Author: The Associated Press

BANGKOK — Thai officials on Wednesday said they planned to tighten regulations on cannabis sales after cases of tourists attempting to smuggle the drug out of the country soared in recent months.Thailand became the first country in Asia to decriminalize cannabis in 2022, which has boosted Thailand’s tourism and farming and spawned thousands of shops. But it’s facing public backlash over allegations that under-regulation has made the drug available to children and caused addiction.The ruling Pheu Thai Party has promised to criminalize the drugs again, but faced strong resistance from its partner in the coalition government which supported the decriminalization.Thailand’s Health Minister Somsak Thepsutin said at a press conference that officials are aiming to roll out new regulations in coming weeks that will tighten control on the sale of cannabis, including requiring shops to sell cannabis only to customers who have a prescription.He emphasized that it is against Thai law to bring cannabis out of the country without permission from the authorities.Airport officials said they have tightened inspections to detect smuggling attempts, adding that most people found with cannabis in their luggage are foreigners, especially Indian and British nationals.Last week two young British women were arrested in Georgia and Sri Lanka for alleged attempts to smuggle cannabis after they flew there from Thailand, according to the British media.Britain’s government said a joint operation with Thailand in February resulted in over 2 tons of cannabis seized from air passengers. It said that since July last year, over 50 British nationals had been arrested in Thailand for attempting to smuggle cannabis.It also said there was a dramatic increase in the amount of cannabis sent to the U.K. from Thailand by post since the decriminalization in 2022.In March immigration authorities and police said 22 suitcases filled with a total of 375 kilograms of cannabis were seized, and 13 foreigners, most of them British, were arrested at the international airport on the Samui Island.Thai officials said the suspects were hired to travel to Thailand as tourists then traveled to Samui, a popular tourist destination, where they would wait at the arranged accommodation to receive the suitcases with cannabis. They would then be instructed to travel from Samui to Singapore, and then from Singapore back to the U.K., where they would be paid 2,000 pounds ($2,682) upon completing the job.

OUAGADOUGOU, Burkina Faso — The military rulers of Burkina Faso have turned to a man once known as “Africa’s Che Guevara” as a way to rally a country struggling to defeat extremists and turning away from former Western allies.Hundreds of young people gathered over the weekend in the capital, Ouagadougou, for the opening of a mausoleum for legendary leader Thomas Sankara.“I’m the driver of the revolution!” one young man exclaimed with delight, sitting behind the wheel of the jeep that Sankara used during his presidency decades ago.A charismatic Marxist leader who seized global attention by defiantly declaring his country could rely on itself, Sankara came to power in 1983 at the age of 33 after he and former ally Blaise Compaore led a leftist coup that overthrew a moderate military faction. But in 1987, Compaore turned on his former friend in a coup that killed Sankara in the capital — and later became president himself.Nearly four decades after his death, Sankara is being celebrated in Burkina Faso, a nation of 23 million people once known for its bustling arts scene and vibrant intellectual life — including Sankara’s anti-imperialist and pan-African legacy.“When I stepped inside the mausoleum, I felt the revolution,” said Timoté, a 22-year-old who said he came because of what he heard about Sankara at home and at school.Sankara’s mausoleum, designed by Pritzker Architecture Prize-winning architect Francis Kéré, has been the project of current military leader Capt. Ibrahim Traore.Since taking power during a coup in 2022, Traore has presented himself as the new Sankara. He has named one of the main streets after the revolutionary leader, elevated him to the rank of Hero of the Nation and revived revolutionary slogans such as “Fatherland or death, we will win!” in most of his speeches.The mission of the mausoleum is “to keep the flame of the revolution alive and to remind the world of Capt. Thomas Sankara’s fight to break the chains of slavery and imperialist domination,” Burkina Faso Prime Minister Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo said as he read Traore’s statement.Despite promising to fight the security crisis that pushed them to stage a coup, Burkina Faso’s military leaders have struggled to deal with the worsening crisis. According to conservative estimates, more than 60% of the country is now outside of government control, more than 2 million people have lost their homes and almost 6.5 million need humanitarian aid to survive.Human rights groups say the military leadership has installed a system of de facto censorship, crushing critics, while many have been killed by jihadi groups or government forces.As people flocked to Ouagadougou to celebrate Sankara, life elsewhere in the country reflects a different reality.“We can go out for a bit in the city center, but with caution,” said one student from Dori, the capital of the northern region, echoing concerns about restrictions on free speech and movement.The student spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of being arrested.Security concerns have permeated every aspect of life outside Ouagadougou. Even the price of beer has skyrocketed as more places become inaccessible to traders.“There are two Burkina Fasos,” said a teacher from the east, speaking on condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “One where the streets are deserted at night, and another that comes alive to enjoy the cool evening air.”

State media reports that Iran has executed a man who carried out a 2023 attack on the Azerbaijan Embassy in Tehran, killing its security chief and wounding two others in an incident that escalated tensions between the neighboring nationsTEHRAN, Iran — Iran on Wednesday executed a man who carried out a 2023 attack on the Azerbaijan Embassy in Tehran, killing its security chief and wounding two others in an incident that escalated tensions between the neighboring nations, state media reported. The state-run IRNA news agency reported the unidentified man’s execution, without offering details, after his conviction. Typically, Iran hangs its condemned.Iran had called the January 2023 attack a personal dispute after the gunman’s wife “disappeared” on a visit to the embassy, but Azeri President Ilham Aliyev called it a “terrorist attack.” Baku accused Tehran of supporting hard-line Islamists who tried to overthrow its government, a charge Tehran denied.Following the attack, the embassy was closed and its staff left the country. In April 2023, Azerbaijan expelled four Iranian diplomats. A month later, Iran expelled four Azeri diplomats. Azerbaijan reopened its embassy in a different location in July 2024.Azerbaijan borders Iran’s northwest and was part of the Persian Empire until the early 19th century. There are also over 12 million ethnic Azeris in Iran who represent the Islamic Republic’s largest minority group.Azerbaijan’s diplomatic ties with Israel long have been a point of contention.

LONDON — A third suspect has been charged with arson over a series of fires targeting property linked to U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, police said Wednesday.Petro Pochynok, 34, has been charged with conspiracy to commit arson with intent to endanger life. The Ukrainian national is scheduled to appear at London’s Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday morning.Two other men have already been charged with setting fire to Starmer’s personal home, along with a property where he once lived and a car he had sold. They are Ukrainian national Roman Lavrynovych, 21, and Romanian national Stanislav Carpiuc, 26.Lavrynovych and Carpiuc have already appeared in court and were ordered detained until a hearing on June 6.No injuries were reported from the fires, which occurred on three nights in north London between May 8 and May 12. Starmer and his family had moved out of his home after he was elected in July, and they live at the prime minister’s official Downing Street residence.A Toyota RAV4 that Starmer once owned was set ablaze on May 8 — just down the street from his house. The door of an apartment building where the politician once lived was set on fire on May 11, and on May 12 the doorway of Starmer’s home was charred after being set ablaze.Counterterrorism detectives led the investigation because it involves the prime minister. The charges were authorized by the Crown Prosecution Service’s Counter Terrorism Division, which is responsible for prosecuting offenses relating to state threats, among other crimes.Starmer called the fires “an attack on all of us, on democracy and the values that we stand for.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin has visited the Kursk region for the first time since Russia said it expelled Ukrainian forces from the area in April.The Kremlin said Wednesday that Putin visited Kursk on the border with Ukraine the day before.Ukrainian forces made a surprise incursion into Kursk in August 2024 in the largest cross-border raid by Kyiv’s forces in the nearly 2 ½-year war, before being pushed out by Russian troops nine months later. Ukraine has not confirmed its expulsion from the area.Putin visited Kursk Nuclear Power Plant-2, which is still under construction, and spoke at a closed meeting with selected volunteers. He also told acting Gov. Alexander Khinshtein that the Kremlin supported the idea of continuing monthly payments to displaced families that still could not return to their homes.Disgruntled residents had previously shown their disapproval over a lack of compensation in rare organized protests.Russia’s Ministry of Defense said its air defenses shot down 159 Ukrainian drones across the country overnight, including 53 over the Oryol region and 51 over the Bryansk region.

Pakistan’s prime minister has promoted the country’s powerful army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, to the rank of field marshal, making him only the second military officer in Pakistan’s history to hold the titleISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Gen. Asim Munir, has been promoted to the rank of field marshal days after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India following one of their most serious military confrontations in decades.In a statement, Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had also approved the extension of Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu’s tenure in recognition of his service.Sharif has praised Munir and other military leaders for what he described as a “befitting response” to an Indian airstrike on Pakistani air bases in the early hours of May 7.Munir becomes only the second military officer in Pakistan’s history to hold the title of field marshal. The first was Gen. Ayub Khan, who led the country during the 1965 war with India.“I am deeply thankful to Allah Almighty for this honour,” Munir said in a statement.The ceasefire was aimed at ending weeks of escalating clashes, including missile and drone strikes, triggered by the mass shooting of tourists last month that India blamed on Pakistan, which denies the charge. Nearly 7,500 people from Pakistan and India have since signed a petition calling for dialogue between the two sides. The online appeal, titled “India, Pakistan: Stop the Hostilities,” was launched on May 7 by the South Asia Peace Action Network, a coalition of peace advocates, journalists and citizens.

A suicide car bomb hits a school bus in restive southwestern Pakistan, killing 4 children and wounding 38, officials sayQUETTA, Pakistan — A suicide car bomb hits a school bus in restive southwestern Pakistan, killing 4 children and wounding 38, officials say.

QUETTA, Pakistan — A suicide car bomber struck a school bus in restive southwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing at least four children and wounding 38 others, a government official said. A local deputy commissioner, Yasir Iqbal, said the attack occurred in Khuzdar, a district in Balochistan province, as the bus was transporting children to school in the city.No group immediately claimed responsibility, though suspicion is likely to fall on ethnic Baloch separatists, who frequently target security forces and civilians in the region.Pakistan’s Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi strongly condemned the attack and expressed deep sorrow over the children’s deaths. He called the perpetrators “beasts” who deserve no leniency, saying the enemy had committed an act of “sheer barbarism by targeting innocent children.”Balochistan has been the scene of a long-running insurgency, with an array of separatist groups staging attacks, including the outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States in 2019.The latest attack came days after a car bombing killed four people near a market in Qillah Abdullah, a city in Balochistan province bordering Afghanistan.Most of such attacks are claimed by BLA, which Pakistan says enjoyed the backing of neighboring India.In one of the deadliest such attacks in March, BLA insurgents killed 33 people, mostly soldiers, during an assault on a train carrying hundreds of passengers in Balochistan.

BRUSSELS — The European Union agreed Tuesday to provide emergency funds to help keep Radio Free Europe afloat after the Trump administration stopped grants to the pro-democracy media outlet, accusing it of promoting a news agenda with a liberal bias.Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty started broadcasting during the Cold War. Its programs are aired in 27 languages in 23 countries across Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East. Its lawyers have been fighting the administration in court.EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the bloc’s foreign ministers had agreed to a 5.5-million-euro ($6.2 million) contract to “support the vital work of Radio Free Europe.” The “short-term emergency funding” is a “safety net” for independent journalism, she said.Kallas said the EU would not be able to fill the organization’s funding gap around the world, but that it can help the broadcaster to “work and function in those countries that are in our neighborhood and that are very much dependent on news coming from outside.”She said that she hoped the 27 EU member countries would also provide more funds to help Radio Free Europe longer term. Kallas said the bloc has been looking for “strategic areas” where it can help as the United States cuts foreign aid.Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s corporate headquarters are in Washington and its journalistic headquarters are based in the Czech Republic, which has been leading the EU drive to find funds.Last month, a U.S. federal judge ordered the Trump administration to restore $12 million that was appropriated by Congress. Lawyers for the service, which has been operating for 75 years, said it would be forced to shut down in June without the money.In March, Kallas recalled the influence that the network had on her as she was growing up in Estonia, which was part of the Soviet Union.“Coming from the other side of the Iron Curtain, actually it was (from) the radio that we got a lot of information,” she said. “So, it has been a beacon of democracy, very valuable in this regard.”

LONDON — A London court on Tuesday sentenced an Egyptian man to 25 years in prison for smuggling people from North Africa to Italy. Ahmed Ebid, who arrived in the U.K. in October 2022 after crossing the English Channel in a small boat, pleaded guilty at Southwark Crown Court to conspiracy to assist unlawful immigration.Judge Adam Hiddleston said Ebid played a key role in an organized crime group and that his “primary motivation was to make money” from human trafficking.Since his arrival in Britain and until June 2023, Ebid, 42, was implicated in at least seven separate boat crossings as part of a 12 million-pound ($16 million) operation that carried 3,781 people, including children, into Italian waters from North Africa. Britain’s National Crime Agency cited some of those who had entered the U.K. illegally as saying that Ebid even told an associate to kill and throw into the sea anyone onboard caught with a mobile phone.Ebid “preyed upon the desperation of migrants to ship them across the Mediterranean in death trap boats,” said Jacque Beer of the agency. In one crossing, on Oct. 25, 2022, more than 640 people were rescued by the Italian authorities after they attempted to cross the Mediterranean Sea in a wooden boat, the agency said. The boat was taken into port in Sicily and two bodies were recovered.“Vulnerable people were transported on long sea journeys in ill-equipped fishing vessels completely unsuitable for carrying the large number of passengers,” said Tim Burton, specialist prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service. “His repeated involvement in helping to facilitate these dangerous crossings showed a complete disregard for the safety of thousands of people, whose lives were put at serious risk,” Burton added about Ebid.____Follow AP’s Africa coverage at: https://apnews.com/hub/africa