38 At Least 36 Dead As Fire Rages Through Russian Psychiatric Hospital

Famine is back and the threat is real. And not just in one or two countries, but in multiple regions. The good news is that we have the resources and skills to make famine a thing of the past. But past strategies won’t work. Until recently, success in the fight against global famine was one of humanity’s greatest achievements.

Ten years ago, the Philippines lodged a complaint to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, taking issue with China’s expansive claims over the South China Sea, which China used to justify building military outposts in the disputed waterway. When the U. N.-backed tribunal ruled in favor of the Philippines and against China in 2016, the decision was lauded as a “great victory,” akin to David’s defeat of Goliath. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But China treats the ruling as nothing more than “a piece of waste paper,” in the words of its foreign ministry, and has instead continued to aggressively assert its ownership of the sea, even using military-grade lasers and water cannons.

The acting leader of Myanmar’s government-in-exile said resistance forces are in control of about 60% of the country’s territory and poised to threaten the ruling junta in key strongholds as fighting rages across the Southeast Asian nation. Violence has intensified in Myanmar as the military led by Min Aung Hlaing, facing a crumbling economy and growing signs of dissent within his regime, struggles to keep up with a multi-front conflict from several armed ethnic groups.

In the last few years, China’s government has promoted increasingly conservative social values, encouraging women to focus on raising children. It has cracked down on civil society movements and made laws to drive out foreign influence. So a 75-year-old Japanese feminist scholar who’s not married and does not have children is an unlikely celebrity on the country’s tightly censored internet. [time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] But Chizuko Ueno, a professor emeritus at the University of Tokyo, is a phenomenon.

Senior U. S. and Chinese officials held “candid” talks in Washington as a flurry of high-level diplomacy bolsters expectations President Xi Jinping will attend a major summit in California this year. Daniel Kritenbrink, the top State Department official for Asia, met with Vice Foreign Minister for Asia Sun Weidong on Thursday, in the latest exchange of government officials from the world’s largest economies.

[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”] India is planning to add more self-propelled, long-range artillery to its arsenal after officials conducted a study indicating their effectiveness in shaping Russia’s war in Ukraine. The South Asian country wants to obtain another 400 of these guns, which would make the equipment about a sixth of all artillery pieces in the Indian armory, according to officials aware of the details, who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of the issue. The war in Ukraine has made India only the latest country to reevaluate its armory, preparedness for war, and priorities on the battlefield.