MUMBAI (Reuters) - A freak electrocution in southern India killed at least 11 people, including two children, when their vehicle snagged overhead transmission lines and burst into flame as they rode in a religious procession, authorities said on Wednesday. More than a dozen people were also injured in the district of Thanjavur in the southern state of Tamil Nadu after the vehicle, a 2.7-m-high structure fashioned in the form of a chariot and pulled by worshippers, hit the high-voltage lines. Some of the injured were hurt in falls following the electric shock, and others, who scrambled to escape the flames, when they jumped from the chariot, which carried statues of Hindu deities in addition to the devotees.

 

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BANGKOK (AP) — A court in military-ruled Myanmar convicted the country’s former leader Aung San Suu Kyi of corruption and sentenced her to five years in prison Wednesday in the first of several corruption cases against her. Suu Kyi, who was ousted by an army takeover last year, had denied the allegation that she had accepted gold and hundreds of thousands of dollars given her as a bribe by a top political colleague. Her supporters and independent legal experts consider her prosecution an unjust move to discredit Suu Kyi and legitimize the military’s seizure of power while keeping the 76-year-old elected leader from returning to an active role in politics.

 

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LONDON (Al-Jazeera) - Ten former members of the Colombian military have publicly acknowledged their role in the 2007 and 2008 killings of more than 100 civilians, who were falsely portrayed as armed group members killed in combat with the army. The admissions were made on Tuesday during an historic public hearing of the Special Jurisdiction for Peace (JEP) tribunal in the Norte de Santander department near Colombia’s border with Venezuela, where the killings took place. The tribunal was created under a 2016 peace deal between the Colombian government and the now-demobilised Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) rebels.

 

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 IMO STATE, Nigeria (Reuters) - Dozens of charred bodies were buried in mass graves in Nigeria’s Imo state as the stench of decomposing flesh hung in the air after more than 100 people were killed during a weekend explosion at an illegal oil refinery. A group of men, some bare chested and without shoes, used shovels to dig three graves at the site of the explosion, a swampy open space surrounded by burnt out cars and palm trees. Before the burial, two local health officials fumigated the site and surrounding area. With only plastic and flip flops covering their feet, men used makeshift stretcher

 

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ROME (Reuters) - Italian children should be given the surname of both parents, the Constitutional Court said on Wednesday, overturning the tradition by which all newborns are automatically named after their father. The current practice is “discriminatory and harmful to the identity” of the child, the court said in a statement, adding that both parents should be able to choose the surname. Children should be given both parents’ surnames in the order they decide, unless they agree their children should take just one of them, the court added in a statement.

 

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LONDON (Al-Jazeera) - Nagaenthran Dharmalingam, a Malaysian with learning disabilities who was convicted of drug trafficking in 2010 and whose case attracted global attention, has been executed in Singapore’s Changi prison. Nagaenthran, who was arrested after police found a bundle of 42.7 grammes (1.5 oz) of heroin strapped to his thigh, was hanged just before dawn on Wednesday, his family said. Navin Kumar, Nagaenthran’s brother, told the Reuters news agency that the 33-year-old’s body would be sent back to Malaysia where a funeral would be held in the northern town of Ipoh.