United News of Bangladesh

Myanmar's military regime acknowledged Monday it had lost communications with the commanders of a strategically important army headquarters in the northeast, adding credence to a militia group's claims it had captured the base. The fall of the army's Northeast Command in Lashio city would be the biggest in a series of setbacks for Myanmar’s military government this year, as an offensive by an alliance of powerful militias of ethnic minority groups makes broad gains in the civil war. “The regime’s loss of the Northeast Command is the most humiliating defeat of the war,” said Morgan Michaels, a Singapore-based analyst with the International Institute of Strategic Studies who runs its Myanmar Conflict Map project. “Without Lashio, it will be extremely difficult for the regime to hold onto its final outposts in the theater.” Those include the key Muse border crossing with China, as well as the strategic crossroads at Kyaukme, and it opens the way for attacks on Pyin Oo Lwin and Myanmar's second-largest city, Mandalay, Michaels said. In a video broadcast Monday night on state television, the head of the ruling military council. Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, gave a vague account of the base’s fall, saying some security forces in northern Shan State left their outposts because keeping people safe was their priority. In his 25-minute address, he accused the ethnic resistance forces and “traitor maggots” inside and outside Myanmar of working together and circulating propaganda to demoralize people. He alleged that warlordism is growing among leaders of the insurgent groups, and that people are likely to face illegal and unjust killings and an economy involving drug trafficking and gambling. The army will continue to carry out security measures to restore stability, he said. The loss of Lashio raises questions about whether Myanmar's ruling military council could be forced to give up attempts to hold contested territory in order to consolidate a defense of the central heartland. It could also contribute to growing discontent with Min Aung Hlaing, who seized power after leading the overthrow of the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in 2021. “It seems increasingly unlikely that the army could survive with Min Aung Hlaing at the helm," Michaels said. Lashio, about 110 kilometers (70 miles) south of the Chinese border, has been the target of an offensive by the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army since early July. The MNDAA is a military force of the Kokang minority, who are ethnic Chinese. It is part of the Three Brotherhood Alliance, which in October launched a surprise offensive that succeeded in seizing large tracts of territory along the northern border with China. The Chinese Embassy in Myanmar on Tuesday urged its citizens in Lashio and other parts of Shan state to strengthen their security precautions, and stay away from conflict zones or return to China. Beijing helped broker a cease-fire in January, but that fell apart in June when the Ta’ang National Liberation Army, another member of the Three Brotherhood Alliance made up of Ta'ang ethnic minority members, launched new attacks, followed by the MNDAA. The alliance’s third member, the Arakan Army, has never stopped fighting in its home Rakhine State in western Myanmar. The groups in the alliance have been fighting for decades for greater autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. They are loosely allied with People’s Defense Forces, pro-democracy resistance groups that have emerged to fight military rule. The MNDAA initially claimed the capture of the Northeast Command and Lashio on July 25, but it turned out the announcement was premature as the army continued to fight. The MNDAA in a statement on Facebook on Saturday said the group had finally completely captured the Northeast Command headquarters and defeated the remaining army units in Lashio. The claims could not be verified independently, with access to the internet and mobile phone services in the area mostly cut off. A member of Lashio’s Freedom Youth Volunteers-FYV, reached while outside the city, told The Associated Press on Monday that other members of his aid group had reported army personnel remained in control of some areas of the Northeast Command headquarters, though most had been taken by the MNDAA. He spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisals from both sides. There were reports of gunfire in the city on Sunday, but images of captured soldiers and equipment were circulating widely on social media, suggesting the MNDAA had taken the base. The MNDAA released a photo of its fighters posing in front of a sign outside the Northeast Command. “The regime has clearly suffered an enormous loss and no longer has any meaningful control of the city, even if it retains a toehold for now,” Michaels said. Early Monday, Maj. Gen. Zaw Min Tun, the spokesperson of Myanmar’s ruling military council, said in an audio statement on state-run MRTV television that it had lost contact with commanders of the Northeast Command headquarters Saturday night and had unconfirmed reports that some have been arrested by the MNDAA. He did not address MNDAA's claim of capturing the base.

Thousands of supporters of Pakistan’s imprisoned former prime minister rallied Monday in the country’s volatile northwest to mark the first anniversary of his arrest and demand his immediate release, officials said. The protest is part of Imram Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf or PTI opposition party’s campaign aimed at pressuring the current government of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to free him without any further delay. The rally was held in Swabi, a city in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where Khan’s party rules. More than 10,000 supporters of Khan were seen waving the party’s flags and chanting slogans in his favor in Swabi. Top party leaders in their speeches told the demonstrators that Khan would soon be among them, though they did not elaborate. It was one of the biggest protests since 2022 when Khan was ousted in a no-confidence vote in the parliament. Ali Amin Gundapur, the chief minister in the province, asked the demonstrators to get ready for a march on Islamabad in the coming weeks, as PTI plans to hold a big protest in the capital later this month or early next month. He said PTI would defy any ban if it was not allowed to hold the rally in the nation's capital. Khan was arrested on August 5, 2023, after a court in Islamabad handed him a 3-year jail sentence in a graft case. Despite his multiple convictions, Khan remains a leading figure. In recent months, all of his convictions have been either suspended or overthrown. However, the former premier will remain behind bars as he awaits a slew of cases pending against him, which his party says are fake and politically motivated. Sharif’s government has denied those accusations, saying Khan has been given the chance of a fair trial. End/UNB/AP/MB

North Korea marked the delivery of 250 nuclear-capable missile launchers to frontline military units at a ceremony where leader Kim Jong Un called for a ceaseless expansion of his military's nuclear program to counter perceived U.S. threats, state media said Monday. Concerns about Kim’s nuclear program have grown as he has demonstrated an intent to deploy battlefield nuclear weapons along the North’s border with South Korea and authorized his military to respond with preemptive nuclear strikes if it perceives the leadership as under threat. North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said the launchers were freshly produced by the county’s munitions factories and designed to fire "tactical” ballistic missiles, a term that describes systems capable of delivering lower-yield nuclear weapons. Kim said at Sunday's event in Pyongyang the new launchers would give his frontline units “overwhelming” firepower over South Korea and make the operation of tactical nuclear weapons more practical and efficient. State media photos showed lines of army-green launcher trucks packing a large street with seemingly thousands of spectators attending the event, which included fireworks. North Korea has been expanding its lineup of mobile short-range weapons designed to overwhelm missile defenses in South Korea, while also pursuing intercontinental ballistic missiles designed to reach the U.S. mainland. Kim’s intensifying weapons tests and threats are widely seen as an attempt at pressuring the United States to accept the idea of North Korea as a nuclear power and to end U.S.-led sanctions imposed on North Korea over its nuclear program. North Korea also could seek to dial up tensions in a U.S. election year, experts say. Kim lately has used Russia’s war on Ukraine as a distraction to further accelerate his weapons development. In response, the United States, South Korea and Japan have been expanding their combined military exercises and sharpening their nuclear deterrence strategies built around strategic U.S. military assets. Lee Sung Joon, spokesperson of South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, said during a briefing that the South Korean and U.S. militaries were closely analyzing North Korea’s weapons development and further monitoring was needed to confirm the operational readiness of the missile systems showcased Sunday. He didn’t provide a specific assessment on whether the systems could be placed. Lee said the missiles are likely to be shorter in range than some of North Korea’s most powerful short-range ballistic missiles, which have demonstrated an ability to travel more than 600 kilometers (372 miles). The North in recent months has revealed a new missile called the Hwasong-11, which analysts say can travel up to 100 kilometers (62 miles). If deployed in frontline areas, the missiles would theoretically be able to cover huge swaths of South Korea’s greater capital area, where about half of the country’s 51 million people live. In his speech at Sunday’s event, Kim called for his country to brace for a prolonged confrontation with the United States and urged a relentless expansion of military strength. He justified his military buildup as a counter to the “increasingly savage” military cooperation between the United States and its regional allies, which he claimed are now showing the characteristics of a “nuclear-based military bloc.” “It would be our choice to either pursue dialogue or confrontation, but our lesson and conclusion from the past 30 years … is that confrontation is what we should be prepared more thoroughly for,” said Kim. “The United States we are facing is not just an administration that comes and goes after a few years, but a hostile nation that our children and grandchildren will be dealing for generations to come and that also illustrates the necessity to continuously improve our self-defense capabilities.” Kim also said the decision to hold the weapons ceremony while the country was trying to recover from disastrous flooding showed its determination to “push ahead with the strengthening of our national defense capabilities force without stagnation under any circumstances.” The floods in late July submerged thousands of homes and huge swaths of farmland in regions near the border with China. Russia has offered flood aid to North Korea, in another sign of expanding relations between the two nations. Kim has made Russia his priority in recent months as he pushes a foreign policy aimed at expanding relations with countries confronting Washington, embracing the idea of a “new Cold War” and trying to display. 

They were found in gutters, on streets, in bushes. They were boarded on trains, deserted in hospitals, dumped at temples. They were sent away for being sick or outliving paychecks or simply growing too old. By the time they reached this home for the aged and unwanted, many were too numb to speak. Some took months to mouth the truth of how they came to spend their final days in exile. “They said, ‘Taking care of him is not our cup of tea,’” says Amirchand Sharma, 65, a retired policeman whose sons left him to die near the river after he was badly hurt in an accident. “They said, ‘Throw him away.’” In its traditions, in its religious tenets and in its laws, India has long cemented the belief that it is a child’s duty to care for his aging parents. But in a land known for revering its elderly, a secret shame has emerged: A burgeoning population of older people abandoned by their own families. This is a country where grandparents routinely share a roof with children and grandchildren, and where the expectation that the young care for the old is so ingrained in the national ethos that nursing homes are a relative rarity and hiring caregivers is often seen as taboo. But expanding lifespans have brought ballooning caregiving pressure, a wave of urbanization has driven many young far from their home villages and a creeping Western influence has begun eroding the tradition of multigenerational living. Courtrooms swell with thousands of cases of parents seeking help from their children. Footpaths and alleys are crowded with older people who now call them home. And a cottage industry of nonprofits for the abandoned has sprouted, operating a constantly growing number of shelters that continually fill. This is one of them. The Saint Hardyal Educational and Orphans Welfare Society, known as SHEOWS, houses about 320 people on 16 acres of land in this small north Indian city. Nearly all of them were abandoned by their families. One woman spent more than eight years living at a faraway temple where she was deserted by her children. Another tells of a son she loved who forced her out, saying if she didn’t leave, his wife would. A man sitting atop a bed with sheets adorned with teddy bears and smiling anthropomorphic mushrooms was left to die on the street, arriving here so starved that he ate 22 rotis, one after another after another. Birbati, the lead caregiver in the women’s building, who does not use a surname, says after years of tending to the abandoned, she finds some of them visiting in her dreams. “Each of them has a story,” she says. “All are sad stories.” Where growing old is new Wealthy countries have grappled with aging societies for decades, but the issue is only now beginning to ripple in the developing world, where the idea of growing old is still new for swaths of the population. By 2050, two-thirds of the world’s population of people 60 and older will reside outside the world’s wealthiest nations. India is projected to see growth among its old that far outstrips that of the young. Already, the curses of that demographic shift have begun to emerge alongside its blessings. An Indian born just 70 years ago was forecast to live nearly half as long as one today. But longer lives have often brought with them greater medical need and thrust the next generation into economic binds that force them to balance the needs of their parents with the needs of their own children. By tradition, Indian parents live with a son, who is responsible for their care, though in practice, the work typically falls to women. That remains the norm, but a growing number of older Indians now have absentee children and inadequate help to keep up with expenses or care. Others feel forced to leave homes where toxic feuds fester. And, in the very worst cases, parents are ousted from their home by a child in a dispute over money or in a wits-end solution to incontinence they can’t stomach or dementia they can’t handle.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un accused South Korea’s “rubbish” media of tarnishing the North’s image by allegedly exaggerating the death tolls from recent floods that hit the country’s northwest region, and hinted that he would refuse Seoul’s offer for aid. Kim made the comments Friday during a visit to an air force helicopter unit, where he praised the troops for helping rescue people from the floods, North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Saturday. During the visit, Kim denied claims by South Korean media that 1,000 to 1,500 North Koreans would have died from the floods and that multiple helicopters might have crashed during the emergency response. He described the reports as a “vicious smear campaign” by the South. Kim labeled South Korea as an unchangeable enemy and stressed that the North will never sacrifice its national defense to improve disaster recovery or people’s standards of living — hinting that Pyongyang would reject Seoul's aid offer. South Korea’s government offered Thursday to send aid supplies to address the “humanitarian challenges” facing North Korean residents in flood-affected areas near the country’s border with China. It was widely expected that North Korea would reject the offer. Animosity between the war-divided rivals is at its highest in years over the North’s growing nuclear ambitions and the South’s expansion of combined military exercises with the United States and Japan to counter the North’s threats. The North had also rejected South Korea’s offers for help while battling a COVID-19 outbreak in 2022. North Korean state media reports said recent heavy rains left 4,100 houses, 7,410 acres of agricultural fields and numerous other public buildings, structures, roads and railways flooded in the northwestern city of Sinuiju and the neighboring town of Uiju. State media has not provided information on deaths, but Kim was quoted blaming public officials who had neglected disaster prevention, causing “the casualty that cannot be allowed.” During his visit to the helicopter unit, Kim said it was a miracle that no casualties were reported in the Sinuiju area and credited the air force personnel for pulling off successful rescue missions. Kim also said that one helicopter made an emergency landing during a rescue mission but that all pilots were safe, in what appeared to be a denial of South Korean media claims about multiple helicopter crashes.

Vietnamese President To Lam was confirmed Saturday as the new chief of the Communist Party after his predecessor died July 19. Lam will be the general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, the country’s most powerful political role, state media said. It was unclear if Lam will stay in his role as president. The previous general secretary, Nguyen Phu Trong, dominated Vietnamese politics since he became party chief in 2011. He was elected to a third term as general secretary in 2021. He was an ideologue who viewed corruption as the gravest threat facing the party. In his first speech as the Communist Party chief, Lam said that him taking the reigns was because of “an urgent need to ensure the leadership of the party.” Lam said he would maintain the legacies of his predecessor, notably the anti-corruption campaign that has rocked the country’s political and business elites and a pragmatic approach to foreign policy known as bamboo diplomacy — a phrase coined by Trong referring to the plant’s flexibility, bending but not breaking in the shifting headwinds of global geopolitics. Lam spent over four decades in the Ministry of Public Security before becoming the minister in 2016. As Vietnam’s top security official, Lam led Trong’s sweeping anti-graft campaign until May, when he became president following the resignation of his predecessor, who stepped down after being caught by the campaign. Big changes in Vietnam’s strategic approach are unlikely, said Nguyen Khac Giang, a visiting fellow in the Vietnam Studies Program at Singapore’s ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute, but Lam's relative newness to governing meant that it remains to be seen how he will lead. Given the current composition of the upper echelons of Vietnamese politics, Giang said it was possible that Lam’s promotion could mean an end to the internal fighting that has rocked the party for several years. “To Lam is the new unchallenged power who will dominate Vietnamese politics in the years, if not a decade, ahead,” he said. Giang said the party will vote for the general secretary again in 2026, and Lam’s performance will be a factor. “For now, however, it seems a new era has come,” he said.

In India and China, torrential rains have killed more than 200 people in the past week. Three others died in Pakistan. Widespread flooding has been reported in North Korea near the border with China with no word on whether anyone died. This time of year is monsoon and typhoon season in Asia, and climate change has intensified such storms. Heavy rains have triggered landslides and flooding, devastating crops, destroying homes and taking lives. Historical data shows that China is having more extremely hot days and more frequent intense rains, according to a report released last month by the China Meteorological Administration, which forecasts more of both in the coming 30 years. Governments have launched disaster prevention plans to try to mitigate the damage. Rescue teams scramble to evacuate people ahead of approaching storms and deliver relief goods by helicopter to cut-off areas. China has deployed drones for emergency communication in rain-prone provinces. Sometimes it isn't enough, as the tragic consequences playing out in Asia show. India: 194 dead, 187 missingHeavy rains sent torrents of mud and water through tea estates and villages in Kerala state in southern India early Tuesday, destroying bridges and flattening houses. Hope of finding survivors has waned as the search entered its fourth day. Bodies have been found as many as 30 kilometers (20 miles) downriver from the main landslides. The area is known for its picturesque tea and cardamom estates, with hundreds of plantation workers living in nearby temporary shelters. “This was a very beautiful place," a shopkeeper said. “I used to visit here many times. ... Now there is nothing left.” India regularly has severe floods during the monsoon season, which runs between June and September and brings rain that is crucial for crops. China: 48 dead, 35 missingTyphoon Gaemi was blamed for more than 30 deaths in the Philippines and 10 in Taiwan as it churned through the western Pacific last week, but it was still fatal after weakening to a tropical storm in China. Rain drenched parts of inland Hunan province for several days. On Sunday morning, a mudslide slammed into a homestay house in a popular weekend spot, killing 15 people. Elsewhere in Hunan, the bodies of three people were found on Monday, believed to be victims of another landslide. And authorities in nearby Zixing city announced Thursday that 30 people had died in floods, with 35 others missing. One other death in China was apparently tied to the storm, a delivery driver on a scooter struck by falling tree branches during high winds in Shanghai. China has recorded 25 major floods this year, the most since it began keeping statistics in 1998, the Ministry of Water Resources said this week. North Korea: Damage, but no information on deathsThe tropical storm also generated heavy rain in northeast China on the border with North Korea, overflowing the Yalu River, which divides the two countries. In North Korea, the rain flooded 4,100 houses, 3,000 hectares (7,400 acres) of farmland and many public buildings, roads and railways. Its state media did not give information on deaths, though the nation's leader Kim Jong Un implied there were casualties when he was quoted blaming public officials who had neglected disaster prevention, causing "the casualty that cannot be allowed.” Military helicopters and navy and other government boats evacuated stranded residents. State TV aired footage showing Kim and other officials riding on rubber boats to examine the scale of the damage. The footage showed houses submerged in muddy waters with only their roofs visible. On the Chinese side, state television showed excavators in rushing water trying to clear debris after a mudslide in Jilin province. One city near North Korea asked people living below the third floor to move higher as the Yalu River rose. In Dandong, a large Chinese city along the river, rescuers evacuated residents in rubber dinghies on streets turned into virtual lakes. There were no reports of deaths. Pakistan: 3 dead Record rainfall in the city of Lahore flooded streets and left at least three people dead in Pakistan on Thursday. The deaths at the start of August came on top of 99 rain-related fatalities the previous month. Some parts of Lahore recorded 353 millimeters (14 inches) of rain in a few hours, breaking a 44-year-old record. The rain was so heavy that it entered some hospital wards in the capital of Punjab province. The victims included two children, one who drowned in a flooded street and another who fell from the roof of her house.

The military regime that seized power in Myanmar 3 1/2 years ago on Wednesday extended the state of emergency in the civil war-wracked country for another six months, saying it needs time to prepare for long-promised elections. The state of emergency was initially declared when troops ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on Feb. 1, 2021, arresting her and members of her National League for Democracy party. The emergency decree empowers the military to assume all government functions, giving the head of the ruling military council, Senior Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, legislative, judicial and executive powers. At the moment, military regime is facing its greatest challenge since taking power, as powerful ethnic minority militias and people's defense forces that support Myanmar's main opposition have taken wide swaths of territory in fierce fighting in recent months. The military is now estimated to control less than half the country, but is holding on tenaciously to much of central Myanmar, including the capital, Naypyidaw, which was recently targeted by small rocket attacks and two bombings. The extension of the state of emergency was granted by the National Defense and Security Council, after Ming Aung Hlaing argued more time is needed to restore stability to the country and carry out a census in preparations for national elections, state-run MRTV reported. The plan for a general election is widely seen as an attempt to normalize the military’s seizure of power through the ballot box and to deliver a result that ensures the generals retain control. Critics have already said the military-planned elections will be neither free nor fair because there is no free media and most of the leaders of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party have been arrested. Under the country's 2008 constitution, drafted by the army, the military can rule the country under a state of emergency for one year, followed by two possible six-month extensions before holding elections. Wednesday's extension, however, was the regime's sixth, and was again rubber-stamped by the NDSC, which is nominally a constitutional administrative government body, but in practice is controlled by the military. It did not announce the details behind its decision. Additionally, such extensions are supposed to be endorsed by the country's president, but current acting president Myint Swe last week authorized Min Aung Hlaing to carry out his duties with the NDSC while he is on medical leave. The military originally announced elections would be held in August, 2023, but has regularly pushed the date back and has recently said they would take place sometime in 2025. Under the country's constitution, for an election to be held the military has to transfer government functions to the president at least six months before the polls. The 2021 military takeover was met with widespread nonviolent protests. But after peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict. The fiercest fighting in recent weeks has been in the northeast, where the ethnic militias from an alliance group claimed last week to have seized Lashio, which houses the major regional military headquarters, and Mogok, the center of the country’s lucrative gem-mining industry. Reports suggest that regime troops continue to hold the regional headquarters but could be forced from Lashio soon. In Lashio, the main prison gate was reportedly opened over the weekend and more than 200 political prisoners, including Tun Tun Hein, a former deputy speaker of the lower house of Myanmar’s parliament and senior member of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy party, were released. Maung Maung Swe, a member of Myanmar’s main opposition group, the National Unity Government — whose leadership operates largely from outside the country — told The Associated Press that its forces in Myanmar were providing care for more than 200 of released political prisoners.  

The Bank of Japan raised its key interest rate Wednesday to about 0.25% from a range of zero to about 0.1%, acting to curb the yen’s slide against the U.S. dollar. The move was widely expected, and the yen gained sharply against the dollar ahead of and after Wednesday’s decision, trading below 152 yen. Concerns have been deepening about the yen's recent drop to 160-yen levels to the dollar. That hurts an economy that imports almost all its oil, as well as other items like food. The decision on the overnight call rate came just four months after the central bank raised its key rate above zero for the first time in 17 years. Bank of Japan Gov. Kazuo Ueda told reporters the action came because the foundation of the Japanese economy was relatively solid, with gradual price rises accompanied by wage increases, despite worries about personal spending holding up as prices rose. He acknowledged additional rate hikes may be coming within this year, depending on how the economy holds up, including how the latest rate increases may affect economic activity and prices. He declined to give a specific date. “In the long term, we think that adjusting longtime extremely low interest rates shouldn't be rushed, and overall risks can be reduced,” he said. Share prices in Tokyo rose after the decision, with Japan's benchmark Nikkei 225 finishing 1.5% higher. Japan's central bank has kept interest rates near or below zero for nearly a decade, seeking to spur inflation in what has been a deflationary economy, hoping to sustain stronger growth for one of the world’s largest economies. Ueda said Wednesday that he did not want to come out and say that Japan had escaped deflation, but he stressed that prices seemed to be steadily increasing. The zero-rate strategy was controversial. When wages failed to keep pace with price increases, consumers tended to spend less rather than more. A weak yen has pushed prices in Japan higher since it makes imported gas, oil and other necessities more expensive. The main index of inflation has exceeded the BOJ’s target of about 2% for months. “Inflation expectations of firms and households have risen moderately,” the BOJ said in its policy statement. “The year-on-year rate of change in import prices has turned positive again, and upside risks to prices require attention.” The ultra-lax monetary policy also involved massive central bank purchases of Japanese government bonds and other assets to inject cash into the economy. The BOJ has been moving toward unwinding that but was wary of stifling growth by raising the cost of borrowing. On Wednesday, it said it would reduce the amount of its purchases, long at tens of trillions of yen a month, so that they will be about 3 trillion yen ($19 billion) in the January-March quarter of 2026, or about half of the current 6 trillion yen ($39 billion). Ipek Ozkardeskaya, senior analyst at Swissquote Bank, noted the Bank of Japan had used language that “was quite bullish on prices," meaning that more hikes were likely. Analysts say the central bank's focus was on what many see as the overly weak yen, while taking care not to set off any negatively dramatic overreactions in the economy. The central bank shifted away from a negative policy rate only in March, raising the overnight call rate for banks to 0.1% from minus 0.1%. The dollar’s gains have reflected high interest rates in the United States, where the Federal Reserve is forecast to cut its main rate in September and to hold steady at a policy meeting later Wednesday. The Bank of England was due to issue a rate decision on Thursday.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has regained weight and appears to have obesity-related health problems such as high blood pressure and diabetes, and his officials are looking for new medicines abroad to treat them, South Korea’s spy agency told lawmakers Monday. The 40-year-old Kim, known for heavy drinking and smoking, comes from a family with a history of heart problems. Both his father and grandfather, who ruled North Korea before his 2011 inheritance of power, died of heart issues. Some observers said Kim, who is about 170 centimeters (5 feet, 7 inches) tall and previously weighed 140 kilograms (308 pounds), appeared to have lost a large amount of weight in 2021, likely from changing his diet. But recent state media footage show he has regained the weight. On Monday, the National Intelligence Service, South Korea’s main spy agency, told lawmakers in a closed-door briefing that Kim is estimated to weigh about 140 kilograms (308 pounds) again and is in a high-risk group for heart disease, according to Lee Seong Kweun, one of the lawmakers. Lee said the NIS told lawmakers that Kim has shown symptoms of high blood pressure and diabetes since his early 30s. Another lawmaker, Park Sunwon, said the NIS believes Kim’s obesity is linked to his drinking, smoking and stress. Lee and Park quoted the NIS as saying it obtained intelligence that North Korean officials have been trying to get new medications abroad for Kim's suspected high blood pressure and diabetes. North Korea is one of the most secretive countries in the world, and there is virtually no way for outsiders to know Kim's exact health conditions. The NIS also has a spotty record in confirming developments in North Korea. Kim's health is the focus of keen attention outside North Korea since he hasn't formally anointed a successor who would take charge of the country's advancing nuclear arsenal targeting the United States and its allies if he was incapacitated. The NIS in its Monday briefing maintained its assessment that Kim's preteen daughter, reportedly named Kim Ju Ae, is bolstering her likely status as her father's heir apparent. But the NIS said it cannot rule out the possibility that she could be replaced by one of her siblings because she hasn't been officially designated as her father's successor. Speculation about Kim Ju Ae, who is about 10 or 11 years old, flared when she accompanied her father at high-profile public events starting in late 2022. State media called her Kim Jong Un's “most beloved” or “respected” child and churned out footage and photos proving her rising political standing and closeness with her father. The NIS told lawmakers that at least 60% of Kim Ju Ae's public activities have involved attending military events with her father.