United News of Bangladesh

Chinese Premier Li Qiang will undertake an official visit to Indonesia from 24 to 26 May, at the invitation of President Prabowo Subianto, according to the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Besides, Li will participate in the ASEAN-GCC-China Summit in Kuala Lumpur from 26 to 28 May, at the invitation of Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim of Malaysia, the current chair of ASEAN, the ministry added. Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry, highlighted that China-Indonesia relations, which span 75 years, have been progressing steadily with significant achievements through practical cooperation. Last year, the two heads of state reached important consensus on building a China-Indonesia community with a shared future with regional and global influence, elevating bilateral relations to a new level. China prioritises neighbourhood diplomacy to foster peace and prosperity Li's schedule in Indonesia will include talks and meetings with Indonesian leaders, including President Prabowo, during which they will engage in in-depth discussions on deepening high-level and all-round strategic cooperation. Li will also attend activities of local business community, Mao said. She said China hopes to carry forward the traditional friendship with Indonesia, deepen solidarity and cooperation, continuously consolidate cooperation in the "five pillars" of politics, economy, people-to-people and cultural exchanges, maritime affairs and security. It is hoped that the two countries, along their respective modernization paths, will constantly enrich the connotation of the China-Indonesia community with a shared future, and make greater contributions to peace, stability, development and prosperity in the region and beyond, she added. On the ASEAN-GCC-China Summit to be held for the first time, Mao said that both ASEAN and GCC countries are emerging economies in Asia, important members of the Global South, and important partners in the Belt and Road cooperation. Foreign Ministers laud progress in China-Afghanistan-Pakistan trilateral cooperation China supports Malaysia, ASEAN's rotating chair, in proposing to hold the ASEAN-GCC-China Summit, she said. Under the current international and regional circumstances, it is of great significance for the three parties to jointly discuss plans for solidarity, cooperation, development and prosperity, and promote mutually beneficial cooperation across regions, she said. Mao said that China looks forward to expanding practical cooperation with ASEAN and GCC countries across various fields, leveraging their complementary advantages to achieve win-win outcomes, while jointly safeguarding the multilateral trading system and defending the common interests of the Global South.

The civil war in Myanmar, maritime disputes in the South China Sea and U.S. tariff hikes will top the agenda of a two-day Southeast Asian summit next week, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. The meeting in Malaysia, the current chair of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, on Monday will be followed by a summit on Tuesday with Chinese Premier Li Qiang and leaders from the Gulf Cooperation Council comprising Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The GCC already has strong links with the U.S. and “wants to be close to China too,” Anwar said. “We want to have that synergy to enhance trade investments, more effective collaboration,” Anwar said in a media briefing late Wednesday. ASEAN countries, many which rely on exports to the U.S., have been hit by U.S. tariffs ranging from 10% to 49%. U.S. President Donald Trump last month announced a 90-day pause on the tariffs, prompting countries including Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam to swiftly begin trade negotiations with Washington. Anwar said the U.S. has promised to review Malaysia's case “sympathetically.” He said ASEAN is also working together to see how it can negotiate with the U.S. as a bloc. At the same time, he said that ASEAN must build its economic resilience by deepening links with other partners such as China, India and the European Union. China, ASEAN media and think tanks urged to embrace AI, address its challenges Anwar said the U.S.-China rivalry would not split the bloc as the region continues to engage both superpowers. He also downplayed territorial disputes between ASEAN members and China in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety, and Myanmar's conflict since the 2021 military takeover. Anwar met last month with Myanmar military chief Gen. Ming Aung Hlaing in Bangkok and held virtual talks with the opposition National Unity Government. Even though the talks were focused on humanitarian aid following a devastating earthquake in March that killed more than 3,700 people, Anwar said he hopes they could eventually push a peace process forward. Ultimate goal is to join ASEAN as full member, says Dr Yunus seeking support from Thai elite Min Aung Hlaing has been barred from attending ASEAN meetings after the military refused to comply with ASEAN’s peace plan, which includes delivery of humanitarian aid and negotiations. Opponents and critics of the military government say aid is not freely allowed into areas not under the army’s control, and accuse the army of violating its self-declared ceasefire with dozens of airstrikes.

Landslides struck a rural area in China's southwestern Guizhou province Thursday morning, leaving 21 people trapped, officials said. Rescuers were dispatched to Qingyang village, where eight households and 19 people were trapped in a landslide, while another landslide struck nearby Changshi township. The village is in a remote, mountainous area of the province. The People's Liberation Army in Guizhon and a local militia sent 120 people to help in the rescue, according to state broadcaster CCTV, in addition to 60 military police. Death toll in deadly flooding and landslides in Indonesia rises to 21 A resident of the village told state media that it had rained all night. A drone video of the area showed a large swathe of brown earth that cut through the green slope of the hilly terrain.

Hundreds of mourners in Pakistan on Thursday attended the funerals of three schoolgirls and two soldiers killed in a suicide bombing that targeted a school bus. The girls, aged 10 to 16, were students at the Army Public School in Khuzdar, a city in Balochistan, local authorities said. Another 53 people were wounded, including 39 children, on Wednesday when the bomber drove a car into the school bus in Khuzdar.  Kashmir tourism bears the brunt after tourist massacre and India-Pakistan military strikes No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, one of the deadliest targeting schoolchildren in recent years. The separatist Baloch Liberation Army, or BLA, has claimed most of the previous attacks in the southwestern province. Both the BLA and the Pakistani Taliban typically refrain from taking responsibility for attacks that result in civilian or child casualties. The BLA has led a long-running separatist insurgency in Balochistan. The U.S. designated the group a terrorist organization in 2019.  Thailand to tighten cannabis rules amid rise in smuggling Pakistan’s military and government blamed rival India for the attack without offering any evidence. India has not commented. India and Pakistan this month fought a four-day conflict before agreeing to a ceasefire.

There are hardly any tourists in the scenic Himalayan region of Kashmir. Most of the hotels and ornate pinewood houseboats are empty. Resorts in the snowclad mountains have fallen silent. Hundreds of cabs are parked and idle. It’s the fallout of last month’s gun massacre that left 26 people, mostly Hindu tourists, dead in Indian-controlled Kashmir followed by tit-for-tat military strikes by India and Pakistan, bringing the nuclear-armed rivals to the brink of their third war over the region. “There might be some tourist arrivals, but it counts almost negligible. It is almost a zero footfall right now,” said Yaseen Tuman, who operates multiple houseboats in the region’s main city of Srinagar. “There is a haunting silence now.” Tens of thousands of panicked tourists left Kashmir within days after the rare killings of tourists on April 22 at a picture-perfect meadow in southern resort town of Pahalgam. Following the attack, authorities temporarily closed dozens of tourist resorts in the region, adding to fear and causing occupancy rates to plummet. Graphic images, repeatedly circulated through TV channels and social media, deepened panic and anger. India blamed Pakistan for supporting the attackers, a charge Islamabad denied. Those who had stayed put fled soon after tensions between India and Pakistan spiked. As the two countries fired missiles and drones at each other, the region witnessed mass cancellations of tourist bookings. New Delhi and Islamabad reached a US-mediated ceasefire on May 10 but hardly any new bookings have come in, tour operators said. Sheikh Bashir Ahmed, vice president of the Kashmir Hotel and Restaurant Association, said at least 12,000 rooms in the region’s hundreds of hotels and guesthouses were previously booked until June. Almost all bookings have been cancelled, and tens of thousands of people associated with hotels are without jobs, he said. “It’s a huge loss.” Ahmed said. The decline has had a ripple effect on the local economy. Handicrafts, food stalls and taxi operators have lost most of their business. After days of heavy firefights, calm reported along Indian and Pakistan borders Idyllic destinations, like the resort towns of Gulmarg and Pahalgam, once a magnet for travelers, are eerily silent. Lines of colorful hand-carved boats, known as shikaras, lie deserted, mostly anchored still on Srinagar’s normally bustling Dal Lake. Tens of thousands of daily wage workers have hardly any work. “There used to be long lines of tourists waiting for boat rides. There are none now,” said boatman Fayaz Ahmed. Taxi driver Mohammed Irfan would take tourists for long drives to hill stations and show them grand Mughal-era gardens. “Even a half day of break was a luxury, and we would pray for it. Now, my taxi lies standstill for almost two weeks,” he said. In recent years, the tourism sector grew substantially, making up about 7% of the region’s economy, according to official figures. Omar Abdullah, Kashmir’s top elected official, said before the attack on tourists that the government was aiming to increase tourism's share of the economy to at least 15% in the next four to five years. Indian-controlled Kashmir was a top destination for visitors until the armed rebellion against Indian rule began in 1989. Warfare laid waste to the stunningly beautiful region, which is partly controlled by Pakistan and claimed by both countries in its entirety. As the conflict ground on, the tourism sector slowly revived but occasional military skirmishes between India and Pakistan kept visitors at bay. But India vigorously pushed tourism after Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government scrapped the disputed region’s semi-autonomy in 2019. Tensions have simmered, but the region has also drawn millions of visitors amid a strange calm enforced by an intensified security crackdown. According to official data, close to 3 million tourists visited the region in 2024, a rise from 2.71 million visitors in 2023 and 2.67 million in 2022. The massive influx prompted many locals to invest in the sector, setting up family-run guesthouses, luxury hotels, and transport companies in a region with few alternatives. India, Pakistan military officials to hold talks as ceasefire brings border calm Tourists remained largely unfazed even as Modi’s administration has governed Kashmir with an iron fist in recent years, claiming militancy in the region was in check and a tourism influx was a sign of normalcy returning. The massacre shattered those claims. Experts say that the Modi government’s optimism was largely misplaced and that the rising tourism in the region of which it boasted was a fragile barometer of normalcy. Last year, Abdullah, the region’s chief minister, cautioned against such optimism. Tuman, who is also a sixth-generation tour operator, said he was not too optimistic about an immediate revival as bookings for the summer were almost all cancelled. “If all goes well, it will take at least six months for tourism to revive,” he said. Ahmed, the hotels association official, said India and Pakistan need to resolve the dispute for the region’s prosperity. “Tourism needs peace. If (Kashmir) problem is not solved … maybe after two months, it will be again same thing.”

North Korea's second naval destroyer was damaged in its failed launch to the water this week, state media reported Thursday, in an embarrassment for leader Kim Jong Un as he pushes to modernise his naval forces. It's not common for North Korea to acknowledge military-related setbacks, but observers say the disclosure of the failed ship launch suggests that Kim is serious about his naval advancement program and confident of ultimately achieving its objectives, reports AP. During a launching event at the northeastern port of Chongjin on Wednesday, the newly built 5,000-ton-class destroyer became unbalanced and was punctured in its bottom sections after a transport cradle on the stern section slid off first and became stuck, according to the Korean Central News Agency. KCNA didn't provide details on what caused the problem, the severity of the damage or whether anyone was injured. According to KCNA, Kim, who was present at the ceremony, blamed military officials, scientists and shipyard operators for a “serious accident and criminal act caused by absolute carelessness, irresponsibility and unscientific empiricism." Kim called for a ruling Workers’ Party meeting slated for late June to address their “irresponsible errors." “It's a shameful thing. But the reason why North Korea disclosed the incident is it wants to show it's speeding up the modernization of its navy forces and expresses its confidence that it can eventually build" a greater navy, said Moon Keun-sik, a navy expert who teaches at Seoul’s Hanyang University. Canada is talking to US about joining ‘Golden Dome’ missile defense system: Carney Moon suspected the incident likely happened because North Korean workers aren't yet familiar with such a large warship and were rushed to put it in the water. The damaged vessel was likely in the same class as the country’s first destroyer, unveiled April 25, which experts assessed as the North’s largest and most advanced warship to date. Kim called the first vessel, named Choe Hyon — a famed Korean guerilla fighter during the Japanese colonial period — a significant asset for advancing his goal of expanding the military’s operational range and nuclear strike capabilities. State media described that ship as designed to handle various weapons systems, including anti-air and anti-ship weapons as well as nuclear-capable ballistic and cruise missiles. Kim said the ship was expected to enter active duty early next year and later supervised test-firings of missiles from the warship.

President Vladimir Putin visited Russia's Kursk region for the first time since Moscow claimed that it drove Ukrainian forces out of the area last month, the Kremlin said Wednesday. Putin visited the region bordering Ukraine the previous day, according to the Kremlin. Ukrainian forces made a surprise incursion into Kursk in August 2024 in one of their biggest battlefield successes in the more than three-year war. The incursion was the first time Russian territory was occupied by an invader since World War II and dealt a humiliating blow to the Kremlin. Since the end of 2023, Russia has mostly had the advantage on the battlefield, with the exception of Kursk. Putin has effectively rejected recent U.S. and European proposals for a ceasefire. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday accused Kyiv’s allies of seeking a truce “so that they can calmly arm Ukraine, so that Ukraine can strengthen its defensive positions.” Germany's economy will stagnate this year as tariffs cast a shadow: advisers North Korea sent up to 12,000 troops to help the Russian army take back control of Kursk, according to Ukraine, the U.S. and South Korea. Russia announced on April 26 that its forces had pushed out the Ukrainian army. Kyiv officials denied the claim. The Ukrainian Army General Staff said Wednesday that its forces repelled 13 Russian assaults in Kursk. Its map of military activity showed Ukrainian troops holding a thin line of land hard against the border but still inside Russia. Putin’s unannounced visit appeared to be an effort to show Russia is in control of the conflict, even though its full-scale invasion of its neighbor has been slow and costly in terms of casualties and equipment. Video broadcast by Russian state media showed that Putin visited Kursk Nuclear Power Plant-2, which is still under construction, and met with selected volunteers behind closed doors.

Thai officials on Wednesday said that they planned to tighten regulations on cannabis sales after cases of tourists attempting to smuggle the drug out of the country soared in recent months. Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalize cannabis in 2022, which has boosted Thailand’s tourism and farming and spawned thousands of shops. But it’s facing public backlash over allegations that under-regulation has made the drug available to children and caused addiction, reports AP. The ruling Pheu Thai Party has promised to criminalize the drugs again, but faced strong resistance from its partner in the coalition government which supported the decriminalization. Thailand’s Health Minister Somsak Thepsutin said at a press conference that officials are aiming to roll out new regulations in coming weeks that will tighten control on the sale of cannabis, including requiring shops to sell cannabis only to customers who have a prescription. He emphasised that it is against Thai law to bring cannabis out of the country without permission from the authorities. Airport officials said they have tightened inspections to detect smuggling attempts, adding that most people found with cannabis in their luggage are foreigners, especially Indian and British nationals. Thailand and Indonesia announce strategic partnership, vow to boost economic and defense ties Last week two young British women were arrested in Georgia and Sri Lanka for alleged attempts to smuggle cannabis after they flew there from Thailand, according to the British media. Britain's government said a joint operation with Thailand in February resulted in over 2 tons of cannabis seized from air passengers. It said that since July last year, over 50 British nationals had been arrested in Thailand for attempting to smuggle cannabis. It also said there was a dramatic increase in the amount of cannabis sent to the UK from Thailand by post since the decriminalisation in 2022. In March immigration authorities and police said 22 suitcases filled with a total of 375 kilograms of cannabis were seized, and 13 foreigners, most of them British, were arrested at the international airport on the Samui Island.

Indian author Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi won the International Booker Prize for fiction Tuesday for “Heart Lamp,” a collection of 12 short stories written over a period of more than 30 years and which chronicle the everyday lives and struggles of women in southern India. The award was announced by bestselling Booker Prize-longlisted author Max Porter in his role as chair of the five-member voting panel, at a ceremony at London’s Tate Modern.  Thailand and Indonesia announce strategic partnership, vow to boost economic and defense ties It is the first time the award has been given to a collection of short stories. Bhasthi is the first Indian translator — and ninth female translator — to win the prize since it took on its current form in 2016. Mushtaq is the sixth female author to be awarded the prize since then. Written in Kannada, which is spoken by around 65 million people, primarily in southern India, Porter praised the “radical” nature of the translation, adding that “It’s been a joy” to listen to the evolving appreciation of the stories by members of the jury. “These beautiful, busy, life-affirming stories rise from Kannada, interspersed with the extraordinary socio-political richness of other languages and dialects," said Porter. ”It speaks of women’s lives, reproductive rights, faith, caste, power and oppression.” The book, which beat five other finalists, comprises stories written from 1990 to 2023. They were selected and curated by Bhasthi, who was keen to preserve the multilingual nature of southern India in her translation. Mushtaq, who is a lawyer and activist as well as writer, told a short list reading event on Sunday that the stories “are about women – how religion, society and politics demand unquestioning obedience from them, and in doing so, inflict inhumane cruelty upon them, turning them into mere subordinates.” The 50,000-pound ($66,000) prize money is to be divided equally between author and translator. Each is presented with a trophy too.  Philippines Senate race a blow to President Marcos as he feuds with Vice President Duterte The International Booker Prize is awarded every year. It is run alongside the Booker Prize for English-language fiction, which will be handed out in the fall.

A British climber who scaled Mount Everest for the 19th time, breaking his own record for the most ascents of the world’s highest peak by a non-Sherpa guide, returned from the mountain Tuesday and said he is already planning his next attempt. Kenton Cool from southwest England, reached the 8,849-meter (29,032-foot) summit Sunday before flying on a helicopter with his clients back to the Nepalese capital, Kathmandu. “I am 51 now, and I have been coming here since 2004 to climb Everest,” Cool said at Kathmandu's airport. “I have at least one more climb for next year — maybe 20 or 21 (total). After that I'll start climbing other mountains in Nepal.” Cool has scaled Everest almost every year since 2004. He was unable to climb it in 2014 because the season was canceled after 16 Sherpa guides were killed in an avalanche, and again in 2015 when an earthquake triggered an avalanche that killed 19 people. The 2020 climbing season was canceled because of the coronavirus pandemic. Only Nepali Sherpa guides have scaled the peak more times than Cool. Kami Rita holds the record for the most successful ascents of Mount Everest at 30 times. He is currently on the mountain and is expected to attempt to reach the top in the next few days. Famed Sherpa guide will attempt to climb Mount Everest for a 31st time and break his own record Cool said his climb was smooth and that he faced no problems, but he noticed that many climbers were trying to reach the peak on the same day. Hundreds of climbers and their guides are on the mountain during the popular spring climbing season, when weather conditions are most ideal on the peaks. “Mountaineering is an amazing sport which is open to everybody, but you just need to be part of it responsibly and we have seen some people coming to Everest — perhaps they do not have the experience that they should,” Cool said, adding that it was not necessary to limit the number of climbers each season. The climbing season finishes at the end of this month. Weather conditions then deteriorate with the monsoon season making climbing more difficult.