South Asia
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke with his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron over the phone on Tuesday to discuss various issues, including the ongoing heatwave and drought in France, defence cooperation, and civil nuclear energy. They also agreed to “work together” to end the ongoing conflict in Ukraine and discussed the “destabilising” effects of the war on the world at large. [Indian Ministry of External Affairs, Le Figaro]
The Maldivian Finance Ministry is seeking to hire debt analysts, as the national debt has now surpassed $6.5 billion, up from $1.6 billion at the end of 2020. The government intends to reduce direct debt to 105% of its GDP and reduce the primary budget by 5%. [Avas Maldives]
Central Asia and the Caucasus
On Tuesday, Kazakh authorities for the first time published a list of those killed during the January riots. Officials put the death toll at 238, six higher than the number of deaths reported by media. Protests erupted in Almaty, Nur Sultan, and the Mangistau province on January 1 after the government lifted price caps on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG), doubling the price of a fuel widely used by Kazakhs to power their vehicles. [RFE/RL]
Armenian Defence Minister Suren Papikyan met with his Russian counterpart Sergei Shoigu in Moscow to discuss the activities of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh and military cooperation. The duo agreed to maintain the ceasefire in the region. [Public Radio of Armenia]
East and Southeast Asia
There will be no trial for Hong Kong’s largest national security law case against 47 defendants, which includes democratically elected lawmakers and academics. The defendants have been charged with “conspiracy to subversion” for holding an unofficial primary election two years ago. The financial hub’s new Secretary for Justice Paul Lam reasoned that the decision was made in order to ensure the “personal safety of jurors and their family members” and to eliminate a “risk of perverting the course of justice if the trial is conducted with a jury.” [Channel News Asia]
South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol said Wednesday that he could not provide North Korea with security guarantees. He added, however, that his government does not want to change Pyongyang’s status quo “unreasonably or by force.” [The Korea Herald]
Europe
On Tuesday, Estonia removed a Soviet-era memorial in the eastern city of Narva, which has a large Russian-speaking minority, in light of “increasing tensions and confusion around memorials” in the city. “We must act quickly to ensure public order and internal security,” Prime Minister Kajas Kallas said in a statement amid fears of riots because of the local population’s resistance to moving the World War II-era T-34 tank to the Estonian War Museum. “We will not afford Russia the opportunity to use the past to disturb the peace,” Kallas asserted. Estonia plans to take down between 200-400 such Soviet-era monuments this year. [The Moscow Times]
The British government has initiated formal discussions with the European Union (EU) over the delay in granting access to the bloc’s scientific research programmes. It has accused the EU of restricting these programmes for over 18 months since the Brexit agreement came into place. Foreign Secretary Liz Truss blamed the EU for politicising essential scientific cooperation. [UK Government]
Finnish Foreign Minister Pekka Havisto said that from September, Finland would cut down on Russian tourist visas by 90% over Russia’s ongoing military aggression in Ukraine. The country will only accept around 100 visa applications per day compared to its current daily rate of 1,000. [Politico]
Latin America and the Caribbean
On Tuesday, independent Mexican journalist Juan Arjón López was found dead in San Luis, raising the death toll of media reporters in the country to 14 so far this year. López was reported missing on August 9 and died from “head trauma due to a blunt blow,” according to the autopsy report. San Luis Chief Prosecutor Claudia Contreras has said that further investigations to identify the motive of the killing are underway. [Associated Press]
Speaking at the Caribbean Community meeting in Nassau on Tuesday, Bahamian Prime Minister Philip Davis urged the 18-member regional bloc to put up a united front at the upcoming COP27 Climate negotiations in Egypt to ensure that their voices are “heard above louder, wealthier, carbon-producing interests” and to nudge developed countries to “honour past pledges for climate assistance.” He added that “we are commitment-fatigued and we are pledge-fatigued,” pointing to rich nations’ failure to provide $100 billion in climate aid to poor countries by 2020. [Reuters]
Middle East and North Africa (MENA)
Iraqi Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Tuesday indefinitely postponed a “million man” demonstration in Baghdad. Last week, Sadr had called on Iraqis to stage a massive sit-in near the parliament and demand its dissolution. Sadr and his supporters have demanded fresh elections over the inability of parties to form a government. [AFP]
The Israeli military has claimed responsibility for the August 7 strike on Gaza’s Jabaliya camp that killed five children. Israel previously claimed that a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket was responsible for the deaths. However, the report blamed Islamic Jihad for the death of eight civilians a day earlier in Jabaliya. [Haaretz]
North America
United States President Joe Biden signed the $750 billion ‘Inflation Reduction Act’ into law on Tuesday, saying, “The American people won and the special interests lost.” He stressed that the landmark tax, climate, and healthcare bill would reduce the trade deficit by another $300 billion over the next decade, and invests $369 billion to “take the most aggressive action ever” in combating the climate crisis and “strengthening our energy security.” Furthermore, it levies a minimum corporate tax of 15% on corporations and enables 13 million people to save $800 per year on health insurance. [The White House]
Following United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan early this month, the chair of the Canadian parliament’s standing committee on international trade, Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) Judy Sgro, announced on Tuesday that a delegation of eight MPs would visit the island in October. Admitting the “significant strain” caused after Pelosi’s visit that resulted in China conducting live-fire military drills around Taiwan’s territorial waters, Sgro remarked, “I’m proud that Canada is standing up to China as well. And I think that pushback is very important.” [CBC News]
Oceania
Australian Prime Minister (PM) Anthony Albanese is pushing to boost domestic manufacturing in an attempt to secure the economy against possible global supply chain shortages in the future. “We need a future made in Australia. There are a range of lessons from the pandemic, but one of them is we need to be more resilient and more self-reliant,” Albanese said. He added that the country could not “continue to assume that it’s okay to be at the end of global supply chains.” [The Canberra Times]
Following year-long efforts by the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC), five Afghan families with links to the Olympics have arrived in Australia for relocation, including dual Olympics sprinter and flag bearer Kimia Yousofi. At the upcoming Paris Olympics 2024, the athletes could represent either Afghanistan, if the Taliban government offers backing for a delegation that includes women, or the International Olympic Committee’s Refugee Team. [SBS]
Sub-Saharan Africa
Kenyan opposition leader Raila Odinga on Tuesday denounced the “many flaws” in the recently concluded presidential elections, stating that “what we saw yesterday is a travesty and a blatant disregard of the Constitution” and vowed to “pursue all legal options” to challenge the results in the Supreme Court. This comes a day after the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) declared Deputy President William Ruto victorious with a vote share of around 50.5%. [Africanews]
On Tuesday, Zimbabwean Health Minister Monica Mutsvangwa revealed that a measles outbreak has killed 157 children aged between six and 15 months this month, with the death toll and caseload nearly doubling over the last week. She added that “most cases have not received vaccination to protect against measles,” blaming apostolic church sects for propagating vaccine-hesitancy. The government has invoked the Civil Protection Unit Act to step up the pace of vaccinations to arrest the surging infections. [Reuters]