The death toll in cyclone-hit Myanmar's Rakhine state rose to 41 on Tuesday, local leaders told AFP, as villagers tried to piece together ruined homes and waited for aid and support.
Packing winds of up to 195 kilometers (120 miles) per hour, Mocha made landfall on Sunday, downing power pylons and smashing wooden fishing boats to splinters.
At least 41 people died in the villages of Bu Ma and nearby Khaung Doke Kar, inhabited by the persecuted Rohingya Muslim minority, local leaders told AFP reporters at the scene.
"There will be more deaths, as more than a hundred people are missing," said Karlo, the head of Bu Ma village near state capital Sittwe.
Nearby, Aa Bul Hu Son, 66, said prayers at the grave of his daughter, whose body was recovered on Tuesday morning.
"I wasn't in good health before the cyclone, so we were delayed in moving to another place," he told AFP.
"While we were thinking about moving, the waves came immediately and took us."
"I just found her body in the lake in the village and buried her right away. I can't find any words to express my loss."
Other residents walked the seashore searching for family members swept away by a storm surge that accompanied the cyclone, AFP correspondents said.
Mocha was the most powerful cyclone to hit the area in over a decade, churning up villages, uprooting trees and knocking out communications across much of Rakhine state.
Myanmar's junta said on Monday that five people were killed, without specifying where.
It was not clear whether that toll included any of those killed in Bu Ma and Khaung Doke Kar.
AFP has contacted a junta spokesman for comment on the new death toll.
'No one has come to ask'
Widely viewed as interlopers in Myanmar, the Rohingya are denied citizenship and healthcare, and require permission to travel outside of their villages in western Rakhine state.
Many others live in camps after being displaced by decades of ethnic conflict in the state.
The United Nations refugee office said it was investigating reports that Rohingya living in displacement camps had been killed in the storm.
It was "working to start rapid needs assessments in hard-hit areas" of Rakhine state, it added.
In neighboring Bangladesh, officials told AFP that no one had died in the cyclone, which passed close to sprawling refugee camps that house almost one million Rohingya who fled a Myanmar military crackdown in 2017.
"Although the impact of the cyclone could have been much worse, the refugee camps have been severely affected, leaving thousands desperately needing help," the UN said as it made an urgent appeal for aid late Monday.
Cyclones -- the equivalent of hurricanes in the North Atlantic or typhoons in the Northwest Pacific -- are a regular and deadly menace on the coast of the northern Indian Ocean where tens of millions of people live.
Non-profit ClimateAnalytics said rising temperatures may have contributed to Cyclone Mocha's intensity.
"We can see sea surface temperatures in the Bay of Bengal in the last month have been significantly higher than they were even 20 years ago," said the group's Peter Pfleiderer.
"Warmer oceans allow storms to gather power, quickly, and this has devastating consequences for people."
On Tuesday, contact was slowly being restored with Sittwe, which is home to around 150,000 people, AFP reporters said, with roads being cleared and internet connections re-established.
Photos released by state media showed Rakhine-bound aid being loaded onto a ship in commercial hub Yangon.
Rohingya villagers told AFP that they were yet to receive any assistance.
"No government, no organization has come to our village," said Kyaw Swar Win, 38, from Bu Ma village.
"We haven't eaten for two days... We haven't got anything and all I can say is that no one has even come to ask."
Last year saw an increase in gay and trans people reporting physical attacks in France, an activist group said on Tuesday, warning that anti-LGBTQ sentiment remains “anchored” in society.
SOS Homophobie (SOS Homophobia) said in a report that it received just over 1,500 reports of homophobic or other discriminatory behaviour in 2022 via its website and hotline—around the same number as the previous year.
But there was a 28-percent increase in reports of physical attacks, to 184, or roughly one every two days.
“Despite developments in the law and in people’s attitudes, today LGBT people still can’t live freely the way they are,” SOS Homophobie chief Joel Deumier told AFP.
In its report, the group said violent acts against gay and trans people included “ambushes set up using dating apps” and often had “superficial or non-existent motives”.
Among the reports they received were a knife attack on a male couple in the metro, two women finding their car had been repeatedly spat on, a young man battered by five attackers and another told by his neighbor that “your kind doesn’t deserve to live”.
Reports of discrimination included estate agents refusing to sell or rent to LGBTQ couples or families, and public spaces like shops and libraries refusing entry to non-binary or trans individuals.
SOS Homophobie highlighted reports of transphobic incidents, which it said had increased by 26 percent last year, to 227.
Schools especially “often refuse any kind of administrative changes” to pupils’ genders, the association complained.
SOS Homophobie urged the government to launch a “national awareness campaign”, dedicate more resources to investigating homophobic and transphobic crimes, and improve training for police—some of whom still refuse to accept such complaints.
The Cannes Film Festival is poised to launch a blockbuster 76th edition on Tuesday stacked with celebrated auteurs and Hollywood star power, confident that it has weathered the Covid pandemic and upheld its status as the guardian of the big screen. In a belated and welcome sign of change, this year’s line-up features more female directors and a sizable contingent of African entries, while the return of Hollywood silverbacks Harrison Ford (in his final appearance as Indiana Jones) and Martin Scorsese will provide the festival’s marquee premieres.
The world’s glitziest showcase for the movies is oozing confidence once again after Covid forced a no-show in 2020 and a scaled-back summer gathering the next year, fueling speculation of a fatal blow to a wider industry already upended by the rise of streaming platforms.
Talk of the festival’s decline has long been a recurrent theme along Cannes’ palm tree-lined Croisette. Once again it has proved premature. Last year’s edition already signaled a return to form for the festival, on and off the screen, while the roaring premiere of “Top Gun: Maverick” – complete with a fly-past tribute to Tom Cruise – proved the Riviera pageant had lost none of its appeal for the Hollywood studios.
The hugely successful sequel was one of three Oscar best-picture nominees to launch at Cannes, cementing the festival’s status as the leading launching pad for the movies. Another nominee was the Palme d’or “Triangle of Sadness” by Sweden’s Ruben Ostlund, who is back in town as head of the 2023 festival jury.
Indy’s last crusade
This year’s “Top Gun slot” will see another iconic character from the 80s crack his whip in James Mangold’s “Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny”. Harrison Ford stars in his final performance as the world’s most famous archaeologist, 42 years after he first donned the iconic fedora in “Raiders of the Lost Ark”. The “Indy” celebration will include a tribute to Ford, who will receive an honorary Palme d’Or.
Days later, fellow 80-year-old Martin Scorsese will debut his "Killers of the Flower Moon", exactly half a century after he burst onto the film scene with the screening in Cannes of his seminal “Mean Streets”. Scorsese’s latest work, about a series of murders targeting the oil-wealthy Osage Nation in 1920s Oklahoma, notably unites his loyal collaborators Robert De Niro and Leonardo Di Caprio.
As a bastion of arthouse cinema and the world’s most glamorous movie shindig, the Cannes Film Festival always needs to strike a balance between auteur worship and Hollywood star power – and between devotion to the past and turning to the future. This year promises plenty of glitter on the red carpet and an intriguing mix of veterans and newcomers.
The flagship Palme d’Or contest sees five past laureates return to the Riviera for more silverware: Japan’s Hirokazu Kore-eda (“Monster”), Germany’s Wim Wenders (“Perfect Days”), Turkey’s Nuri Bilge Ceylan (“About Dry Grasses”), Italy’s Nanny Moretti (“A Brighter Tomorrow”), and Britain’s two-time laureate Ken Loach (“The Old Oak”).
Fellow Briton Jonathan Glazer has one of the festival’s most eagerly awaited entries with “The Zone of Interest”, shot in Auschwitz and his first feature since 2013’s “Under the Skin”. Brazilian director Karim Ainouz’s “Firebrand” stars Alicia Vikander as Catherine Parr, the sixth and final wife of English king Henry VIII, played by Jude Law, and China’s Wang Bing brings a rare documentary to the competition with “Shanghai Youth”.
As always, works by US filmmakers will provide much of the red-carpet spectacle. Todd Haynes follows up on his 2015 lesbian drama “Carol” with another big-hitting female duo, Julianne Moore and Natalie Portman, in “May December”, while Wes Anderson’s “Asteroid City” leads the A-list charge with Scarlet Johansson, Tom Hanks, Margot Robbie and Edward Norton to name but a few.
In a sign of the times, even the latter cast are likely to be upstaged on the red carpet by “Internet Daddy” Pedro Pascal. The star of “Narcos”, “Game of Thrones” and “The Last of Us” teams up with Ethan Hawke in Pedro Almodovar’s hotly-awaited short, “Strange Way of Life”.
This time for Africa
The festival’s 67th edition will see Cannes break its uninspiring record for female directors with seven women among the 21 vying for the Palme d’Or. It marks a modest increase of two from last year – but a sea-change from the 2012 edition, when there were none.
As the gender-parity advocacy group 50/50 has noted, the average age (48) of female directors in Cannes is noticeably younger than the men’s (65), pointing to signs of a healthy rebalancing among younger generations of filmmakers.
Among the most anticipated is Italian filmmaker Alice Rohrwacher with “La Chimera,” starring Josh O’Connor and Isabella Rossellini. Another talked-about entry, so far for the wrong reasons, is Catherine Corsini's "Homecoming”, a late addition to the competition that has been dogged by controversy over the treatment of child actors on the set and the non-disclosure of an intimate scene involving minors.
Maïwenn, another French director, will get the ball rolling on Tuesday with her curtain-raiser “Jeanne du Barry”, which screens out of competition, casting Johnny Depp as King Louis XV in his first major role since a highly publicized trial against his ex-wife Amber Heard.
Female directors also account for the two African entries in the Palme competition. Tunisia’s Kaouther Ben Hania mixes documentary and fiction in “Four Daughters”, about a woman whose daughters escape to join the jihad in Syria, while Senegalese filmmaker Ramata-Toulaye Sy’s “Banel & Adama” is the rare first feature in the race for cinema’s most prestigious prize.
The selection of Ben Hania and Sy points to a bumper edition for African film, reflecting what festival director Thierry Frémaux hailed as “the emergence of a new generation of filmmakers, women in particular, in North [and West] Africa”. It comes four years after French-Algerian director Mati Diop won a surprise Grand Prix award in Cannes for her debut feature “Atlantique”.
The continent boasts another four entries in Cannes’ official selection this year, all of them in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, dedicated to emerging talent. Casablanca’s everyday life and underworld are the focus of films by Moroccan helmers Asmae El Moudir (“The Mother of All Lies”) and Kamal Lazraq (“Hounds”), while Congolese artist Baloji tells the tale of a child sorcerer in his maiden film, “Omen”. In one of the festival’s most timely films, Mohamed Kordofani explores the roots of South Sudan’s bloody crisis in “Goodbye Julia”, set during the breakaway of South Sudan.
African entries are equally prominent in this year’s parallel selections, including the Directors’ Fortnight and the Acid sidebar, with films from Cameroon (“Mambar Pierrette”), Tunisia (“Machtat”) and Guinea Bissau (“Nome”) set to prove that Cannes’ frenzied bubble is also a microcosm of the world, allowing the audience to travel through space and time.
Lights out?
That’s assuming the lights stay on amid union threats to pull the plug on this and other high-profile events.
The festival will unspool against the backdrop of labour unrest on both sides of the Atlantic, with US screenwriters staging a rare walkout to seek better pay. That strike means the likes of writer-director Scorsese may decline to take questions about their screenplay even as they discuss their directorial work. More worryingly for festival organizers, the home country’s bitter dispute over pensions threatens to kick up a stink in Cannes.
France has for months been roiled by sometimes violent protests against a hugely unpopular pension reform that President Emmanuel Macron’s government rammed through parliament without a vote. The local authorities have banned demonstrations along the Croisette and its surroundings during the festival, but opponents of the reform have vowed to get their message across.
The CGT union is preparing to stage a rally of hospitality workers, including staff from hotels, cafes and restaurants, in front of the famed Carlton hotel, whose guests this year include Scorsese. The rally, which will likely involve protesters banging saucepans to express their anger, is technically allowed because the front of the Carlton is a private area.
The CGT had earlier threatened to cut power during the festival, as well as at Roland-Garros and the Formula One GP in Monaco. Should it choose to do so for the screening of Jean-Luc Godard’s posthumous film – the mischievously titled “Trailer of the film that will never exist: Phony Wars” – it may just be the perfect tribute to the late icon of film, who famously pulled the curtain (literally) on the Cannes Film Festival during the heady days of May 1968.
Aged 16, Halim Flowers was arrested in the United States, tried as an adult then jailed for murder. Now aged 42, he is a prolific artist, poet and writer exhibiting in Paris.
The turnaround has been spectacular.
Flowers was only released in 2019 after a change in US law allowed for under-18s who had been tried as adults to be "re-sentenced".
Then a year later, when Covid-19 pushed much of the world into lockdown, his wife -- also an artist -- suggested he should give painting a go.
"I just took the brush. I had no idea about color, how mixing red and white made pink. She told me how to do that, how to take care of my brushes," he told AFP.
Visiting AFP's photo studio in Paris, Flowers sketched a graffiti-style drawing on a white background and explained that art was his "only drug".
"I don't smoke drugs, I don't drink alcohol, I don't party. All I do is art," he said.
Colourful and rich in symbolism, his work highlights the experiences of people on the margins -- prisoners, the homeless, those with mental health issues.
The Washington native, who is displaying his paintings until Sunday at the Champop gallery in the French capital, told the United States' National Public Radio in 2021 he had already sold art worth more than $1 million.
His life now is a far cry from that of the skinny teenager who featured in a 1998 documentary for HBO titled "Thug Life in DC".
A disconsolate Flowers told the documentary he had no hope, and that his mother would probably be dead by the time he was freed.
Kardashian collaboration
Flowers was raised in a poor neighborhood of the US capital and grew up during the crack "epidemic".
He fell into drug dealing and eventually got caught up in a robbery that resulted in someone being shot dead.
Despite not being the shooter, he was tried and convicted of murder under the principle of "aiding and abetting".
He said his generation of jailed children were regarded as "super predators" but he knew he was innocent and had enough faith in himself to struggle to show his humanity.
"Those who are considered as beasts and super predators today can become those who visit the museums tomorrow," he said.
After years of campaigning, he was finally freed in early 2019 -- his mother greeting him with open arms.
Already with a track record as an author and poet, he worked with reality TV star Kim Kardashian on a documentary called "The Justice Project", which helped to secure the release of one of his childhood friends.
He met both Kardashian and her then husband, musician Kanye West, although he credits West's fellow rapper Jay-Z with sparking his interest in visual art.
'Lack of love'
"I was introduced to visual art through listening to Jay-Z rap about Jean-Michel Basquiat," he said, referring to the US artist who shot to fame in the 1980s before dying of a heroin overdose at 27 in 1988.
For Flowers, seeing that a black person had been "received and revered in the art world" was a revelation and inspired him to begin studying the arts while in jail.
The similarity between his work and that of Basquiat has led to accusations he is copying his forebear but Flowers flatly denies the charge.
"To show my reverence to my ancestors through my work is an honor," he said.
"Anything that I do that resembles them is because we share the same spirit."
Now he wants to use his art to change perceptions, particularly about notions of justice.
"I think people are surprised that I came home from prison and I wasn't being bitter or angry," he said.
There's nothing that necessarily links being in jail to being angry and bitter, he stressed.
He sees the issue as a wider one -- society in general, he said, has been infected by a "pandemic of lack of love".
His mission is to create a "new visual language" that will vaccinate against this pandemic and transform our image of justice.
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thailand's two main opposition parties agreed on Monday to form a ruling coalition after they trounced in a weekend election military-backed rivals that have controlled government for nearly a decade.
The Move Forward party and opposition heavyweight Pheu Thai dominated Sunday's ballot in a rout of army-backed parties, but could face challenges in mustering enough support to vote in a prime minister, with parliamentary rules drafted by the military after a 2014 coup skewed in favour of its allies.
Their alliance would need to ensure its efforts to form a new government would not be stymied by a junta-appointed Senate, which gets to vote on a prime minister in a bicameral sitting of the 750-member legislature, and has a record of favouring conservative parties led by generals.
Pita Limjaroenrat, Move Forward's 42-year-old leader proposed an alliance of six parties that would command 309 seats. That would be short of the 376 seats needed to ensure he was elected as prime minister.
Asked about the Senate, he said all sides must respect the election outcome and there was no use going against it.
"I am not worried but I am not careless," he told a press conference.
"It will be quite a hefty price to pay if someone is thinking about debunking the election result or forming a minority government."
Pheu Thai, controlled by the billionaire Shinawatra family said it agreed with Pita's proposal and wished him luck in efforts to become prime minister.
The party had won most seats in every election this century, including twice in landslides, but met its match against Move Forward as it came close to a sweep of the capital Bangkok and made gains in rivals' strongholds.
NO OTHER ALLIANCE
"Pheu Thai has no plan to form any other government," party leader Chonlanan Srikaew told a press conference.
Though the results appear to be a hammer blow for the military and its allies, with parliamentary rules on their side and some influential power-brokers behind them, they could determine the shape of a new government.
Move Forward was galvanized by a wave of excitement among the youth over its liberal agenda and promises of bold changes, including breaking up monopolies and reforming a law on insulting the monarchy.
On Monday, Pita did a victory lap in Bangkok where thousands of supporters had gathered - some in the streets, others on rooftops - dressed in Move Forward's signature orange colour and chanting "Prime Minister Pita".
Student Pirag Phrasawang, 22, said he was "overwhelmed and excited to see change finally come to the country".
"My voice has been neglected for a long time. I'm glad that people finally woke up and responded to Move Forward's policies."
Pita has said Move Forward would press ahead with its plan to amend strict lese majeste laws against insulting the monarchy, which critics say have been used to stifle free speech. Thailand's palace does not comment on the law or its use.
The law punishes perceived insults by up to 15 years in prison, with hundreds of people facing charges, some of whom are in pre-trial detention.
Pita said parliament would be the right forum to seek amendments to the law, or article 112 of the criminal code.
"We will use the parliament to make sure that there is a comprehensive discussion with maturity, with transparency in how we should move forward in terms of the relationship between the monarchy and the masses," he said.
Asked if Pheu Thai would back that, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, one of its main candidates, said it could be discussed in the legislature.
"Pheu Thai has a clear stand that we won't abolish 112 but there can be a discussion about the law in parliament," she said.
(Reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat, Chayut Setboonsarng, Juarawee Kittisilpa and Panu Wongcha-um; Writing by Martin Petty; Editing by Robert Birsel)
KYIV (Reuters) -Russia unleashed an air strike of "exceptional" intensity on Kyiv early on Tuesday, but Ukraine said it shot down all 18 missiles fired at it overnight including six hypersonic missiles.
Bright flashes lit up the night sky over Kyiv during the eighth air attack on the capital this month. City authorities did not immediately report any major damage and said only three people had been wounded by falling debris.
"It was exceptional in its density - the maximum number of attack missiles in the shortest period of time," Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's city military administration, said in comments posted on the Telegram messaging app.
After a weeks-long hiatus, Russia - which launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 - resumed its tactic of long-range missile strikes in late April
It has launched a series of attacks in recent days, often targeting Kyiv, as Ukraine prepares to launch a counteroffensive to try to take back land occupied by Russia. Early on Tuesday, air raid sirens blared across nearly all of Ukraine, and were heard over Kyiv and its region for more than three hours.
The Ukrainian military said all 18 missiles, six Iranian Shahed drones and three reconnaissance drones fired at Ukraine by Russia overnight were shot down though it did not make clear how many were launched at the capital.
It said the missiles shot down included six Kinzhal ballistic missiles fired from aircraft, nine Kalibr cruise missiles launched from ships in the Black Sea and three Iskander land-based missiles.
"The enemy's mission is to sow panic and create chaos. However, in the northern operational zone (including Kyiv), everything is under complete control," General Serhiy Naev, Commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces, said.
Reuters was not able to independently verify the reports. Russia did not immediately comment.
The Kinzhal, which means "dagger" in Russian, is one of six "next generation" weapons unveiled by President Vladimir Putin in 2018 when the Russian leader boasted that it could not be shot down by any of the world's air defence systems.
"The work of air defences was extremely successful. Six Kinzhals are an impressive indicator of that," said air force spokesperson Yuriy Ihnat.
(Additional reporting by Aleksandar Vasovic, Dan Peleschuk and Maria Starkova, Writing by Lidia Kelly, Editing by Timothy eritage)
BEIJING (Reuters) - Drawing lessons from the Ukraine crisis, a top Chinese general urged greater integration of novel capabilities, including artificial intelligence, with conventional warfare tactics ahead of any confrontation with the West. A new genre of hybrid warfare has emerged from the Ukraine conflict, with the intertwining of "political warfare, financial warfare, technological warfare, cyber warfare, and cognitive warfare," General Wang Haijiang, commander of the People's Liberation Army's (PLA) Western Theatre Command, wrote in a front-page article in an official newspaper on Monday...
The push to recruit spies in the rivalry between Russia and the United States goes both ways. According to a new CNN report, the Central Intelligence Agency is out with a new Russian-language recruitment video to get Russians to turn secret agent against Vladimir Putin's regime — complete with dramatic production values.
"The push includes a new CIA channel on Telegram, the social media network that is a highly popular source of unfiltered news in Russia. The CIA first posted the video on Telegram, which ends with instructions on how to get in touch with the CIA anonymously and securely. The video is also being posted to its other social media platforms, including YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and Facebook," reported Alex Marquardt. "CIA officials involved in the project said that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has created a historic opening 'to have Russians come to us and deliver information the United States needs.' It also comes after a previous recruitment drive following the launch of the invasion that the officials said has been successful, with 'contact coming in.'"
According to the report, the CIA is not intending to fuel social unrest in the country — but does intend to capitalize on existing unrest, telling desperate Russians they have options, and appealing to their devotion to the Russian homeland and culture to stand up to oppressors uprooting their lives.
"'We will live with dignity, thanks to my actions,' the narrator says in Russian as a woman in her car uses her phone to contact the CIA, before the agency’s logo and contact instructions appear," said the report. "The emotional two-minute video shows different Russians going about their lives, appearing to contemplate major decisions. The theme of family runs throughout, showing a young girl in a hospital bed with a lady who appears to be her mother. The target audience is clear: a woman works at what appears to be a government computer and a man walks into a government building, flashes his ID before sitting at a desk full of files."
All of this comes as Russia is facing catastrophic setbacks in the Ukraine invasion, which is now conscripting thousands of Russian men to die for an operation Putin had promised would be quick and painless.
In addition to Ukraine planning a massive counteroffensive to retake Russian-held territory, a new report revealed that Yevgeniy Prigozhin, the leader of the Putin-aligned mercenary force the Wagner Group, secretly offered Ukraine a deal to leak Russian troop positions in exchange for a withdrawal from Bakhmut, where they were operating.
Military hardware rolls through Dvortsovaya Square during a Victory Day military parade in central Saint Petersburg on May 9, 2023
Washington (AFP) - The United States publicly released data on its nuclear arsenal Monday and pressed Russia to do the same after Moscow said it was suspending participation in New START, the last arms control treaty between the two powers.
The disclosure amounts to a quick shift by the United States, which said in March it would no longer share information under New START, reciprocating the move by Russia whose invasion of Ukraine has led to a nosedive in relations with the West.
"The United States continues to view transparency among nuclear weapon states as extremely valuable for reducing the likelihood of misperception, miscalculation and costly arms competitions," a State Department statement said.
"The United States calls on the Russian Federation to comply with its legally binding obligations by returning to full implementation of the New START Treaty and all the stabilizing transparency and verification measures contained within it," it said.
Describing the data release as voluntary, the State Department said that the United States had 1,419 deployed nuclear warheads as of March 1.
The figure was down from 1,515 in March 2022 and within the 1,550 limit set by the treaty signed in 2010. Last year, Russia said it had deployed 1,474 nuclear warheads.
The US warheads are on 662 intercontinental ballistic missiles and other deployed delivery systems, down from 686 a year earlier and within the New START limit of 700. Russia reported 526 a year earlier.
The United States again said it retained a total stock of 800 delivery systems, including those not deployed, the same as a year before and the maximum allowed by the treaty.
New START, a legacy of the Cold War, was signed by former presidents Barack Obama and Dmitry Medvedev at a warmer point in relations and had the dual aims of limiting nuclear weapons and increasing transparency.
President Vladimir Putin, in a February address on the anniversary of his invasion of Ukraine, announced that Russia was suspending participation in the treaty although he stopped short of withdrawing from it.
President Joe Biden extended New START, which was set to expire, by five years immediately after entering office in 2021.
The previous US administration of Donald Trump had held off on the treaty, saying it was unfair by making no demands of China, whose nuclear arsenal is significantly smaller than those of Russia and the United States but is expected to grow quickly.
By Tom Bateman and Akiko Okamoto HIROSHIMA, Japan (Reuters) - Standing at the front of a dimly lit room in the basement of the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum, Teruko Yahata's voice broke as she recalled the morning her world changed, on August 6, 1945. "All of a sudden, the entire sky flashed and was illuminated in bluish-white, as if the heavens had become one huge, fluorescent light," the 85-year-old, speaking in English, told an audience of British tourists on a recent Tuesday. "I immediately fell to the ground and lost consciousness." Yahata is a 'hibakusha', a survivor of the atomic bomb...
Calling the situation in Haiti “tragic,” the head of the United Nations on Monday acknowledged that it has been difficult mobilizing the international community to rescue the country from the “absolutely appalling” gang violence. “This has been a difficult exercise,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said from Kingston, Jamaica. “It has been difficult to mobilize the will of those that would have the best capacity to lead this operation. And it has been difficult to create, also, the political conditions to make it easier for different countries to accept to be part of this action.” Gute...
Two suspects have been arrested for playing recordings of Adolf Hitler speeches on a train.
The pair, who have been identified, played the speeches, along with recordings of a crowd chanting Sieg Heil” and “Heil Hitler” on an intercity train Sunday in Austria, where it's illegal to spread Nazi propaganda, reported the BBC.
"We heard two episodes," said David Stoegmueller, a lawmaker with Austria’s Green Party who was on board the train. "First there was 30 seconds of a Hitler speech, and then I heard 'Sieg Heil'."
Stoegmueller said the train's crew was unable to stop the recordings or make their own announcements, and he said another passenger -- who had survived a concentration camp -- later called him to say she had also been on the train.
“She was crying,” Stoegmueller said, adding other countries suffered from other types of technical issues.“In Austria, the technical problem is Hitler."
The Nazi dictator was born in Austrian and emigrated to Germany in 1913 as a young man.
Thai voters turned out in record numbers on Sunday to reject a decade of military rule and deliver what was seen as a stunning upset for Move Forward, a youth-backed pro-democracy party that is poised to win the most seats in Thailand's House of Representatives.
Pita Limjaroenrat, Move Forward's leader, said Sunday that he is prepared to succeed 2014 coup leader Prayuth Chan-ocha as Thailand's prime minister, and the progressive party has agreed to hold coalition talks with Pheu Thai, the other major opposition party.
"Military-aligned parties were handed a sweeping defeat, with the United Thai Nation party, a vehicle for incumbent Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, receiving only 36 constituency seats," the Financial Timesreported.
Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, toldThe Washingon Post that the election results were "breathtaking," adding that Move Forward "has taken this election by storm" after the party made a surprise surge past Pheu Thai, propelled by massive support from young voters.
"A political earthquake," Thitinan added.
But the opposition's bid to lead Thailand and challenge the country's dominant institutions—the army and the monarchy—will be complicated by the junta-authored constitution, which allows the military to appoint the entire 250-member Senate. (Thailand's military has received consistent support from the U.S. even as it has engaged in what one rights group called "unending repression.")
The military-controlled Senate and the 500-member House are tasked with choosing a prime minister. Move Forward and Pheu Thai are expected to win a combined 292 seats in the House, leaving Pita shy of the 376 votes needed to become prime minister.
During a press conference on Monday, Pita said Thailand's other opposition parties have agreed to help form a majority coalition government.
"To go against the will of the people will not benefit anyone," said Pita.
The final results of Sunday's high-stakes election are set to be released in the coming weeks, and there is concern among opposition parties that ruling elites could tamper with the outcome—a move that would likely spark mass protests. In 2020, large-scale pro-democracy demonstrations were met with a harsh crackdown by Thai authorities.
The Associated Pressreported Monday that "Move Forward's Pita is a possible target for what the opposition, from bitter experience, calls dirty tricks."
A candidate with Palang Pracharath, a right-wing pro-military party, "filed a complaint with the Election Commission and the National Anti-Corruption Commission claiming Pita failed to list a stock shareholding on a statutory assets declaration," AP noted.
"Pita denied any wrongdoing in the minor, technical claim," the outlet continued. "However, the leader of the Future Forward Party, forerunner of Move Forward, lost his Parliament seat on similar technical grounds. His party, also considered a radical challenge to the military-backed royalist establishment, was dissolved."
The Guardian's Rebecca Ratcliffe noted ahead of Sunday's contest that Pita "has promised to push military generals back to the barracks—a pledge that resonates with young people who have already lived through two military coups, in 2006 and 2014."
"He has also promised to break up powerful monopolies that dominate the Thai economy, and reform the lèse-majesté law, under which criticism of the monarchy can be punished with up to 15 years in prison," Ratcliffe wrote. "Move Forward is the only party to make a clear commitment to reform the law; conservative parties all fiercely oppose doing so."
Move Forward also campaigned on a $13 daily minimum wage—up from roughly $10—and legalizing same-sex marriage.
"This is people saying that we want change," Saowanee T. Alexander, a professor at Ubon Ratchathani University in northeastern Thailand, said following Sunday's election. "They are saying that they could no longer take it. The people are very frustrated. They want change, and they could achieve it."
Cannes Film Festival © Studio graphique France Médias Monde
