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Bangkok (AFP) – An Indian man has been arrested at Thailand’s main airport attempting to smuggle out a menagerie of live creatures including a white desert fox and a raccoon. Thailand is a major transit hub for wildlife smugglers — who often sell the animals to China and Vietnam, although recent months have seen an uptick in trafficking to India. Abilash Annaduri was found with 17 live creatures of six species, Thai wildlife officials said.

Hong Kong (AFP) – Overlooked by high-rises on the outskirts of Hong Kong, a group of students practise body-slam tackles and vicious ankle-wrenches at weekly training for an unlikely sport: the ancient Indian game of kabaddi. Though its professional league has a huge following in India and surrounding nations, kabaddi — a highly physical game where the object is to tag the rival team, often by brute force — is relatively unknown outside the region. But eight years ago two Chinese anthropologists set up a Hong Kong team to encourage integration in a city which, despite its status as an international hub, can be less than inclusive, especially when it comes to non-white and non-Chinese residents.

Beirut (AFP) – A large blaze resembling flowing lava rages in the destroyed grain silos at the port of the Lebanese capital Beirut, serving as a grim reminder of the August 4, 2020 explosion of a stockpile of ammonium nitrate fertiliser that had caught fire.

In space (AFP) – A spacewalk by two Russians was ended abruptly due to a problem with the battery in cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev’s suit, though at no point was he in any danger, say US and Russian space agencies. Russian mission controllers on Earth ordered Artemyev back to the airlock, more than two hours into his trip outside the International Space Station (ISS).

Putrajaya (Malaysia) (AFP) – Malaysian ex-premier Najib Razak arrives at court to begin a final appeal to overturn his jail sentence for corruption in the 1MDB scandal. Depending on the verdict, the trial could see him either locked up or free to launch a political comeback.

Barcelona (AFP) – Barcelona residents pay tribute to victims of the 2017 Las Ramblas attack, with Pere Aragones, the head of Catalonia’s regional government, and Barcelona mayor Ada Colau also present. Dozens of people observed a minute’s silence on the tree-lined Las Ramblas boulevard where a van mowed down pedestrians leaving behind a trail of bodies five years ago.

Kennedy Space Center (United States) (AFP) – NASA’s Artemis 1 moon rocket is slowly rolled out aboard a giant Crawler vehicle to a launchpad, ahead of its planned lunar mission.

Sydney (AFP) – Australia’s ex-prime minister Scott Morrison denies he effectively ran a shadow government during his time in office, saying it was necessary during the pandemic to secretly appoint himself to several ministerial posts. “I believed it was necessary to have authority to have what were effectively emergency powers to exercise in extreme situations”, Morrison said at a press conference on Wednesday. The revelations have sparked a political firestorm in Australia, with his successor Anthony Albanese promising a rapid investigation and accusing Morrison of carrying out an “unprecedented trashing of our democracy”.

Kubinka (Russia) (AFP) – Russia aims to promote its arms industry at the “Army 2022” military forum near Moscow, almost six months after the start of the conflict in Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin opened the forum, saying the Russian weapons had been proven “in real combat conditions”.