Syrian leader visits Germany to talk war, recovery, refugees

Chinese authorities have banned entombing cremated remains in empty apartments, a practice that had gained popularity as mourners took advantage of the subdued housing market to dodge rising funeral costs.

"Bone-ash apartments" are units in often barely occupied residential complexes used by some families as resting places for their loved ones' remains.

They can be cheaper than a public cemetery plot, according to local media, as well as giving families more control over the site.

Acquiring one "kills two birds with one stone", Carsten Herrmann-Pillath from Germany's Erfurt University told AFP.

"It's an investment and eases the (process of carrying out) ritual practices."

But regulations that came into force on Monday explicitly ban "the use of residential dwellings specifically for the interment of ashes".

Bone-ash apartments are often identifiable by sealed-off windows or closed curtains, according to Chinese media reports.

A resident quoted by the Communist Party-run Legal Daily newspaper described peeking inside an apartment in his estate to see two candlesticks around a black box and a black-and-white portrait, a typical arrangement in China for commemorating the dead.

The ban comes days before the Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb Sweeping Day, when families traditionally visit relatives' graves to tidy them and make ritual offerings.

It appears to be aimed at stopping developers and intermediaries who sell empty units "implicitly allowing their use for storing ashes", said Xinyi Wu, an anthropologist doctoral student at University of California, Irvine whose research has centred on the phenomenon.

- Blurred lines -

Human remains are only permitted to be buried in designated areas such as public cemeteries, according to the State Council, China's cabinet.

Demand for cemetery plots is increasing though, as China's population ages and deaths outpace births.

In 2020, funerals cost nearly half of the country's average annual salary, according to a survey by British insurance firm SunLife.

On Tuesday, China's market watchdog announced new rules to tackle fraud and a lack of transparency in funeral pricing to "reduce the burden of funerals on the masses".

The price of apartments meanwhile has continued to fall as consumer confidence remains low and a long-running property sector crisis lingers.

Debt and stalled construction have plagued leading firms since 2020, when curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation dramatically narrowed access to credit.

The practice of using flats as entombment sites is "problematic" to Chinese officials, UC Irvine's Wu said, as "it blurs the boundary between spaces for the living and spaces for the dead, which is administratively and culturally sensitive".

Many people on social media had expressed concerns about living near the dead, as well as their homes' resale value, she added.

Some online comments had a more humorous take.

"I want to rent a place with these bone-ash sorts above, below and to the left and right," read one. "There won't be any issues with neighbours."

mya/reb/ami

The average price of gasoline at US pumps has soared past $4 a gallon, the American Automobile Association (AAA) reported Tuesday, the highest for nearly four years on the back of the Iran war.

Spiking gas prices, up from less than $3 at the end of February, represent the latest bad news for President Donald Trump after he ordered strikes on Iran in a war that has threatened to drag down the global economy.

The average price was $4.018 per gallon as of Tuesday morning, the AAA data said on its website.

The last time prices were above $4 was in August 2022, according to the US Energy Information Administration.

In mid-2022, prices soared to $5 a gallon in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic and after Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

Gas rices climbed to $5.88 per gallon in California -- the nation's most expensive gasoline market, the AAA said, followed by Hawaii ($5.45) and Washington ($5.34).

The price jump heightens the political risks for Trump several months before crucial midterm elections.

Iran has effectively blocked the Strait of Hormuz to adversaries the United States and Israel or anyone doing business with them. 

The waterway is responsible for carrying around a fifth of global crude oil and liquefied natural gas in peacetime.

Trump expressed confidence that a negotiated settlement would soon be reached but warned that if it was not -- or if Iran continued to block the strait to most sea traffic -- US forces would "blow up" Kharg Island and all of Iran's oil wells and electricity generation.

Oil prices slipped on Tuesday and stocks were mixed as investors weighed the report indicating he could make a deal even if the key strait remained closed.

Both main oil contracts fell almost one percent Tuesday but were both still well above $100 a barrel.

Surging prices at the pump will also shock car-loving Americans as the summer vacation season nears, with prices set to rise even higher because of the Iran conflict.

The US' primarily imports oil from Canada and Mexico, so it is not heavily impacted by any shortages in the Middle East caused by the turmoil, but prices have risen in any case because of globally connected energy markets.

jfx/cms

Fifty wildlife officers are now the devoted guardians of a newly-hatched great Indian bustard chick, born after a marathon road trip to provide a fertilised egg for the critically endangered bird, officials said Tuesday.

The birds, metre-tall desert dwellers, have plummeted in number over the past 25 years, with only around 150 believed to remain in the wild.

They are threatened by feral dogs, habitat encroachment, and collisions with power lines in areas now increasingly used for vast solar projects.

It was the first chick hatched succesfully in the state of Gujarat for a decade.

"The hatching... is rare and momentous occasion for our conservation efforts," Gujarat state conservation officer Dheeraj Mittal told AFP.

"But the real challenge begins now," he added. "We have teams of about 50 people monitoring the movement of the mother bird, around the clock."

The bird is listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

India's Supreme Court had ordered power lines be buried in key breeding zones after bustards were killed in collisions.

The government, however, successfully petitioned to overturn the ruling, arguing it would hinder renewable energy targets.

Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav said a "jumpstart approach" was used to provide an egg for the three birds -- all female -- that made up the last population in the desert grasslands of Kutch.

Wildlife officers brought in an egg from its breeding programme on a 19-hour-long road trip using a handheld incubator, a nearly 800-kilometre (500-mile) journey, Yadav said.

Mittal said villagers had been asked to keep their cattle away.

"Our priority is to secure and protect the chick and its mother from other predators," he added.

str-ash/pjm/mtp

Iraq is home to ruins from some of the world's earliest civilisations, but teams led by international archaeologists have been forced by drone and rocket attacks in the Middle East war to cut short their expeditions.

Archaeologists told AFP that some of the projects interrupted by the war had been planned for years, but their teams have had to evacuate ancient sites since the United States and Israel attacked Iraq's neighbour, Iran.

Like other countries around the region, Iraq has become engulfed in the war, bringing to an abrupt end a period of nascent stability.

Iraq's precious archaeological sites, some dating back thousands of years, had for years faced threats ranging from climate change to successive conflicts.

Under normal circumstances, around 60 international teams would have been working on digs, a government official told AFP, but "all of these missions have left Iraq".

- 'Like a musician' -

Adelheid Otto of Germany's Ludwig-Maximilians-University started a long-planned dig at ancient Shuruppak, modern-day Tell Fara, on February 28.

That same day, Israel and the US launched strikes against Iran, sparking a war that has dragged Iraqi armed groups into the fray -- and cutting short Otto's work.

"We are Near Eastern archaeologists. So that is our work. That is like a musician who can no longer play an instrument," she told AFP.

Her team -- 18 German archaeologists, geologists, geophysical experts and students and seven Iraqi archaeologists -- initially stayed, reasoning travelling the 750 kilometres (460 miles) overland to Turkey was more dangerous.

"After some days we got kind of used to the rockets and drones above our heads," she said.

But Iraqi officials repeatedly urged them to depart, despite their discovery of ancient cuneiform tablets.

"It is impossible" to leave, she told authorities, insisting on staying extra days. "We have to document it. We have to take photos of everything."

"I told the students you have to work on all the small finds that we have," said Otto, 59, who boasts four decades of experience.

"You never know in any of these countries if you will ever return," she said.

- 'Guarantors' -

Many German institutions had just started relaxing travel restrictions to Iraq after a succession of conflicts, including the 2003 US-led invasion and the extremist Islamic State group.

Now, said Otto, archaeologists once again face being shut out.

Iraq's State Board of Antiquities and Heritage head Ali Obeid Shalgham told AFP Iraqi security forces were the sites' "true guarantors", especially as many are in remote rural areas.

He said the country is installing so-called protective "blue shields" -- nicknamed "the Red Cross of heritage" -- at archaeological sites.

The presence of foreign teams is "crucial", said Aqeel al-Mansrawi, an Iraqi landscape archaeologist.

"They work to protect heritage through conservation," he said.

He also emphasised the training Iraqi experts receive from foreigners, vital after years of isolation and war.

"We are always training a lot of Iraqi archaeologists and colleagues," said Otto, of the German institute.

"If it would be cut again, it would be terrible," she said. 

Foreign digs must work with Iraqi archaeologists, bringing their international expertise.

Shalgham said the arrangement allows Iraqis "to keep up with global advancements in new technologies and state-of-the-art equipment".

- 'Can't catch a break' -

Chicago University professor Augusta McMahon was in southern Iraq, working at the 6,000-year-old Nippur site, when the war began.

Having worked in the Middle East for almost four decades, this was her third evacuation. 

In 2024, she had to leave Iraq, while in 2011, she left Syria.

"We had pressure from a lot of different directions in terms of having to leave," she said, with her eight-person team departing under an Iraqi escort on March 10.

"It is quite frustrating, along with everything else, I feel terribly bad for [my] Iraqi colleagues," she said.

The war has also rippled beyond the immediate: an initiative to finally return the preeminent Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale (RAI) conference to Iraq was cancelled by the University of Baghdad.

The city last attempted to host the event in 1990, according to the university, but it was scrapped with the Gulf War.

"Now 36 years later, they finally pulled themselves together... and its cancelled again," said McMahon, who was due to be presenting.

"It's like they can't catch a break."

bur-rbu/ser

US and Israeli strikes hit military facilities in central Iran, damaged a major religious site in the northwest and provoked power cuts Tuesday, after President Donald Trump threatened to blow up the country's oil and energy plants.

Video footage verified by AFP showed at least two massive explosions and columns of smoke in Isfahan, central Iran. State media reported the Grand Husseiniya, a Shia religious centre, was damaged in Zanjan in the northwest.

Iran's Fars news agency reported explosions and power outages in parts of Tehran, where residents painted a picture of a city that is still clinging to some routine despite tight security.

"When I make it to a cafe table, even for a few minutes, I can almost believe the world hasn't ended," said Fatemeh, a 27-year-old dental assistant. "And then I go back home, back to the reality of living through war, with all its darkness and weight."

Oil prices were again climbing steadily as markets weighed Trump's confidence that Tehran would soon buckle to military pressure and accept a deal against fears that a possible US ground operation in the Gulf would further escalate the conflict.

Explosions were heard in Dubai and near Erbil airport in northern Iraq, and sirens sounded in Jerusalem and two people were wounded when air defence intervened to intercept a drone near the Saudi Arabian capital Riyadh, civil defence said.

Israeli emergency services said eight people received minor injuries from falling munitions fragments in Bnei Brak, near Tel Aviv. At least 10 blasts were heard in the Jerusalem area after missile launches from Iran were detected.

- 'Direct and malicious' -

Kuwait's state oil company reported that one of its giant crude old tankers was on fire in Dubair Port after a "direct and malicious Iranian attack while in the anchorage area".

Such attacks on oil tankers and export facilities have world markets jumpy, and all eyes were on the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow maritime channel out of the Gulf that Iran has effectively closed to all vessels except those it approves as not hailing from "hostile countries".

Two Chinese container ships were able to pass the strait, and Beijing expressed gratitude to "the relevant parties", a foreign ministry spokeswoman told reporters.

World oil prices have surged overall since the US and Israel launched the war more than a month ago with strikes on Tehran that killed supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but fall back every time Trump promises a rapid conclusion to the conflict, leaving markets jittery. 

"The fog of war continues," investment adviser Christopher Dembik of Pictet Asset Management said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump's partner in attacking Iran, said more than half of the operation's military aims had been achieved, but both leaders have refused to put a timeline on the war.

Israel's military also reported Tuesday that four more of its soldiers had been killed in combat in southern Lebanon, where the war has spread and where they are battling Iranian-backed Hezbollah. 

Trump warned Monday that if Iran did not strike a war-ending deal -- which included reopening the vital Strait of Hormuz shipping lane -- US forces would destroy all of Tehran's oil wells, its main Kharg Island export terminal, power systems and possibly desalination plants. 

But the Wall Street Journal reported he also told aides he was willing to end the war even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed -- likely strengthening Tehran's control on the waterway.

Refusing to back down, an Iranian parliamentary committee voted to impose tolls on vessels in the strait, the passageway through which one-fifth of global oil passes, and completely ban ships from the United States and Israel.

- Ready for talks? -

Pakistani Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar, whose country is acting as an intermediary between Tehran and Washington, was to travel to Beijing for talks Tuesday on "global issues of mutual interest" with counterpart Wang Yi.

Dar hosted foreign ministers from Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey in the Pakistani capital on Sunday, saying Islamabad was ready to host talks between the United States and Iran in the "coming days".

Trump has claimed to be in direct contact with senior Iranian figures, but has not identified the publicly and the Iranian foreign ministry said that Washington had  sent only a request to talk via intermediaries, including Pakistan.

burs/dc/ser

A humpback whale struggling in shallow waters off Germany's northern Baltic Sea coast has freed itself for a third time and has now disappeared, a police spokesman told AFP Tuesday.

"The whale seems to have left Wismar. However, there have been no sightings so far," the spokesman for the city's water police said.

The 13.5-metre (44-foot) long animal has been struggling in shallow waters in the area for more than a week, having first been spotted in the early hours of March 23 near the city of Luebeck.

It managed to free itself from a sandbank there but ran into further difficulty after swimming east.

It twice became stuck on sandbanks close to the city of Wismar and over the weekend experts warned that its breathing rate had reduced.

Nevertheless experts hope that the whale may be able to make it back to its natural habitat in the Atlantic Ocean.

Speaking on ZDF television on Monday, marine biologist and rescue coordinator Burkard Baschek said the lack of sightings was a good sign.

"We haven't received any further reports so far, which is good," he said, adding: "We can now only hope that it will eventually manage to make it under its own steam."

The whale is believed to be suffering from skin problems due to the lower level of salt content in the Baltic Sea compared to the open ocean.

It is possible the whale came into the Baltic following a shoal of fish or having been distracted by the noise of a submarine.

bur-vbw/jsk/yad

Thailand's king endorsed the new cabinet of second-term Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, with the nephew of jailed ex-leader Thaksin Shinawatra made a deputy prime minister, the Royal Gazette said Tuesday.

The cabinet posts, mostly reserved for members of Anutin's party, include six deputy prime minister positions -- one of which was given to Yodchanan Wongsawat, the top candidate of Thaksin's Pheu Thai party in the general election last month.

Anutin's Bhumjaithai party won the most seats in parliament in the February 8 poll, putting the conservatives at the head of the new ruling coalition.

But without an outright majority, Bhumjaithai allied with the third-placed Pheu Thai of tech billionaire Thaksin, who is serving a one-year prison sentence for corruption.

Yodchanan, a biomedical engineering professor, was also made minister for higher education, science, research and information.

Anutin himself will pull double-duty, also serving as interior minister.

Bhumjaithai members and its loyalists hold 32 cabinet positions, including the economic and defence portfolios, with several ministers from Anutin's first short-lived term being re-appointed.

Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow will retain his position as Thailand's top diplomat, as will the ministers of finance and commerce -- all three of whom were also made deputy prime ministers.

The justice and defence ministers also fall within the camp of the pro-military and pro-monarchy Bhumjaithai.

Pheu Thai was allotted nine minister jobs, including agriculture, labour, education and social development.

The new government is expected to offer its policy positions before parliament next week, according to local media.

tp/sco/jfx

Chinese authorities have banned entombing cremated remains in cheap apartments, a practice that had gained popularity as mourners took advantage of the subdued housing market to dodge rising funeral costs.

"Bone-ash apartments" are units in often barely occupied residential complexes used by some families as resting places for their loved ones' remains. 

They can be cheaper than a public cemetery plot, according to local media, as well as giving families more control over the site.  

Acquiring one "kills two birds with one stone", Carsten Herrmann-Pillath from Germany's Erfurt University told AFP. 

"It's an investment and eases the (process of carrying out) ritual practices."

But regulations that came into force on Monday explicitly ban "the use of residential dwellings specifically for the interment of ashes".

Bone-ash apartments are often identifiable by sealed-off windows or closed curtains, according to Chinese media reports.

A resident quoted by the Communist Party-run Legal Daily newspaper described peeking inside an apartment in his estate to see two candlesticks around a black box and a black-and-white portrait, a typical arrangement in China for commemorating the dead.

The ban comes days before the Qingming Festival, also known as Tomb Sweeping Day, when families traditionally visit relatives' graves to tidy them and make ritual offerings.

Human remains are only permitted to be buried in designated areas such as public cemeteries, according to the State Council, China's cabinet.

Demand for cemetery plots is increasing though, as China's population ages and deaths outpace births.

In 2020, funerals cost nearly half of the country's average annual salary, according to a survey by British insurance firm SunLife.

On Tuesday, China's market watchdog announced new rules to tackle fraud and a lack of transparency in funeral pricing to "reduce the burden of funerals on the masses".

The price of apartments meanwhile has continued to fall as consumer confidence remains low and a long-running property sector crisis lingers.

Debt and stalled construction have plagued leading firms since 2020, when curbs on excessive borrowing and speculation dramatically narrowed access to credit.

mya/reb/cms

Myanmar junta chief Min Aung Hlaing was elected a vice-president by the lower house on Tuesday, parliament officials said, with the coup leader edging closer to becoming the country's civilian leader.

Myanmar's former commander in chief Min Aung Hlaing has led Myanmar since 2021, when he ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi and triggered civil war.

His election sets in motion a process for him to exchange his uniform for civilian clothes, as the country's parliament selects three vice-presidents, one of whom is then chosen as president. 

On the lower house floor Tuesday morning, MPs queued up at a row of tables and dropped their ballots into one of three clear-sided boxes.

"The lower house of elected MPs announces Senior General Min Aung Hlaing as a vice-president," lower house speaker Khin Yi said after the vote.

The junta chief received 247 of the 260 votes, a parliament official said, according to a live broadcast.

The upper house elected Nan Ni Ni Aye, a regional MP from Karen state with the military-aligned Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), as another vice-president, local media reported.

A third vice-president will be chosen by the military.

A parliament-wide vote to select which of the three will be elevated to president is expected this week.

Democracy watchdogs have long warned that the new government will be a proxy of the military, which has ruled Myanmar for the vast majority of its post-independence history.

Myanmar's military has long presented itself as the only force guarding the restive country from rupture and ruin.

The generals loosened their grip for a decade-long democratic experiment beginning in 2011, allowing Aung San Suu Kyi to ascend as civilian leader and steer a period of reform as the nation opened up.

But after Aung San Suu Kyi trounced the USDP in a landslide in 2020 elections, Min Aung Hlaing snatched back power as he grew anxious about the military's waning influence, analysts say.

After five years of hardline rule, the top general oversaw heavily restricted elections that returned a walkover win for pro-military parties in January.

Now the USDP -- led and staffed by many retired officers -- is entrenched in parliament after winning 80 percent of elected seats, and it is expected the new government will march in lockstep with the top brass.

Min Aung Hlaing is expected to manage a carefully orchestrated transition to becoming president, after he handed over the reins of the military to loyalist Ye Win Oo on Monday. 

bur-sco/lb

A Russian oil tanker was set to deliver the first crude shipment to Cuba since January on Tuesday after Washington gave the crisis-hit island a reprieve from an effective fuel blockade.

The Anatoly Kolodkin, a tanker under US sanctions, was on its way to the port of Matanzas, east of Havana, with 730,000 barrels of crude.

US President Donald Trump's decision to let Russia deliver the oil avoids a confrontation with Moscow and provides temporary relief to a country that has endured blackouts, fuel rationing and dwindling public transportation.

"We'll welcome it with open arms. You have no idea how badly we need that oil," said Rosa Perez, a 74-year-old retiree whose home in Matanzas had lost power again.

"Let's see if things improve for us, even just a little... I can't take it anymore," she told AFP, voicing hope that more shipments will follow.

Trump said Sunday that he did not object to Russia or others sending oil to the island because Cubans "have to survive."

The White House denied however that there was any change to US sanctions policy.

"We allowed this ship to reach Cuba in order to provide humanitarian needs to the Cuban people. These decisions are being made on a case-by-case basis," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

- Driving Cuba 'to the brink' -

Cuba was cut off from oil supplies in January after US forces ousted its main regional ally, Venezuela's socialist leader Nicolas Maduro, and Trump threatened tariffs on countries that send crude to the country.

The US president has mused about "taking" the communist-ruled island, though Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel confirmed in March that Cuban and US officials had held talks.

Ricardo Herrero, executive director of the Cuba Study Group, a nonpartisan policy group in Washington, said the aim of restricting oil was to force Havana "to make real concessions at the negotiating table."

"The strategy here is to drive the system to the brink," Herrero told AFP. "But it's not to precipitate a full-blown societal or humanitarian collapse."

"It's all consistent with idea that the US holds all the cards and they'll decide when to hold, when to fold and when they go all in," he said.

- Two weeks of diesel -

Cubans have endured seven nationwide blackouts since 2024, including two in March, and fuel prices have soared.

The blackouts as well as persistent shortages of food and medicine have fueled public frustration and some rare protests.

Analysts said the Russian oil would buy the Cuban economy only a few weeks.

Jorge Pinon, an expert on Cuba's energy sector at the University of Texas at Austin, said the more urgent need is diesel, which could be used for backup power generators or for transportation systems to keep the economy running.

It would take a month to refine the oil and deliver the diesel, which would be enough to cover demand for about two weeks, he said.

Herrero said the shipment was just "another donation" by Cuba's Russian ally, but he doubted that Moscow wanted to subsidize the Cuban economy in the long term.

"This is not going to help the economy recover," he said. "This is just humanitarian aid."

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