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Indian farmers say they will resume march to New Delhi

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Protesting Indian farmers say they will resume marching to capital Delhi this week after rejecting a government proposal to buy some crops at assured prices on a five-year contract.
The protesters began marching last week but were stopped around 200km (125 miles) from Delhi.

Since then, farmer leaders were in talks with the government on their demands.

But on Monday night, they said the offer was “not in their interest”.

The government had proposed buying pulses, maize and cotton at guaranteed floor prices – also known as Minimum Support Price or MSP – through cooperatives for five years.

But the farmers say that they will stand by their demand of a “legal guarantee for MSP on all 23 crops”.

“We appeal to the government to either resolve our issues or remove barricades and allow us to proceed to Delhi to protest peacefully,” Jagjit Singh Dallewal, a farm union leader, told local media.

They say they will resume marching from Wednesday.

Farmers form an influential voting bloc in India and and analysts say the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be keen not to anger or alienate them. His Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is seeking a third consecutive term in power in general elections this year.

Last week, authorities clashed with the protesters, firing tear gas and plastic bullets at them in a bid to halt the march. They fear a repeat of 2020, when thousands of farmers camped at Delhi’s borders for months, forcing the government to repeal controversial agricultural reforms.

The latest round of protests began on Wednesday, when farmers from Haryana and Punjab started marching to Delhi. They say the government did not keep promises made during the 2020-21 protest, and also have demands including pensions and a debt waiver.

But their most important demand is a law guaranteeing a support price for crops.

India introduced the MSP system in the 1960s – first for only wheat and later other essential crops – in a bid for food security.

Supporters of MSP say it is necessary to protect farmers against losses due to fluctuation in prices. They argue that the resulting income boost will allow farmers to invest in new technologies, improve productivity and protect cultivators from being fleeced by middlemen.

But critics say the system needs an overhaul as it is not sustainable and will be disastrous for government finances. They also say that it will be ruinous for the agricultural sector in the long run, leading to over-cultivation and storage issues.

Since last week, federal minister Piyush Goyal and other government officials had held four rounds of talks with the farmers. On Sunday, Mr Goyal told journalists that the discussions had been “positive” and that the government was devising an “out-of-the-box” solution to benefit farmers, consumers and the economy.

But on Monday, farmer leaders said they were dissatisfied with the way the talks were being held, claiming that there was no “transparency”.


(BBC News)

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Funeral of Pope Francis, today

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Dozens of world leaders and thousands of mourners are gathering for the funeral of Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday aged 88.

The service will begin at 10:00 local time (09:00 BST) in front of St Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City.

More than 250,000 people came to pay their respects to the late pontiff over the three days he was lying in state, the Vatican says.

Preparations have begun for the conclave, the process by which cardinals will elect the next Pope.

In Sri Lanka, the government has declared today a national day of mourning in honour of the funeral of His Holiness Pope Francis.

Minister of Foreign Affairs, Foreign Employment and Tourism – Vijitha Herath will represent the Government of Sri Lanka at the funeral.

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TikTok astrologer arrested for predicting new Myanmar quake

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Myanmar authorities have arrested an astrologer for causing panic by predicting a new earthquake in a viral TikTok video.

John Moe The posted his prediction on 9 April, just two weeks after a magnitude 7.7 earthquake killed 3,500 people and destroyed centuries-old temples in the South East Asian nation.

He was arrested Tuesday for making “false statements with the intention of causing public panic”, Myanmar’s information ministry said.

John Moe The had warned that an earthquake would “hit every city in Myanmar” on 21 April. But experts say earthquakes are impossible to predict due to the complexity of the factors involved in such disasters.

In his video, which got more than three million views, John Moe The urged people to “take important things with you and run away from buildings during the shaking.”

“People should not stay in tall buildings during the day,” read its caption.

A Yangon resident told AFP that many of her neighbours believed in the prediction. They refused to stay in their homes and camped outside the day John Moe The said the earthquake would happen.

His now-defunct TikTok account, which has more than 300,000 followers, claims to make predictions based on astrology and palmistry.

He was arrested during a raid on his home in Sagaing, central Myanmar.

The areas of Mandalay and Sagaing were hit especially hard by the earthquake on 28 March, which prompted a rare request from the Myanmar junta for foreign aid.

That earthquake was felt some 1,000km away in Bangkok, where a building collapsed at a construction site, killing dozens.

(BBC News)

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China shares rare moon rocks with US despite trade war

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China will let scientists from six countries, including the US, examine the rocks it collected from the Moon – a scientific collaboration that comes as the two countries remain locked in a bitter trade war.

Two Nasa-funded US institutions have been granted access to the lunar samples collected by the Chang’e-5 mission in 2020, the China National Space Administration (CNSA) said on Thursday.

CNSA chief Shan Zhongde said that the samples were “a shared treasure for all humanity,” local media reported.

Chinese researchers have not been able to access Nasa’s Moon samples because of restrictions imposed by US lawmakers on the space agency’s collaboration with China.

Under the 2011 law, Nasa is banned from collaboration with China or any Chinese-owned companies unless it is specifically authorised by Congress.

But John Logsdon, the former director of the Space Policy Institute at George Washington University, told BBC Newshour that the latest exchange of Moon rocks have “very little to do with politics”.

While there are controls on space technology, the examination of lunar samples had “nothing of military significance”, he said.

“It’s international cooperation in science which is the norm.”

Washington has imposed tariffs Chinese goods that go up to 245%, while Beijing has hit back with 125% tariffs on US goods.

US President Donald Trump previously hinted at a de-escalation in the trade war, but Beijing has denied that there were negotiations between the two sides.

In 2023, the CNSA put out a call for applications to study its Chang’e-5 moon samples.

What’s special about the Chang’e-5 Moon samples is that they “seem to be a billion years younger” than those collected from Apollo missions, Dr Logsdon said. “So it suggests that volcanic activity went on in the moon more recently than people had thought”.

Space officials from the US and China had reportedly tried to negotiate an exchange of moon samples last year – but it appears the deal did not materialise.

Besides Brown University and Stony Brook University in the US, the other winning bids came from institutions in France, Germany, Japan, Pakistan, the UK.

Shan, from the CNSA, said the agency will “maintain an increasingly active and open stance” in international space exchange and cooperation, including along the space information corridor under the Belt and Road Initiative

“I believe China’s circle of friends in space will continue to grow,” he said.

(BBC News)

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