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A military convoy of soldiers toting rifles and submachine guns rumbles into a poor neighbourhood of the Ecuadoran port town of Esmeraldas, trying to root out drug gangs.The town in the northern part of the country, near the border with Colombia, has been living under a state of emergency for nearly two months in response to what the government calls terrorist acts by powerful drug trafficking gangs.The trucks that make up the convoy carry more than 100 soldiers, wearing bulletproof vests as they travel through narrow streets – neighbourhood residents eyeing them warily.Some soldiers aim at houses with their guns while others using a battering ram knock down a metal door.“Where are the weapons?” one hooded soldier yells at a group of young black people lying on the ground as AFP, travelling exclusively with these troops, observed the raid.A city of 200,000, Esmeraldas, capital of the province of the same name, is considered a stronghold for crime gangs.In this raid, one suspect is being handcuffed. He is believed to belong to a feared gang called the Tiguerones.Gang members live by blending in with regular everyday people, said police colonel Julio Cesar Vásquez.This young detainee with long hair and a tiger tattooed on his ankle is one of more than 900 people arrested around the country since the state of emergency was declared, according to the interior ministry.President Guillermo Lasso declared the emergency in Esmeraldas on March 3, acting because of its proximity to Colombia, the world’s top producer of cocaine.A month later he extended it to other troubled regions of Ecuador and started letting people carry guns for self-defence.“We have a common enemy: delinquency, drug trafficking and organised crime,” the president said at the time.A helicopter flies over a river looking for speedboats loaded with cocaine.In 2021 Ecuador seized a record 210 tonnes of cocaine that had been meant for shipment to Europe.However, the state of emergency has not made this town much safer.On April 11, a group of some 30 assailants killed nine fishermen in an attack that authorities said stemmed from a gang turf war.Police say that in Esmeraldas the homicide rate is up 7% so far this year.Ecuador is located between Colombia and Peru, the world’s two largest producers of cocaine, much of which is sent to the United States and Europe from Ecuadoran ports, principally Guayaquil.Consequently, Ecuador has seen a recent rise in violence and murders related to drug trafficking.Its murder rate almost doubled from 14 per 100,000 citizens in 2021 to 25 a year later.Despite all the soldiers deployed in Esmeraldas, people are afraid.Many shops are locked shut and some hotels and big businesses have been put up for sale.“The gangs, all the crime, we cannot work freely. You hear people say they are being extorted,” said Jofre Mancillo, who runs a warehouse. “There are no guarantees to keep working.”

The family of a Singaporean man due to be hanged next week over a kilogram of cannabis pleaded for clemency from the authorities yesterday and urged a retrial.Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, was sentenced to death in 2018 for conspiring to smuggle the drugs and the Court of Appeal has upheld his sentence which is scheduled to be carried out on Wednesday.“We don’t think my brother’s had a fair trial... I have faith the president will read all our petitions,” his sister Leelavathy Suppiah told reporters in Tamil at a news conference.“Since young, he’s been kind and well-liked by everyone, and he’s never done anything bad to anyone... he’s sacrificed everything to help his family,” she added, breaking down in tears.It will be Singapore’s first execution in six months.Tangaraju was convicted in 2017 of “abetting by engaging in a conspiracy to traffic” 1,017.9 grams (35.9 ounces) of cannabis, twice the minimum amount that merits the death sentence under the city-state’s tough drug laws.In many parts of the world — including in neighbouring Thailand — cannabis has been decriminalised and rights groups have been mounting pressure on Singapore to abolish capital punishment.The Asian financial hub has some of the world’s toughest anti-narcotics laws and insists the death penalty remains an effective deterrent against trafficking.Family members, relatives and friends signed appeals at the news conference and activists said they would deliver the petitions to the president’s office. Rights activists and family members say there were loopholes in the case and that Tangaraju never handled the drugs. They also claim he was questioned by police without legal counsel, and that he was denied a Tamil interpreter during the recording of his first police statement.Singapore’s Central Narcotics Bureau said he “had access to legal counsel throughout the process” and that the judge found it “disingenuous” given Tangaraju’s admission he had made no request for an interpreter for any of the other statements.Singapore resumed execution by hanging in March 2022 after a hiatus of more than two years. Eleven executions were carried out last year — all for drug offences. Among those hanged was Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, whose execution sparked a global outcry, including from the UN and British tycoon Richard Branson, because he was deemed to have a mental disability.Tangaraju’s niece Subhashini Ilango, 26, said her uncle had been brave and has said he “is prepared” for Wednesday but that his death will be unjust.“But he believes that God will help him.”

As Sudan collapsed into fighting last week that has trapped civilians in their city neighbourhoods, cutting off access to water, food and healthcare, community groups, websites and apps have sprung up to mobilise medical help and find basic supplies.The violent power struggle between the heads of the army and a big paramilitary force, who previously governed together, has killed hundreds of civilians and plunged Sudan into a humanitarian catastrophe, bringing war to the capital Khartoum, which is unused to such violence.One existing group, a protest committee that had organised demonstrations against the ruling military council, has transformed into a kind of grassroots health service. Elsewhere, individuals have used technology to match local stocks of food, fresh water and medicine to neighbourhoods in need.“Once war started, that same evening we got together to start figuring out how to volunteer,” said Azza Surketty, part of the Maamoura Resistance Committee which formed during a mass uprising in 2019 and helped organise relief in the Maamoura district of the capital during the Covid pandemic and mass floods. It mobilised a team of surgeons and other medics, reopened a local health centre for urgent cases and set up a hotline for less urgent ones. It has handled at least 25 medical cases since the fighting began, Surketty said. “Doctors help us treat a lot of cases including gunshots. But it gets difficult when we have a lot of bleeding, which needs a hospital,” she said, adding that two patients had died for lack of adequate supplies.From his home in central Saudi Arabia, web developer Freed Adel, 30, has turned his personal website into a platform where people can either request or offer assistance based on their location.“People started sharing what they need on social media networks and there are others who have available supplies that they share too. I had this idea to group all these cases in one place,” he said. His site has mostly helped people in Khartoum, where much of the fiercest fighting has taken place.“Most of the needs are medical due to the lack of hospital services, medical staff and the fact that people cannot reach hospitals,” Adel said.Elsewhere in Khartoum, 25 year-old doctor Makram Waleed has built a 1,200-strong WhatsApp community split into groups for the capital’s different districts for people to share information about supplies of basics.“Whenever I look at a certain area, I find people are actually communicating and we managed to get some people medicine and food,” Waleed said.The biggest requirement for most people was drinking water, he said, but there were also a lot of requests for medicines, particularly for diabetes and blood pressure.“We don’t have money or financial aid. We’re just trying to ease communication between people,” said.With most of Khartoum’s hospitals shut down, and the few still open offering only limited services, medical needs have been intense. Doctorbase, a health app run by Ahmed Mujtaba that previously had a network of 30 doctors, has switched from helping Sudanese deal with the existing problems linked to poverty to aiding with those impacted by violence.Dozens of doctors from around the world have signed up since the fighting erupted on April 15 to volunteer time to advise Sudanese in urgent need of medical help using the app, said Mujtaba, who lives in Canada.“Unfortunately the last two days we’ve seen a couple of cases that were urgent. They’re not meant to be treated using Telehealth, they actually need to go to a hospital,” Mujtaba said.

Anti-Kremlin protesters staged a rally in Paris yesterday, urging the EU to slap sanctions on the socialite wife of the Russian deputy defence minister, who they accuse of bypassing sanctions.Chanting “Sanctions” and holding placards, several dozen activists gathered outside the presumed home of Svetlana Maniovich in Paris’s seventh district, one of the French capital’s poshest arrondissements.The protest was organised by associates of jailed Kremlin critic Alexei Navalny who say that the wife of Russian Deputy Defence Minister Timur Ivanov must be banned from living in Europe and her assets frozen.One placard at the rally said: “Robs in Russia. Kills in Ukraine. Wife in France”.Another read: “Family of a war criminal lives in Paris.”“This is a family of a war criminal,” Maria Pevchikh, a top Navalny associate, told AFP at the rally. “They should face some sort of punishment and justice for what they are doing.”Last December, Navalny’s team released an investigation, saying that for years Ivanov’s family enjoyed a life of luxury in Europe with vacations in Saint-Tropez, Rolls-Royces and exclusive jewellery.After President Vladimir Putin sent troops to Ukraine, Ivanov began overseeing – and profiting from – construction projects in Ukraine’s Mariupol which fell under Moscow’s control after a months-long siege, the anti-Kremlin activists said.After the start of the war, Ivanov’s wife moved to France where she continues to enjoy a luxury lifestyle, they said.In a move to bypass sanctions, Ivanov and Maniovich divorced in June, 2022, the investigation said.Before the divorce Maniovich changed her last name to Ivanova, and the deputy defence minister remains her only source of financial support, the activists said.Last October, the EU introduced sanctions against Ivanov, 47, describing him as the defence ministry’s top official in charge of construction of military facilities.“He is responsible for the Russian war effort at large,” said the EU.The fact that Maniovich could bypass EU sanctions was “outrageous and unfair”, said Pevchikh, pointing to “a crazy level of corruption which is now combined with war crimes”.For weeks, Navalny’s team has lobbied the French authorities but received no answer.“Now is not the time to ignore this,” Pevchikh said. “We are in the middle of the war.”

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva was again at odds with Europe over Ukraine yesterday while pressing his first European tour since resuming office in January.The veteran left-winger is seeking to revive his country’s diplomatic ties after four years of relative isolation under his far-right predecessor Jair Bolsonaro, but tensions have been on display with the West over Ukraine.Bolsonaro did not visit Portugal, home to around 300,000 Brazilians, during his time in office.“I wanted to tell you how happy I am,” Lula, standing next to Portugal’s Prime Minister Antonio Costa, told a room packed with government officials and reporters. “Brazil spent almost six years, especially the last four, isolated from the world. Brazil is back, to improve our relationship.”Yesterday Lula again refused to be drawn into the war, calling for a “negotiated” settlement between Kyiv and Moscow more than a year after the Russian invasion.The Brazilian leader has angered Ukraine by saying that Kyiv shares blame for the war and has not joined Western nations in imposing sanctions on Moscow or supplying ammunition to Kyiv.Lula said that he did not want to “please anyone” with his views about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.He said that his aim is to “build a way to bring both of them (Russia and Ukraine) to the table”.“I want to find a third alternative (to solve the conflict), which is the construction of peace,” he said.“While my government condemns the violation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, we support a negotiated political solution to the conflict,” Lula told journalists after meeting Portuguese President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa in Lisbon.“We urgently need a group of countries to sit round a table with both Ukraine and Russia,” he said. “Brazil does not want to take part in this war. Brazil wants to create peace.”“President Lula believes the road to a just and lasting peace implies making negotiation a priority,” Rebelo de Sousa said. “Portugal has a different position. We think that for a road to peace to become a possibility, Ukraine must first have the right to respond to the invasion.”Portugal is a founding member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) and was among the first European countries to supply tanks to Kyiv.Lula, a 77-year-old former metalworker who served two previous terms as president from 2003 to 2010, has resisted taking sides over the conflict, neither with Europe and the United States, nor with China and Russia.He raised hackles during a visit to China this month by saying Washington should stop “encouraging” the war by supplying weapons to Kyiv.Lula said the United States and European allies were prolonging the war.He also said the United States and the European Union “need to start talking about peace”.“If you don’t talk about peace, you contribute to war,” Lula insisted yesterday.After a flurry of criticism from Europe, Kyiv and the White House, which accused him of “parroting Russian and Chinese propaganda”, Lula said on Tuesday that Brazil “condemned” the Russian invasion.On Friday, he announced that he is sending top foreign policy adviser Cesar Amorim to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv, after representatives of the Ukrainian community in Portugal met the Brazilian delegation in Lisbon.“Brazil is determined to contribute to fostering dialogue and peace, and an end to this conflict,” the Brazilian government confirmed.Rebelo de Sousa’s comments yesterday were the second in days that took aim at Lula, who was recently named on Time magazine’s list of the world’s most influential people.“Brazil’s position at the United Nations has always been the same – on the side of Portugal, the United States and the Nato,” the Portuguese head of state said earlier this week. “If Brazil changes its stance, that’s none of Portugal’s business. We will stick to our views and we will disagree.”Lula signed 13 agreements on technology, energy transition, tourism, culture and education with Portuguese Prime Minister Costa.Lula’s official trip to former colonial power Portugal – during which the two governments will sign deals on energy, science and education – will be followed by a two-day visit to Spain to meet King Felipe VI and Prime Minister Sanchez.

More than 150 people from various nations reached the safety of Saudi Arabia yesterday in the first announced evacuation of civilians from Sudan, where fighting between the army and paramilitaries entered a second week following a brief lull.Foreign nations have said they are preparing for the potential evacuation of thousands more of their nationals, even though Sudan’s main airport remains closed.Fighting has left hundreds dead and thousands wounded while survivors cope with shortages of electricity and food.Saudi Arabia’s foreign ministry announced the “safe arrival” of 91 of its citizens along with nationals from Kuwait, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Tunisia, Pakistan, India, Bulgaria, Bangladesh, the Philipines, Canada and Burkina Faso.As the kingdom’s naval forces transported the civilians, including diplomats and international officials, across the Red Sea from Port Sudan to Jeddah, fighting resumed in Sudan’s capital Khartoum after a temporary truce saw gunfire momentarily die down on Friday, the first day of Eid al-Fitr.Eid is normally a major celebration for Sudanese marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan.This year it is marked by fear, grief and hunger.Earlier yesterday, Sudan’s army said its chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan had received calls from leaders of multiple countries to “facilitate and guarantee safety for evacuating citizens and diplomatic missions”.It noted that the evacuations were expected to begin “in the coming hours”, adding that the US, Britain, France and China are planning to airlift their nationals out of Khartoum using military planes.Burhan told Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya TV that the army was in control of “all airports, except for Khartoum airport” and one in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur.Eid is meant to be spent “with sweets and pastries, with happy children, and people greeting relatives”, Khartoum resident Sami al-Nour said.Instead, there has been “gunfire and the stench of blood all around us”.Urban warfare began on April 15 between forces loyal to Burhan and those of his deputy-turned-rival Mohamed Hamdan Daglo. He commands the heavily armed paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which emerged from the Janjaweed fighters unleashed in Darfur by former strongman Omar al-Bashir.The former allies seized power in a 2021 coup but later fell out in a bitter power struggle.Yesterday morning, heavy gunfire, loud explosions and fighter jets were heard in many parts of the capital, according to witnesses.The army announced Friday agreement to a three-day ceasefire, which UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken had called for a day earlier.Daglo said in a statement he had “discussed the current crisis” with Guterres, and was “focused on the humanitarian truce, safe passages, and protecting humanitarian workers”.Five humanitarians, including four from UN-linked agencies, have so far been killed.Two 24-hour ceasefires announced earlier in the week were also ignored.In Khartoum, a city of 5mn people, the conflict has left terrified civilians sheltering inside their homes. Many have ventured out only to get urgent food supplies — stocks of which are dwindling — or to flee the city.While Khartoum has seen some of the fiercest battles, they have occurred across the country.Late Friday, the army accused the RSF of attacks in the capital’s twin city of Omdurman where they released “a large number of inmates” from a prison, accusations the group denies.Battles have raged in Darfur, where Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in the city of El Fasher said their medics had been “overwhelmed” by the number of patients with gunshot wounds, many of them children.More plans are being made to evacuate foreigners, with the US, South Korea and Japan deploying forces to nearby countries, and the European Union weighing a similar move.The German ministers of defence and foreign affairs held a crisis meeting yesterday on a possible evacuation, after three military transport planes had to turn back Wednesday, according to German weekly Der Spiegel.On Friday, the US said an evacuation of embassy personnel was still too risky. Later, the RSF said it was ready to “partially” open “all airports” in Sudan to evacuate foreign citizens. It was not possible to verify which airports the RSF controls.The World Health Organization (WHO) said 413 people had been killed and 3,551 wounded in the fighting across Sudan, but the actual death toll is thought to be higher.More than two-thirds of hospitals in Khartoum and neighbouring states are now “out of service”, and at least four hospitals in North Kordofan state were shelled, the doctors’ union said.The World Food Programme said the violence could plunge millions more into hunger in a country where one third of the population needs aid.Burhan and Daglo’s dispute centred on the planned integration of the RSF into the regular army, a key condition for a deal aimed at restoring Sudan’s democratic transition after the military toppled Bashir in April 2019 following mass citizen protests.In October 2021, Burhan and Daglo joined forces to oust a civilian government installed after Bashir’s downfall. Daglo now says the coup was a “mistake”, while Burhan believes it was “necessary” to include more groups into politics.

Investors are losing their ability to resist a stock rally that much of Wall Street is convinced is doomed.More than $12.6bn has been sent to equity exchange-traded funds in April, the largest influx since January and more than twice the rate of February and March. Money is pouring into stocks as fast as it’s being yanked out of cash: Ultra-short duration ETFs are on track for their first monthly outflow since January, data compiled by Bloomberg show. Spigots are turning back on at a time of fairly intense scepticism among the pundit class. To the ever-elongating list of potential obstacles, investors were treated in the last few days to dour tidings in both the Federal Reserve Beige Book report and the Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing index. While earnings have been broadly positive, results from Fastenal Co to Ally Financial and even Tesla hinted the US consumer is beginning to buckle. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is butting up against a level where previous attempts to break out of its sideways march have run out of steam.Does a case for optimism exist? Yes, mainly in how widespread the bearishness remains — by some measures, it’s the most extreme since 2009. Despite the souring risk appetite after aggressive Fed tightening and banking system turmoil, the S&P 500 has still come nowhere near revisiting its worst levels of last year.“We haven’t had a new low since October, people aren’t hearing artillery shells landing anymore, so they’re peeking heads out of foxholes,” said George Pearkes, global macro strategist at Bespoke Investment Group. “It may seem silly to attribute large flows of capital to something as simple as not seeing a drop in some time. But that’s how we see flows and sentiment operating in practice, even if it is simple and reductive.”The S&P 500 finished the week a hair lower, leaving this year’s gain above 7.5%. Meanwhile, volatility continued to drain from the bond market — the 10-year Treasury yield added just four basis points in the week, the smallest swing since before Silicon Valley Bank’s sudden collapse last month.A similar dynamic prevailed in credit, where few signs of surface-level stress exist despite some red flags. Both investment-grade and high-yield spreads remain well below the peaks of last summer, even as ratings agencies downgrade corporate bonds to junk status at the busiest pace since the pandemic’s outbreak in 2020.“There’s a fear of missing out on an upside move,” said Charles Campbell, a managing director and trading desk specialist at Roth MKM. “People are also putting money in it because some believe we can have a no landing or soft economic landing scenario, which I don’t subscribe to.”For the stock faithful, lines on charts may pose the nearest threat to hopes the rally can continue. Up four of the last six weeks to just over 4,130, the S&P 500 sits within about a hundred points of levels where rallies reversed themselves in February, November and September. At more than 18 times annual earnings, the index isn’t cheap, particularly with analysts expecting profits to fall in 2023.While economic data remains mixed, concern over the prospect of a credit crunch spurred by March’s banking stress is proving hard to shake. The Fed’s Beige Book survey of regional business contacts found economic activity little changed and said several districts noted banks tightened lending standards amid increased uncertainty and concerns about liquidity. The Philly Fed factory index fell to minus 31.3, a level that has preceded past recessions.“We still see a weakening environment for risk assets and would be playing defence,” Sameer Samana, Wells Fargo Investment Institute’s senior global market strategist, who expects the Fed to stick to its inflation-fighting stance. “Stocks have made their way close to the upper end of their trading range. We view that disconnect as an opportunity to pull further risk off the table.”A handful of earnings reports also gave reason for pause, even as most companies managed — as always — to deliver results that beat analyst predictions. Construction materials supplier Fastenal said growth in March sales slowed to the lowest since June 2021. Ally Financial’s profit plummeted as it made fewer auto loans and put aside additional provisions to cover consumer defaults. Tesla slumped 11% on the week after Chief Executive Elon Musk indicated he’ll keep cutting prices to stoke demand.Consistent with rising risk appetites among retail ETF buyers, a gauge of adviser sentiment kept by Investors Intelligence known as the bull/bear ratio climbed for a fourth week to its highest since the start of 2022 — the month that marked the beginning of the current bear market. The indicator hit 1.0 in October, near its financial-crisis low, just before stocks began their current rally.

An elderly patient hooked up to a tangle of tubes lies struggling for breath in a Bangkok hospital as Thailand battles a “drastic increase” in respiratory problems caused by a spike in air pollution. His wife holds his hand and strokes his face, with a nurse in blue scrubs listening to his chest through a stethoscope.Every single breath is an exertion. About 2.4mn people in Thailand have needed treatment for medical problems linked to air pollution since the start of the year, including nearly 200,000 this week alone, according to health officials.Bangkok and the northern city of Chiang Mai were among the top 10 most polluted cities in the world yesterday, according to air quality monitoring firm IQAir. Piamlarp Sangsayunh, a respiratory disease specialist at the Central Chest Institute of Thailand in Nonthaburi, says she has seen a “drastic increase in patients since February”.“The patients usually have respiratory problems like coughing and sore throats,” she told AFP yesterday, adding that eye irritation is also common. Elderly people are among the most vulnerable to air pollution, which can exacerbate existing conditions, sometimes requiring them to be put on oxygen machines, she said.But she said those working outdoors - such as Bangkok’s vast army of street vendors and motorbike taxi drivers - were the ones “on the front line” of the crisis. Uraiwan Chantana, who sells fish balls on the street in Bangkok’s central shopping district, said breathing in toxic air every day made her exhausted, but she could not shut her stall because she had no other way to earn money. “I feel a burning pain inside my nose and I regularly cough,” she told AFP. “I feel out of breath when I climb stairs when I normally didn’t.”World Health Organisation (WHO) representative to Thailand Jos Vandelaer said air pollution was not solely a health issue but also dented economic productivity. “If people are sick they can’t go to work, there will be a reduction in economic activity,” he told AFP. The economic cost of air pollution in Thailand in 2019 was equal to $63.1bn or 11% of gross domestic product, according to Kasetsart University environmental economist Witsanu Attavanich. One of the biggest concerns are tiny particles known as PM2.5, smaller than the diameter of a hair, which can penetrate deep into the lungs and even reach the bloodstream.According to IQAir, in 2022 the average PM2.5 concentration in Thailand was 3.6 times the WHO’s annual air quality guideline limits. “In the long term, there are more risks for respiratory infections... If people have asthma that can get worse, people can develop chronic lung diseases, even lung cancer,” Vandelaer said.“What is less well known is that this PM2.5 can cause cardiovascular diseases... increase the risk of a stroke or heart attack.” Air pollution was a factor in about 31,000 deaths in 2019 in Thailand according to WHO data. Smoke from forest fires, farmers burning crop stubble, as well as vehicle emissions and heavy industry-generated fumes, are among the main causes of toxic smog in the kingdom.The El Nino weather pattern is also exacerbating the haze problem in Southeast Asia, experts say. Thailand is home to more than 70mn people and its poor air quality is a growing issue ahead of the country’s May 14 election, with the incumbent government accused of not doing enough.“We need to fix the problem at the roots, as a doctor I’m just on the receiving end dealing with the consequences,” Piamlarp said. Vandelaer said more regulation was needed to address fires and polluters, adding that individuals should also think about how their transportation and lifestyle choices affected air quality.Bangkok motorcycle taxi driver Tip Panyangam, 59, said he often felt unwell from the smog despite wearing a double mask. “I want the people in power to reduce it because I am worried about my health,” he told AFP.

French President Emmanuel Macron’s flagship pension reform will enter into force swiftly, officials said yesterday after it received the Constitutional Council’s approval despite months of street protests and strikes.The legislation, which pushes up the age at which one can draw a pension to 64 from 62, remains deeply unpopular, and spontaneous protests broke out when the Constitutional Council’s decision was announced.Protesters gathered outside Paris City Hall holding banners reading “climate of anger” and “no end to the strikes until the reform is withdrawn”, in a sign the council’s verdict was unlikely to end widespread anger with Macron and his reform.Some burnt trash bins as they marched through Paris, singing a chant popular with anti-Macron protesters: “We are here, we are here, even if Macron does not want it, we are here.”Opinion polls show a vast majority reject the policy changes, as well as the fact that the government pushed the bill through parliament without a final vote it might have lost.“All the labour unions are calling on the President of the Republic to show some wisdom, listen and understand what is happening in the country and not to promulgate this law,” the leader of the CGT union Sophie Binet said.In a joint statement, unions said this was “the only way to soothe the anger in the country”.However, officials shrugged off the request, saying that the text would be turned into law in the coming days.Labour Minister Olivier Dussopt said it should enter into force on September 1 as initially planned.The Constitutional Council said the government’s actions were in line with the constitution and approved raising the legal retirement age, with only peripheral measures meant to boost employment for older workers struck down on the grounds that they did not belong in this legislation.“The country must continue to move forward, work, and face the challenges that await us,” Macron said earlier this week, looking to move on to other reforms.However, the opposition said they would not back down and unions said they would not attend a meeting Macron wanted to organise with them on Tuesday.“We won’t give up. There will be a great May 1st,” said teacher Gilles Sornay, 65, at the Paris rally, referring to protests planned for international workers’ day.“The fight continues,” hard-left leader Jean-Luc Melenchon declared.Separately, the Constitutional Council rejected a proposal by the opposition to organise a citizens’ referendum on the pension reform.The opposition has tabled another bid for a referendum, which is expected to be reviewed by the Council in early May.The Constitutional Council decision represents a victory for Macron but analysts say it has come at major personal cost for the 45-year-old while causing months of disruption.Sometimes violent protests have left hundreds injured.Macron’s personal ratings are near to their lowest level and many voters have been outraged by his decision to ram the pensions law through parliament without a vote.“Stay the course. That’s my motto,” Macron said yesterday as he inspected Notre Dame Cathedral, four years after a devastating fire there.Political observers say the widespread discontent over the government’s reform could have longer-term repercussions, including a possible boost for the far right.Far-right leader Marine Le Pen wrote on Twitter that “the political fate of the pension reform is not sealed”, urging voters to back those who oppose it in the next election so that they can scrap it.Macron says the French must work longer or else the pension budget will fall billions of euros into the red each year by the end of the decade.However, the pension system is a cornerstone of France’s cherished social protection model and trade unions say that the money can be found elsewhere, including by taxing the rich more heavily.While attention has focused on the retirement age of 62, only 36% of French workers retire at that age and another 36% already retire older on account of requirements to pay into the system for at least 42 years in order to be able to claim a full pension.That means the normal retirement age for a French worker who started working at the age of 22 was 64.5, marginally above a European Union average of 64.3, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) figures based on 2020 data.

A severe tropical cyclone lashed northwestern Australia yesterday bringing the strongest winds the country has ever recorded, but officials said towns and cities appeared to have escaped the worst of the storm.Tropical Cyclone Ilsa made landfall in the early hours as a category five storm — the strongest on the scale — near the sparsely-populated town of Pardoo, about 19 hours’ drive northeast of Perth. Images from the scene showed the storm’s destructive power, blasting through walls and tearing off the roof at the Pardoo petrol station.The Bureau of Meteorology’s Todd Smith said the cyclone brought a wind gust of 289km per hour —believed to be the strongest on record in Australia. Ilsa also packed an Australian record for the strongest sustained wind speeds over a 10-minute period — averaging 218km per hour.The previous record was 194kph, set by Cyclone George in 2007.“It just shows how strong this system was as it approached the coast,” Smith told reporters. For the region’s largest towns and settlements it was a narrow escape, and they appear to have escaped major damage, authorities said.“I’ve been told that early assessments in those areas show damage is fairly minimal,” acting Emergency Services Minister Sue Ellery told reporters. The world’s biggest iron ore-shipping hub reopened yesterday after it was forced to close earlier in the week as the cyclone gathered pace above the Indian Ocean.The cyclone has since been downgraded to a category two, but authorities remain wary as it barrels inland towards several remote Aboriginal communities and a major gold mine.The Department of Fire and Emergency Services issued a new series of “red alerts” as the storm swerved inland yesterday afternoon, ordering people to stay indoors until given the all-clear.“There are several remote communities and mining operations which are yet to be impacted,” Ellery said.These included the Aboriginal community of Punmu and the Newcrest gold mine in Telfer.“It is too early to know the impact of the cyclone as it continues to pass through the area,” Newcrest told AFP in a statement.Tropical storms typically sputter out quickly once they reach land, but Ilsa was forecast to maintain an unusual intensity as it moved across the vast desert Outback in the coming days. The northwest coast of Western Australia is the most “cyclone-prone region” in the country, according to the Bureau of Meteorology.It also has “the highest incidence of cyclones in the southern hemisphere”.The region holds significant deposits of iron ore, copper and gold, and is home to some of Australia’s largest mining operations. Australian researchers have repeatedly warned that climate change amplifies the risk of natural disasters such as bushfires, floods and cyclones.

A 21-year-old member of the US Air National Guard accused of leaking top secret military intelligence records online made his initial appearance before a federal judge in Boston yesterday to face charges that he unlawfully copied and transmitted classified materials.Jack Douglas Teixeira of North Dighton, Massachusetts, who was arrested by heavily armed Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents at his home on Thursday, appeared in a crowded federal court wearing a brown khaki jumpsuit.At the hearing, Boston’s top federal national security prosecutor, Nadine Pellegrini, requested that Teixeira be detained pending trial, and a detention hearing was set for Wednesday.The court appointed a public defender to represent Teixeira.The leaked classified documents at the heart of the investigation were posted online on a social media website in March and perhaps earlier, but news of their existence did not come to light until it was reported by the New York Times last week.It is believed to be the most serious security breach since more than 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2010. In the WikiLeaks case, the leaker – US Army Private First Class Chelsea Manning - as sentenced to 35 years in prison. Democratic President Barack Obama later commuted her sentence.US officials are still assessing the damage done by the leaks, which included records revealing American concerns about weaknesses in Ukraine’s military, and pointed to US spying on allies including Israel and South Korea.In a criminal complaint made public yesterday, Teixeira was charged with unlawfully copying and transmitting classified defence records. Each offence can carry up to 10 years in prison.He was also charged with another offence which makes it a crime for an employee of the United States to knowingly remove classified records to an unauthorised location.For now, Teixeira faces three charges in connection with just one leaked document: a classified record which described the status of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and included details about troop movements on a particular date.Experts expect the charges against him will only grow, as investigators examine each document he uploaded, confirm its classification status and decide which ones could be disclosed to a jury without gravely damaging national security.The number of times he separately uploaded and transmitted each document could also be a factor in how many charges he will face.“They are going to pick the ones, I would imagine, that foreign governments have already seen,” said Stephanie Siegmann, the former National Security Chief for the US Attorney’s office in Boston and now a partner with Hinckley Allen.In a sworn statement, an FBI agent said Teixeira had held a top secret security clearance since 2021, and that he also maintained sensitive compartmented access to other highly classified programmes.Since May 2022, the FBI said Teixeira has been serving as an E-3/airman first class in the US Air National Guard and has been stationed at Otis Air National Guard Base in Massachusetts.Siegmann said one lingering question is why a 21-year-old Guardsman held such a top-level security clearance.“That’s an issue that Department of Defence needs to now deal with,” she said. “Why would he be entitled to these documents about the Russia-Ukrainian conflict?”US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has said that he is ordering a “review of our intelligence access, accountability and control procedures within the (Defence) Department to inform our efforts to prevent this kind of incident from happening again”.Teixeira only spoke twice during the brief proceeding yesterday, answering “yes” when asked whether he understood his right to remain silent.He also confirmed he had filled out a financial affidavit, which the judge said shows he will qualify to be represented by a federal public defender.After the hearing, three of Teixeira’s family members left the courthouse, with a group of reporters trailing them for several blocks. They entered a car without making any comments.The Justice Department opened a formal criminal probe last week into the leaked documents, after a referral from the Department of Defence.The leak was a “deliberate, criminal act”, the Pentagon said on Thursday, adding that the military had taken steps to review distribution lists and ensure people receiving information had a need to know.Reuters has reviewed more than 50 of the documents, labelled “Secret” and “Top Secret”, but has not independently verified their authenticity.The number of documents leaked is likely to be over 100.The investigative news outlet Bellingcat, the Washington Post and the New York Times have traced the documents’ earliest appearance to a defunct server on the instant messaging site Discord.Some of the documents later appeared on other sites, including Twitter, 4Chan and Telegram.In a chat group on Discord, Teixeira went by the handle OG and was admired by the group’s mostly young members, who shared a love for guns and military gear.

Japan’s new central bank governor Kazuo Ueda said on Monday he will communicate closely with the government and guide monetary policy flexibly, warning of high uncertainty over the economic outlook.Ueda faces a bumpy road as slowing global growth clouds prospects for a sustained pickup in inflation and wages, a prerequisite for phasing out his predecessor’s controversial monetary stimulus.“Given high economic uncertainty, the BoJ will communicate closely with the government and guide monetary policy flexibly,” Ueda told reporters after meeting with Prime Minister Fumio Kishida to receive his official appointment letter.Ueda also said he agreed with the prime minister that there was no immediate need to revise a joint statement between the government and the BoJ, under which the central bank pledges to achieve its 2% inflation target at the earliest date possible.The 71-year-old academic’s term began on Sunday, succeeding Haruhiko Kuroda, whose second, five-year term ended on Saturday.Markets will be looking for clues on how soon Ueda could phase out an unpopular bond yield control policy that has drawn criticism for distorting markets and hurting bank margins.In parliamentary confirmation hearings in February, Ueda has stressed the need to keep ultra-easy policy to ensure Japan sustainably achieves the BoJ’s 2% inflation target backed by wage growth.But with inflation exceeding the target, many analysts expect the BoJ to tweak or end yield curve control (YCC), a policy combining a 0.1% target for short-term interest rate and a 0% cap for the 10-year bond yield, as soon as this quarter.“The increasing side-effects are a sign the policy effect (of YCC) is working its way through the economy,” former BoJ deputy governor Hiroshi Nakaso was quoted as saying in an interview with the Nikkei newspaper. “When the appropriate timing comes, the BoJ’s new leadership will likely modify or abolish YCC,” he said.Japan’s long-stagnant inflation and wage growth are showing budding signs of change.After hitting a 41-year high of 4.2% in January, core consumer inflation remains above 3% as more firms hike prices in response to rising raw material costs.To compensate households for the increase in living costs, major firms have offered wage hikes of nearly 4% this year in annual labour talks, the fastest pace in about three decades.At his final briefing as governor on Friday, Kuroda said Japan was moving closer to achieving sustained 2% inflation as the public’s long-held perception that prices won’t rise, was beginning to change.But mounting US recession fears are among headwinds for Japan’s export-reliant economy.While the end to Covid-19 curbs is propping up consumption, some analysts warn a recent slew of price hikes for daily necessities could also hurt spending.Ueda will chair his first policy meeting on April 27-28, when the board produces fresh quarterly growth and price forecasts extending through fiscal 2025.Markets are focusing on whether the board will project inflation accelerating towards, or even hitting, 2% inflation in fiscal 2024 and 2025.Under current forecasts, the BoJ expects core consumer inflation to hit 1.6% in the current fiscal year that began in April and accelerate to 1.8% the following year.Ueda served as BoJ board member from 1998 to 2005, during which the central bank introduced zero interest rates and then quantitative easing to combat deflation and economic stagnation.

Tesla Inc will build a new battery factory in Shanghai, increasing investment in China at a time of brewing tensions between Beijing and Washington.Tesla will manufacture its Megapack large-scale energy-storage unit in the new facility, which adds to its factory for electric vehicles in Shanghai. The company led by Elon Musk, who is said to be visiting China this weekend, made the announcement at a signing ceremony for the project in Shanghai. Tom Zhu, Tesla’s senior vice president of automotive, and Shanghai government officials including vice mayor Wu Qing attended, with Tesla vice president Tao Lin signing the contract.Construction is scheduled to begin in the third quarter of this year and the plant will commence production in the second quarter of 2024, the company said in a statement.Tesla’s deepening China investment comes shortly after France’s Airbus SE announced plans to double its production capacity in the country for one of its top-selling jets. The European planemaker will add a second final assembly line for A320 narrow-bodies at its existing factory in Tianjin, under a deal signed by chief executive officer Guillaume Faury in Beijing on Thursday.The new manufacturing projects give a boost for Chinese industry as other firms like Apple Inc rethink production in the nation amid heightened tensions with the US over everything from an alleged Chinese spy balloon being shot down over American skies to Beijing’s partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin.The Megapack is intended as a massive battery to help stabilize energy grids, with the company saying each unit can store enough energy to power an average of 3,600 homes for one hour. The new factory will initially produce 10,000 Megapacks every year, equal to around 40 GWh of energy storage, and the products will be sold worldwide.China, home to rising global electric vehicle star BYD Co, is an extremely important market for Tesla. Its existing car factory on the outskirts of Shanghai, which the US firm owns outright, produced almost 711,000 cars last year, or 52% of its worldwide output — even with production being disrupted by the China’s now-abandoned Covid Zero policy.Authorities rolled out the red carpet to help Tesla set up its first plant outside the US in early 2019, and Shanghai government officials assisted the company with resuming production in a timely manner after pandemic-related disruptions.Musk’s time operating in China hasn’t been entirely smooth, however. An expansion of the Shanghai EV plant was delayed over data concerns about Tesla’s connections to Musk’s internet-from-space initiative Starlink, people familiar with the matter said earlier this year, days after angry Tesla owners swarmed showrooms in China to complain about missing out on another round of price cuts.Tesla cars also were banned from Chinese military complexes and housing compounds in early 2021 over concerns about sensitive data being collected by cameras built into the vehicles.Musk said on an earnings call in January that China is the most competitive auto market. He’s made similar comments before, including during an online forum in September 2021, when he said he had “a great deal of respect for the many Chinese automakers.”

Two Israeli sisters were killed and their mother seriously wounded in a shooting in the occupied West Bank yesterday, hours after Israel bombarded Gaza and Lebanon following rocket fire by Palestinian fighters.The broadening of the conflict since Israeli police clashed with Palestinians inside Jerusalem’s flashpoint Al-Aqsa Mosque drew appeals for restraint from the international community but the Israeli army vowed it would not allow Palestinian factions to open a new front in Lebanon.A barrage of over 30 rockets fired from Lebanon on Thursday marked the biggest escalation since Israel fought a 34-day war with Hezbollah in 2006.The Israeli army said it had launched a manhunt for the perpetrators of yesterday’s shooting.It said the women were fired on in a car as they passed through Hamra junction, in the northern part of the Jordan Valley. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Oded Revivi, mayor of the illegal West Bank settlement Efrat, confirmed the two dead were sisters, adding that the third woman who was seriously wounded was their mother.The attack came after the army carried out air strikes and an artillery bombardment before dawn in response to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. In response to Thursday’s rocket fire, Israel “struck targets, including infrastructure, belonging to the Hamas organisation in southern Lebanon”, the army said — the first time Israel has confirmed an attack on Lebanese territory since April 2022.Explosions were heard by AFP journalists in Lebanon’s Tyre region as well as the Gaza Strip, where Israeli air raids had begun before midnight.AFP journalists in the Tyre area said they heard at least three blasts, while Abu Ahmad, a resident of a nearby Palestinian refugee camp, also said he “heard explosions”.“At least two shells fell near the camp,” he told AFP.The Lebanese army said it had found and dismantled a multiple rocket launcher in an olive grove in the Marjayoun area near the border, still loaded with six rockets primed to fire at Israel.In Gaza, the Israeli army said it had hit two tunnels and “two weapon manufacturing sites” belonging to Hamas “as a response to the security violations of Hamas during the last few days”. The army said air defences intercepted 25 rockets on Thursday, while five hit Israeli territory.Israel “will not allow the Hamas organisation to operate from within Lebanon and holds the state of Lebanon responsible for every directed fire emanating from its territory”, it added.Yesterday, Hezbollah deputy chief Naim Qassem said “the threats and intimidation of the Zionist leaders will lead nowhere”, adding “the entire axis of resistance” was on alert.Army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hecht had blamed Palestinian fighters for the rocket fire from Lebanon.Hamas condemned the “appalling Israeli aggression” and said it holds Israel “fully responsible for the consequences”. The Palestinian health ministry reported “partial damage” to the Al-Dorra children’s hospital in Gaza City, condemning the “unacceptable” act, while Hecht said the Israeli army was looking into the allegation.The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), which patrols the area along the Israeli border, urged restraint, adding: “Both sides have said they do not want a war.”The United States recognised “Israel’s legitimate right to defend itself”, while France vowed “unwavering” support for “Israel’s security and Lebanon’s stability and sovereignty”. UN chief Antonio Guterres meanwhile called on “all actors to exercise maximum restraint”. A spokesperson for Iran’s foreign ministry “strongly condemned the attacks of the aggressor Zionist regime,” and Russia called for “an end to the violence” and a “lasting ceasefire”. Hamas and Islamic Jihad informed Egypt, a longstanding mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, that rocket fire would continue “if Israel continues its aggressions and air strikes but, if these aggressions stop, they will cease fire,” Palestinian sources said.The rocket fire came a day after Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh arrived in Lebanon.

Middle East crude oil supplies are set to tighten further from May after Opec+ announced plans to cut output again, raising costs for refiners from Asia to Europe and pushing them to seek more supply from Russia, Africa and the Americas.Oil prices jumped more than $4 a barrel on Monday after the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies including Russia surprised markets by announcing production cuts of about 1.16mn barrels per day (bpd) from May through the rest of the year.The pledges will bring the total volume of cuts by the group known as Opec+ since November to 3.66mn bpd according to Reuters calculations, equal to 3.7% of global demand.Opec+ had been expected to hold output steady through the end of this year, having cut output by 2mn bpd in November last year.An official at a South Korean refiner said the cut was “bad news” for oil buyers and Opec was seeking to “protect their profit” against concerns of a global economic slowdown.The supply cut would drive up crude prices just as weakening economies depress fuel demand and prices, squeezing refiners’ profits, the South Korean refining official and a Chinese trader said.Both declined to be identified as they were not authorised to speak to media.Tighter Opec+ crude supply will be negative for Japan as it may further boost inflation and weaken its economy, Takayuki Honma, chief economist at Sumitomo Corp Global Research, said.“Producing countries apparently want to see oil prices rise to $90-$100/bbl, but higher oil prices also mean higher risk of economic downturn and sluggish demand,” he added.The Opec+ production cuts come as purchases by China, the world’s top crude importer, are expected to hit a record in 2023 as it recovers from the Covid-19 pandemic, while consumption from No 3 importer India remains robust, traders said.At the same time, European refiners’ demand for Middle East crude has risen — especially for Basrah Heavy and Oman crudes — to replace Russian oil banned by the European Union since December, traders and an Indian refining official said.“Now they’ll face the heat,” he said, predicting the market will become “very tight”.Kuwait has already notified buyers it will cut exports to keep more crude for its Al Zour refinery, and Saudi Aramco is ramping up operations at its Jizan refinery.Top exporter Saudi Aramco, which had been expected to cut official selling prices for term oil sales to Asia in May, may now decide to raise prices instead, traders said.With higher prices and less supply of Middle East sour crude, China and India may be pushed to buy more Russian oil, boosting revenue for Moscow, said the Indian refining official, who declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak to media.The rise in Brent prices could push Urals and other Russian oil products to prices above the caps set by the Group of Seven Nations (G7) aimed at curbing Moscow’s oil revenues, he said.While traders and analysts had expected crude to be in surplus in the second quarter with Asian refineries down for maintenance and French refineries shut due to strikes, they now expect the Opec+ cuts to tighten markets ahead of summer, the high-demand season.The Opec cuts would help soak up the excess volumes in the west, said a Chinese refining source. Refiners in Japan and South Korea said they are not considering taking Russian barrels due to geopolitical concerns and may look for alternative supply from Africa and Latin America.“Japan could seek more supply from the United States, but bringing the US oil through the Panama Canal is expensive,” Sumitomo’s Honma said.Traders are also watching for responses from the United States, which called Opec+’s move inadvisable.“In essence, the purpose of this massive surprise production cut is mainly to regain market pricing power,” the Chinese trader said.

European planemaker Airbus is negotiating a new round of plane orders with China, coinciding with a visit by French President Emmanuel Macron to the economic superpower later this week, government and industry sources said.The potential deal for dozens of jets comes amid worsening relations between Washington and Beijing, which have seen China’s usually balanced airplane imports tilt towards Airbus in recent years.“Negotiations are under way,” an official in Macron’s office said, adding that any agreements by French firms would not merely consist of repackaging earlier announcements.An industry source cautioned there were several moving parts in the talks, with details not yet finalised.Macron is due to conduct the state visit to China on April 5-7, with a delegation of company chiefs from France-based companies, expected to include Airbus CEO Guillaume Faury.Airbus declined to comment on any airplane negotiations or the agenda of senior management.Shares in the planemaker outperformed, rising almost 2%.Diplomats say high-level visits by European or the US leaders frequently generate aircraft purchase deals that serve as a barometer of diplomatic ties, although announcements also tend to be scrutinised for their additional economic impact.In July last year, China’s “Big Three” state airlines pledged to buy a total of 292 Airbus jets in the biggest order by Chinese carriers since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic.In November, China’s state buying agency said it had signed a deal for 140 Airbus jets during a visit by Germany Chancellor Olaf Scholz, but the planemaker said the announcement covered deals already on its books, including part of the July deal. Talks could also touch on Airbus’ industrial presence in China, where since 2008 it has had an assembly line for single-aisle jets.Airbus is adding capacity worldwide to help support a planned 50% increase in output of the jets by 2026.In 2018, Airbus agreed to raise assembly capacity in the port city of Tianjin, near Beijing, to six A320neo-family jets a month from four.But it has long had ambitions to raise this to eight a month, a person familiar with the plans said.Airbus’ Tianjin production is tied to airline orders through volumes agreed periodically via a consortium with the local free trade zone and national aerospace group AVIC.In a breakthrough for rival Boeing, state-owned China and Eastern and China Southern last week said in filings they would resume taking delivery of the Boeing 737 MAX this year.Deliveries of the jet have been approved by Chinese authorities following an almost two-year worldwide grounding following fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, but China has been among the last major markets to return the plane to service.Besides demand for freighters, new orders for US airplanes by China remain sluggish, however, with the last triple-digit state package dating back to 2015, according to Boeing data.The potential deal for dozens of jets comes amid worsening relations between Washington and Beijing, which have seen China’s usually balanced airplane imports tilt towards Airbus in recent years

Thousands of worshippers packed Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque compound on the second Friday of Ramadan, for peaceful prayers that saw no clashes with the Israeli security forces, an AFP journalist reported.The Jordanian body which administers the mosque compound in Israeli-annexed east Jerusalem said that 250,000 people prayed at Islam’s third holiest site. Israeli police, who guard the entrances to the compound, said more than 100,000 worshippers attended — “almost twice as many as on the second Friday of the month of Ramadan last year” — and that some 2,000 officers were deployed in the city.In past years, the Old City was the setting for violence during Ramadan, but no major incidents were reported yesterday.The Israeli-Palestinian conflict had seen an upsurge of violence since the beginning of the year, raising fears of a flare-up during Ramadan.But the past 10 days since the start of the holy fasting month have seen a relative lull in violence.Israel has been allowing Palestinians from the occupied West Bank to enter Jerusalem for Ramadan prayers, with Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry body responsible for civil affairs in the Palestinian territories, saying over 70,000 people crossed yesterday.Posting images on Twitter of worshippers crowded at Israeli checkpoints en route to Jerusalem, Palestinian civil affairs minister Hussein al-Sheikh blasted the “strict and humiliating measures”. The Israeli army meanwhile announced the crossings from Gaza and the West Bank would be closed from Wednesday evening to Saturday night due to the festival of Passover.Palestinians from the West Bank will be able to cross on Friday for Ramadan prayers.

Hundreds of Thai firefighters and soldiers battled a forest blaze less than 100km from Bangkok yesterday as the kingdom grapples with air pollution that has made nearly 2mn people ill this year.The fire has affected at least 200 acres of forest across three hills in Nakhon Nayok province, to the northeast of the Thai capital, with two districts declared emergency zones. The blaze comes as Thailand grapples with a spike in pollution caused in part by agricultural burning that has seen the air in some northern cities rank among the dirtiest and most hazardous in the world this week.Since the start of the year, more than 1.7mn people have needed hospital treatment for respiratory conditions caused by air pollution, according to the latest figures from the health ministry. Wittaya Muntpun of the forestry department said efforts to tackle the blaze were being hampered by the difficult terrain.“This is quite a difficult scenario since the mountain is filled with sharp rocks and cliffs,” he said.“The firefighters are trying to control the spread of the fire at the base of the mountain. They couldn’t go high up into the mountain since the terrain is full of cliffs.”The fire is not threatening any major population centres but it is close to the edge of the Khao Yai National Park, the kingdom’s oldest national park and part of a Unesco-listed forest complex stretching to the Cambodian border. Local community leader Pachsikarn Pouyeon said the fire allegedly started from a lightning strike in the forest, which has been parched at the end of the dry season.Authorities had tried to trigger rain on Thursday by spraying chemicals in the air, but it had not succeeded, Pachshikarn said.Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha has dispatched his interior minister to co-ordinate operations on the ground, his office said in a statement.“PM Prayut and minister of defence have closely monitored the wildfire situation in Nakon Nayok and ordered relevant organisations to help putting out the fire urgently,” government spokesman Anucha Burapachaisri said.Prayut, who faces a general election on May 14, on Thursday urged the top official from regional bloc Asean to help co-ordinate efforts to reduce cross-border pollution caused by agricultural burning.Farmers across Southeast Asia burn off stubble in fields every year after harvest time, causing widespread air pollution.Thailand’s north is particularly affected and this week the cities of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai topped monitoring firm IQAir’s worst air quality list — beating the likes of Delhi and Beijing.