Rights group accuses Myanmar of using fuel-air explosive

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military used an “enhanced blast” munition known as a fuel-air explosive in an airstrike that killed more than 160 people, including many children, at a ceremony held last month by opponents of army rule, a human rights monitoring group charged in a report Tuesday. Human Rights Watch accused the military of dropping the weapon, also known as a thermobaric or vacuum bomb, on a crowd that had gathered for the opening of a local office of the country’s resistance movement outside Pazigyi village in Myanmar’s central Sagaing region on the morning of April 11. The area is about 70 miles north of Mandalay, the country’s second-largest city.

First wild koalas caught and vaccinated against chlamydia

(AP) — Australian scientists have begun vaccinating wild koalas against chlamydia in an ambitious field trial in New South Wales. The aim is to test a method for protecting the beloved marsupials against a widespread disease that causes blindness, infertility and death. “It’s killing koalas because they become so sick they can’t climb trees to get food, or escape predators, and females can become infertile,” said Samuel Phillips, a microbiologist at the University of the Sunshine Coast who helped to develop the vaccine.

Pakistan’s ex-PM Imran Khan arrested, sparking violence

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan was arrested and dragged from court Tuesday as he appeared to face charges in multiple graft cases, a dramatic escalation of political tensions that sparked violent demonstrations by his angry supporters across the country. The arrest of Khan, who was ousted in a no-confidence vote in April 2022 but remains the leading opposition figure, represented the latest confrontation to roil Pakistan, which has seen former prime ministers arrested over the years and interventions by its powerful military.

Greek police arrest 10, seize cocaine from banana shipment

THESSALONIKI, Greece (AP) — Greek authorities arrested 10 people Tuesday suspected of smuggling drugs from South America to Europe and seized 230 pounds of cocaine, police said. The arrests made in coordination with the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration took place in northern Greece’s port city of Thessaloniki, where police said the drugs were unloaded from a merchant ship several days earlier. The cocaine was hidden in a consignment of bananas from Ecuador that was headed for North Macedonia, police said in a statement.