Pakistan, Israel-Palestine, Brazil.

Today's three stories you should know.

Aug 22, 2022

Pakistan

Pakistan’s former prime minister, Imran Khan, has been charged under anti-terrorism laws after criticising police and a judge, and alleging that a close ally had been tortured. The charges will ramp up tensions that are already sky-high after Khan held a series of rallies arguing that he should return to office. Khan’s Tehreek-e-Insaf party warned it would hold nationwide demonstrations if he was arrested. “We will take over Islamabad,” Ali Amin Khan Gandapur, a former minister under Khan, said.

Israel-Palestine

Israel’s Supreme Court has rejected an appeal to release a hunger-striking Palestinian prisoner as a doctor who examined him said he could die at any moment. Khalil Awadeh has been on hunger strike for an astonishing 170 days, subsisting only on water. Awadeh is protesting the fact that he is being held without charge under an Israeli policy known as “administrative detention.” Israel says the practise is necessary to protect secret information, while rights groups and Palestinians say it is a denial of due process, which allows Palestinians to be held with no evidence.

Brazil

The heart of Brazil’s first emperor, Dom Pedro I, has arrived in Brasilia on a military flight from Portugal to help mark 200 years of independence. Dom Pedro was a Portuguese royal who, during Portugal’s colonial rule over Brazil, was appointed regent and then defied his family by declaring independence for the country. The heart has been kept in a formaldehyde-filled urn in the Portuguese city of Porto since Dom Pedro's death in 1834. Officials said the heart, which will be returned to Portugal after the celebrations, would be treated as if it were a living person with a cannon salute, a guard of honour and full military honours. "The heart will be received like a head of state, it will be treated as if Dom Pedro I was still living amongst us," Brazil foreign ministry's chief of protocol Alan Coelho de Séllos said.