Following an explosion near the Israeli Embassy in New Delhi on Tuesday, Israel has issued a travel advisory for its nationals in India. The advisory issued by the Israeli National Security headquarters urged people to avoid visiting crowded places and places being used by Western/Jewish and Israeli elements. Saying that the blast “may have been an attack,” Israel advised people to avoid externalising Israeli symbols. The explosion that took place around 5:20 p.m. did not kill or wound any embassy staff members.
On Tuesday, Pakistan’s Peshawar High Court suspended the election commission’s order barring former PM Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf (PTI) from using its electoral symbol of a cricket bat. Last week, the commission had rejected PTI’s intra-party polls and barred it from using the symbol.
Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Tuesday that the perpetrators of the attacks on Merchant Vessel (MV) Chem Pluto in the Arabian Sea and MV Sai Baba in the Red Sea would be soon brought to justice, and strict action would be taken against them. Singh added that the Indian government had taken the attacks very seriously, and the navy had increased its surveillance.
At the opening of a key political meeting to set new policy goals for 2024, North Korean leader Kim Jong-un on Tuesday defined 2023 “as a year of great turn and great change both in name and reality, in which [North Korea] left a great trace in the glorious course of development in the efforts to improve the national power and enhance the prestige of the country.”
Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed on Tuesday to resolutely prevent anyone from “splitting Taiwan from China in any way.” The statement comes a little more than two weeks before Taiwan elects a new leader. “The motherland must be reunified, and inevitably will be reunified,” Xi told senior officials from the Communist Party.
The Turkish Parliament’s foreign affairs committee approved Sweden’s bid to join NATO on Tuesday. “The next step is for parliament to vote on the issue. We look forward to becoming a member of NATO,” Swedish Foreign Minister Tobias Billström said.