MYANMAR
Leader to head to China
Myanmar junta leader Min Aung Hlaing is to travel to China this week to attend regional summits, state media reported yesterday, the embattled top general’s first visit to the influential neighbor since he seized power in a 2021 coup. The Southeast Asian country has been in chaos since the coup, including along the Myanmar-China border, with an armed resistance movement combining with established ethnic minority armies militias to wrest control of large territories from the military government. Min Aung Hlaing would attend summits of the Greater Mekong Subregion and the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy and join a meeting with Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam from tomorrow to Thursday, in the Chinese city of Kunming, Myanmar Radio and Television reported.
INDIA
Bus crashes in Uttarakhand
A bus in India plunged into a deep Himalayan ravine yesterday, killing at least 36 passengers and injuring several others, a government official said yesterday. Photographs released by government rescue teams showed the crumpled wreckage of the bus in thick undergrowth, with the twisted front of the vehicle squashed nearly flat. Road accidents are common along the many mountainous roads in the Himalayan region, caused mostly by poor maintenance and reckless driving in the tortuous terrain. “So far, 36 casualties have been confirmed,” Deepak Rawat, a senior official from the northern state of Uttarakhand, told reporters.
IRAN
Two dead in autogiro crash
An Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander and his pilot were killed yesterday in an autogiro accident during an operation near the Pakistani border, state TV reported. The report said that General Hamid Mazandarani died during a military operation in the Sirkan border area, in Sistan and Baluchestan Province. An autogiro, resembling a helicopter in rotor design, but simpler and smaller, is typically used in Iran for pilot training and border monitoring. It is capable of carrying two people.
RUSSIA-IRAN
Satellites launched today
Russia would launch two Iranian satellites into orbit using a Soyuz launcher today, Iranian Ambassador to Russia Kazem Jalali said yesterday, as the two US-sanctioned countries deepen their scientific relationship. “In continuation of the development of Iran-Russia scientific and technological cooperation, two Iranian satellites, Kowsar and Hodhod, will be launched to a 500 km orbit of earth on Tuesday, Nov. 5, by a Soyuz launch vehicle,” he said in a post on X.
ISRAEL
Strikes in Lebanon continue
The Israeli military yesterday said it had killed a top Hezbollah commander it accused of overseeing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks against Israeli forces in southern Lebanon. Abu Ali Rida, the Hezbollah commander of the Baraachit area in southern Lebanon, was “eliminated” in an airstrike, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) said, without specifying when he was killed. Rida “was responsible for planning and executing rocket and anti-tank missile attacks on IDF [military] troops and oversaw the terrorist activities of Hezbollah operatives in the area,” the military said in a statement. Israel has continued to pound Hezbollah targets in Lebanon since the war between the two sides broke out in late September.
School bullies in Singapore are to face caning under new guidelines, but the education minister on Tuesday said it would be meted out only as a last resort with strict safeguards. Human rights groups regularly criticize Singapore for the use of corporal punishment, which remains part of the school and criminal justice systems, but authorities have defended it as a deterrent to crime and serious misconduct. Caning was discussed in the parliament after legislators asked how it would be used in relation to bullying in schools. The debate followed stricter guidelines on serious student misconduct, including bullying, unveiled by the Singaporean Ministry of
As evening falls in Fiji’s capital, a steady stream of people approaches a makeshift clinic that is a first line of defense against one of the world’s fastest-growing HIV epidemics. In the South Pacific nation — a popular tourist destination of just under a million people — more than 2,000 new HIV cases were recorded last year, a 26 percent increase from 2024. The government has declared an HIV outbreak and described it as a national crisis. “It’s spreading like wildfire,” said Siteri Dinawai, 46, who came to be tested. The Moonlight Clinic, a converted minibus parked in a suburban cul-de-sac in Suva, is
A MESSAGE: Japan’s participation in the Balikatan drills is a clear deterrence signal to China not to attack Taiwan while the US is busy in the Middle East, an analyst said The Japan Self-Defense Forces yesterday fired a Type 88 anti-ship missile during a joint maritime exercise with US, Australian and Philippine forces, hitting a decommissioned Philippine Navy ship in waters facing the disputed South China Sea, in drills that underscore Tokyo’s rising willingness to project military power on China’s doorstep. The drill took place as Manila and Tokyo began talks on a potential defense equipment transfer, made possible by Japan’s decision to scrap restrictions on military exports. The discussions include the possible early transfer of Abukuma-class destroyers and TC-90 aircraft to the Philippines, Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. Philippine Secretary of
‘GROSS NEGLIGENCE?’ Despite a spleen typically being significantly smaller than a liver, the surgeon said he believed Bryan’s spleen was ‘double the size of what is normal’ A Florida surgeon who is facing criminal charges after allegedly removing a patient’s liver instead of his spleen has said he is “forever traumatized” by that person’s death. In a deposition from November last year that was recently obtained by NBC, 44-year-old Thomas Shaknovsky described the death of 70-year-old William Bryan as an “incredibly unfortunate event that I regret deeply.” Bryan died after the botched surgery; and last month, a grand jury in Tallahassee indicted Shaknovsky on a charge of manslaughter. “I’m forever traumatized by it and hurt by it,” Shaknovsky added, also saying that wrong-site surgeries can happen “during
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