MYANMAR
Group seizes border gate
An ethnic minority armed group has seized control from the country’s ruling junta of a lucrative border crossing to China, local media and a security source said yesterday. Clashes have raged across Myanmar’s northern Shan state, close to the Chinese border, after an armed alliance of three ethnic minority groups launched an offensive against the military last month. An offensive by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) — one of the three allied groups — captured the Kyin San Kyawt border gate, a local media outlet affiliated with the group said. “MNDAA also reported they seized one more border trade gate, which is called Kyin San Kyawt, in Mongko area, Muse district this morning,” Kokang News reported yesterday. It added that the alliance — including the Arakan Army and Ta’ang National Liberation Army — had taken other positions in the border trade zone after the assault began on Friday.
INDIA
Four die in stampede
At least four people were killed and dozens injured on Saturday evening in a stampede at a university in southern India, local officials and media reported. The stampede occurred at an outdoor auditorium in the Cochin University of Science and Technology (CUSAT) in southwest Kerala state, where a concert had been planned. Kerala Governor Arif Mohammed Khan wrote on X that he was “deeply shocked and grieved to know about the sad demise of four students” at CUSAT. Four more people were in a critical condition and 60 people had been injured, the Press Trust of India (PTI) reported. A local police official told PTI that a crowd outside the auditorium had rushed for cover during a sudden downpour when a number of people slipped on some stairs and were trampled.
RUSSIA
Ex-PM Kasyanov blacklisted
The Minsitry of Justice on Friday classified former prime minister Mikhail Kasyanov, who left the country to denounce the offensive in Ukraine, as a “foreign agent.” The name of Kasyanov, who was the first head of President Vladimir Putin’s government in the early 2000s, now appears in the justice ministry’s register of “foreign agents,” a term reminiscent of the Soviet-era “enemy of the people.” The ministry accused Kasyanov of having “opposed the special military operation in Ukraine” and of being “a member of the Russian Anti-War Committee, an association whose activities are aimed at discrediting Russian foreign and domestic policy.”
MEXICO
Three journalists freed
Three journalists recently kidnapped in Mexico’s southern state of Guerrero have been freed unharmed after search operations by security authorities, the office of the state’s attorney general said on Saturday. The three journalists released on Saturday were among five people whose disappearance in the tourist town of Taxco the state attorney general’s office had this week said it was investigating. Silvia Arce and Alberto Sanchez, who lead the digital platform RedSiete, were freed early on Saturday, free-speech group, Article 19 said, after having been taken on Wednesday by armed men who entered the outlet’s central Taxco offices. Another journalist freed on Saturday was Marco Toledo, director of the weekly El Espectador de Taxco, authorities said. Toledo’s wife and son had also been kidnapped by five armed men who entered their home last Sunday, Article 19 said. Although Toledo’s wife has been freed, authorities are still searching for his son.
The collapse of the Swiss Birch glacier serves as a chilling warning of the escalating dangers faced by communities worldwide living under the shadow of fragile ice, particularly in Asia, experts said. Footage of the collapse on Wednesday showed a huge cloud of ice and rubble hurtling down the mountainside into the hamlet of Blatten. Swiss Development Cooperation disaster risk reduction adviser Ali Neumann said that while the role of climate change in the case of Blatten “still needs to be investigated,” the wider impacts were clear on the cryosphere — the part of the world covered by frozen water. “Climate change and
Poland is set to hold a presidential runoff election today between two candidates offering starkly different visions for the country’s future. The winner would succeed Polish President Andrzej Duda, a conservative who is finishing his second and final term. The outcome would determine whether Poland embraces a nationalist populist trajectory or pivots more fully toward liberal, pro-European policies. An exit poll by Ipsos would be released when polls close today at 9pm local time, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points. Final results are expected tomorrow. Whoever wins can be expected to either help or hinder the
DENIAL: Musk said that the ‘New York Times was lying their ass off,’ after it reported he used so much drugs that he developed bladder problems Elon Musk on Saturday denied a report that he used ketamine and other drugs extensively last year on the US presidential campaign trail. The New York Times on Friday reported that the billionaire adviser to US President Donald Trump used so much ketamine, a powerful anesthetic, that he developed bladder problems. The newspaper said the world’s richest person also took ecstasy and mushrooms, and traveled with a pill box last year, adding that it was not known whether Musk also took drugs while heading the so-called US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) after Trump took power in January. In a
It turns out that looming collision between our Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies might not happen after all. Astronomers on Monday said that the probability of the two spiral galaxies colliding is less than previously thought, with a 50-50 chance within the next 10 billion years. That is essentially a coin flip, but still better odds than previous estimates and farther out in time. “As it stands, proclamations of the impending demise of our galaxy seem greatly exaggerated,” the Finnish-led team wrote in a study appearing in Nature Astronomy. While good news for the Milky Way galaxy, the latest forecast might be moot
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