#Myanmar president to embark on first India visit since taking over

U.S. arrests ex-CIA official with US$40 million in gold at home, The United States has arrested a former senior #CIA official after a search found US$40 million worth of #gold bars at his home.

FBI officers also seized $2 million in cash and around 35 luxury watches this month from the home of David Rush in the U.S. state of Virginia, according to court documents.

The New York Times reported on Wednesday that he was a former senior #CIA official, quoting people familiar with the investigation.

An FBI probe found that Rush had provided false information about his education and military background in his job application, including lying about obtaining university degrees and serving as a pilot in the navy.

He also filled out fraudulent time sheets and obtained $77,000 in military leave pay by falsely claiming he was a member of the navy reserves, according to the affidavit.

The document describes Rush as a former senior employee at a U.S. government agency with top secret clearance and access to classified information.

He was arrested on May 19 and charged with theft of government money.

A lawyer for Rush declined to comment to the Times.

From last November to this March, Rush made several requests to his employer for “a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.”

The affidavit says that Rush received the cash and gold, without giving further information on why he needed them.

The #gold and most of the cash were later found to be missing from a storage space at the official’s workplace, triggering a search of his home which discovered around 303 gold bars -- worth over $40 million.

‘#Trump’ #buffalo spared sacrifice, sent to #Bangladesh zoo, A buffalo in Bangladesh nicknamed “Donald Trump” for its flowing blond hair has been spared from sacrifice after shooting to fame, and will instead be cared for at the national zoo.

Muslim-majority Bangladesh, a South Asian nation of 170 million people, celebrates Eid al-Adha, the “feast of the sacrifice”, on Thursday.

The 700-kilogramme (1,500-pound) bull, a rare albino buffalo with a flowing helmet of light hair resembling the signature look of the US president, was due to be slaughtered to mark the day.

But hours before it faced the knife, the government stepped in to save the animal, which has become an online sensation.

Curator of the National Zoo, Atiqur Rahman, said the animal would be well looked after.

“We have designated a shed for the albino buffalo and assigned a caregiver,” Rahman told AFP on Wednesday. “He will be quarantined for two weeks.”

Crowds in Bangladesh had flocked to snap photographs with the unlikely social media star.

Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, the buffalo’s former owner, said his brother had named it “Trump” because of its “extraordinary hair”.

Mridha said a constant stream of curious visitors -- social media fans, onlookers and children -- came eager to see the animal.

However, he sold the bull ahead of Eid al-Adha.

But police has swooped after the government ordered that the buffalo be spared.

“The livestock department requested us to take the buffalo from the owner as it is a rare animal,” Mohammad Ruhul Quddus, officer-in-charge of Dhaka’s Keraniganj Police Station, where the buffalo was taken, told AFP.

“They said that the albino buffalo is still very young, and can be raised for a few years.”

More than 12 million livestock including goats, sheep, cows and buffaloes are expected to be sacrificed during the holiday, when many poorer families get a rare chance to feast on #meat.

By Sheikh Sabiha Alam

#Zelenskyy says he’s pressing U.S. for more Patriot missiles for Ukraine to counter Russian strikes.

Zelenskyy said he hasn’t yet received a reply to a letter he sent earlier this week to U.S. President Donald Trump and Congress asking for more of the American-made ammunition. He warned that deliveries to Ukraine are falling dangerously short as the Iran war diverts and depletes U.S. stocks.

“I believe (the U.S.) must act quicker. We are being very persistent,” Zelenskyy told reporters during a visit to Sweden.

Zelenskyy is keen to secure more deliveries of foreign weaponry that it can’t produce itself as it battles Russia’s full-scale invasion, which began on Feb. 24, 2022. In exchange, he’s offering to share the cutting-edge drone expertise that Ukraine has built up during the war.

Russia has used its long-range ballistic missiles to damage Ukraine’s power grid and hammer cities.

The Ukrainian capital is bracing for further heavy bombardments. But no foreign diplomats are known to have heeded Moscow’s recommendation to leave Kyiv before what the Russian Foreign Ministry said earlier this week would be upcoming “systemic strikes” on Kyiv.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said Thursday that all diplomatic missions in the capital have continued operations.
Sweden’s advanced fighter jets

Ukraine plans to buy 20 advanced Gripen fighter jets from Sweden for 2.5 billion euros (US$2.9 billion), with Sweden also donating 16 older Gripen models once the purchase goes through, Zelenskyy announced on his trip to Sweden.

The money for the jets will come out of a 90 billion-euro ($105 billion) loan to Ukraine that the European Union recently approved, Zelenskyy said during a trip to Sweden.

The combat aircraft will be especially helpful in stopping Russian planes that launch powerful glide bombs at Ukraine, he said at an aircraft hangar standing in front of Gripen jets alongside Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson.

Ukraine will get the older models early next year and the new models from 2030, Kristersson said. The planes will be equipped with weaponry, and Sweden will provide maintenance and training, he said.

Ukraine eventually wants 150 Gripen jets, Zelenskyy said.

Meanwhile, Sweden is “extremely eager” to learn from Ukraine’s drone warfare experience, Kristersson said.
Ukrainian drones limiting Russian advances, analysts say

Zelenskyy says Ukrainian specialists have helped countries in the Middle East — specifically the Gulf Arab region — strengthen their air defences during the Iran war. They have helped at American military bases in the Middle East as well, he says.

Ukraine has also entered into joint drone production agreements with countries in the European Union, which fears that Russian President Vladimir Putin has military ambitions beyond Ukraine.

Ukrainian drones that patrol the 1,250-kilometre (780-mile) front line and strike deeper at supply routes have pinned back Russia’s bigger army.

“Ukraine’s successful midrange and front-line drone strike campaigns are limiting Russia’s ability to transport personnel to the front line and to supply and sustain front-line positions,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said in an assessment late Wednesday.

Russia has occupied about 20 per cent of Ukraine so far. That includes the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia seized in 2014. The cost of capturing that land has been huge, with the head of the U.K. intelligence agency GCHQ saying Wednesday that almost 500,000 Russian soldiers have been killed in the conflict.

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The Associated Press

U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent confirms limited steps toward a $250 bill featuring Donald Trump

Mother of baby whose remains were found in wooded area has died: Halifax police.

The baby was not with her, which prompted an extensive search for the newborn. The infant’s remains were eventually found in a wooded area off Old Coach Road in Goodwood, N.S., Sunday afternoon.

Police said Thursday afternoon the woman died in hospital on Wednesday.

Halifax Regional Police Const. Martin Cromwell told reporters police were not able to speak with the mother before she died.

“It’s an already complex investigation and, from an investigative perspective, it would definitely make it even that more challenging and complex,” said Cromwell.

The Nova Scotia Medical Examiner Service will determine the cause and manner of her death.

The Nova Scotia Medical Examiner Service continues to investigate the cause and manner of the infant’s death as well.

Crown attorney Paul Carver said Thursday that the “very preliminary findings” for the baby’s autopsy are in, but he couldn’t comment on them. Police also wouldn’t comment on the autopsy.

“Due to the complexity of this incident, it may take an extended period of time to determine the results for both the infant and the mother,” said Halifax police.

“Police extend condolences to the woman and infant’s loved ones and to all those grieving in the community.”
Couple charged in case remains in custody

Two people charged in the case will remain in custody for another three-and-a-half weeks.

Sukhpreet Singh, 23, and his wife, Ramandeep Kaur, 26, have each been charged with the following offences:

concealing the body of a child;
indignity to a dead body;
obstruction of a peace officer; and
obstruction of justice.

According to court documents, Singh and Kaur are accused of lying to police, which led to the obstruction charges.

The documents state the concealing and indignity charges are related to the fact that police found the infant’s remains in a wooded area.

PM Carney says Canada has started negotiations to buy Saab’s GlobalEye military surveillance planes. While Saab is a #Swedish firm, the choice bolsters Canadian companies. Read more in the Canada Daily newsletter.

#Singapore’s top envoy Vivian Balakrishnan urged North Korea to engage constructively with the region and keep channels for dialogue open, during a rare visit to the isolated state

Biden sues to stop U.S. #Justice Department from releasing interview recordings

#Iranians are back online after a monthslong shutdown but still face heavy restrictions.

Authorities justified the outage as a military imperative after the United States and Israel attacked Iran on Feb. 28. Their decision to lift some restrictions this week came as negotiators appeared to be closing in on a more permanent truce. But many Iranians feared access could be cut off again at a moment’s notice.

Internet tracking company Netblocks said Iran’s connectivity, which measures the ability of devices to connect to the internet, is at around 86 per cent of capacity from before the cutoff. Internet analysis firm Kentik said internet traffic, which measures the amount of data transferred and is a good illustration of usage, was at around 40 per cent.

Amir Rashidi, an Iranian cybersecurity analyst, said there were still widespread disruptions. “It’s too early to say the shutdown is over,” he wrote on X.
An unprecedented shutdown

Iran’s roughly 90 million people have been cut off from the internet for most of 2026, one of the world’s longest and strictest national shutdowns. Young people with online careers saw their incomes evaporate. Job losses and the closure of online businesses added to the war’s steep economic costs.

The cutoff made it difficult for Iranian families to communicate through months of unrest and war. At some points, phone lines were also cut off, though they were later restored.

A woman living in Tehran said that for months she was barely able to speak to her sons living abroad. She couldn’t believe authorities had restored access, saying she had assumed they would find some justification to prolong the outage.

A taxi driver said service was restored but weak. He expressed hope it would improve so he could use messaging apps with family and friends. Both spoke on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

Prices spiked during the shutdown, with residents in Tehran at times paying around $7.50 per gigabyte. Prices are back down to around $2.25 for 30 gigabytes, roughly where they were before the protests.

Even then, Iran tightly controlled access to popular social media sites, leading many to rely on virtual private networks, or VPNs. The cost of those workarounds soared during the shutdown, making them unaffordable for many as the economy was battered.
A slow return to service

Businesses have started reappearing online, announcing their return with posts on sites like Instagram and Telegram.

A gamer and tech influencer in the central city of Isfahan said the shutdown had caused him to lose a lot of his audience on YouTube and Instagram, where he had spent years building up a large following.

“All my views and interactions are way down. I’ve been erased from the algorithm,” he said in a voice note sent by WhatsApp, adding that his internet connection was still slower than before the shutdown.

“The situation is such that many content producers have had their income reduced to zero, have moved on to other jobs, or have been forced to sell their equipment to survive,” he said. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal.
Iran claimed the shutdown was a wartime necessity

Iranian authorities first shut down the internet in January during mass anti-government protests that were eventually stamped out in a violent crackdown. Thousands of people were killed and tens of thousands detained.

That cutoff was just starting to ease when the government imposed a complete internet blackout after the start of the war, when U.S. and Israeli strikes killed Iran’s supreme leader and other top officials.

The government faced criticism for the prolonged shutdown, which caused even more harm to an economy devastated by inflation, strikes on key industries and a U.S. blockade on Iranian ports.

The internet cutoff cost an estimated $30-40 million daily, with indirect losses likely twice that much, a member of Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Afshin Kolahi, told a local newspaper last month. About 10 million people have jobs that depend on internet connectivity, according to Communications Minister Sattar Hashemi.

Iranians still had access to a national net, but that has a far narrower reach, and users complained of poor service and heavy censorship. Senior government officials are given SIM cards granting them access to the global internet. Under pressure, the government expanded access to the SIM cards to some professions during the shutdown.

Amir-hussein Radjy, The Associated Press