Bangkok (AFP) – A former Thai MP on Monday shot dead a local government official in broad daylight over a financial dispute before being arrested and confessing to journalists at the police station.

The attack took place outside a government building in Nonthaburi province, north of Bangkok, just days after a school shooting in the same region that raised questions over gun control in Thailand.

Flanked by police officers following his arrest, former MP Chalong Riewrang told reporters he had tried to talk to local official Thongchai Yenprasert about money.

"I followed him to his car and hit his car's window, saying I want to talk. He said he will not talk, so I pulled my gun," Chalong admitted.

"I did not aim to shoot, but his driver pulled a gun and pointed it at me so I fired."

Thongchai, who was chairman of the Nonthaburi local government administration, later died of his wounds, according to Sakon Sukprom, director of Phra Nang Klao hospital.

He was hit in the neck and lost a lot of blood, the director said.

Thongchai's driver was also shot, wounded in his right arm, but he successfully underwent surgery, Sakon said.

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Cavustepe, Van Province (Turkey) (AFP) – Mehmet Kusman did not spend very long at school, but he traced the ancient inscriptions chiselled into the black basalt rock and read: "Before me there was nothing. But by the power of the god Haldi I founded this city."

Kusman, 86, has dedicated his life to the fortress of Cavustepe in eastern Turkey, and to learning the language of the vanished kingdom of Urartu, to honour its forgotten gods and rulers.

Brisk of step and sharp of mind despite his years and the hot winds that whip the castle, he stood at the foundations of a temple dedicated to Haldi, the warrior god of gods. Kusman wore a cap bought in Los Angeles on which he has written "USA 2009" in the cuneiform script typical of the region's ancient civilisations.

Kusman was hired as a labourer on the Cavustepe excavations after his military service in the 1960s and there encountered his first stele.

"The inscription was very beautiful," he told AFP. But the head of the dig discouraged him from learning this "very difficult" script, which borrowed its cuneiform alphabet from Assyrian.

"His telling me 'No' hurt me," he said. "I became relentless, thinking: 'In my lifetime, I will learn it.'"

Despite a lack of formal education, Kusman began copying the inscriptions found during excavations carried out in eastern Turkey, Iran and Armenia, over which Urartu once stretched.

In three years, he said, he mastered the alphabet, but "it took me 22 years to master 650 words" of vocabulary.

Academics contacted by AFP praised Kusman's enthusiasm and devotion. He has become something of a local curiosity, calling himself "one of the last seven people in Turkey to speak the Urartian language."

Erkan Konyar, professor of ancient history at Istanbul University, describes the kingdom as "one of the most powerful states of the ancient Near East, between the 9th and 7th centuries BC."

Urartu -- more recent than the great Mesopotamian kingdoms of Assyria, Sumeria and Babylon -- brought the tribal mountain communities together under a centralised state, building cities, fortresses, irrigation networks and vast food storage facilities, Konyar said.

Despite retiring in 2005, Kusman continues to watch over Cavustepe, said Konyar, a specialist on Tuspa, the kingdom's founding capital.

"For 60 years, he has lived amid the excavations and introduced thousands of visitors to the history of Urartu."

But Konyar is careful to qualify Kusman's claims to speak the language. In fact, historians do not really know how it was pronounced, he said.

"The available inscriptions allow us to understand it up to a certain point, but we lack vocabulary and texts," he said. "Only the meaning of certain words is known with certainty. So no one can claim to speak Urartian."

"Even in the time of Urartu, people did not speak this language; it was only written," said Mehmet Isikli, director of the Department of Near Eastern Archaeology at Ataturk University in Erzurum.

Kusman's passion for the language has made him a local celebrity. His lectures have taken him "to America, five times, to Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium," he said, reeling off the list with a touch of showmanship.

"Now, I'm thinking of going to Japan," he added.

Isikli is excavating the fortress of Ayanis, the last of the great strongholds built in the kingdom before it collapsed, 35 kilometres (22 miles) north of Van, with a commanding view of the lake.

"Our excavations may tell us something about the end of Urartu," he said, noting that researchers have found "the traces of a very powerful earthquake."

Isikli admits to a certain respect for the old guardian.

"I admire him," he added. "He has worked hard and brought Urartian culture to light.

"Mehmet Kusman provides a sort of publicity for Urartu, but it has nothing to do with academic work: he knows only a few alphabetical signs, or a few letters, and some very, very general information about them."

In his small stone hut at the entrance to the Cavustepe site, Kusman is undaunted by the doubters.

"I am a descendant of the Urartians, their grandson," he said. "They disappeared, but look, they are not all dead," he declared, as he stood to welcome visitors.

Damascus (AFP) – Syria said on Sunday that it reached a deal with Russia on the fate of its two bases in the country, which Moscow once used to provide military support to ousted leader Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war.

Russia was a key Assad ally during the 13-year conflict, helping to keep the former leader in power, and his ouster in 2024 dealt a major blow to its influence in the region.

President Vladimir Putin has since worked to build relations with the new Islamist authorities in Damascus to secure the future of Russia's only two official military bases outside the former Soviet Union.

Syria's official SANA news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying that the Hmeimim airbase and Tartus naval base would be turned into "joint training and capacity-building centres, within new arrangements that preserve mutual interests".

The memorandum of understanding, which followed a year and a half of negotiations, "set a time limit of no more than three months to complete the process", SANA said.

In the meantime, civilian facilities at both bases will be handed over to Damascus.

Russia has yet to officially comment on the agreement.

Both the Hmeimim and Tartus bases had remained operational while talks were ongoing.

Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani visited the sites on Sunday "to inspect the facilities and installations included in the historic memorandum of understanding", according to SANA.

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Istanbul (AFP) – Outlawed Kurdish group the PKK on Sunday criticised a proposed Turkish law setting out the fate of its fighters after disarmament, a day before parliament prepares to consider it.

And they warned that its provisions would remain a "dead letter" if Abdullah Ocalan, the leader of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), was not released from jail.

The legislation, part of efforts to end decades of deadly fighting, would allow some PKK members to return to civilian life under certain conditions but falls short of offering a general amnesty.

But Sunday's PKK statement said: "This law contains serious errors and shortcomings. The recommendations... regarding democratisation and the resolution of the Kurdish issue have not been taken into account."

"The fact it refers only to disarmament without using the term 'Kurdish' shows the issue has not been addressed in its entirety," the PKK leadership added.

The statement, carried by ANF news agency, which is close to the group, also called for guarantees that former fighters would be able to take part in political life without facing imprisonment over their political views.

The legislation is due to be debated by Turkey's parliament on Monday.

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Dubai (AFP) – Iran set preconditions on Saturday for a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, including compensation for war damages, complicating a potential deal to open the waterway essential to the world economy.

Tehran has imposed an effective blockade of the strait since the United States and Israel struck Iran in late February, and wants to charge tolls for passage, attacking ships it accuses of attempting to circumvent its preferred route.

Continued attacks in the strait, which was free to transit before the war, led to the collapse of an April ceasefire. Mediators have since urged both sides to return to the terms of a June memorandum.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said discussions with Oman over transit and management of the strait were "approaching the final stages", but added the reopening of Hormuz "is subject to other conditions and compensation for the violation" of the June agreement.

Security chief Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr on Saturday laid out a list of demands for reopening the strait, including an end to the "war and aggression against Iran and its allies in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, and Iraq".

He also demanded the lifting of a parallel US naval blockade of Iran, the end of sanctions, the release of frozen assets and compensation for wartime damage, according to remarks reported by Tasnim news agency.

Iran's Revolutionary Guards, meanwhile, said Hormuz's reopening had "nothing to do with the negotiations between Iran and Oman", adding that the "enemy is forced to accept Iran's conditions for the opening of the strait".

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Shiwa mine (Afghanistan) (AFP) – In Afghanistan's northeastern Badakhshan province, dozens of excavators operate day and night to extract gold from the mountains where villagers and their livestock once roamed.

Thousands of miners are deployed across the Shiwa area, about 50 kilometres (30 miles) northeast of the provincial capital Faizabad, extracting gold for investors nationwide.

Some residents in the area have profited from the gold rush, only to regret it later, such as farmer Muhammad Amin.

"Before, the river was deep, the water was clean," said the 74-year-old from Pul-e-Ziri Ban valley.

Since mining got underway, "the water of the river is not drinkable; you can't even wash your body with that water", he told AFP.

With tears in his eyes, Amin said the grass along the riverbank "has all gone" and farming is no longer possible due to "the wind and dust".

Now he can only feed up to 15 goats, compared with as many as 40 previously.

Amin said he was paid half the $20,000 for which he agreed to lease his land to a mining firm that failed to fulfil a promise to restore his fields after the work stopped.

The Taliban authorities have expanded the mining sector since returning to power five years ago, aiming to tap into Afghanistan's vast underground resources to boost state coffers.

Abdul Mateen Rahimzai, head of Badakhshan's mines department, said they have registered "almost 650 to 700 companies, and there are thousands of people working manually".

The World Bank said hundreds of mining contracts have been signed since 2021, with "real growth averaging 25 to 30 percent" annually according to a May report.

While mining has temporarily stopped in Amin's village, not far from his home, in Gulak-Dara valley, dozens of diggers were carving into the mountainside.

With jobs scarce in Afghanistan, the area has drawn workers from across the country.

Mohammad Agha Khwaja Khail, from Kabul, has worked in mining for five years and earns 10,000 Afghanis ($150) a month loading trucks.

"It's better than anything else... There aren't many jobs in Kabul," said the 21-year-old, above the din of diggers.

Shafiullah Ehsas, a father-of-five, transported his excavator hundreds of kilometres from Jalalabad about three months ago.

"In Jalalabad, the gold (mining) work hasn't started, and it was happening in Badakhshan, so we didn't have any other option but to bring our machinery here," said the 32-year-old, who earns 25,000 Afghanis per month.

The Ministry of Mines and Petroleum has sought to regulate the industry, with spokesman Hamayoun Afghan saying resources "used to be extracted erratically; it wasn't done under supervision" by the previous government.

Gold mining has accelerated in the north, the ministry spokesman said, including in neighbouring Takhar province where an Afghan company was operating with Chinese partners.

Fabrizio Foschini, a researcher at the Afghanistan Analysts Network, said during earlier decades of war "mining mainly benefited insurgent groups, including the Taliban, and local strongmen with links to corrupt government officials".

Mining firms are now taxed 20 grams of gold per hectare per month, or the equivalent in cash, no matter their profits.

Mohammadullah Mubariz, the manager of a mining company with about a hundred labourers and 20 diggers, said the team can extract "200 to 300 grams of gold" in a week.

Despite this, he said the firm was operating at a loss because of start-up costs since April.

Rahimzai, head of the provincial mines department, said last year the government collected 112 kilograms (247 pounds) of gold in Badakhshan. According to miners who spoke to AFP, their sale price per gram was around $118.

Rahimzai said that last year, "most of the mines were not registered, and there was no system to collect the fees from them".

He has also ordered the closure of around 225 sites that caused damage, including in the Shiwa area.

"There was a bridge there, there were shops, and there was a school. All of them were buried under floodwater, mud, and debris. The area has been completely reduced to ruins," Rahimzai told AFP.

The provincial mining chief also pledged to tackle any corruption, and ensure the "mineral resources of Badakhshan will be utilised properly and for the benefit of the people".

Some parts of the province remain untouched, including a few kilometres from Shiwa where herder Fazil hoped the miners would stay away.

"Because it's a place for people, for picnics, for livestock to graze," he told AFP, giving only his first name for security reasons.

The gold industry "doesn't benefit the local communities here", said the 45-year-old, who has brought his herd to the mountains each summer since childhood.

"It benefits only the powerful people."

Tokyo (AFP) – As Japan marks the anniversary of the 1945 atomic bombs, its leaders are pushing for a renewed debate on nuclear weapons in a challenge to the nation's long-time pacifist stance.

Japan's constitution renounces offensive military force, and successive governments have maintained a decades-old pledge not to possess nuclear weapons, produce them or permit their introduction into the country.

That commitment is now under pressure as East Asian neighbours -- notably China -- boost their military capabilities, while doubts persist about the reliability of Tokyo's biggest security backer, the United States.

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has refused to clarify whether she will maintain the stance known as the three non-nuclear principles, and Defence Minister Shinjiro Koizumi called last month for a "discussion without a taboo" on the subject.

In December, an unnamed senior administration official told local media in an off-the-record session suggesting that Japan should possess nuclear weapons.

The remark was widely reported by major Japanese outlets including national broadcaster NHK and Asahi Shimbun, sparking public criticism.

"If I look at it cynically, I can't help but think that maybe she really wants to change" Japan's anti-nuclear commitment, 82-year-old Satoshi Tanaka, a campaigner who survived the 1945 attack on Hiroshima, told AFP.

The country marked the 81st anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing on Thursday and will do the same on Sunday to commemorate the attack on Nagasaki.

The August 1945 assault by the United States killed more than 210,000 people, including many from the effects of radiation exposure.

It remains the only time that atomic weapons have been used in warfare, and was one of the last major acts of World War II.

The Takaichi administration is undertaking a major update of the national defence strategy this year in the face of China's expanding military ambitions.

The prime minister has already lifted Japan's self-imposed ban on weapons exports and expanded defence spending, while pushing to amend the constitution.

Those policies have drawn rebukes from China, which accuses Japan of "new militarism" and Takaichi of bending to the whims of the far right.

They have also unnerved survivors of the 1945 bombings, who have long helped shape Japan's post-war pacifist political culture.

Tanaka, the Hiroshima survivor, expressed frustration that current political leaders like Takaichi are focusing on military capacity at the expense of diplomacy.

"There is so much talk about national security. What about building peace through diplomacy?" he said.

Despite winning the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts, they are debating whether to continue their national association as their members grow older.

As of March, Japan recognised just over 91,000 survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, down from over 164,000 a decade ago. Their average age is 86.7.

The focus has turned firmly towards the future of the non-nuclear principles, which date to 1967.

Takaichi's supporters argue that the final clause needs to be changed to allow the United States to bring nuclear arms to Japan and ensure regional deterrence.

Hirofumi Yoshimura, head of the Japan Innovation Party, a coalition partner of Takaichi's government, said the principle deserved discussion in the context of the US-Japan security alliance.

"Of course, we need to work toward building a world without nuclear arms," Yoshimura told reporters on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing.

"But when considering how to ensure the effectiveness of extended nuclear deterrence within the framework of our alliance with the United States, I believe we should...continue to adhere to the principle of 'neither possessing nor producing' nuclear weapons," he said.

"As for 'not allowing them to be brought in,' I do think there is some room for discussion on that point."

Critics argue that Takaichi's hawkish approach to defence increase the danger for Japan.

After Takaichi attended the annual ceremony in Hiroshima on Thursday, she sat down for a televised meeting with survivors.

When pressed, Takaichi declined to offer clarity on whether she might change the country's nuclear course.

"Our nation currently adheres to the 'three non-nuclear principles,'" she said in response to a direct question from Tanaka, without discussing what she might do next.

"That," Tanaka told AFP on Friday, "only explains the current situation. It says nothing about the future.

"It only worries me more. I am concerned."

The Djidji Ayokwe, a sacred "talking drum" which was looted by French colonial troops in 1916 and taken to France, arrived in its home village in Côte d'Ivoire on Friday, where local people were able to see it for the first time since it was repatriated in March.

The ceremony, coinciding with Côte d'Ivoire's national independence day holiday, was the first time today's Ivorians were able to see it.

The imposing wooden drum, more than three metres long and weighing 430 kilogrammes, was used by the Ebrie tribe to transmit messages.

It was officially handed over in February and arrived back in Côte d'Ivoire in March aboard a specially chartered plane but was not taken out of its huge wooden crate.

Côte d'Ivoire had asked in late 2018 for the return of the Djidji Ayokwe among 148 works of art taken during the colonial period.

It is one of hundreds of stolen artefacts Paris is preparing to send back to Africa, aided by the approval in May of a new French law.

On Friday, it was carried in a military parade through the Yopougon district of Abidjan, before continuing on to the village of Adjame, where it was made.

The black, white and red instrument was transported in a glass-fronted case on a large, decorated float and welcomed by Culture Minister Françoise Remarck, traditional leaders and hundreds of local residents.

A dozen people performed a libation ceremony, pouring a few drops of liquid onto the ground as an offering to their ancestors.

"A nation cannot develop if it doesn't preserve its memory and promote its heritage," said Adjame mayor Farikou Soumahoro.

He said he felt "deep emotion and great pride".

"We want to see the drum with our own eyes so we can truly believe it belongs to us," 69-year-old villager Jacqueline Akrebie told French news agency AFP.

Traditional leader Cyriaque Ahoure, 63, said he had come to share a moment of "great joy, when we remembering our ancestors".

The talking drum is much more than a musical instrument. It was used by the Ebrie community to warn of danger – particularly from colonialists, call to war or summon villagers to ceremonies.

It was seized by the French colonial authorities in 1916 before being shipped to Europe in 1929 and exhibited in Paris for decades.

It is due to go on display at the Museum of Civilisations in Abidjan which has been specially renovated.

Senegal and Benin have also asked for the repatriation of their treasures.

The return of cultural artefacts taken from ex-colonies in Africa and elsewhere has become a sensitive issue, with museums, institutions and collectors in Europe and the United States facing pressure to give them back.

(with AFP)

Birmingham (United Kingdom) (AFP) – New guidelines to prevent broadcasters sexualising coverage of women athletes will come into place when the European championships start in Birmingham on Monday.

The new guidelines have been drawn up by the Geneva-based European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the world's leading alliance of public service media, with 115 member organisations in 57 countries and an additional 33 associates in Asia, Africa, Australasia and the Americas.

The EBU said it had worked with women athletes to develop the guidelines, "which aim to avoid sexualising the action with unnecessary camera angles".

Several women athletes have been called in to best advise the EBU, among them British Olympic pole vault bronze medallist Holly Bradshaw, ahead of the August 10-16 European champs.

"How our sport is displayed during live broadcast can be incredibly powerful, yet sometimes harmful to the women competing, and the women and girls watching," Bradshaw said.

"I first-hand have received social media abuse and witnessed inappropriate videos online of myself and colleagues when slow-motion content of us competing is captured.

"Many athletes, myself included have been in competitive scenarios where they are more focused on the cameras instead of their own performance.

"On too many occasions cameras are zoomed in, showing super slow-motion action replays of athletes in undignified positions."

French pole vaulter Marie-Julie Bonnin added: "I'm doing sport and I don't want them to film my bum!"

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Sofia (Bulgaria) (AFP) – A drone that entered Bulgaria on Saturday exploded near the Romanian border and the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline there, which links Turkey to Ukraine, Bulgarian Prime Minister Rumen Radev announced.

While Radev did not specify where the drone, which caused no casualties, came from, he said the amount of explosives it was carrying was "significant".

"The drone exploded in the immediate vicinity of the Kardam border-crossing with Romania," near the Black Sea in the country's northeast, "1,000 metres from the Trans-Balkan gas pipeline's compressor station," he said in a video released by the government on social media.

After analysing the debris from the crash, Bulgaria's defence ministry said that the drone was of a type "widely used by the Ukrainian military".

It said that, "currently, nothing suggests that this was a deliberate incident".

The drone eventually crashed into a sunflower field, Radev said.

The sound of the drone was recorded by border police in Romania, and then "a loud explosion accompanied by black smoke" was spotted by a Bulgarian border police patrol, Radev added, speaking after an extraordinary meeting of his cabinet's security council.

"One thing is certain: the drone was carrying a significant amount of explosives, given that it could be heard from a distance and produced such black smoke," he said.

"I hope we will soon discover what type it is," Radev said, adding that it was not a "hobby drone" but a "larger drone".

He noted that the drone had not been detected by either of the two neighbouring countries.

"As you know, identifying and neutralising these drones poses a major challenge," he added.

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Washington (United States) (AFP) – The US Senate confirmed President Donald Trump's former personal lawyer Todd Blanche as attorney general early Saturday after Republican lawmakers shrugged off Democratic concerns over politicization of the Department of Justice.

Blanche, who has already been serving as the top US law enforcement officer in an acting capacity, represented Trump as his private attorney in several criminal trials before entering government.

The Senate, which Republicans narrowly control, confirmed him by 50 votes to 49. Republican senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski joined the Democrats in voting no, underlining the political sensitivity over the nomination.

Blanche said he was "deeply honored by the trust and confidence President Trump has placed in me to lead the Department of Justice."

"I am grateful to the Senate for staying late to complete this process. To the dedicated public servants of the Department of Justice, thank you for your work each day to uphold the law and keep our country safe," Blanche wrote on X.

Trump, who has upended US political norms by seeking to bring nominally independent government agencies under his increasingly direct control, calls Blanche a "star."

Democrats opposed Blanche from the beginning, accusing Trump of turning the Department of Justice into a political weapon.

"The attorney general is supposed to be the people's lawyer," Senator Dick Durbin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said on Tuesday.

"Mr Blanche continues to operate as the president's personal lawyer, treating the Justice Department like a law firm serving one client -- the president."

There were doubts over whether the White House could persuade a handful of Republican holdouts, without whom even the narrow confirmation would have been impossible.

The main sticking point was an attempt to establish a $1.8 billion fund for what Trump calls victims of politicized prosecutions, likely including the rioters who stormed the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 in an attempted insurrection to prevent Joe Biden from being certified as president, after he had defeated Trump in the 2020 election.

The other main issue was an extraordinary proposal granting immunity to Trump from tax audits.

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Kathmandu (Nepal) (AFP) – An international academic conference on Tibet due to take place in Nepal this month has been pushed online, organisers said Saturday, calling it a "worrying development".

Nepal's government denied that it had ordered the change, though the country is acutely aware of how sensitive the issue of Tibet is to its giant northern neighbour China.

Beijing, which in 1950 sent troops to the vast high-altitude plateau it describes as an integral part of China, has long opposed international activities it sees as challenging its sovereignty.

The conference of the International Association for Tibetan Studies (IATS) was expected to draw key scholars from around the world to Kathmandu University to discuss Tibetan history, culture, religion and society.

IATS acting president Francoise Robin, a Tibetan-studies professor at France's National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations, told AFP it was a "very regrettable and worrying development".

"We are proceeding with the conference, but it will take place online," she said.

Organisers at Kathmandu University, which was convening the August 23-29 event, said they were told to withdraw from hosting it.

"We had been planning this conference for a long time, but we received a request from the government not to hold it, so we are not doing it," said conference convener Sagar Raj Sharma, a professor at Kathmandu University.

"The government told us that this is not an appropriate time to conduct this conference," he told AFP.

Nepal denied giving such orders.

"Nepal's government has not given any instructions to cancel it," Hem Raj Aryal, spokesperson at the prime minister's office, told AFP.

"Neither have we sent a letter nor given verbal instructions to stop it. They postponed it on their own."

Nepal hosts thousands of Tibetan refugees, and swathes of the country's high Himalayan north, bordering Tibet, share its culture, Buddhist religion and language.

IATS, established at Britain's University of Oxford in 1979, says it has no political interest or affiliation.

China is landlocked Nepal's second largest trading partner after India, according to World Bank figures.