Today's news: Poverty in Lebanon tripled in a decade; Summit between leaders of South Korea, China and Japan on 26-27 May in Seoul, first trilateral talks in four years; Heavy pre-monsoon rains claim seven victims in Kerala; A centuries-old Armenian church reopens in Zakho, Iraq; Russian local government offers children a prize trip to ‘fascinating’ North Korea.
Moscow is pushing to extend the free trade area created in 2014 with Belarus and Kazakhstan and already extended to Armenia and Kyrgyzstan to all non-hostile former Soviet countries. But the Eurasian countries are gaining big economic benefits from geopolitical tensions. With the oil sector, in particular, now poised between traditional routes and new prospects of collaboration with Westerners.
Today's news: Hong Kong denied access to a Reporters Without Borders representative, who was searched and then deported; At least 16% of the candidates in the first phase of the Lok Sabha vote have pending criminal cases; Taiwan earthquake death toll rises to 16, over 1100 injured; The Houthis claim an attack on four boats in the Gulf, also a 'US warship'.
Today's news: reports of workplace abuse have doubled in South Korea in five years; Baghdad will send 10 million liters of fuel to the Gaza Strip; Public apology from a company in Malaysia for a shoe logo that resembles the word "Allah"; The Taliban have built a wall around the Eidgah mosque in Kandahar for fear of ISIS attacks: Moscow has slowed issuing work permits to migrants from Central Asia.
According to the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters, a quarter of the earth's population lives in areas where the soil sinks due to groundwater collection. Among the countries most at risk are the Philippines, Iran, Indonesia and Uzbekistan, where subsidence exceeds 50 millimetres per year. Tashkent plans new, more geologically aware water supply networks.
Defence Minister Šojgu - lashing out against those who oppose Moscow's presence "in countries traditionally our friends" - equates Isis terrorists and large pro-Western NGOs. While Kyrgyzstan approves a law "on non-commercial organisations" that is a photocopy of the Russian one and puts foreign financing in the crosshairs.
