Today’s news: International Court of Justice calls West Bank settlements “illegal”, Netanyahu: land of the Jewish people. Study reveals that women are much more affected than men in Covid deaths in India 2020. A Japanese gymnast withdraws from the Olympic Games after being caught smoking and drinking, behaviours prohibited in Tokyo for those under 20 years old. In Lugansk, monuments to victims of the Holodomor famine caused by Stalin are removed
HONG KONG
In case of Selina Chenga local journalist who was fired by the Wall Street Journal just days after agreeing to take over as president of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, the largest media union and which has long been under pressure for its battles in defence of press freedom, is causing a stir in Hong Kong. According to Cheng, the American newspaper (which had already moved its local office to Singapore) had succumbed to pressure from the authorities. The Independent Association of Publishers’ Employees, the Wall Street Journal’s journalists’ union, has come to its defence in the United States.
PALESTINE-ISRAEL
The International Court of Justice yesterday issued its Advisory opinion on Israeli settlements in the West Bank is expectedwhich states that Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestinian territories is “illegal” and must end “as soon as possible.” Presenting the UN Tribunal’s findings, President Nawaf Salam said that Israel must compensate Palestinians for the damage caused, adding that the UN Security Council, the General Assembly and all states have an obligation not to recognize the Israeli occupation as legal. Rejecting these findings, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu responded by stating that the Jewish people cannot be considered an occupier in what he called their historic homeland.
INDIA
A study conducted by 10 researchers from the universities of Oxford, Berkeley and Paris on the Covid deaths in India in 2020 The study found that the impact on the population was strongly influenced by gender inequality. Indeed, the data showed that between 2019 and 2020, women’s life expectancy fell by one year more than that of men, a phenomenon that did not occur in most of the other countries examined.
OCEANIA-UNITED STATES-CHINA
The United States has opened an embassy in the island nation of Vanuatu in the Pacificthe latest move by Washington in its competition with Beijing for influence in the Asia-Pacific region. The United States has already opened embassies in the Solomon Islands and Tonga, and plans to open another in Kiribati to counter what it sees as a growing threat from China, its main strategic rival.
JAPAN
Shoko Miyata, 19, captain of the Japanese women’s artistic gymnastics team, withdrew from the Paris Olympics after admitting to smoking and drinking. Smoking and drinking are banned in Japan for those under 20. Miyata’s absence will be a blow to the women’s team, which is aiming to win its first Olympic team medal in Tokyo since 1964. Shoko Miyata had won bronze on beam and finished eighth in the all-around at the 2022 World Championships.
RUSSIA-UKRAINE
In the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Luhansk, granite monuments to victims of Stalin’s repressions and the Holodomor, the famine caused by Stalin in 1932-33, have been dismantled by the Russian provisional administration “at the request of veterans’ organisations”, which consider them “fake and offensive to true patriotism”.
KYRGYZSTAN-UZBEKISTAN
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zaparov has arrived in Tashkent and met his counterpart Savkat Mirziyoyev at Islam Karimov Airport for an official visit to Uzbekistan for bilateral talks at the highest level. Important agreements are expected to be signed during the meeting, and a visit to the capital and the mythical city of Khiva, founded by Shem, son of Noah, is also planned.
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