BANGLADESH
Refugee crossing prevented
Authorities prevented 84 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar from attempting a perilous boat journey to Malaysia, officials said yesterday. Police in Pekua said that 67 Rohingya Muslims from Kutupalong — the largest refugee settlement in the world — were stopped as they waited to board a fishing trawler. They included 31 women and 15 children. On St Martin’s, a small island in the Bay of Bengal, the country’s coast guard stopped 17 other Rohingya and five Bangladeshi traffickers before they could board a rickety fishing boat. Regional coast guard commander Fayezul Islam Mondol said that they were acting on a tip off. Refugees frequently spend their life savings to embark on dangerous boat journeys that they believe would improve their lives, but many fall prey to international human trafficking gangs. Most attempt the journey before March, when the sea is calm before the monsoon season sets in, but experts said that traffickers have been convincing the refugees to attempt the crossing even in rough waters.
NORTH KOREA
UN petitioned over ship
The government has demanded that the UN take “urgent measures” to help return a cargo ship taken by the US, calling the seizure a “heinous” act. Washington last week announced that it had taken possession of the North Korean-registered bulk carrier M/V Wise Honest — a year after it was detained in Indonesia — citing activities that breached US sanctions. The seizure came amid heightened tensions after Pyongyang conducted weapons drills involving short-range missiles in the past few weeks, and with nuclear talks deadlocked since the collapse of the Hanoi summit between US President Donald Trump and leader Kim Jong-un earlier this year. In a letter sent on Friday to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, Ambassador to the UN Kim Song said that the incident was “an unlawful and outrageous act,” the official Korean Central News Agency reported. “This act of dispossession has clearly indicated that the US is indeed a gangster country that does not care at all about international laws,” the letter said. The representative asked Guterres to “take urgent measures as a way of contributing to the stability of the Korean Peninsula and proving the impartiality of the UN.”
THAILAND
Dog saves abandoned baby
An attentive dog in the country’s northeast is being hailed as a hero after finding and saving an infant allegedly buried in a field by his teenage mother, police said yesterday. The newborn was lying on Wednesday under a layer of dirt near a farm in the Chumpuang District of Nakhon Ratchasima Province, but was found the same day by a curious canine named Ping Pong. The dog dug around the area and began barking, alerting his owner, a cattle herder, who went to the site. “I don’t think it was long after his mother buried him before the dog found him,” case officer Panuvat Udkam said. He added that the boy was healthy, recovering in the hospital and so young he had not yet been named. The teenage mother was charged with attempted murder and abandonment of children. The suspect was 15 years old and had tried to dispose of the child because she was afraid her parents would get angry, Panuvat said, adding: “So after she delivered the baby by herself, she buried it.”
REBUILDING: A researcher said that it might seem counterintuitive to start talking about reconstruction amid the war with Russia, but it is ‘actually an urgent priority’ Italy is hosting the fourth annual conference on rebuilding Ukraine even as Russia escalates its war, inviting political and business leaders to Rome to promote public-private partnerships on defense, mining, energy and other projects as uncertainty grows about the US’ commitment to Kyiv’s defense. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy were opening the meeting yesterday, which gets under way as Russia accelerated its aerial and ground attacks against Ukraine with another night of pounding missile and drone attacks on Kyiv. Italian organizers said that 100 official delegations were attending, as were 40 international organizations and development banks. There are
TARIFF ACTION: The US embassy said that the ‘political persecution’ against former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro disrespects the democratic traditions of the nation The US and Brazil on Wednesday escalated their row over US President Donald Trump’s support for former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, with Washington slapping a 50 percent tariff on one of its main steel suppliers. Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva threatened to reciprocate. Trump has criticized the prosecution of Bolsonaro, who is on trial for allegedly plotting to cling on to power after losing 2022 elections to Lula. Brasilia on Wednesday summoned Washington’s top envoy to the country to explain an embassy statement describing Bolsonaro as a victim of “political persecution” — echoing Trump’s description of the treatment of Bolsonaro as
The military is to begin conscripting civilians next year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said yesterday, citing rising tensions with Thailand as the reason for activating a long-dormant mandatory enlistment law. The Cambodian parliament in 2006 approved a law that would require all Cambodians aged 18 to 30 to serve in the military for 18 months, although it has never been enforced. Relations with Thailand have been tense since May, when a long-standing territorial dispute boiled over into cross-border clashes, killing one Cambodian soldier. “This episode of confrontation is a lesson for us and is an opportunity for us to review, assess and
Pakistani police yesterday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her TikTok account. In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces. “The girl’s father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her,” a police spokesperson said. Investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday “for honor,” the police report said. The man was subsequently arrested. The girl’s family initially tried to “portray the murder as a suicide” said police in
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