Russia.

SIBERIA

Tthree people died in a fire in the Krasnoyarsk region of Siberia, while two children would also appeared to have been killed in the village of Talazanka. Fires are ravaging Siberia even more than in previous years, currently in 16 population centers over 200 buildings are burning.

SYRIA - IRAN

Yesterday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met with Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and President Ebrahim Raisi. Assad, who emerged victorious from the war, aims to strengthen bilateral relations with Iran, the most important regional ally. Since the outbreak of the conflict in 2011 yesterday's is the second visit of Assad in Iran.