MYANMAR
EU official urges aid access
A senior EU official has urged the government to allow full aid access to the north of Rakhine state, where thousands have fled their homes after a months-long army crackdown on Rohingya Muslims. European Commissioner for Humanitarian Aid Christos Stylianides on Sunday said he pushed for unrestricted humanitarian access during a three-day visit to the nation, which included a tour of northern Rakhine. Stylianides said some foreign aid workers had been granted access to the area, but more must be done to help 16,000 people who are still displaced before the imminent onset of the monsoon.
SINGAPORE
Foreigners barred from rally
Foreigners will be barred from attending the city-state’s annual gay-pride rally, its organizers said, as the government tightens rules against the involvement of non-citizens in protests. The Pink Dot rally, which started in 2009, has attracted crowds of up to 28,000, despite a backlash from conservative groups. However, the government implemented new rules in November last year allowing only citizens and permanent residents to attend such events, which take place at the Speakers’ Corner. Pink Dot’s organizers said in a statement posted on Facebook on Sunday that they will have to carry out checks to ensure that only citizens and permanent residents join the rally on July 1. Violators face a fine up to S$10,000 (US$7,127) or a jail term of up to six months or both on conviction.
YEMEN
Cholera outbreak reported
Officials in Sana’a, controlled by the armed Houthi movement, on Sunday declared a state of emergency after an outbreak of cholera, which has killed dozens of people. The Ministry of Health called on humanitarian organizations and other aid donors to help it deal with the epidemic and avert an “unprecedented disaster.” The health system, severely degraded by more than two years of war that also displaced millions, cannot cope, state news agency Saba said. The disease has killed 51 people since April 27, the WHO said on Thursday, and 2,752 people are suspected cases.
MALAYSIA
Endangered tortoises seized
Customs officials at Kuala Lumpur International Airport yesterday said they had seized 330 endangered angonoka tortoises and Indian Star tortoises that were smuggled into the country. The tortoises had been flown into the country from Madagascar on Sunday and were documented in the flight’s manifest as stones, Deputy Customs Director Abdul Wahid Sulong told reporters. The tortoises are valued at 1.2 million ringgit (US$277,000) and the local address to which they were shipped was found to be false, he added.
AUSTRALIA
Police recount grisly find
Police who found a dismembered body being cooked on a stovetop in an apartment thought they had stumbled on a Halloween prank, they told an inquest yesterday. Chef Marcus Volke is alleged to have murdered his Indonesian transgender wife, Mayang Prasetyo, on Oct. 4, 2014, and attempted to cover it up by cutting up her body and cooking it. The building’s management reported a rank smell coming from the couple’s Brisbane home. When officers arrived Volke told them he needed to lock up his dogs, but instead he bolted the door and fled, hiding in an industrial bin where he killed himself.
Indonesia and Malaysia have become the first countries to block Grok, the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI, after authorities said it was being misused to generate sexually explicit and nonconsensual images. The moves reflect growing global concern over generative AI tools that can produce realistic images, sound and text, while existing safeguards fail to prevent their abuse. The Grok chatbot, which is accessed through Musk’s social media platform X, has been criticized for generating manipulated images, including depictions of women in bikinis or sexually explicit poses, as well as images involving children. Regulators in the two Southeast Asian
COMMUNIST ALIGNMENT: To Lam wants to combine party chief and state presidency roles, with the decision resting on the election of 200 new party delegates next week Communist Party of Vietnam General Secretary To Lam is seeking to combine his party role with the state presidency, officials said, in a move that would align Vietnam’s political structure more closely to China’s, where President Xi Jinping (習近平) heads the party and state. Next week about 1,600 delegates are to gather in Hanoi to commence a week-long communist party congress, held every five years to select new leaders and set policy goals for the single-party state. Lam, 68, bade for both top positions at a party meeting last month, seeking initial party approval ahead of the congress, three people briefed by
Yemen’s separatist leader has vowed to keep working for an independent state in the country’s south, in his first social media post since he disappeared earlier this month after his group briefly seized swathes of territory. Aidarous al-Zubaidi’s United Arab Emirates (UAE)-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) forces last month captured two Yemeni provinces in an offensive that was rolled back by Saudi strikes and Riyadh’s allied forces on the ground. Al-Zubaidi then disappeared after he failed to board a flight to Riyadh for talks earlier this month, with Saudi Arabia accusing him of fleeing to Abu Dhabi, while supporters insisted he was
The Chinese Embassy in Manila yesterday said it has filed a diplomatic protest against a Philippine Coast Guard spokesman over a social media post that included cartoonish images of Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平). Philippine Coast Guard spokesman Jay Tarriela and an embassy official had been trading barbs since last week over issues concerning the disputed South China Sea. The crucial waterway, which Beijing claims historic rights to despite an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis, has been the site of repeated clashes between Chinese and Philippine vessels. Tarriela’s Facebook post on Wednesday included a photo of him giving a
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