Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko is to end more than a decade of isolation by the West this weekend as he visits Italy and meets the Pope in the Vatican today.
Long accused of crushing fundamental rights in his ex-Soviet republic, Lukashenko leaves for Rome today after receiving a series of signals that the West was now willing at least to talk to him, if not to embrace him openly.
Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said he would meet Lukashenko. The visit’s main feature will be an audience with Pope Benedict that the president hopes will help improve chilly relations between the Catholic Church and Orthodoxy and may lead to a meeting between their two leaders in Belarus.
“Meeting the Pope as part of his first visit is clearly a good idea if only for the reason that the president can be certain that there will be no unpleasant surprises,” said analyst Alexander Klaskovsky. “Everything will be fitting and according to plan.”
Lukashenko’s last official visit to a western country, France, dates back to 1995.
Belarus was until last year criticized repeatedly in Washington and Brussels, and Lukashenko was banned from entering the EU on the grounds that he had rigged his re-election in 2006.
The ban was suspended last year when the bloc noted improvements in Belarus’ record. Last week, Lukashenko secured an invitation to the EU’s May 7 “Eastern Partnership” summit in Prague aimed at providing support for six former Soviet republics and easing energy dependence on Moscow — though he is unlikely to attend himself.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
BIGGER ROLE: Beijing has said it maintains an impartial stance on the war in Ukraine, but by training Russian troops, China is far more involved than previously known China’s armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year, and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine, according to three European intelligence agencies and documents seen by Reuters. While China and Russia have held a number of joint military exercises since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing has repeatedly said that it is neutral in the conflict and presents itself as a peace mediator. The covert training sessions, which predominantly focused on the use of drones, were outlined in a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on
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