CHINA
Landslide leaves 30 missing
A landslide in southwestern Sichuan Province triggered by heavy rain has killed at least one person, with nearly 30 more missing, state media said yesterday. The landslide hit Jinping village in the city of Yibin at about 11:50am on Saturday. As of yesterday morning, “one person has been killed and 28 people are missing,” Xinhua news agency said. Two people were rescued on Saturday, while more than 900 rescuers were attempting to find the rest of the missing people, Xinhua said. “A preliminary study shows this disaster occurred due to the influence of recent prolonged rainfall and geological factors,” China Central Television said, citing local authorities.
Photo: Xinhua news agency via AP
BANGLADESH
Hasina-linked gangs targeted
The government yesterday launched a major security operation after protesters were attacked by gangs allegedly connected to the ousted regime of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina. A government statement said the operation began after gangs “linked to the fallen autocratic regime attacked a group of students, leaving them severely injured.” Home Affairs Adviser Jahangir Alam Chowdhury called it “Operation Devil Hunt,” telling reporters that it would “continue until we uproot the devils.” The sweeping security operations came after days of unrest, following protests triggered by reports that 77-year-old Hasina — who has defied an arrest warrant to face trial crimes against humanity — would appear in a Facebook broadcast from exile in neighboring India.
Photo: EPA-EFE
INDIA
Dalai Lama’s brother dies
The elder brother of the Dalai Lama and former chairman of the exiled Tibetan government in India, Gyalo Thondup, who led several rounds of talks with China and worked with foreign governments for the Tibetan cause, has died. He was 97. Thondup died at his home in Kalimpong, a hill town in the Himalayan foothills of eastern West Bengal state, on Saturday evening, media reports said. No other details were immediately released about his death. Tibetan media outlets credited Thondup for networking with foreign governments and praised his role in facilitating US support for the Tibetan struggle. The Dalai Lama yesterday led a prayer session for Thondup at a monastery in Bylakuppe in the southern state of Karnataka where he prayed for Thondup’s “swift rebirth” and said “his efforts towards the Tibetan struggle were immense and we are grateful for his contribution.”
Photo: AP
UNITED KINGDOM
Starmer sacks junior minister
A Labour Party lawmaker on Saturday said he regretted “badly misjudged” comments after Prime Minister Keir Starmer sacked him as a minister. Starmer dismissed Andrew Gwynne as a junior health minister as soon as he became aware of the WhatsApp comments, the domestic PA news agency said. He has also been suspended from the Labour Party, with a report alleging that Gwynne made anti-Semitic, racist and sexist remarks. “I deeply regret my badly misjudged comments and apologise for any offence I’ve caused,” Gwynne said on X. Gwynne posted messages in a WhatsApp group that he shares with more than a dozen Labour councilors, party officials and at least one other lawmaker, the Mail on Sunday reported. He also joked about a constituent being “mown down” by a truck, the newspaper said. In another comment, he said he hoped a 72-year-old woman who asked a colleague about trash collection would soon be dead.
Photo: Bloomberg
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
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