This handout picture taken and released by Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs on April 3, 2025 shows Myanmar’s military chief Min Aung Hlaing (C) arriving in Bangkok to attend the 6th Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) summit. (Photo by Handout / THAILAND’S MINISTRY OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS / AFP)
The head of Myanmar’s junta was due to discuss the response to his country’s devastating earthquake at a regional summit in Bangkok on Friday after the death toll passed 3,000.
Min Aung Hlaing will join a BIMSTEC gathering — representing the seven littoral nations of the Bay of Bengal — where he will raise the emergency response to last Friday’s 7.7-magnitude quake.
The junta chief arrived at Bangkok’s plush Shangri-La hotel, the summit venue, amid tight security, AFP journalists saw.
Many nations have sent aid and teams of rescue workers to Myanmar since the quake but heavily damaged infrastructure and patchy communications — as well as a rumbling civil war — have hampered efforts.
TOPSHOT – Children walk past a collapsed building in Mandalay on April 2, 2025, five days after a major earthquake struck central Myanmar. (Photo by AFP)
Myanmar has been engulfed in a brutal multi-sided conflict since 2021, when Min Aung Hlaing’s military wrested power from the civilian government of Aung San Suu Kyi.
Following reports of sporadic clashes even after Friday’s quake, the junta joined its opponents on Wednesday in calling a temporary halt to hostilities to allow relief to be delivered.
UN chief Antonio Guterres, speaking in New York, called for the Myanmar truce to “quickly lead to a beginning of a serious political dialogue and the release of political prisoners.”
AFP journalists saw hectic scenes on Thursday in the city of Sagaing — less than 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the epicentre — as hundreds of desperate people scrambled for emergency supplies distributed by civilian volunteers.
Roads leading to the city were packed with traffic, many of the vehicles part of aid convoys organised by civilian volunteers and adorned with banners saying where they had been sent from across Myanmar.
Rescue workers watch as heavy machinery clears the rubble at the site of an under-construction building collapse in Bangkok on March 30, 2025, two days after an earthquake struck central Myanmar and Thailand. (Photo by MANAN VATSYAYANA / AFP)
– Situation ‘devastating’ –
Destruction in Sagaing is widespread, with 80 percent of buildings damaged, half severely, UNDP resident representative for Myanmar Titon Mitra told AFP.
Food markets are unusable and hospitals are overwhelmed by patients and structurally unsound, he said, with patients being treated outdoors in heat of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit).
“We have seen children, pregnant women, injured people there. There’s not enough medical supplies,” he said.
“If you look at the overall impacted area, there’s possibly three million-plus that may have been affected.”
Residents say they still face a lack of help nearly a week after the quake.
“We have a well for drinking water but we have no fuel for the water pump,” Aye Thikar told AFP.
“We also don’t know how long we will be without electricity,” she said.
The 63-year-old nun has been helping distribute relief funds to those left without basic amenities.
But many people are still in need of mosquito nets and blankets, and are forced to sleep outside by the tremors that either destroyed their homes or severely damaged them.
“People passing by on the road have generously donated water and food to us. We rely solely on their kindness,” she said.
– Eyes on summit –
While Sagaing residents scrabbled for handouts of water and instant noodles, Min Aung Hlaing prepared to sit down for a gala dinner with fellow leaders at the $400-a-night Shangri-La hotel.
The leaders of the seven-member BIMSTEC grouping — Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand — will discuss trade, security and other issues, as Asia reels from US President Donald Trump’s swingeing new raft of tariffs.
Host country Thailand has also proposed that the leaders issue a joint statement on the impact of the disaster when they meet on Friday.
Opposition groups and rights organisations have fiercely criticised Thailand’s decision to host Min Aung Hlaing, accusing him of war crimes in Myanmar’s brutal conflict.
His attendance at the summit represents a diplomatic win for Myanmar’s isolated government as it breaks with a regional policy of not inviting junta leaders to major events.
Thai foreign ministry spokesman Nikorndej Balankura defended the decision, saying that the kingdom had a “responsibility” as summit host to invite all BIMSTEC leaders.
Min Aung Hlaing’s arrival in the Thai capital came as a junta spokesperson said on Thursday that 3,085 deaths from the quake had been confirmed, with 341 people still missing and 4,715 injured.
Bangkok, hundreds of kilometres from the quake’s epicentre, also suffered isolated damage.
The city’s death toll has risen to 22, with over 70 still unaccounted for at the site of a building collapse.
A 30-storey skyscraper under construction was reduced to rubble in a matter of seconds when the tremors hit, trapping dozens of workers.
Rescuers are still scouring the immense pile of debris but the likelihood of finding more survivors is diminishing.
Paraguay’s President Santiago Peña has been impeached and placed under house arrest.
Peña was arrested on Friday minutes after lawmakers, including from his own party, voted to remove him from office due to a crisis triggered by the collapse of Ueno Bank earlier this week.
He had offered to step down on Thursday, but the move to impeach him and charge him with misconduct rather than accept his resignation meant he was stripped of his lifetime Senate seat and the immunity granted to ex-presidents.
Peña, who until last year held shares in the company that owned the bank, has denied any wrongdoing.
The demise of the digital bank has left more than half of Paraguay’s population without access to their savings after it was seized by Paraguay’s central bank.
An estimated three million depositors remain unable to access their savings and pensions prompting widespread protests particularly in the capital, Asunción.
The impeachment charges that led to Peña’s removal alleged he had conflicts of interest, manipulated regulatory oversight, diverted pension funds, and participated in an institutional cover-up involving the central bank.
Peña is due to be questioned today (Saturday) over allegations of breach of trust, influence peddling, and misappropriation of funds, prosecutor Silvia Margarita Gonzalez Vester said.
Peña’s impeachment passed with 44 out of 45 senators voting in favour of it. One lawmaker was absent.
Afterwards, senate president Basilio Núñez said Peña was found guilty of “dereliction of duty”.
Paraguay’s Vice-President Pedro Alliana was then sworn in as interim President.
“Compatriots who are now going through a difficult time as a result of the financial collapse will be fully compensated,” said Alliana, who will serve as President until 2028.
Pedro Alliana takes the oath of office as interim President
Senator Rafael Filizzola said: “We are facing the biggest corruption scandal in our democratic history – a tremendous blow to the state, to private citizens, and to the country’s credibility and image.”
Analysts say Peña is likely to now be prosecuted over the bank’s collapse.
His defence lawyer Ricardo Preda described the allegations as a “reckless accusation” that was “irresponsible and opportunistic”.
In an address to the nation on Thursday, Peña said that he was sorry and that “it was never my intention to betray the trust you placed in me”.
A Kenyan court has sentenced the leader of a doomsday cult, Paul Mackenzie, to 200 years in prison for murdering 191 people, all but one of them children.
Alongside 27 others, Mackenzie was found guilty of the murders for instructing members of his cult to starve their children to death so they could “meet Jesus”.
Justice Diana Mochache said Mackenzie bore the “primary criminal culpability” for ordering his followers to fast to death, in one of Kenya’s deadliest episodes of religious extremism.
“The sentence is appropriate and just, to send an unmistakable message that such atrocities warrant the maximum penalties allowed by law,” the judge added.
The self-styled pastor was arrested in 2023 after the discovery of more than 400 bodies in shallow graves in Shakahola forest near the Kenyan coast. The sprawling investigation into the cases shocked Kenya and drew international attention.
Ahead of sentencing, prosecutors in the court in Mombasa had argued for the death penalty for Mackenzie because of the gravity of the crimes. Capital punishment has not been carried out in Kenya since 1987.
The prosecutors also cited what they described as Mackenzie’s lack of remorse for the crimes. They requested life sentences for his co-accused.
Before the hearing began on Friday morning, Francis Wanje, who lost eight relatives in Shakahola forest, including two grandchildren, told the BBC’s Newsday programme that he was “hoping for… a sentence which will match his [Mackenzie’s] deeds in the forest”.
Mackenzie and the co-accused have formally pleaded for mercy and asked for leniency from the court.
Before their conviction on 19 October, they had all pleaded not guilty and repeatedly insisted that nobody was forced to die.
Mackenzie’s followers believed he was “Jesus’s mouthpiece”, Justice Diana Mochache said as she delivered her eight-hour judgement last month.
Those who opposed Mackenzie’s teachings were beaten to death.
One of his co-accused said he had told his followers that anyone who “resisted the directive to fast must be forced to go to heaven through kicks and blows”.
Burials inside the forest where the cult was based were called “weddings” and those who died “were celebrated as having wedded with Jesus” the judge said.
The judge found that the deaths arose from an organised system, including religious teachings and directives that compelled followers to follow the deadly fasting.
Post-mortem results showed the cause of deaths to be starvation for most victims, while others died from suffocation, strangulation or head injuries.
The cause of death could not be determined for some, with their bodies having decomposed, while others died soon after their rescue as they were so emaciated.
Comedian Russell Brand, once one of Britain’s most high-profile broadcasters and star of several Hollywood movies, faces a lengthy jail term after being convicted in a London court on Thursday of raping a woman and sexually assaulting three more.
Prosecutors said Brand, the former husband of US pop singer Katy Perry, was obsessed with sex and used women to satisfy his own desires. One victim said he treated her “like an animal”.
Funny and charming when he wanted to be, but also ruthless, calculating and manipulative, the 51-year-old, who starred in “Get Him to the Greek” and “Arthur”, was interested only in getting what he wanted from women, prosecutors told jurors at Southwark Crown Court.
“The evidence showed Brand to be a calculated sexual predator, using his growing fame and power to create situations in which he could pursue women sexually, regardless of what they wanted,” senior Crown prosecutor David Roberts said outside court.
Brand now faces jail and potentially further action as police said he was still under investigation for two other alleged rapes, one involving a then 16-year-old girl.
BRAND DENIED THE CHARGES
Brand, known for his loquacious manner and flamboyant appearance, had denied all the charges and ever having non-consensual sex, saying the incidents, which dated back more than 20 years, had either been consensual, reinvented or re-imagined.
He acknowledged in evidence he had dedicated a lot of his life to “reckless philandering and idiocy” but said sexual consent was fundamental.
But, following a four-week trial, the jury found him guilty of rape and three sexual assaults committed between 2004 and 2009. He was acquitted of two other rape charges and an attempted indecent assault.
Judge Joel Bennathan said Brand, who was refused bail, would be sentenced on Monday and faced a lengthy prison term.
