MYANMAR
Hottest April recorded
Myanmar recorded its hottest-ever April temperature of 48.2oC, the weather office said yesterday, as the nation bakes in a heatwave. The mercury hit 48.2oC in the town of Chauk in central region of Magway on Sunday, the highest temperature in April since records began 56 years ago, the agency said in a statement. The same day temperatures hit 40oC in commercial hub Yangon and 44oC in Mandalay, it said.
KENYA
Forty die after dam collapse
Police said at least 40 people have died after a dam collapsed in the nation’s west yesterday morning. The floodwaters swept through houses and cut off a major road, police official Stephen Kirui said. The incident happened after the Old Kijabe Dam in the Mai Mahiu area of the Great Rift Valley region that is prone to flash floods, collapsed and water spilled downstream. Ongoing rains have caused flooding that has killed nearly 100 people and caused the opening of schools to be postponed. Heavy rains have been pounding the country since the middle of last month and the Meteorology Department has warned of more rainfall.
THAILAND
Activist gets more jail time
The Criminal Court in Bangkok yesterday sentenced a leading democracy activist to another two years and 20 days in prison on royal insult charges. It is the latest charge leveled against prominent human rights lawyer Arnon Nampa, who now faces more than 10 years in prison. He is currently in jail after being sentenced in January to four years in prison over three messages posted on Facebook in 2021, adding to the four years he was already serving for a prior lese-majeste conviction. Critics say the government has used the strict legislation to silence dissent, prosecuting scores under a tough law that protects King Maha Vajiralongkorn and his family. The Criminal Court sentenced Arnon over his calls at a Harry Potter-themed rally in 2021 to amend the nation’s royal defamation laws. He was found guilty of four charges including violation of lese-majeste, defying the emergency decree and using a loudspeaker without permission, Thai Lawyers for Human Rights said.
FRANCE
Boy stabbed to death
A 15-year-old has been stabbed to death in the latest case of teenage violence, and the alleged attacker and his mother have been arrested, prosecutors said on Sunday. The latest victim was killed in a brawl in the central town of Chateauroux late on Saturday and died in hospital the same evening, regional prosecutor Agnes Auboin said. The suspect, also 15, was arrested about two hours after the fight and taken into custody, Auboin said. There was evidence suggesting that the 37-year-old mother of the suspect might have been involved, she said. The victim, an apprentice chef and son of a restaurant owner, was accompanied by a friend, also an apprentice, at the time of the incident, a source close to the case said. Authorities have launched an investigation into voluntary manslaughter. The suspect “has never been convicted of a criminal offense and has no criminal record,” the prosecutor said. However, he had been placed under judicial supervision earlier this month following other offenses. A witness interviewed by Agence France-Presse said the boy was among a group of assailants who had attacked a 22-year-old man in a local park a week earlier. The witness said he had “run over and... filmed the scene” to put an end to the attack.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home