ASIA TODAY Fourteen pro-democracy activists sentenced by a Hong Kong court

Today’s news: four Pakistanis killed in a shootout on the border with Iran. Netanyahu surpasses Gantz for the first time since October 7 in a poll on Israel. Hun Manet announces the start of work on the Funan Techo canal in August. In Kaliningrad, senior management of Rosatom and the IAEA discuss the Zaporižja nuclear power plant.

HONG KONG

Fourteen members of pro-democracy movements were convicted and two acquitted in the first verdict of a trial that came to an end due to the repression of protest movements applied in 2019 under the National Security Law. The crime of “subversion” of which they are accused is that of organizing primary elections to achieve

IRAN-PAKISTAN

Four Pakistanis died and two were wounded late in the afternoon of May 29 when Iranian forces opened fire in the southwestern province of Balochistan, Pakistan. The shooting occurred near the border between both countries, in the Washuk district. Former Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi had traveled to Pakistan in April for a three-day official visit, with which he intended to settle differences after the military attacks unprecedented at the beginning of the year. Iran and Pakistan have had a history of difficult relations, but the January missile attacks were the most serious incidents in recent years.

ISRAEL

For the first time since the start of the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has surpassed a poll his main antagonist, War Cabinet Minister Benny Gantz, as the electorate’s preferred option. The survey broadcast by Channel 12 marks a recovery for the Likud and punishes Gantz’s uncertainties, unable to present a real alternative. On the left side of the political spectrum, the poll assigns 10 seats (out of 120) to the announced alliance between the Labor Party and the anti-war party Meretz, led by the newly elected Labor leader, former general Yair Golan.

CAMBODIA

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, announces that construction work on the Funan Techo canal will begin in August. The infrastructure is contested by Vietnam – which fears repercussions on the course of the Mekong River – and is viewed with concern in the West as another example of the advance of Chinese interests in Cambodia. Hun Manet has responded that the Funan Techo will be built on Cambodian territory to serve the interests of the Khmer people, while the majority of the investment capital is also Khmer.

INDIA

The space company Agnikul Cosmos, based in Chennai, this morning successfully launched from a private platform in Shriharikota, for the first time in India. The SOrTeD rocket uses a combination of gas and liquid fuel and features the world’s first one-piece 3D printed engine, designed and built in-house.

RUSSIA-UKRAINE

In Kaliningrad, in a room at the Khrabrovo airport, talks begin between the head of the Russian agency Rosatom, Aleksej Likhačev, and the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, to discuss the situation at the nuclear power plant in Zaporižja, after several previous meetings in Moscow, St. Petersburg and Soči, including with Putin.

KAZAKHSTAN

Kazakh Energy Minister Almasadam Satkaliev declared that the new nuclear power plant planned for the country will be awarded through a tender, for which companies from South Korea, Russia, China and France have passed the preliminary examinations. Other suitors could be added to the list, including the United States and Japan.