Today’s newsletter covers Jordan and Israel’s letter of intent, Hong Kong’s wild pigs, China’s retaliation against Lithuania over the Taiwan representative office, and more.
Jordan and Israel intend to trade electricity for water
Jordan and Israel signed a declaration of intent in which one seeks to increase and diversify its water supply while the other wants to improve its mix of renewable energy.
Hong Kong and the regulation of urban wild boars
The number of wild pigs in the streets of Hong Kong has increased in recent years as well as nuisance reports. It also drives a controversy between the authorities trying to regulate the population of boars and animal lovers who protest against their extermination. Both parties agree the population should stop feeding them.
China downgrades diplomatic relations with Lithuania over Taiwan office
China doesn’t accept that Taiwan opened a representative office in Lithuania. Lithuania claims it is only based on economic interests. The Baltic country’s laser technology could help the next generation of Taiwan’s semiconductors, these microchips in high demand that have been disrupting the production of some of the largest industries for almost a year.
Somewhere else in the world…
A Russian directory of toxic content?
The Presidential Council for Civil Society and Human Rights, a consultative body established to assist President Putin, plans to propose the creation of a Wikipedia-like directory of “toxic content,” Vedomosti reports. The goal would be to provide guidance on content that is not banned but still considered by authorities to be a grey area. As such, information about violence, dangers of vaccination, abortion, or the promotion of LGBT would be considered “toxic content” ranked on a scale from prohibited to undesirable content.
- In Italy, a Court approves assisted suicide for the first time in the country. A 43-year-old quadriplegic had made the request. In 2019, the Constitutional Court ruled that assisted suicide was not punishable under some conditions.
- In the Netherlands, the minister of Education is considering removing sports classes until Christmas to limit the COVID-19 contagions.
- In Hungary, public transportation may soon see severe restrictions in Budapest over disagreements between the capital city administration and the government about operational budgets. Budapest expects to receive 12 billion forints (US $36m), 7% of the budget for the year, by Wednesday 24.
