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by Faisal Satti with Baldev S Chauhan in Shimla, India Agence France Presse LAHORE, Pakistan (AFP) — Power outages compounded the misery of millions of people wilting in a heatwave across India and Pakistan on Friday, with experts blaming climate change for an early onset of roasting summer temperatures. In the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh hundreds of forest fires have broken out in recent weeks, eating up tinder-dry pine forests including around […]
JAKARTA, Indonesia (AFP) — Indonesia began imposing a complete ban on palm oil exports Thursday, as the world’s largest producer of the commodity risked destabilising a global vegetable oil market already hitting peak prices. The archipelago nation is facing a domestic shortage of cooking oil as well as soaring prices, with consumers in several cities having to queue for hours in front of distribution centres to buy the essential commodity at subsidised rates. Authorities […]
The Chinese megacity of Guangzhou cancelled hundreds of flights Thursday and launched mass testing of 5.6 million people after one suspected Covid case, as the battle to contain the coronavirus sweeps across the country. China is facing its worst outbreak since the peak of the first wave in early 2020, with eastern Shanghai recording dozens of daily deaths and the capital Beijing sealing off whole neighbourhoods where handfuls of cases have been detected. Under its […]
Moscow said Wednesday it was expelling eight Japanese diplomats in a tit-for-tat response to expulsions by Tokyo over the conflict in Ukraine. Accusing Tokyo of pursuing an “openly hostile anti-Russian course,” the foreign ministry said in a statement that the Japanese diplomats must leave by May 10, in a reciprocal answer to Japan’s expulsion of eight Russian diplomats. It accused Tokyo of “taking steps that were unprecedented in modern Russian-Japanese relations” and “abandoning friendly, constructive […]
Russia and the United States swapped prisoners Wednesday despite fierce tensions over Ukraine, with Moscow handing over a jailed ex-Marine in exchange for a Russian pilot convicted of drug smuggling. Trevor Reed, a 30-year-old from Texas who was jailed in Russia in 2020, was exchanged for Konstantin Yaroshenko, 53, who had been serving a 20-year US prison sentence since 2011. In footage shown on Russian state television, Yaroshenko emerged from a US plane onto a […]
US President Joe Biden will travel to South Korea and Japan in May, the White House announced Wednesday, paying a visit to two of Washington’s main Asian allies amid tensions with rival China and regional foe North Korea. During the May 20-24 trip, Biden will meet the leaders of the two countries with the aim of advancing his “administration’s rock-solid commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific and to US treaty alliances with the Republic of Korea and […]
BEIJING, China (AFP) — China’s Xi Jinping has called for an “all-out” campaign to build infrastructure, according to state media, marking the latest attempt by leaders to boost growth in the Covid-battered economy. Despite struggling to defeat the country’s worst outbreak in two years, the leadership is digging in its heels with a strict zero-Covid policy that involves lockdowns in the biggest cities and mass testing. But the measures have snarled supply chains and hammered […]
NEW DELHI, India (AFP) — At least 11 people including three minors were killed Wednesday after a temple chariot procession came into contact with a high-voltage wire in India, police said. Initial indications suggested that the crowd used water to contain an initial fire after the top of the chariot touched the wire in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. At least 15 other people were hospitalised after the incident at around 3:00 am (2130 […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — One of the Myanmar military’s first moves during its coup last year was to arrest the country’s democracy figurehead Aung San Suu Kyi, who has spent decades battling military rule. The Nobel laureate, 76, has been kept out of the public eye ever since as the junta seeks to crush resistance to its putsch. AFP takes a look at what we know about Suu Kyi’s detention. – Where is she? […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — A Myanmar junta court on Wednesday sentenced Aung San Suu Kyi to five years in jail for corruption, part of a barrage of criminal cases that could see the deposed civilian leader jailed for decades. Since a military coup ousted her government in February last year, plunging Myanmar into upheaval, Suu Kyi has been in military custody. In the latest case, the Nobel laureate was accused of accepting a bribe […]
by Sam Reeves © Agence France-Presse SINGAPORE, Singapore (AFP) — A mentally disabled Malaysian man was executed in Singapore on Wednesday, his family said, after losing a long legal battle and despite a storm of international criticism and appeals for clemency. Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam was arrested in 2009 for trafficking a small amount of heroin into the city-state, which has some of the world’s toughest drugs laws, and handed a death sentence the following year. […]
by Sunghee Hwang / Claire LEE Agence France Presse SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — North Korea will rapidly accelerate the development of its nuclear arsenal, leader Kim Jong Un said while overseeing a vast military parade showcasing his most powerful intercontinental ballistic missiles, state media reported Tuesday. Despite biting sanctions, North Korea has doubled down on Kim’s military modernisation drive, test-firing a slew of banned weapons this year while ignoring US offers of talks — […]
