Heatwave hits
An Indian vendor drinks water as he waits for customers near a traditional wooden sugarcane juice extractor, in Gujarat, India on 27 May. Labourers have been collapsing in the blazing sun and the scorching temperatures have melted away roads in one of the worst heatwaves to hit India in recent years. — EPA
Bad news
Journalists barred from parliament
Yangon — Journalists can no longer cover Myanmar’s nascent parliament from inside the media chamber because pictures of sleeping lawmakers were published online. Reporters in the capital were told they would have to watch proceedings on TV from the corridor.
Other pictures have circulated showing lawmakers using iPads while in session. Another appeared to show an army representative leaning over to press a voting button for a missing lawmaker.
Journalists negotiated with officials on May 28 to restore their access. — AP
Court case
Judge agrees to hear lawsuit
Madrid — A Spanish High Court judge said on May 28 that he has agreed to hear a lawsuit against Nigerian Islamist militant group Boko Haram and its leader Abubakar Shekau for crimes against humanity and terrorism.
Judge Fernando Andreu ruled that he was competent to handle the case under universal jurisdiction, which allows courts to try atrocities committed in other countries, because the case concerns a Spanish nun.
Spanish public prosecutors accused Boko Haram in its lawsuit of harassing and putting pressure on the nun in March 2013 in Nigeria. — AFP
Myanmar march
Protesters shout during a march to denounce foreign criticism of the country's treatment of stateless Rohingya Muslims in Yangon, Myanmar on May 27. — Reuters
Hijackers hanged
Prisoners die for old crime
Islamabad — Three rebels behind a hijacking attempt 17 years ago were among eight death row prisoners hanged in Pakistan on May 28, officials said. The separatists from the southwestern Balochistan province tried to hijack a plane with 38 people on board in 1998 to stop the Pakistani government from conducting nuclear tests in their region.
The three men were hanged at two different prisons in the southern province of Sindh, a jail official said. — DPA
Mass destruction
Deadly weapons destroyed
The Hague — The world’s chemical watchdog said on May 28 that 90 percent of the global chemical weapons stockpile has been destroyed.
The stockpiles included caches containing chemicals needed to make deadly nerve agents such as sarin, the Organisation for the Prohibition of chemical weapons said. About 65,000 metric tonnes of declared chemical weapons, mostly from US and Russian arsenals, have now been destroyed, OPCW acting spokesman Peter Sawczak said. This includes a total of 1,300 metric tonnes of chemical weapons removed from Syria.
Destruction of both Russian and US Cold War-era stockpiles is scheduled to be completed by 2020 and 2023 respectively, the OPCW said. — AFP
Pricy upgrades
President spends tax money
Cape Town — South African president Jacob Zuma will not have to repay any of the millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money spent on upgrades at his private residence, the minister of police announced on May 28.
Finding that all the upgrades, including a swimming pool, were for security purposes, Nkosinathi Nhleko told a news conference that the state president is therefore not liable to pay for any of the security features.
The spending of some $24 million (811 million baht) on upgrades at Zuma’s private residence has been one of the biggest scandals dogging the embattled head of state. — AFP
EASY NEWS FOR M1-3
New Royalty
Maharaja crowned in India
New Delhi — The new maharaja of Mysore in southern India was crowned. It happened on May 28. Yaduveer Krishnadatta Chamaraja Wadiyar, 23, was crowned. — DPA
Exercises
1. Why did Jacob Zuma claim he needed a swimming pool?
a. For security purposes.
b. For exercise.
c. To cool down in the summertime.
2. How many hijackers were hanged in Pakistan?
3. What activity was the tourist in Phuket doing when he died?
Vocabulary
- atrocity (n): a cruel and violent act, especially in a war
maharaja (n): ab Indian prince
separatist (n): a member of a group of people within a country who want to separate from the rest of the country and from their own government
arsenal (n): a collection of weapons
embattled (adj): surrounded by problems and difficulties
