Category World News

At least 18 people, most of them students, have been killed in an air strike on two private schools by Myanmar’s military in a village in the country’s western Rakhine state, according to an armed group and the local media.

Khaing Thukha, spokesperson for the Arakan Army (AA) that controls the area, told The Associated Press late on Friday that a jet fighter dropped two bombs on Pyinnyar Pan Khinn and A Myin Thit Private High School in the Thayet Thapin village in Kyauktaw township.

He said most of the victims were “17- to 18-year-old students from the private schools”. The situation in the village could not be independently confirmed, with access to the internet and cellphone service in the area mostly cut off.

“We feel as sad as the victims’ families for the death of the innocent students,” said the AA in a statement on Telegram, blaming the military for the strike.

The AA is the military wing of the Rakhine ethnic minority movement, which seeks autonomy from Myanmar’s central government. It began its offensive in Rakhine in November 2023 and has since gained control of a strategically important regional army headquarters and 14 of Rakhine’s 17 townships.

Kyauktaw, 250km (150 miles) southwest of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city, was captured by the AA last February.

Myanmar has been in turmoil since the army seized power from the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi on February 1, 2021, triggering widespread popular opposition. After peaceful demonstrations were put down with lethal force, many opponents of the military rule took up arms, and large parts of the country are now embroiled in conflict.

More than 7,200 people are estimated to have been killed by security forces since then, according to figures compiled by nongovernment organisations.

The military government has recently stepped up air strikes against the armed pro-democracy People’s Defence Force. The resistance forces have no effective defence against air attacks.

Wai Hun Aung, who directs relief work in Rakhine, told AP that those killed in the air strike were among 30 to 40 boarders from the schools. He said at least six houses near the schools were damaged, and 21 people were injured, including six who were in critical condition.

Local news outlets reported that a military warplane dropped two 500lb bombs on a high school as students slept. They also posted photos and videos online showing debris and damaged buildings.

In a statement on Saturday, the UNICEF condemned the “brutal attack”, which it said “adds to a pattern of increasingly devastating violence in Rakhine State, with children and families paying the ultimate price”.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made his first visit to the troubled Manipur state where at least 260 people have been killed in ethnic clashes in two years.

Manipur in the northeast has been bitterly divided since May 2023, when violence broke out between the mainly Hindu Meitei majority and the largely Christian Kuki community.

The violence has also displaced tens of thousands of people who are still living in makeshift camps set up by the government.

“In order to bring life back on track in Manipur, the government of India is making all possible efforts,” Modi told a gathering of thousands in Churachandpur, a Kuki-dominated town, on Saturday.

“I promise you today that I’m with you. The government of India is with the people of Manipur,” Modi said, while also appealing “to all groups to take the path of peace for realising their dreams.”

Modi was also scheduled to address a rally at Imphal, the Meitei-dominated capital of the state.

The Hindu nationalist leader last visited the state, bordering Myanmar and 1,700km (1,050 miles) from New Delhi, in 2022. He inaugurated development projects worth more than $960m, including five highways and a new police headquarters.

Manipur’s former chief minister, N Biren Singh, from Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), resigned in February after criticism that he failed to stop the bloodshed there. The state of nearly three million people has since been ruled directly from New Delhi.

Tensions between Meiteis and Kukis, rooted in competition for land and government jobs, have long simmered in the region. Rights groups accuse political leaders of fuelling the divisions for their own gain.

Modi’s visit to Manipur is part of a three-day tour that also includes Assam, which borders Bangladesh, and Bihar, India’s third-most populous state with at least 130 million people.

Bihar is a key electoral battleground ahead of polls slated for October or November, the only state in India’s northern Hindi-speaking heartland where Modi’s BJP has never ruled alone.

The University of California (UC), Berkeley in the United States has provided information on more than 150 faculty members and students to President Donald Trump’s administration, as part of a federal investigation into “alleged incidents of anti-Semitism” on college campuses nationwide.

UC Berkeley said on Friday the names of the 160 students, faculty and staff were sent to the US Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, and affected members of the campus were notified by the institution last week.

It added the Education Department launched an investigation several months ago into its handling of complaints related to “alleged incidents of anti-Semitism” and demanded documentation.

The office of the president of the University of California said the institution is subject to oversight by federal and state agencies and that its campuses, like UC Berkeley, “routinely receive document requests in connection with government audits, compliance reviews, or investigations”.

“UC is committed to protecting the privacy of our students, faculty, and staff to the greatest extent possible, while fulfilling its legal obligations,” a spokesperson of the office of the UC president added.

The government had no immediate comment.

Since taking office for a second term, Trump has threatened federal funding cuts for universities over pro-Palestinian student protests held last spring. The government alleges universities allowed anti-Semitism during the protests.

Pro-Palestinian protesters, including some Jewish groups, say the government wrongly equates their criticism of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza and its occupation of Palestinian territory with anti-Semitism, and their advocacy for Palestinian rights with support for extremism.

Experts have raised free speech, due process and academic freedom concerns over the Republican president’s threats. Trump has also attempted to deport foreign pro-Palestinian student protesters but has faced legal hurdles.

A graduate student who wished to remain anonymous told local newspaper Berkeleyside that “the names targeted seem to be Muslim and Arab individuals who expressed support for Palestine.”

Among those listed is feminist philosopher Judith Butler, who has said her Jewish upbringing led her to speak out against Israel through the human rights organisation Jewish Voice for Peace.

Butler told the San Francisco Chronicle that UC’s compliance with the government’s investigation has “echoes of McCarthyism”.

“Forwarding such names, a well-known practice from the McCarthy Era, may well subject a number of faculty, staff, or students named to widespread surveillance constitutes a breathtaking breach of trust, ethics, and justice,” Butler wrote in a letter to UC Berkeley’s campus lawyer.

The Trump administration in July settled its investigations with Columbia University, which agreed to pay more than $220m, and Brown University, which said it will pay $50m. Both accepted certain government demands. Settlement talks with Harvard University are ongoing.

The Trump administration has also faced judicial roadblocks in its drive to freeze federal funding.

The government had proposed to settle its probe into the University of California, Los Angeles – another UC campus – through a $1bn payment from the university. California Governor Gavin Newsom dismissed that offer, calling it an extortion attempt.

Nepal will vote in early March, says the president, as an interim government headed by the country’s first female prime minister takes charge after historic public protests.

Hours after appointing former chief justice and anticorruption figure Sushila Karki as the new head of government, President Ramchandra Paudel announced in a statement late on Friday that the 275-seat parliament has been dissolved and elections are fixed for March 5.

The Himalayan nation of 30 million people, wedged between China and India, is slowly returning to normal, less than a week after widespread Gen Z-led protests following a government ban on social media platforms.

Authorities began easing restrictions on Saturday, with curfew and prohibitory orders lifted in the capital, Kathmandu, though sensitive areas remain off-limits to the public.

The protests evolved into a broader movement against alleged corruption and nepotism among the political elite, with demonstrators setting fire to the parliament, the residences of top politicians, and other public buildings, and forcing Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli to step down.

At least 51 people, including 21 protesters, nine prisoners, three police officers and 18 others, were killed in protests since Monday, police said. About 1,000 prisoners who escaped from multiple jails countrywide were returned, but over 12,500 others remain on the run, according to the police.

The anger among Nepalese protesters was also rooted in economic malaise, with many young people dissatisfied with how they struggle to get by as political leaders and their offspring enjoy luxurious lifestyles.

Many Gen Z youth and others said they are frustrated by a lack of employment, especially in rural areas, something that has driven millions to seek work in other countries across the Middle East, as well as in South Korea and Malaysia.

Karki was appointed the interim prime minister after two days of intense negotiations between President Paudel, army chief Ashok Raj Sigdel and the protest leaders behind Nepal’s worst upheaval in years.

News of Karki’s appointment was welcomed by neighbouring India, whose Prime Minister Narendra Modi offered his congratulations in a post on X. “India is fully committed to the peace, progress, and prosperity of Nepal’s brothers and sisters,” he wrote.