PAKISTAN SEES THE HIGHEST INFLATION RATE IN SOUTH ASIA

Pakistan consumer prices rose a record 36.4% in the year to April, the highest inflation rate in South Asia, up from March’s previous record of 35.4%, the statistics bureau said on Tuesday.

Pakistan’s rural areas recorded food inflation of 40.2%. Food inflation for both rural and urban areas reached 48.1%, the highest since FY16 when the bureau started recording the categories separately.

Pakistan has been in economic turmoil for months with an acute balance of payments crisis while talks with the International Monetary Fund to secure $1.1 billion as part of a $6.5 billion bailout have not been successful.

The country has taken measures to try to secure the funding, including removing caps on the exchange rate, resulting in a depreciating currency, increasing taxes, removing subsidies and raising key interest rates to a record high of 21%.

Prices rose 2.4% in April from March.

Persistently high inflation has resulted in major lifestyle and consumption changes, with a number of people seeking help.

RUSSIA TIGHTENS ITS CONTROL OVER THE OCCUPIED TERRITORIES OF UKRAINE

Russia is tightening its control over the civilian population in the occupied Ukrainian territories. The Russian Army strengthens its counterintelligence units on the ground and limits travel between cities and towns, denounces kyiv. The moves come on the heels of the Kremlin’s efforts to “Russify” and suppress dissent in Ukrainian regions under its control.

The Kremlin decreed last week that any resident of the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhia and Kherson regions, illegally annexed by Russia, who does not accept a Russian passport could be relocated. Fear among the civilian population about the possibility of massive transfers it is widespread, say Ukrainian officials trapped in these areas.

Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner on Monday urged citizens under military occupation to obtain Russian passports and documentation to ensure your own safety. The body sees it as a matter of survival. However, Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereschukwhich occupies the portfolio of Reintegration of Temporarily Occupied Territories, spoke in the opposite direction, asking not to give in to the enemy’s threats.

Meanwhile, Moscow distributes its agents on the ground, who work in civilian clothes in the busiest public areas of the cities with the aim of locate members of the resistance. These often start talks “to find citizens disloyal to Russia”, and those who “take the bait” are forced to “continue to collaborate with the Russian occupation regime” to avoid reprisals, according to the National Center of Resistance of Ukraine. , an agency that is in charge of monitoring Russian activity in these regions.

It is practically impossible to corroborate on the ground the allegations made by the kyiv authorities. Russia has imposed on these provinces a severe information blackout. It does not allow access for journalists or activists, nor for humanitarian workers or international observers.

GERMANY CONFRONTS RUSSIA SPIES HIDING IN PLAIN SIGHT

Berlin : Every day as he settles into his desk, Erhard Grundl, a German lawmaker, looks outside his office window into the embassy he knows may be spying on him. “I come into the office, and on a windy day, I see the Russian flag waving. It feels abit like Psalm 23: ‘You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies,’” he said, chuckling. “I’m not religious, but I always think of that. ”

In the shadow of Berlin’s glass-domed Reichstag, beyond the sandstone columns of Brandenburg Gate, German parliamentary buildings sit cheek by jowl with Russia’s sprawling, Stalinist-style diplomatic mission. For years, a silent espionage struggle played out here along the city’s iconic Under den Linden avenue.

Members of parliament like Grundl were warned by intelligence offices to protect themselves — to turn computerscreens away from the window, stop using wireless devices that were easier to tap, and close the window blinds for meetings. It seems an almost comical situation for officials in one of Europe’s most powerful nations, where tensions over Russian espionage were something Germany’s government long seemed willing to ignore. That has become increasingly difficult since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Late last month, Rus-sia exposed what it described as a“mass expulsion” of its diplomats in Germany when it announced a tit-for-tat expulsion of more than 20 German diplomats from Moscow. It was a rare sign, security analysts say, of a subdued but growing counterintelligence effort that Berlin is now belatedly undertaking, after years of increasingly brazen Russian intelligence operations on German soil.

At least twice, Russian groups suspected of Kremlin links have hacked German politicians and parliament — the last time just months before the 2021 elections. In 2021, police arrested a security guard at the nearby British Embassy who had been spying for Russia. And late last year, in perhaps in the most disturbing case of all, a German intelligence officer was unmasked as a mole passing surveillance of Ukraine war to Mo-scow. Germany’s foreign ministry has been tight-lipped about the latest expulsions — even refusing to call them expulsions. But it acknowledged the diplomats’ departure was linked to “reducing the Russian intelligence presence in Germany. ”

SUDAN MILITARY FACTION CHIEFS AGREE MAY 4-11 TRUCE IN PRINCIPLE

Khartoum : Sudan’s warring military factions agreed on Tuesday in principle to a sevenday ceasefire from Thursday, South Sudan announced, as more air strikes and shooting in the Khartoum region disrupted the latest short-term truce.

Astatement released by the foreign ministry of South Sudan, which had offered to mediate in the conflict, said its President Salva Kiir stressed the importance of a longer truce and of naming envoys to peace talks, to which both sides had agreed. The credibility of the reported May 4-11 deal ceasefire deal between Sudanese army chief General Abdel Fattah alBurhan and paramilitary Rapid Support forces (RSF) leader General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo was unclear, given the rampant violations that undermined previous agreements running from 24 to 72 hours.

Sudan’s war has forced 1,00,000 people to flee over its borders and fighting now its third week is creating a humanitarian crisis, UN officials said earlier on Tuesday. The conflict risks developing into a broader disaster as Sudan’s impoverished neighbours deal with a refugee crunch and fighting hampers aid deliveries in a nation where twothirds of the people already rely on some outside assistance. United Nations officials had said UN aid chief Martin Griffiths aimed to visit Sudan on Tuesday but the timing was still to be confirmed.

LONELINESS NOW A HEALTH EPIDEMIC IN US: ‘AS DEADLY AS DAILY SMOKING’

Washington : Widespread loneliness in the US poses health risks as deadly as smoking a dozen cigarettes daily, costing the health industry billions of dollars annually, the

US surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy said on Tuesday in declaring the latest public health epidemic. About half of US adults say they’ve experienced loneliness, he said in a report from his office. “Millions of people in America are struggling in the shadows, and that’s not right. That’s why I issued this advisory to pull back the curtain on a struggle that too many people are experiencing. ” The declaration is intended to raise awareness around loneliness but won’t unlock federal funding or programming devoted to combatting the issue.

TTP COMMANDER KILLED IN PAK-AF BORDER PROVINCE

Peshawar : Pakistani security forces have killed a notorious Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) commander and two others and made several key arrests in separate intelligence-based operations in the country’s restive Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, media reports said on Tuesday

Security forces conducted two separate operations on Monday in the Tank and Dera Ismail Khan districts of the country’s northwest province bordering Afghanistan, the Dawn newspaper reported.

Two terrorists were also injured in the operation.

IN A RARE VISIT TO MYANMAR, CHINA’S FOREIGN MINISTER MEETS JUNTA CHIEF

YANGON: China’s Foreign Minister met Myanmar’s junta chief on Tuesday, the military said, making him the highest-ranking Chinese official to meet the country's top general since a coup more than two years ago. China “stands with Myanmar on the international stage”, Foreign Minister Qin Gang told junta chief Min Aung Hlaing.

DESPITE PRESIDENT’S PLEA, UGANDA MPS PASS NEW DRAFT OF ANTI-GAY BILL

KAMPALA: Uganda's Parliament passed a new draft of anti-gay legislation, retaining many draconian provisions despite the President’s call to rework an earlier version of the Bill. “We have a culture to protect. The Western world will not come to rule Uganda,” parliamentary speaker Annet Anita Among said.

HOLLYWOOD WRITERS STRIKE OVER PAY IN STREAMING TV ‘GIG ECONOMY’

Los Angeles : Thousands of film and television writers were headed to picket lines on Tuesday after union negotiators called a strike, sending Hollywood into turmoil and disrupting TV production as the industry wrestles with the shift to streaming. The Writers Guild of America (WGA) said its leadership unanimously supported its first work stoppage in 15 years after failing to reach an agreement for higher pay from studios such as Walt Disney and Netflix. “The companies’ behaviour has created a gig economy inside a union workforce,” said the WGA, which represents roughly 11,500 writers.

The strike hits Hollywood studios at a difficult time. Conglomerates are under pressure from Wall Street to make their streaming services profitable after pumping billions of dollars into programming to attract subscribers. The rise of streaming has led to declining television ad revenue, as traditional TV audiences shrink and advertisers go elsewhere. The threat of a recession in the world’s biggest economy also looms. The last strike in 2007 and 2008 lasted 100 days. The action cost the California economy an estimated $2. 1 billion as productions shut down and out-of-work writers, actors and producers cut back spending.

PALESTINIAN DIES IN ISRAELI PRISON AFTER HUNGER STRIKE FOR 87 DAYS

Khader Adnan, a prominent Palestinian prisoner who had been on a hunger strike in an Israeli prison for 87 days to protest his detention, died Tuesday, according to his lawyer and Palestinian and Israeli officials, amid one of the deadliest periods for Palestinians and rising violence in the occupied West Bank. Palestinian leaders and armed groups said that Israel was responsible for the death of Adnan, who was a potent symbol of resistance against Israeli occupation for many Palestinians, and threatened retaliation. The last prisoner to die on a hunger strike before Adnan was in 1992. Adnan had been on a hunger strike since his arrest on February 5.