PAKISTAN
Defense spending hiked
The government on Tuesday hiked defense spending by 20 percent following last month’s deadly conflict with India. The government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif announced the increase as part of the budget for the fiscal year 2025-2026, in which overall spending would be cut by 7 percent to 17.57 trillion rupees (US$62.3 billion). Minister of Finance Muhammad Aurangzeb said that the government was allocating 2.55 trillion rupees for defense compared with 2.12 trillion rupees in the previous budget.
Photo: Reuters
HUNGARY
People protest government
About 15,000 people protested in a square in Budapest on Tuesday in what organizers called the beginning of a resistance movement against the government of Prime Minister Viktor Orban. Nearly two dozen public figures, including writers, actors, musicians and journalists, joined the demonstration. Most of the speakers criticized what they see as the government’s increasingly anti-democratic conduct. Some alleged corruption benefiting those with ties to Orban’s Fidesz party. “This country doesn’t belong to those who lie, who rob from the people, who have sold their humanity for power,” said Csaba Bogos, one of the speakers. “This country belongs to those who dare to think, who can read between the lines, who trust in themselves and each other, and believe that there is a common, peaceful future that we must build together.”
Photo: Reuters
SOUTH AFRICA
Jobless data defended
Statistician-General Risenga Maluleke defended the methodology of his organization’s unemployment data after Capitec Bank Holdings chief executive officer Gerrie Fourie said that misclassification of traders means the jobless rate was much lower. Fourie said that the unemployment rate — which was 32.9 percent for the first quarter — would be closer to 10 percent if self-employed people and those working in informal markets are counted, Business Day reported. In a letter to the newspaper, Maluleke said it was “incorrect and misleading to suggest” that Statistics South Africa misses those employed in the informal sector. “The informal sector is measured, tracked and reported on consistently, and if anything the insights these reports provide should guide and enrich policy, not distort it,” Maluleke said. “We urge industry leaders to engage more deeply with official statistics before questioning their validity,” he said. “While constructive debate is encouraged, it should be based on solid evidence.” The organization measures casual workers using International Labour Organization guidelines on registration status and sizes of businesses, and that to qualify, employees must be unregistered for income tax and work in places that employ fewer than five people.
UNITED STATES
Musk apologizes over posts
Elon Musk on Wednesday wrote on X that he regrets some of the posts he made last week about President Donald Trump. “I regret some of my posts about President Donald Trump last week. They went too far,” Musk wrote. Trump and Musk began exchanging insults last week on social media, with the chief executive officer of Tesla and SpaceX describing the president’s proposed sweeping tax and spending bill as a “disgusting abomination.”
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
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