The Taliban’s Ministry of Refugee and Repatriation confirmed that Iran deported over 3,000 Afghan refugees on 24 January and 25 January. Amid reports about forceful detentions and deportations, Taliban officials confirmed that they have urged Iranian authorities to respect human rights while dealing with the refugees.
Germany arrested a second national on Thursday concerning an espionage scandal, for assisting and passing on critical information to Russia. Similarly, in December, a German Federal Intelligence Service employee was arrested for passing sensitive information to Russia.
Israeli warplanes conducted sorties and bombed Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip on Friday, hours after militants fired three rockets from the enclave. The rockets were launched as Israeli forces raided the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank on Thursday, and killed nine Palestinians including several Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants.
In its latest survey, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) found that poppy cultivation in Myanmar has increased by 33% compared to the previous season. The UN agency found that “economic, security and governance disruptions” due to the military coup forced farmers in “remote, often conflict-prone areas in northern Shan and border states” to switch back to opium cultivation.
Japan and the Netherlands are set to join the US in restricting exports of semiconductor manufacturing equipment to China. Accordingly, the Netherlands is expected to restrict ASML Holding from selling machinery for making certain types of advanced chips, while Japan will impose similar restrictions on Nikon.
The UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on Wednesday added the Ukrainian port city of Odesa to its World Heritage List through an emergency procedure “to ensure that this city, which has always surmounted global upheavals, is preserved from further destruction.” UNESCO also carried out repair works on the Odesa Museum of Fine Arts and the Odesa Museum of Modern Art, which were damaged by Russian attacks.
On Thursday, the National Archives and Records Administration sent a letter to former US Presidents Donald Trump, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, and Ronald Reagan, and former Vice Presidents Mike Pence, Joe Biden, Dick Cheney, Al Gore, and Dan Quayle to re-scrutinise their personal records for any documents, “whether classified or unclassified,” which are covered under the Presidential Records Act.
Ethiopian PM Abiy Ahmed met with a slew of Sudanese leaders, including army general and de facto head of state Abdel Fattah El-Burhan, in Khartoum on Thursday to discuss border disputes and the construction of a mega-dam on the Blue Nile. The “Renaissance Dam” is a multibillion dollar project that is expected to bring electricity to millions of Ethiopians. However, Sudan and Egypt believe the damn will cause them to receive reduced amounts of water from the Nile.
Iraqi PM Mohammed Shia Al Sudani said on Friday that Iraq and France signed a “strategic partnership agreement” to expand cooperation in various fields. Sudani arrived in Paris on Thursday, and held a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Élysée Palace.