Beijing (AFP) – China warns Britain against “provoking tensions” in the South China Sea after its foreign minister David Lammy called Beijing’s actions in the disputed waters “dangerous and destabilising”.
Ramenskoye (Russia) (AFP) – “We understood there was a war but we didn’t properly realise it. But now it has come,” says Svetlana, a 59-year-old resident of Ramenskoye in Moscow Oblast. For many Russians, the three-year conflict with Ukraine felt distant. Overnight, Kyiv launched the largest attack on the Russian capital of the war, whick killed three people according to Russian officials.
Londres (AFP) – Feathers, sparkles and dazzling lights bring cabaret spectacle to London’s 1920s Bloomsbury Ballroom, as “Roxie Rocks Chicago”, a show inspired by the 2002 movie Chicago, launches in the UK capital. Where the film leant on a black and white aesthetic to depict the Chicago Jazz Age, “Roxie Rocks Chicago” ramps up the colour. “What we tried to do in this show is completely the opposite of the musical,” says Doni Fierro, artistic director of the London Cabaret Club which is putting on the show.
Buenos Aires (AFP) – A trial of seven medical professionals accused of criminal negligence in the death of Argentine football legend Diego Maradona begins on 11 March. More than 100 witnesses, including members of Maradona’s family and doctors who tended to him over the years, are expected to take the stand in a long-delayed trial in Buenos Aires. Maradona was found dead of a heart attack, two weeks after undergoing brain surgery for a blood clot, in a rented house where he was brought after being discharged from hospital.
Qamishli (Syria) (AFP) – The Syrian presidency has announced an agreement with the head of the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to integrate the institutions of the autonomous Kurdish administration in the northeast into the national government.
Montevideo (AFP) – Images of X social media platform disrupted. Elon Musk has said X was hit by a major cyberattack as outages plague users of the platform once known as Twitter. IMAGES
London (AFP) – Feathers, sparkles and dazzling lights bring cabaret spectacle to London’s 1920s Bloomsbury Ballroom, as “Roxie Rocks Chicago”, a show inspired by the 2002 movie Chicago, launches in the UK capital. Where the film leant on a black and white aesthetic to depict the Chicago Jazz Age, “Roxie Rocks Chicago” ramps up the colour. “What we tried to do in this show is completely the opposite of the musical,” says Doni Fierro, artistic director of the London Cabaret Club which is putting on the show.
North Sea (AFP) – Smoke billows from two ships in the North Sea, off England’s northeast coast, after an oil tanker and a cargo ship collided. The crash sparked a huge blaze, launching a major firefighting and search and rescue operation about 10 miles off the coast. According to the area’s local MP, one person was hospitalised while 36 other crew members from both ships were accounted for.
Pekon (Myanmar) (AFP) – “Before the coup, I was just an ordinary farmer,” says Aung Hla, one of many in Myanmar who have turned to opium production in the wake of the 2021 seizure of power by the junta. The 35-year-old used to farm rice before he was forced from his land by fighting, a common experience across the war-battered country. Like many displaced farmers, Hla has found poppies to be a more reliable source of income than other agricultural products, but says he wouldn’t be cultivating opium – the key ingredient in heroin – if he had “any other choice.”
Mae Sot (Thailand) (AFP) – Nearly 300 Indian nationals are escorted through Thailand’s Mae Sot airport after being freed from criminal scam centres in neighbouring Myanmar. In recent weeks, around 7,000 workers have been released from the compounds — which operate online scams to steal money from victims — as part of a crackdown implemented by China, Thailand and authorities in Myanmar. China has repatriated more than 2,000 of its own nationals, treating them as criminal suspects, despite claims by many that they were lured or tricked into the work.
Alotenango (Guatemala) (AFP) – Around a thousand people have been evacuated after a new eruption of the Fuego volcano in Guatemala, near the capital and considered the most active in Central America. The colossus, located about 35 km southwest of Guatemala City, increased its eruptive activity on March 9 with the release of columns of lava, ash, and rocks. IMAGES
Tokyo (AFP) – On her sixth birthday 80 years ago, Shizuko Nishio clung to her mother as US B-29 bombers started a firestorm that turned humans to ash and Tokyo into a wasteland. At least 80,000 people died, according to Japanese and US historians. Five months before the United States dropped atomic weapons on Japan’s Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the nighttime raid on March 9-10, 1945 was World War II’s deadliest using conventional bombs. Before its surrender to the Allies in August 1945, Japan had conducted a brutal imperial expansion across Asia. China alone says more than 20 million of its citizens died as a result of Japanese invasion, occupation and atrocities.
