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Ousted Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi was transferred Wednesday from a secret detention location to a prison in the country’s capital, legal officials familiar with her case said. Her ongoing court cases will be tried at a new facility constructed in the prison compound, they said. Suu Kyi was arrested on Feb. 1, 2021, when the army seized power from her elected government. She was initially held at her residence in the capital, but was later moved to at least one other location, and for about the past year has been held at an undisclosed location in the capital, Naypyitaw, generally assumed to be on a military base. She has been tried on multiple charges, including corruption, at a special court in Naypyitaw that began hearings on May 24, 2021. Each of the 11 corruption counts she faces is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Read: Myanmar court sentences Suu Kyi to 5 years for corruption Already she has been sentenced to 11 years’ imprisonment after being convicted on charges of illegally importing and possessing walkie-talkies and violating coronavirus restrictions. In addition to the corruption cases that are underway, she also has been charged with election fraud and violating the Officials Secrets Act. Suu Kyi’s supporters and rights groups say the charges against her are politically motivated and are an attempt to discredit her and legitimize the military’s seizure of power while keeping her from returning to politics. Many senior members of her government and party were also arrested and tried, and several are co-defendants in some of her cases. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a private organization that tracks government killings and arrests, a total of 11,174 people are currently in detention for suspected opposition to the ruling military council. Suu Kyi, who turned 77 on Sunday, spent about 15 years in detention under a previous military government, but virtually all of it was under house arrest at her family home in Yangon, the country’s biggest city. Three legal officials said Suu Kyi’s lawyers were informed Tuesday that a new building at the prison has been completed and all Suu Kyi's remaining court hearings will be held there starting on Thursday. The officials all spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to release any information about her cases. Read:ASEAN special envoy on Myanmar urged to meet Aung San Suu Kyi One of the officials said the government intended to put her in solitary confinement after her first conviction last year, but had to wait until the new facilities at the main prison in Naypyitaw were completed. No government spokesperson was available to confirm Suu Kyi's move. The secret location where she had been held for about the past year was a residence where she had nine people to help with her living arrangements, along with a dog that was a gift arranged by one of her sons. Australian economist Sean Turnell, who was an adviser to Suu Kyi, is being held at the same prison where Suu Kyi was sent. Turnell and Suu Kyi are being prosecuted in the same case under the Official Secrets Act, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 14 years, so both are to appear at the court inside the prison on Thursday. In addition to the 11 counts of corruption, Suu Kyi and several colleagues have been charged with election fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of three years.

A Ukrainian official overseeing the country’s push to join the European Union said Wednesday that she’s “100%” certain all 27 EU nations will approve Ukraine's EU candidacy during a summit this week. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy expressed similar optimism, calling it a “crucial moment” for Ukraine. Ukraine’s membership bid is the top order of business for EU leaders meeting in Brussels. In an interview with The Associated Press, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Olha Stefanishyna said the decision could come as soon as Thursday, when the leaders' summit starts. Stefanishyna said the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark had been skeptical about starting accession talks with Ukraine while it is fighting Russia’s invasion but are now supportive. Asked how confident she was that Ukraine would be accepted as an EU candidate, she said: “The day before the summit starts, I can say 100%.” Read: EXPLAINER: What’s next after Russia reduced gas to Europe? The EU’s executive arm threw its weight behind Ukraine’s candidacy last week. Stefanishyna described the European Commission's endorsement as “a game-changer” that had taken the ground out from under “the legs of those most hesitating." EU candidate status, which can be granted only if the existing member countries agree unanimously, is the first step toward membership. It does not provide any security guarantees or an automatic right to join the bloc. Ukraine's full membership will depend on whether the war-torn country can satisfy political and economic conditions. Potential newcomers need to demonstrate that they meet standards on democratic principles and must absorb 80,000 pages of rules covering everything from trade and immigration to fertilizers and the rule of law. Stefanishyna told the AP that she think Ukraine could be an EU member within years, not the decades that some European officials have forecast. “We’re already very much integrated in the European Union,” she said. “We want to be a strong and competitive member state, so it may take from two to 10 years.” To help candidates, the bloc can provide technical and financial assistance. European officials have said that Ukraine has already implemented about 70% of the EU rules, norms and standards, but have also pointed to corruption and the need for deep political and economic reforms. In a virtual talk to Canadian university students on Wednesday, Zelenskyy described the Brussels summit as “two decisive days” that he, like Stefanishyna, thinks will result in approval of Ukraine's EU candidacy. “That is a very crucial moment for us, for some people in my team are saying this is like going into the light from the darkness," the Ukrainian president said through an interpreter. "In terms of our army and society, this is a big motivator, a big motivational factor for the unity and victory of the Ukrainian people.” Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said he spoke with Zelenskyy on Wednesday and guaranteed him that Belgium would support Ukraine’s candidate status. “Considerable efforts will be needed, especially in the fight against corruption and the establishment of an effective rule of law," De Cross said. "But I am convinced that it is precisely the (post-war) reconstruction of Ukraine that will provide opportunities to take important steps forward.” Zelenskyy said he spoke with a total of 11 EU leaders Wednesday, following calls with nine the day before, in another indication of how important EU candidacy is for Ukraine. In other developments: — Press freedom group Reporters Without Borders said a Ukrainian photojournalist and a soldier accompanying him appear to have been “coldly executed” during the first weeks of the war as they searched in Russian-occupied woods for a missing camera drone. The group sent investigators to the woods north of the capital, Kyiv, where the bodies of Maks Levin and serviceman Oleksiy Chernyshov were found April 1. The group said its team counted 14 bullet holes in the burned hulk of their car and found litter seemingly left by Russian soldiers. — Zelenskyy said Russian forces were carrying out very heavy air and artillery strikes in the eastern Donbas. “Step by step they want to destroy all of the Donbas. All of it," he said in his nightly video address. Ukrainian Defense Ministry spokesman Oleksandr Motuzianyk said in some battles, for every artillery shell Ukrainian forces fire, the Russian army fires at least six. Zelenskyy appealed to Western countries to speed up deliveries of heavy weapons “to stop this diabolical armada.” Read:‘It’s just hell there’: Russia still pounds eastern Ukraine — Russian forces captured three villages in the Luhansk region, one of two that make up the Donbas, Gov. Serhiy Haidai told The Associated Press on Wednesday. He said the villages are near Lysychansk, the last city in Luhansk still fully under Ukrainian control. The Russians have also taken a strategic coal village, Toshkivka, enabling them to intensify attacks, Haidai said. — Russian forces continued shelling Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, and nearby towns, killing 10 people, including five women in the village of Pryshyb, Gov. Oleh Syniehubov said. He said Russian forces are advancing through the area around Pryshyb as they target Sloviansk, a Ukrainian-held city in the Donbas. — All four of the medium-range rocket systems that the U.S. provided to Ukraine several weeks ago are now in the country in the hands of Ukrainian forces but it is not clear if they have used them yet, a U.S. defense official said. The High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems will give the Ukrainians greater precision in targeting Russian assets. The rockets generally can travel about 45 miles (70 kilometers). The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military details. — The Russian Defense Ministry said Wednesday that Russian forces killed up to 500 Ukrainian servicemen in strikes Tuesday against a shipbuilding plant in Mykolaiv. Zelenskyy said the Russians fired seven missiles at Mykolaiv, wounding five people. He gave no details about what was hit. The Russian military also claimed Ukrainian forces evacuated up to 30 wounded and eight dead American and British fighters from near Mykolaivka, a town in the Donetsk region. There was no confirmation of this by Ukraine. — Satellite images of Snake Island appear to show damage from a Ukrainian attack on the Russian-occupied island in the Black Sea. The Maxar Technologies images taken Tuesday show three new scorched areas that were not there four days earlier. Russia and Ukraine offer conflicting accounts of the attack. The Ukrainian military’s southern command said it inflicted “significant losses” on Russian troops in an attack using “various forces and methods of destruction,” while the Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses successfully repelled the Ukrainian assault. Russian forces captured the small rocky island in the first days of the war and have used it to strengthen their control over the northwestern part of the sea. — Russian officials said a drone strike caused a fire at the largest oil refinery in southern Russia on Wednesday. The blaze engulfed a piece of machinery at the Novoshakhtinsk plant in the Rostov-on-Don region. Authorities said dozens of firefighters quickly contained the fire and no one was hurt. Ukrainian authorities have not confirmed the strike. — Turkey’s defense ministry said Wednesday that a Turkish ship was allowed to leave the Russian-occupied Azov Sea port of Mariupol following talks between Turkish and Russian defense ministry officials. A ministry statement said a Turkish freighter, Azov Concord, was the first foreign ship to be allowed to leave Mariupol. The ministry did not say what the freighter was carrying. The war has halted critical grain exports by sea. — French armed forces conducted a surprise military exercise in Estonia, deploying more than 100 paratroopers in the Baltic country, the French defense ministry said Wednesday. The exercise in Estonia, a NATO member that neighbors Russia, was executed as an act of “strategic solidarity” during Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The congressionally mandated watchdog for U.S. assistance to Afghanistan is accusing the State Department and U.S. Agency for International Development of illegally withholding information from it about the American withdrawal from the country last year and current policy. Amid a spat over what the Biden administration believes to have been an overly critical report about the American pullout, the Special Inspector for Afghanistan Reconstruction, John Sopko, said the State Department and USAID were refusing to cooperate with his staff in violation of the law that created the office. Read: Afghanistan quake kills 1,000 people, deadliest in decades The allegations were made by in separate letters from Sopko to lawmakers and to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and USAID Administrator Samantha Power, and by Sopko's general counsel to the top lawyers for each agency. The letters were obtained by The Associated Press. The State Department did not deny it had cut off cooperation with the watchdog. But it complained that the special inspector had not given the administration a chance to respond to its latest report covering the withdrawal that was released last month. The department said the report was unfairly negative and did not represent the administration's view of the events surrounding the collapse of the Afghan government and the Taliban takeover. In his letters, Sopko was blunt, seeking immediate action from Congress, Blinken and Power to restore the cooperation his office has had with their agencies in the past. “I respectfully request that you direct State and USAID officials to cease their illegal obstruction of SIGAR’s oversight work and to provide the requested information and assistance without further delay,” he wrote to Blinken and Power. Sopko said his staff had requested numerous documents and interviews with officials who were involved in the chaotic withdrawal and aftermath last July but had been stonewalled for several months. He said those requests involved information about the evacuation and resettlement of Afghan nationals as well as ongoing humanitarian aid and questions about whether that assistance might be transferred to the Taliban. Read: 1.1 million Afghan children could face severe malnutrition “It is now evident that offices and staff who have cooperated with similar requests in the past were being silenced or overruled by officials opposed to SIGAR’s independent oversight,” Sopko wrote. The State Department said both it and USAID remain committed to assisting SIGAR's mission and would respond to the watchdog's allegations. But the department said it “had concerns about how some of SIGAR’s requests for information relate to their statutory jurisdiction." The department said it had responded to a SIGAR complaint in April by pointing out that much of the information it was requesting was already being provided to Congress and an internal review of Afghanistan policy being conducted by all agencies in the administration. State Department spokesman Ned Price did not have a direct response to the allegations in Sopko's letters but voiced the administration's unhappiness with SIGAR's last report, which concluded that the withdrawal had been poorly managed and that the collapse of the Afghan government and military had not been correctly predicted. “Our view is that the report does not reflect the consensus view of the State Department or the U.S. government," Price told reporters. "Many parts of the U.S. government, including the State Department, have unique insights and developments in Afghanistan last year that were not captured in the report and we don’t concur with many aspects of the report.” In addition, Price said the special inspector did not seek State Department input while drafting the April report and did not give the department the opportunity to review the draft before it was published.

A powerful earthquake struck a rural, mountainous region of eastern Afghanistan early Wednesday, killing 1,000 people and injuring 1,500 more in one of the deadliest quakes in decades, the state-run news agency reported. Officials warned that the already grim toll may still rise. Information remained scarce on the magnitude 6.1 temblor near the Pakistani border, but quakes of that strength can cause serious damage in an area where homes and other buildings are poorly constructed and landslides are common. Experts put the depth at just 10 kilometers (6 miles) — another factor that could lead to severe destruction. The disaster posed a major test for the Taliban-led government, which seized power last year as the U.S. planned to pull out from the country and end its longest war, two decades after toppling the same insurgents in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. Rescuers rushed to the area by helicopter Wednesday, but the response is likely to be complicated since many international aid agencies left Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover. Reaching rural areas even in the best circumstances remains difficult in Afghanistan, a landlocked nation just smaller than Texas with rutted mountain roadways that may now have sustained significant damage. In light of those difficulties, a Taliban official asked for international help. “When such a big incident happens in any country, there is a need for help from other countries,” said Sharafuddin Muslim. “It is very difficult for us to be able to respond to this huge incident.” Neighboring Pakistan’s Meteorological Department said the quake’s epicenter was in Afghanistan’s Paktika province, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) southwest of the city of Khost. Buildings were also damaged in Khost province, and tremors were felt some 375 kilometers (230 miles) away in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. Footage from Paktika showed men carrying people in blankets to waiting helicopters. Others were treated on the ground. One resident could be seen receiving IV fluids while sitting in a plastic chair outside the rubble of his home and still more were sprawled on gurneys. Some images showed residents picking through clay bricks and other rubble from destroyed stone houses, some of whose roofs or walls had caved in. Also Read: Afghanistan earthquake kills at least 920 people: Official The death toll given by the Bakhtar News Agency was equal to that of a quake in 2002 in northern Afghanistan. Those are the deadliest since 1998, when a 6.1 magnitude earthquake and subsequent tremors in Afghanistan’s remote northeast killed at least 4,500 people. In most places in the world, an earthquake of that magnitude wouldn’t inflict such extensive devastation, said Robert Sanders, a seismologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. But a quake’s death toll more often comes down to geography, building quality and population density. “Because of the mountainous area, there are rockslides and landslides that we won’t know about until later reporting. Older buildings are likely to crumble and fail,” he said. “Due to how condensed the area is in that part of the world, we’ve seen in the past similar earthquakes deal significant damage.” The Taliban are still trying to reconstitute government ministries abandoned by staff loyal to its previous Western-backed government, and it was not clear how officials arrived at the casualty tolls reported by Bakhtar. In Kabul, Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund convened an emergency meeting at the presidential palace to coordinate the relief effort, and Bilal Karimi, a deputy spokesman for the Taliban government, wrote on Twitter to urge aid agencies to send teams to the area. The “response is on its way,” the U.N. resident coordinator in Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov, wrote on Twitter. That may prove difficult given the situation Afghanistan finds itself in today. After the Taliban swept across the country in 2021, the U.S. military and its allies fell back to Kabul’s Hamid Karzai International Airport and later withdrew completely. Many international humanitarian organizations followed suit because of concerns about security and the Taliban’s poor human rights record. In the time since, the Taliban has worked with Qatar, Turkey and the United Arab Emirates on restarting airport operations in Kabul and across the country — but nearly all international carriers still avoid the country, and reluctance on the part of aid organizations to put any money in the Taliban’s coffers could make it difficult to fly in supplies and equipment.

Major flooding has forced the evacuation of tens of thousands of people in southern China, with more rain expected. The manufacturing hub of Guangdong suspended classes, office work and public transport amid rising waters and the threat of landslides. In the neighboring province of Jiangxi, almost 500,000 people have seen damage to their homes and their lives uprooted. Roughly the same number have been affected in Guangdong, largely in the cities of Shaoguan, Heyuan and Meizhou. The heavy rainfall has collapsed roads in some parts of cities and swept away houses, cars and crops, and more rain is forecasted for coming days. Chinese authorities on Sunday issued the year’s first red alert, the most severe warning, for possible mountain torrents. Read: South Asia floods hampering access to food, clean water In Zhejiang province a little further north, rescue crews in inflatable boats brought out residents trapped in their homes in inundated villages. China regularly experiences flooding during the summer months, most frequently in central and southern areas that tend to receive the most rainfall. This year’s flooding is the worst in decades in some areas and comes on top of strict COVID-19 regulations that have strangled travel, employment and ordinary life in much of the country. China’s worst floods in recent years were in 1998, when more than 2,000 people died and almost 3 million homes were destroyed, mostly along the Yangtze, China’s mightiest river. The government has invested heavily in flood control and hydroelectric projects such as the massive Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze. Globally, more intense tropical storms are on the rise as a result of climate change, leading to increased flooding that threatens lives, crops and groundwater.

Heavy rainstorms are causing major flooding and landslides in southern China, destroying buildings, crops and roads, and forcing many people to flee their homes. In the Guangxi autonomous region, 145,000 people were relocated to safety and more than 10,000 houses were destroyed, the official Xinhua New Agency reported. Another half million people were affected in neighboring Jiangxi province, where 433,000 hectares (1 million acres) of crops were flooded, according to local authorities. Also read: South Asia floods hampering access to food, clean water Around 274,000 people have sought relief in Guangzhou province, according to the provincial emergency management department. The heavy rainfall has collapsed roads in some parts of cities and swept away houses, cars and crops. The meteorological department has forecast more rain in coming days. Chinese authorities on Sunday issued the year’s first red alert, the most severe warning, for possible mountain torrents. China regularly experiences flooding during the summer months, most frequently in central and southern areas that tend to receive the most rainfall. China’s worst floods in recent years were in 1998, when more than 2,000 people died and almost 3 million homes were destroyed, mostly along the Yangtze, China’s mightiest river. Also read: WTO ministers reach deals on fisheries, food, COVID vaccines The government has invested heavily in flood control and hydroelectric projects such as the massive Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze. Globally, more intense tropical storms are on the rise as a result of climate change, leading to increased flooding, threatening lives, crops and groundwater.

Days of flooding are challenging authorities Monday in South Asia as they try to deliver food and drinking water to shelters across submerged swaths of India and Bangladesh. The high water brought on by seasonal monsoon downpours has already claimed more than a dozen lives, displaced hundreds of thousands and flooded millions of homes. Bangladesh called in soldiers Friday to help evacuate people, and Ekattor TV station said millions remained without electricity. Enamur Rahman, junior minister for disaster and relief, said that up to 100,000 people have been evacuated in the worst-hit Sunamganj and Sylhet districts, and about 4 million people have been marooned in the area, the United News of Bangladesh agency said. Flooding also continued to ravage India’s northeastern Assam where two policemen engaged in rescue operations were washed away by floodwaters Sunday, an official in the state capital Gauhati said. Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said Monday his administration was in the process of airlifting food and fuel by military helicopters to some parts of the state that were badly affected. Officials said nearly 200,000 people were taking shelter in 700 relief camps. Water levels in all major rivers across the state were flowing above danger levels. Assam has been reeling from massive floods after heavy torrential rains over the past few weeks made the Brahmaputra River break its banks, leaving millions of homes underwater and severing transport links. Read: Sylhet: A city tries to cope with its worst flood in living memory The Brahmaputra flows from China’s Tibet through India and into Bangladesh on a nearly 800-kilometer (500-mile) journey through Assam. Major roads in Bangladesh have been submerged, leaving people stranded. In the country that has a history of climate change-induced disasters, many expressed their frustration that authorities haven’t done more locally. “There isn’t much to say about the situation. You can see the water with your own eyes. Water level inside the room has dropped a bit. It used to be up to my waist,” said Muhit Ahmed, owner of a grocery shop in Sylhet. “All in all, we are in a great disaster. Neither the Sylhet City Corporation nor anyone else came here to inquire about us,” he said. “I am trying to save my belongings as much as I can. We don’t have the ability to do any more now.” In the latest statement Sunday from the country’s Flood Forecasting and Warning Center in the nation’s capital, Dhaka, said that flooding in the northeastern districts of Sunamganj and Sylhet could worsen further in next 24 hours. It said the Teesta, a major river in the northern Bangladesh, may flow above danger. The situation could also deteriorate in the country’s northern districts of Lalmonirhat, Kurigram, Nilphamari, Rangpur, Gaibandha, Bogra, Jamalpur and Sirajganj, it said. Officials said water has started receding already from the northeastern region but is posing a threat to the country’s central region, the pathway for flood waters to reach the Bay of Bengal in the south. Read: Sylhet: A city tries to cope with its worst flood in living memory Media reports said those affected by flooding in remote areas are struggling to access drinking water and food. Arinjoy Dhar, a senior director of the nonprofit developmental organization BRAC, asked for help ensuring food for the flood-affected in a video posted online. Dhar said they opened a center Monday to prepare food items as part of a plan to feed 5,000 families in Sunamganj district, but the arrangement was not enough. BRAC said they alone were trying to reach out to about 52,000 families with emergency supplies. Last month, a pre-monsoon flash flood triggered by a rush of water from upstream in India’s northeastern states hit Bangladesh’s northern and northeastern regions, destroying crops and damaging homes and roads. Bangladesh, a nation of 160 million people, is low-lying and faces threats from natural disasters such as floods and cyclones, made worse by climate change. According to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, about 17% of people in Bangladesh would need to be relocated over the next decade or so if global warming persists at the present rate.

Sara Duterte, the daughter of the outgoing populist president of the Philippines, took her oath Sunday as vice president following a landslide electoral victory she clinched despite her father’s human rights record that saw thousands of drug suspects gunned down. The inauguration in their southern hometown of Davao, where she’s the outgoing mayor, comes two weeks before she assumes office on June 30 as specified in the Philippine Constitution. President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Duterte’s running mate, will take his oath in Manila on June 30. “I’m not the best or the most intelligent person in the Philippines and the world but nobody can beat the toughness of my heart as a Filipino,” Duterte, who wore a green traditional gown, said in a speech after she took her oath before a Supreme Court associate justice, her hand resting on a Bible held by her mother. Also read: Philippine volcano makes phreatic eruption anew within one week “The voice of 32.2 million Filipinos was loud and clear — with the message to serve our motherland,” Duterte said, referring to the votes she got, to an applause from thousands of supporters. Fondly called by supporters as “Inday Sara,” the mother of three called for national unity and devotion to God and asked Filipinos to emulate the patriotism of the country’s national hero Jose Rizal. She cited longstanding social ills facing Filipino children, including poverty, broken families, illegal drugs, bullying and online misinformation and asked parents to ingrain in them the values of integrity, discipline, respect for others and compassion. President Rodrigo Duterte, 77, led the VIPs in the heavily guarded ceremony at a public square near city hall in the port city of Davao, where he had also served as a mayor starting in the late 1980s. His family, hailing from a modest middle-class background, built a formidable political dynasty in the restive southern region long troubled by communist and Muslim insurgencies and violent political rivalries. Duterte’s presidency has been marked by a brutal anti-drugs campaign that has left thousands of mostly petty suspects shot dead by police or vigilantes. The drug killings are being investigated by the International Criminal Court as a possible crime against humanity. The electoral triumphs of Sara Duterte and Marcos Jr. have alarmed left-wing and human rights groups because of their failure to acknowledge the massive human rights atrocities that took place under their fathers, including late dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos Jr. and Sara Duterte campaigned on a vague platform of national unity without clearly addressing activists’ calls for them to take steps to prosecute the elder Duterte when he retires from politics. One of the president’s sons, Sebastian Duterte, will succeed his sister as Davao mayor, and another son, Paolo Duterte, won a seat in the House of Representatives in the May 9 elections. The outgoing president’s late father was a former Davao governor. Also read:7 die in Philippine ferry fire; over 120 rescued from water Philippine elections have long been dominated by politicians belonging to the same bloodlines. At least 250 political families have monopolized power across the country, although such dynasties are prohibited under the constitution. Congress — long controlled by members of powerful clans targeted by the constitutional ban — has failed to pass the law needed to define and enforce the provision. While Sara Duterte, 44, refused calls by her father and supporters to seek the presidency, she has not ruled out a future run. She topped pre-elections surveys for the president last year and won with a huge margin like Marcos Jr. Aside from the vice president, she has agreed to serve as education secretary, although there were talks that her initial preference was to head the Department of National Defense, a traditional springboard to the presidency. Still, the education portfolio would provide her first national political platform, especially with plans to resume physical classes soon after the country was hit hard by two years of coronavirus pandemic outbreaks and lockdowns. She thanked her Davao supporters on Saturday and said she decided to hold her inauguration in one of the country’s most developed cities to show her pride as a southern provincial politician who rose to a top national post. Duterte finished a medical course and originally wanted to become a doctor but later took up law and was prevailed upon to enter politics starting in 2007, when she was elected as Davao vice mayor and mayor three years later. In 2011, she drew national attention when she was caught on video punching and assaulting a court sheriff who was helping lead a police demolition of a shanty community despite her plea for a brief deferment. The court official sustained a black eye and face injuries and was taken by her bodyguards to a hospital. Despite her public feuds with her father, Sara Duterte had her hair shaved a year before the 2016 elections as a show of support for his candidacy. He won the single six-year mandate by a huge margin on an audacious but failed promise to eradicate illegal drugs and corruption in three to six months and constant public threats to kill drug dealers.

Violence erupted in parts of India on Thursday with thousands of angry youths setting train coaches and vehicles on fire, blocking highways and attacking police with rocks to protest a new short-term government recruitment policy for the military. Police used batons and tear gas to disperse the protesters in Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan states where they took to the streets and damaged government buildings. Nearly 25,000 police were deployed in the worst-hit Bihar state, where the protests spread to a dozen towns in eight districts, said S.K. Singhal, a police officer. The protesters blocked highways and disrupted train service for several hours. Under the new job program announced by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh this week, the armed forces this year can recruit 46,000 men and women in the age group 17.5-21 but only for four years. Seventy-five percent of them will be compulsorily retired after four years with no pension benefits. A full-time recruited soldier serves for over 35 years. Singh defended the program, saying it’s aim is “to strengthen the security of the country.” Also Read: India, China growing markets for shunned Russian oil The government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, which is facing national elections in 2024, is under pressure to provide jobs as India’s economy recovers from the pandemic slump. One idea behind the short-term military recruitment is that those trained by the armed forces can later seek jobs with police or the private sector. The government faced criticism from some retired soldiers and opposition leaders. “I thought initially it was a trial being done on a pilot basis. This is an across-the-board change to convert Indian armed forces to a short tenure quasi-conscript force,” G.D. Bakshi, a retired army general, tweeted. Rahul Gandhi, a key opposition Congress party leader, urged the government to “listen to the voice of the unemployed youth of the country.” In Gwalior, a city in central India, a railroad station was ransacked, some trains vandalized and trash cans set on fire. In the northern town of Rewari, police used wooden sticks to disperse protesters who blocked a bus station and parts of a key highway linking Rajasthan state with New Delhi, the Hindustan Times newspaper reported. A crowd gathered in Uttar Predesh state’s Bulandshahr and Ballia districts but dispersed after officials assured them that their demand would be conveyed to authorities.

Beijing launched a new-generation aircraft carrier Friday, the first such ship to be both designed and built in China, in a milestone as it seeks to extend the range and power of its navy. The Type 003 carrier christened Fujian left its drydock at a shipyard outside Shanghai in the morning and tied up at a nearby pier, state media reports said. State broadcaster CCTV showed assembled navy personnel standing beneath the massive ship as water jets sprayed over its deck and multi-colored streamers flew and colorful smoke was released. Equipped with the latest weaponry and aircraft-launch technology, the Type 003 ship’s capabilities are thought to rival those of Western carriers, as Beijing seeks to turn its navy, already the world’s largest, into a multi-carrier force. Satellite imagery captured by Planet Labs PBC on Thursday and analyzed by The Associated Press showed the carrier in what appeared to be a fully flooded drydock at the Jiangnan Shipyard, near Shanghai, ready for launch. It was draped with red bunting, presumably in preparation for the launch ceremony. “This is an important milestone for China’s military-industrial complex,” said Ridzwan Rahmat, a Singapore-based analyst with the defense intelligence company Janes. “This shows that Chinese engineers are now able to indigenously manufacture the full suite of surface combatants associated with modern naval warfare, including corvettes, frigates, destroyers, amphibious assault ships, and now an aircraft carrier,” he said. “This ability to construct a very complex warship from the ground up will inevitably result in various spin-offs and benefits for Chinese shipbuilding industry.” Also Read: India, China growing markets for shunned Russian oil China’s first carrier was a repurposed Soviet ship, and its second was built in China but based upon a Soviet design. Both were built to employ a so-called “ski-jump” launch method for aircraft, with a ramp at the end of the short runway to help planes take off. The Type 003 employs a catapult launch, thought to be an electromagnetic-type system like one originally developed by the U.S. Navy. Such a system puts less stress on the aircraft than older steam-type catapult launch systems, and the use of a catapult means that the ship will be able to launch a broader variety of aircraft, which is necessary for China to be able to project naval power at a greater range, Rahmat said. “These catapults allow aircraft deployed to carry a more extensive load of weapons in addition to external fuel tanks,” Rahmat said. “Once it is fully operational, the PLAN’s third carrier would also be able to deploy a more complete suite of aircraft associated with carrier strike group operations including carrier onboard delivery transport and airborne early warning and control airframes, such as the KJ-600.” China’s People Liberation Army Navy, or PLAN, has been modernizing for more than a decade to become more of a “blue water” force — one capable of operating globally rather than being restricted to remaining closer to the Chinese mainland. At the same time, the U.S. has been increasing its focus on the region, including the South China Sea. The vast maritime region has been tense because six governments claim all or part of the strategically vital waterway, through which an estimated $5 trillion in global trade travels each year and which holds rich but fast-declining fishing stocks and significant undersea oil and gas deposits. China has been far and away the most aggressive in asserting its claim to virtually the entire waterway, its island features and resources. The U.S. Navy has sailed warships past artificial islands China has built in the sea that are equipped with airstrips and other military facilities. China insists its territory extends to those islands, while the U.S. Navy says it conducts the missions there to ensure the free flow of international trade. In its report to the U.S. Congress last year on China’s military capabilities, the Department of Defense said the carrier development program was critical to the Chinese navy’s continued development into a global force, “gradually extending its operational reach beyond East Asia into a sustained ability to operate at increasingly longer ranges.” China’s “aircraft carriers and planned follow-on carriers, once operational, will extend air defense coverage beyond the range of coastal and shipboard missile systems and will enable task group operations at increasingly longer ranges,” the Defense Department said. In recent years, China has expanded its presence into the Indian Ocean, the Western Pacific and beyond, setting up its first overseas base over the last decade in the African Horn nation of Djibouti, where the U.S., Japan and others also maintain a military presence. It has recently signed a security agreement with the Solomon Islands that many fear could give it an outpost in the South Pacific, and is working with Cambodia on expanding a port facility there that could give it a presence in the Gulf of Thailand. In a March report prepared by the U.S. Congressional Research Service, analysts said that satellite images suggest the Type 003′s displacement will be about 100,000 tons, bigger than initially thought and similar to those of U.S. Navy carriers. The PLAN currently has some 355 ships, including submarines, and the U.S. estimates the force will grow to 420 ships by 2025 and 460 ships by 2030. Despite having the world’s largest navy numerically, however, the PLAN still has nowhere the near capabilities of the U.S. Navy for now, however, and remains far behind in carriers. The U.S. Navy is the world’s leader in aircraft carriers, with 11 nuclear-powered vessels. It also has nine amphibious assault ships that can carry helicopters and vertical-takeoff fighter jets as well. American allies like Britain and France also have their own carriers, and Japan has four “helicopter destroyers,” which are technically not aircraft carriers, but carry aircraft. Two are being converted to support short take-off and vertical-landing fighters. China’s new carrier was named after the Fujian province on the country’s southeastern coast, following a tradition after naming its first two carriers after the provinces of Liaoning and Shandong. China’s development of the Type 003 carrier is part of a broader modernization of China’s military. As with its space program, China has proceeded extremely cautiously in the development of aircraft carriers, seeking to apply only technologies that have been tested and perfected. At the moment, China is not believed to yet have the aircraft developed to fully realize the potential of the new carrier, Rahmat said. It is not known how close China is in the development of its KJ-600 AWACS aircraft, which it began testing in 2020, to have it ready for carrier operations, and there is “little evidence” it has begun work on carrier onboard delivery transport aircraft, he said. Now that it is launched it will have to be fitted out, which could take two to six months. Then there will be harbor acceptance trials and sea trials, which will likely take another six months before engineers begin launching test loads using the catapult system. “The first aircraft will only be launched from this carrier perhaps in late-2023 to 2024, and full operational capability will likely be declared closer to 2025,” he said.