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.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
A new online voting system aimed at boosting turnout among the Philippines’ millions of overseas workers ahead of Monday’s mid-term elections has been marked by confusion and fears of disenfranchisement. Thousands of overseas Filipino workers have already cast their ballots in the race dominated by a bitter feud between President Ferdinand Marcos Jr and his impeached vice president, Sara Duterte. While official turnout figures are not yet publicly available, data from the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) showed that at least 134,000 of the 1.22 million registered overseas voters have signed up for the new online system, which opened on April 13. However,
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
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