Myanmar’s junta said that the death toll from a 7.7 magnitude earthquake that struck on Friday had reached almost 1,650. Earlier General Min Aung Hlaing, the junta’s head, appealed for international assistance to deal with the aftermath. America, ASEAN, China and the EU are among those pledging to help. In neighbouring Thailand authorities declared a state of emergency in Bangkok, where at least ten people died.
Tens of thousands rallied in Istanbul as protests intensified over the arrest of Ekram Imamoglu, the city’s mayor and main opposition rival to Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Turkish authorities have cracked down harshly on such demonstrations, arresting almost 2,000 people since Mr Imamoglu’s detention for alleged corruption on March 19th. Experts consider the charges baseless.
One of Elon Musk’s companies, xAI, bought another, X, for $33bn. Mr Musk said the deal to join together the artificial-intelligence lab and social-media platform would lead to the combining of “data, models, compute, distribution and talent”. xAI is among the most valuable parts of Mr Musk’s harried empire.
Hamas reportedly agreed to a ceasefire proposal brought by Egyptian mediators; Israel said it submitted a counter-offer. Earlier the Israel Defence Forces said it had begun ground operations in a neighbourhood in Rafah “to expand the security zone” in southern Gaza. Palestinians in the enclave will observe the first day of Eid al-Fitr, marking the end of Ramadan, on Sunday.
Denmark snapped back against America’s vice-president, who had criticised its protection of Greenland. During a visit to the autonomous Danish territory on Friday, J.D. Vance claimed Denmark had failed to keep the vast island “safe” from Russia and China. Denmark’s foreign minister said the country did “not appreciate the tone” of the comments. Mr Vance’s boss, Donald Trump, has repeatedly called for America to take over the island.
Police in India said the country’s security services killed at least 16 people during an operation targeting Maoist insurgents in Chhattisgarh, a central state. The clash in the town of Sukma also injured two security officers, officials said. The government of Narendra Modi has promised to stamp out the hard-left insurgency, leading to an increase in such clashes in recent years.
A judge in Wisconsin allowed Mr Musk to proceed with his plan to give $1m to two people who sign his petition opposing “activist” judges. Wisconsin’s attorney-general had sued to block the prize ahead of the state’s supreme-court election on Tuesday. He has appealed the ruling. The race for the judicial seat, currently held by a liberal, has broken spending records.
Word of the week: Hatarakanai ojisan, a Japanese term meaning “older men who don’t work”, used by younger employees to describe senior colleagues who contribute little. Read the full story.
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