Other news of the day: China will close its airspace north of Taiwan to recover parts of a downed satellite. North Korea would have launched a new type of ballistic missile. A famous Vietnamese blogger is sentenced to six years in jail. In India they continue to cancel references to the founding fathers. In the Russian Far East, people accused of supporting Ukraine have been arrested.
BAHRAIN-QATAR
Manama and Doha resume their diplomatic relations. The normalization occurs two years after the breaking of the boycott of Qatar by some Arab countries, including Bahrain. In December 2021, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt resumed full relations with the Qataris, but Manama did not.
TAIWAN-CHINA
The Taiwanese government says it has convinced Beijing to scale back its plan close airspace north of the island. According to South Korea, the Chinese announced the initiative to recover the fallen debris of one of their own satellites. The operation, whose duration was initially going to be three days -as of April 16- will only take 27 minutes and will take place on Sunday.
KOREA-JAPAN
North Korea would have tested today a new type of ballistic missile solid fuel, Seoul warns. The rocket would have fallen to the east of the Korean peninsula and was headed for Japan. Tokyo had issued an evacuation order for the island of Hokkaido, but it was withdrawn after 30 minutes.
VIETNAM
Hanoi People’s Court sentenced Nguyen Lan Than to six years in prison, a well-known political activist and blogger. Two years of probation are added to the sentence. He is accused of spreading “anti-state propaganda.”
INDIA
The suppression of references to the fathers of the country in school textbooks continues. The National Council of Educational Research removed from political science textbooks the phrase referring to former Education Minister Maulana Azad (Muslim) as a member of the post-independence Constituent Assembly. Prior to that, the allusion to the assassination of Mahatma Gandhi had been cancelled.
RUSSIA
Two people were arrested in the Russian Far East on charges of “state treason”. An arrest took place on the island of Sakhalin, where a citizen intended to move from the East to Ukraine to join the kyiv army; the other occurred in Khabarovsk, from where funds were allegedly transferred to the Ukrainian forces, a fact that has already been pointed out on other occasions.
KAZAKHSTAN
Astana wants to increase oil exports (to Europe) through Azerbaijan, President Tokaev stated after his meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart Aliev. The Kazakhs intend to give the new directive “a stable and long-term character”, with the “Middle Corridor” project for the period 2022-2027, as a guarantee for all international partners.
