Pakistan and Iran have agreed to step up cooperation and intelligence sharing and take “effective actions” to prevent attacks by separatist militants along their porous border. The deal was reached during a visit by Pakistani Army Chief Gen. Asim Munir to Tehran. Munir was on a two-day visit to Tehran following a surge in attacks in the country’s southwestern Balochistan province, which shares a long border with Afghanistan and Iran.
India plans to seal a deal with Indonesia for bilateral trade using domestic currencies and real-time card recognition and digital payments, enabling UPI and similar tools. The potential deal was discussed during Indian Finance Minister (FM) Nirmala Sitharaman’s meeting with her Indonesian counterpart Mulyani Indrawati as the two countries announced the launch of the ‘Economic and Financial Dialogue.’ The Indonesian FM said the countries would discuss the possibility of cooperation in digital technology, payment systems under central banks, and using more local currency.
Chinese President Xi Jinping told former Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte to continue to promote cooperation between the two countries, as bilateral relations have weakened under incumbent leader Ferdinand Marcos Jr. who has sought closer ties with Washington. “I hope you will continue to play an important role in the friendly cooperation,” Xi said during a meeting in Beijing on Monday.
On Monday, China’s Meteorological Administration said it recorded a temperature of 52.2 degrees Celsius in the Xinjiang region’s Sanbao village over the weekend, setting a record for mid-July.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Monday that his defence ministry was formulating proposals for a response to an overnight attack that damaged a road bridge connecting Crimea to southern Russia, which he blamed on Ukraine. Putin termed the attack a cruel and senseless act at the end of a televised video meeting with national and regional leaders to examine the implications of the attack, noting that the bridge “has not been used for military transportation for a long time.”
According to UN Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs Rosemary DiCarlo, about 9,200 civilians have been killed in the Ukrainian War. DiCarlo claims that, in the 500 days since the start of Russia’s ‘special military operation’ in Ukraine, 9,287 people have been killed, including 537 children. Another 16,384 people, including 1,117 children, have been injured. “Currently, more than 6.3 million Ukrainians are refugees, and an estimated 5.1 million people are internally displaced,” she added.
The US is sending F-35 fighter jets and a warship to the Persian Gulf to bolster its military to counter Iranian and Russian forces in the region, officials said on Monday. The deployment comes as Iranian forces seized two commercial tankers passing through the volatile Strait of Hormuz chokepoint earlier this month.