Your Monday Briefing: Sri Lanka in Turmoil

Good morning. We’re overlaying the resignation of Sri Lanka’s president, election ends in Japan and Russia’s bombardment of Donetsk, Ukraine.

The mandate will give the lawmakers a brand new likelihood to pursue Abe’s long-held ambition of revising a clause that renounces struggle within the nation’s pacifist Structure.

The election outcomes have been additionally a transparent signal that Abe, Japan’s longest-serving prime minister, remained a guiding political power, though he resigned in 2020. However with out him, the desire to push revisions by way of a troublesome parliamentary course of might wane.

Context: The plan to amend the Structure has lengthy been unpopular with the general public. With inflation pressures mounting, the yen weakening, the struggle in Ukraine heightening fears of vitality shortages and coronavirus infections rising, it might be a more durable promote than ever.

Assassination: Right here is what we all know to this point. The police have launched little details about the suspect and his motives, however acknowledged that Abe’s safety was flawed.

Russia bombards Donetsk

Russia has aggressively moved to take your entire Donbas area of Ukraine after seizing the Luhansk province final week. Over the weekend, it bombarded the 5 principal cities and cities in neighboring Donetsk, the opposite province within the area.

No less than 15 individuals have been killed in Donetsk when a Russian missile hit an condo advanced within the village of Chasiv Yar. Rescue crews mentioned that as much as 20 individuals might nonetheless be trapped, together with a 9-year-old boy. Listed below are stay updates.

Within the northeast, Russian forces additionally performed assaults on the Kharkiv area. Final week, Russia established a civilian administration and unveiled a brand new flag in border areas beneath its management — an indication, analysts mentioned, that Moscow plans to annex the territory.

Ukrainian officers estimate that Russia already occupies about 30 % of the Kharkiv area.

Troopers: Russia, determined for recruits, has turned to money incentives to herald new fighters — typically from impoverished minority teams.

Fuel costs: President Biden is looking for a world value cap on Russian oil, a full European ban on which might increase U.S. fuel costs to $7 a gallon.

Evaluation: The struggle is changing into a contest of worldwide stamina between Russia and the West.

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The G20 assembly

South Korea is thought for its blazing broadband and revolutionary units. However the nation stays tethered to a buggy and insecure piece of software program that was launched 27 years in the past and has since been deserted by a lot of the world: Web Explorer.

A ‘sizzling canine bus’ returns

Double-decker “sizzling canine buses,” nicknamed for his or her lack of air-conditioning, have been as soon as a every day function of life in Hong Kong. However they’ve been out of fee for greater than a decade.

Now, not less than one has returned to town’s streets, thanks to 2 pilots who pooled their financial savings to purchase and restore the relic. When the pandemic reduce their flight hours, they spent months scouring the web for vintage components, watching previous video clips to find out the proper font and placement of stickers and decals, and documenting the method on Instagram.

For onlookers, the bus is a visit of nostalgia, a portal to the Eighties and ’90s. When the pilots, Luca Tong and Kobee Ko, park it at a terminal by the harbor entrance, fanatics come aboard to marvel at it. “All my reminiscences got here again,” mentioned one girl who used to experience sizzling canine buses in highschool and who introduced her 4-year-old son for the expertise.

However the bus can also be a memento of a happier time within the metropolis, earlier than pandemic restrictions and a sweeping political crackdown.

“Again then, there was freedom, cash and a complete lot of heat,” Tong, 35, mentioned. “The bus has the sensation of Hong Kong at the moment, however that feeling is disappearing from Hong Kong.”