French teen in straw licking case allowed to leave Singapore

Myanmar's junta-chief turned president on Thursday ordered deposed leader Aung San Suu Kyi to be moved to house arrest, five years after sweeping her into detention in a 2021 coup.

A statement from the office of Min Aung Hlaing said he had "commuted the remaining sentence" of the 80-year-old Suu Kyi "to be served at the designated residence".

It was not immediately clear where she will be moved, but a senior source from her dissolved National League for Democracy (NLD) party told AFP she would likely be kept sequestered at an address in the capital Naypyidaw.

"We do not know where it is exactly," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.

The official statement also did not make clear how many years remain in Suu Kyi's sentence.

As military chief, Min Aung Hlaing toppled Suu Kyi's elected government five years ago, detaining her on a host of charges which rights groups say were confected to sideline her.

The move triggered a sprawling civil war that has killed thousands and displaced millions in the Southeast Asian country of roughly 50 million.

Min Aung Hlaing this month traded his military title for the office of civilian president, being sworn in after a tightly-controlled election that excluded the NLD.

Election criticism or protest was punished by up to a decade in prison, and the vote did not take place in areas seized by rebels in the war.

Democracy monitors described the electoral process as a rebranding of the rule of the military, which has dominated Myanmar for most of its post-independence history.

The move has been accompanied by some rollbacks of post-coup curbs and prisoner amnesties, which analysts have likewise dismissed as lip-service measures to launder the leadership's reputation.

"They're playing their same usual games as far as I'm concerned," Suu Kyi's son Kim Aris told AFP by phone.

"They're trying to legitimise themselves in the eyes of the international media and governments around the world."

"If she has actually been moved to house arrest, then I hope that she will be allowed communication with me and her lawyers, amongst others," he added.

"Nobody has reached out to me."

Suu Kyi remains massively popular inside Myanmar, but has been held almost completely incommunicado as her family warned of her ailing health.

In one of his first acts as civilian president, Min Aung Hlaing this month also pardoned Suu Kyi's top aide Win Myint, who served as her ceremonial president.

hh-jts/sst

(The Center Square) – A U.S. Supreme Court ruling Wednesday “compelled” Florida to redraw congressional districts, second-term Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said Thursday a day after the Legislature approved his map plan.

The ruling in a Louisiana redistricting case was issued as the Legislature was debating a bill to redraw congressional districts, potentially giving Republicans a four-seat gain ahead of the midterm elections. Louisiana is expected to redraw its map; five other states have redrawn and implemented; one other has changed because of litigation; and three more states remain tied up in courtrooms.

DeSantis said he'll sign the bill when it formally reaches his desk. Nationally, that will make the potential net change projection seven additional seats for Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives.

DeSantis, in a news conference Thursday, said he knew the Louisiana ruling was coming. He called a special session of the Legislature, he said, to redraw the maps in part to correct “racial gerrymandering" in a South Florida district.

“It not only vindicated why we were doing what we were doing,” he said of the Supreme Court ruling, "it compelled us to do what we were doing."

The South Florida congressional district that partially prompted the redistricting has “these crab claws going out,” the governor said. “It’s ridiculous. That has been fixed.”

He singled out U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., for criticizing Florida’s redistricting efforts. Jeffires said the Democrats would “ aggressively target for defeat” eight incumbent Republican members in Congress if the redistricting bill passed.

Florida's representation is 20 Republicans, seven Democrats and one vacancy from the resignation of former Democratic Rep. Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick.

“The notion that we would ever deviate from doing what’s right because we are fielding threats from some machine politician in Brooklyn like Hakeem Jeffries, give me a break,” DeSantis said. “That is not happening here.”

Jeffires also condemned the U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the Louisiana case.

“Republican extremists have embraced voter suppression and racial gerrymandering to desperately cling to power,” he said. “The corrupt conservative majority on the Supreme Court appointed by Donald Trump has taken a blowtorch to the Voting Rights Act. Why? The extremists need to cheat to win.”

Florida House Democratic Leader Fentrice Driskell, D-Tampa, was among those who criticized Florida’s redistricting plan.

“Over the last year, we’ve heard a wide range of excuses from Governor Ron DeSantis about why he wanted to illegally gerrymander congressional districts in Florida,” she said. “The fact of the matter is this: the map that was passed today is a direct response to the president’s call to gerrymander maps to help Republicans and that is illegal under our state’s constitution.”

Critics of the redistricting bill said it was a partisan move to help Republicans, and that it violated a state constitutional amendment approved by voters that makes it illegal to use redistricting for partisan purposes.

DeSantis said predicting was needed to balance population in the congressional districts due to Florida’s rapid population growth in the last few years in addition to correcting “racial gerrymandering” in the South Florida district.

King Charles III paid respects to fallen US troops at a military cemetery on Thursday, the final day of a state visit aimed at healing ties between Britain and the United States strained by the war in Iran.

By all accounts, the four-day visit has been a success, with President Donald Trump serving as solicitous host-in-chief who kicked off the monarch's stay with a pomp-filled welcome and lavish white-tie banquet at the White House.

"He's a great king -- the greatest king, in my book," Trump told reporters as Charles and Queen Camilla arrived at the White House for a brief farewell ceremony under bright spring sunshine on Thursday morning.

As the royal couple drove off following handshakes and a bit of chat, Trump added: "Great people. We need more people like that in our country."

Charles and Camilla then visited Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington, where they laid a wreath and flowers at the hilltop Tomb of the Unknown Soldier honoring America's unidentified war dead.

The pair stood solemnly as a bugler played "Taps," before visiting the adjacent display room of military exhibits and artifacts.

Next on the agenda was a "block party" to mark 250 years since American independence from Britain and meetings with Native Americans at a national park, before departing for the British island territory of Bermuda in the Atlantic.

- Light moments -

The centerpiece of the whirlwind trip was Charles's speech Tuesday to the US Congress, the first by a British monarch since Queen Elizabeth II in 1991.

The address was warmly received, even as Charles ranged over subjects from climate change and the need for restraints on presidential power to the importance of NATO and defense of Ukraine -- sensitive issues for Trump's ruling Republicans.

The 77-year-old monarch skirted around tensions between Trump and Prime Minister Keir Starmer over Britain's refusal to join the war against Iran, insisting the partnership between the two countries was "born out of dispute, but no less strong for it."

The royals visited New York on Wednesday, where they stopped at the 9/11 memorial and met leftist Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Charles, who is passionate about gardening and the environment, later visited an urban sustainable farming project in Harlem, while Camilla celebrated the 100th birthday of Winnie the Pooh at the New York Public Library. 

Security has been tight for the royal visit, which came just days after an alleged assassination attempt against Trump at a Washington media gala.

The trip has seen light moments between Charles and Trump, including the US president joking that his Scottish-born mother had a crush on the future king when he was younger.

acb/des

German artist Georg Baselitz, whose expressive paintings and sculptures stirred controversy in West Germany before winning global acclaim, has died aged 88.

His death was confirmed to AFP by Ropac Gallery, which had a long-standing professional relationship with the artist.

Baselitz, who "defined German visual art for a generation", had "died peacefully", the gallery said in a statement Thursday.

Baselitz, born Hans-Georg Kern, was among Germany's most prominent contemporary visual artists with a body of work over six decades across a range of techniques.

He adopted the name Baselitz in 1961 as a nod to Deutschbaselitz, the town near Dresden in eastern Germany where he was born in 1938.

His works, which reflect the traumas of German history, are now held in some of the most prestigious public collections and he has been the subject of numerous retrospective exhibitions since the 1990s.

Baselitz not only painted but also worked in the graphic arts and was a noted sculptor.

In 1969, he began painting canvases upside-down and inverting motifs, a technique he said sought to find a way between abstraction and straightforward figurative art.

Baselitz spent his early childhood in Nazi Germany and then grew up in communist East Germany.

He initially studied art in East Berlin but moved to West Berlin in 1957.

He burst into national attention in 1963 when authorities confiscated two paintings laden with sexual symbolism from the art gallery where they were on display, leading to a high-profile court battle.

Baselitz achieved his international breakthrough in the early 1980s and in recent decades has been among the most sought-after -- and highest-priced -- living German painters, alongside such names as Gerhard Richter and Anselm Kiefer.

bst/phz

Elusive street artist Banksy on Thursday confirmed he was behind a new work drawing crowds in central London: a statue of a suited man striding into the void while holding a flag that blocks his view.

The monument, which has Banksy's name scrawled on the base, first appeared on Wednesday just off the central street of Pall Mall.

The man depicted is mounted on a plinth, with one leg striding off it, and appears to be blindly stepping off the platform without knowing it, thanks to the flag enveloping his face.

"The artist revealed the unsolicited monument at some point in the early hours of yesterday," a spokeswoman for Banksy told AFP in a brief statement, as buzz grew about the new work in the British capital.

"It is positioned on a traffic island in Pall Mall where Banksy said 'there was a bit of a gap'."

Banksy, whose real identity has not been officially confirmed, posted a video on his Instagram account showing its installation under the cover of darkness using heavy machinery.

Best known for his satirical murals, often using a distinctive stencilling style, the artist typically uses the platform to confirm his works, posting images and captions.

A video shared Thursday afternoon also featured an anonymous passerby giving some critical feedback.

"I don't like it. That's a nice statue up there -- I prefer that," the unidentified elderly man says, pointing up the street.

The new statue stands in Waterloo Place, in the heart of central London, close to statues of King Edward VII and nurse Florence Nightingale, as well as the Crimean War Memorial.

- 'Intriguing' -

The statue's public unveiling comes just over a month after a Reuters investigation claimed to have confirmed the famously enigmatic artist's true identity.

It backed up a similar claim by the Mail on Sunday tabloid nearly two decades ago that he is a 52-year-old Briton, born as Robin Gunningham, who later changed his name to David Jones.

The report relied in part on a New York arrest record from 2000, as well as witness testimony from a more recent visit to Ukraine by Banksy.

The artist typically creates a media and public frenzy whenever he reveals a new piece of art, and the new statue was no exception.

"With Banksy, it's a limited time event because it's public art -- you don't know how long it's going to be up," said 23-year-old student Ollie Isaac as he joined dozens taking a look.

"I think it's brilliant," he told AFP, musing the piece was a response to "the resurgence of nationalism in the world and this country".

"That suit screams politician," he added.

Teacher Lynette Cloraleigh, 55, came down after a friend posted about the statue on Instagram.

"I like it," she said. "I like where it is. (It's) intriguing how it got here."

The work is not the first unofficial statue Banksy has unveiled in the British capital.

His work known as "The Drinker", which satirised Auguste Rodin's iconic bronze sculpture "The Thinker", was unveiled in 2004 on nearby Shaftesbury Avenue.

It was stolen soon afterwards and then endured years of contested ownership.

A spokesperson for Westminster Council, responsible for the area where the new statue has appeared, said in a statement: "We're excited to see Banksy's latest sculpture... making a striking addition to the city's vibrant public art scene."

The council added it has "taken initial steps to protect the statue", but for now "it will remain accessible for the public to view and enjoy".

jj/am/jhb

President Donald Trump hailed Charles III as the "greatest king" at a White House farewell Thursday -- and said the United States needed more people like Britain's monarch.

The formal goodbye capped a four-day diplomatic marathon by Charles and Queen Camilla aimed at easing transatlantic tensions over the Iran war.

"He's a great king -- the greatest king, in my book," Trump told reporters as the king and queen arrived at the South Portico of the White House for the brief ceremony.

Minutes later, as the royal couple drove off following handshakes and a bit more chat, Trump added: "Great people. We need more people like that in our country."

Trump didn't say who he meant. But the 79-year-old has frequently joked about becoming a king himself, and critics accuse him of acting like one by rolling back limits on presidential powers.

The president's evident fascination for monarchy is particularly jarring given the United States is celebrating the 250th anniversary of independence from the British empire -- and Charles's ancestors.

The British king's state visit was officially meant to mark the US-UK alliance in the anniversary year but has ended up being more about salvaging the so-called "special relationship."

Trump has bitterly criticized British Prime Minister Keir Starmer over his opposition to the US-Israeli war on Iran.

Charles and Camilla were later paying their respects to fallen US troops at Arlington National Cemetery just outside Washington, before meeting with Native Americans at a national park.

They will then depart for the British island territory of Bermuda in the Atlantic.

dk/sms

Mexico is seeking "irrefutable" evidence to back up the shock US drug trafficking charges against a sitting governor and other officials before proceeding with extradition requests, President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday.

The US Justice Department unveiled charges on Wednesday against Sinaloa Governor Ruben Rocha Moya and nine others, accusing them of working with the notorious Sinaloa cartel to distribute "massive quantities" of narcotics to the United States.

Rocha Moya, a member of the Sheinbaum's left-leaning Morena party and close ally of her predecessor, has governed the violent state since 2021.

The 76-year-old has a long history in public life that included stints as a state lawmaker in the 1980s, the head of the University of Sinaloa in the 1990s, the advisor of two governors in the 2000s and then a state leader for Morena. 

"If the Office of the Attorney General... receives solid and irrefutable evidence in accordance with Mexican law, or if, in the course of its own investigation, it finds elements constituting a crime, it must comply" with the US extradition request, Sheinbaum told her morning press conference.

She added that if evidence was not provided or found, it will be evident that "the goal of these Justice Department accusations is political."

Rocha Moya, in a social media post on Wednesday, rejected the charges as an attack against the populist Morena political movement, founded by Sheinbaum predecessor Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador.

The other officials facing US charges are also part of Morena.

Sheinbaum noted this was the first time that the United States had made narcotrafficking charges public against a sitting governor or other high-ranking official.

"We aren't going to protect anyone," she vowed.

The stunning charges add to already strained diplomatic tensions with US President Donald Trump's administration, following the recent death of two US agents -- reportedly CIA personnel -- in connection with a drug bust operation.

The agents, who died in a car accident in the border state of Chihuahua, had not received permission from Sheinbaum's government to operate on Mexican territory. 

The Sinaloa Cartel is one of six Mexican narcotrafficking groups designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the Trump administration. 

Sheinbaum has faced pressure from Washington to accept US intervention, such as drone strikes or military personnel, to fight cartels.

While supporting greater collaboration on intelligence gathering, she has rejected the prospect of US forces in Mexico as a threat to the country's independence.

bur-jpo/des

A US Supreme Court ruling curbing protections for minority voters has reignited the political battle over electoral maps, with Republicans and Democrats racing to redraw districts in ways that could shape control of Congress for years to come.

The high court's decision on Wednesday makes it far harder to challenge electoral maps that dilute minority voting power -- weakening a key protection of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, a historic attempt to redress the legacy of racism.

It immediately emboldened Republicans across the South to push for new district lines that could tilt the balance of power in their favor, although analysts say its impact on November's midterm elections is likely to be limited.

Primaries -- the internal elections that parties use to choose their candidates -- are already underway or looming in many states, and with legal challenges all but certain, there is little time to implement sweeping changes before voters head to the polls. 

Even in the most aggressive scenarios, experts say the ruling may deliver Republicans only a handful of additional seats this year -- potentially decisive in a closely divided House, but far from transformative.

"We are swimming in uncharted waters," analysts Amy Walters and Matthew Klein wrote in an autopsy of the ruling for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.

"Republicans could conceivably push for redraws that net them a few seats in 2026, but it's unclear at this point how many of those maps will go into effect, given the challenges of the timeline and the inevitable torrent of litigation to come."

- Scramble -

Still, the political scramble has begun. 

Republican officials in states including Alabama, Tennessee and South Carolina quickly called for special sessions to redraw congressional maps, targeting districts with large Black populations that were previously protected under the Voting Rights Act.

Louisiana -- the state at the center of the case -- suspended upcoming primaries to pass a new map, underscoring the urgency with which some Republicans are seeking to act.

The ruling is widely seen as a boon for the Republican Party, particularly in the South, where majority-Black districts have long helped elect Democratic lawmakers.

By weakening those protections, the court has opened a path for some of those districts to be broken up or reshaped.

"Yesterday's decision is huge -- if not for 2026 then certainly for 2028," said veteran political strategist Matt Klink. "It will force states, primarily in the South, to redraw as many as 18 districts."

Democrats are already signaling they could respond in kind, using the same legal logic to redraw districts in liberal-leaning states such as New York and California to maximize their own gains.

President Donald Trump, whose Republicans narrowly control both chambers of Congress, welcomed the ruling, but it remains unclear how forcefully he will push state leaders to act before November.

- 'Rigged maps' -

Timing may ultimately prove the biggest constraint.

In several key states -- including Texas, North Carolina and Mississippi -- primary elections have already taken place, effectively locking in current district lines. In Alabama, Governor Kay Ivey said the state was "not in a position" to hold a special redistricting session. 

Even where changes are still theoretically possible, the legal and logistical hurdles are steep. Redrawing maps typically triggers court battles, and US courts are often reluctant to approve last-minute changes that could disrupt elections.

"With the midterm elections only six months away, the decision's immediate impact will be muted," Michael R. Dimino, a law professor at Pennsylvania's Widener University, told AFP.

"But the decision is very significant for the future -- particularly in the redistricting that will follow the 2030 census, as it will remove an unfair advantage for Democrats."

Political strategist Caroline Welles, who works to elect first-time Democratic women to state legislatures, said the decision mattered less for November than for what it signals about the court's willingness to let states dilute minority voting power. 

"Voting rights litigation has been the main way to challenge rigged maps since 2013. If that tool gets blunted, Democrats are looking at structural disadvantages that feel insurmountable," she said. 

"Communities of color will continue to be systematically underrepresented in the places where they have the numbers to elect candidates of their choice."

ft/sms

Waddling across a Warsaw expressway, a brood of wild sea ducks brought traffic to a halt as volunteers held motorists at bay -- an annual ritual to protect the bustling Polish capital's famous ducklings.

Every spring, dozens of days-old ducklings must make the risky trek from a centrally located park where they hatch to the Vistula river.

Local volunteers are mobilised to help ensure their safe passage, scrambling in hi-vis vests to stop cars and shepherd the birds across one of Warsaw's busiest roads.

Waddling through the city of 1.8 million people, the groups of mergansers -- fish-eating sea ducks -- are led by their silver-feathered mothers, with their distinctive brown head crests.

"We call mergansers ambassadors of Warsaw's wildlife -- or our celebrities," said Barbara Rozalska from the city parks department.

She was speaking over the rumble of the six-lane expressway -- "one of the biggest threats" for the wild birds on their kilometre-long journey.

Rozalska is in charge of coordinating the volunteers, who, through April and May, monitor the park and tree cavities where ducks lay their eggs and the possible routes they may take towards the river.

Around 30 people -- trained by the city's ornithologist -- take turns to stay alert for any sighting of the mergansers.

"It's a bit like being on call at the accident and emergency department -- you get a call and you have to go, no matter if it's at dawn or in the afternoon," Rozalska told AFP.

The array of threats is not limited to road traffic.

"There are seagulls and crows, which can snatch a chick that gets away from its mother for a moment. There are also predatory fish that can drag a chick underwater," she said.

- No honking -

One of the first merganser mums to cross this season took almost 24 hours to make it from the park to the river, testing the patience of the volunteers monitoring their every step and stumble.

That included the 11 hours the birds spent nestled in the roadside greenery, waiting for their moment.

Daria Grzesiek, 38, on duty, called it a "very difficult day" for her team.

"But once she set off and began making her way towards the Vistula... the fatigue was gone. There was only the satisfaction of having successfully guided her safely along the way," Grzesiek told AFP.

The volunteers' job involves asking passersby to keep their distance and put their dogs on a leash.

They also take on the task of explaining to drivers why the traffic needs to be stopped -- normally only for a few minutes.

As their efforts have gained traction and the birds have shot to local fame, there is more understanding among those sat behind the wheel, Grzesiek said.

One person, she recounted, "was getting upset that we stopped traffic".

But "the other drivers simply explained to him that he should calm down -- because mergansers are coming".

bur-mmp/jc/jhb

Long an emblem of the summer road trip, squashed bugs on the car have become less numerous over the years, many people say -- causing concern about the health of the world's insect populations.

While drivers may be happy to have less yuckiness to clean from their windscreens, a perceived decline in flying insects hit by vehicles has some experts worried about the creatures, which play a vital role in the environment as pollinators, ecosystem balancers and food sources for other species.

But anecdotal evidence is one thing. Studying the so-called "windshield phenomenon" is another.

So scientists in France have launched an app-based study that enlists drivers as volunteer researchers.

Users download the free app, Bugs Matter, count the number of squished bugs on their number plates at the end of a trip, and send the results to be compiled as part of what the programme's creators hope will be a massive citizen science project.

The study is being run by the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN), the environmental groups OPIE and Noe and the French Biodiversity Office.

One app user, Marjorie, brought AFP on a car trip with her to Enghien-les-Bains, north of Paris, to take the app for a test drive before using it on a long road trip.

Step one: wipe the licence plate clean. Step two: enter geolocation data. Step three: drive.

"I'm 53, and I remember how as a kid, on long car trips when we stopped to fill the tank, there was always the obligatory clean-the-windscreen stage," said Marjorie.

"We hardly do that anymore."

- 'Pretty incredible' -

The study follows others around the world that have found declining insect numbers, including previous car-based studies in Denmark and the United Kingdom that both found sharp reductions in splats.

The two-decade-long Danish study, which ran until 2017, found reductions of 80 and 97 percent on two stretches of road in Denmark, while the UK study -- which also used the Bugs Matter app and is still ongoing -- found a decline of nearly 63 percent from 2021 to 2024.

A German study published in 2017 found a "dramatic decline" of more than 75 percent in the average biomass of flying insects in protected nature reserves.

"It's pretty incredible. Imagine going into the supermarket and finding only two out of every 10 products are in stock," said MNHN's Gregoire Lois.

Scientists say the decline is driven by human activity, including habitat loss, pesticide use, pollution and climate change.

But part of the study's goal is to understand the exact mechanisms behind the decline, and whether the results vary between urban areas, agricultural regions and forest land, Lois said.

Researchers hope to eventually expand the project to collect the insects' DNA and identify which species are being hit, he said.

Why use number plates as a reference?

"It's the only shared, standardised thing on every car, in both size and position: facing the road, perpendicular to the ground and travelling forward," said Lois.

After making her test trip, Marjorie parked her car, went to count her specimens and found a troubling data point.

"We just drove 22 kilometres" (14 miles), she said, "and there are absolutely no insects."

vip/uh/dsa/tmt/jhb/sbk/phz