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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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