DHAKA, Bangladesh (AP) – Thousands of people hunkered down Sunday in monasteries, pagodas and schools, seeking shelter from a powerful storm that slammed into the coast of Myanmar, tearing roofs off buildings and killing at least three people. The center of Cyclone Mocha made landfall Sunday afternoon in Myanmar’s Rakhine state near Sittwe township wind speeds up to 209 kilometers (130 miles) per hour, Myanmar’s Meteorological Department said. The storm previously passed over Bangladesh’s Saint Martin’s Island, causing damage and injuring people, but turned away from the country’s shores before landfall. As night fell, the extent of the damage in Sittwe was not clear. Earlier in the day, high winds crumpled cell phone towers, cutting off communications in much of the area. In videos collected by local media before communications were cut off, deep water races through streets while wind lashes trees and pulls boards off roofs.

 

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BELEDWEYNE, Somalia (AFP) – Flash flooding in central Somalia has killed 22 people and affected over 450,000, the UN’s humanitarian agency OCHA said Sunday, after the Shabelle River burst its banks, forcing tens of thousands out of their homes. Heavy rainfall earlier in the week sent water gushing into homes in Beledweyne town in Hiran region, submerging roads and buildings as residents grabbed their belongings and waded through flooded streets in search of refuge. “Initial estimates indicate that the flash and riverine floods across Somalia have affected at least 460,470 people, of whom nearly 219,000 have been displaced from their homes mainly in flood-prone areas, and 22 killed,” the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said. The floods “have left a trail of destruction... inundating homes and farmland, washing away livestock, temporarily closing schools and health facilities, and damaging roads,” the agency said in a situation report. The disaster comes on the heels of a record drought that has left millions of Somalis on the brink of famine, with the troubled nation also battling an Islamist insurgency for decades.

 

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BRUSSELS (Dispatches) – The president of Azerbaijan and the prime minister of Armenia separately met and held talks with the president of the European Council Charles Michel in Brussels on Sunday.  Ilham Aliyev and Charles Michel hailed the restoration of the Brussels format of the process of normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Aliyev expressed his gratitude to Charles Michel for his efforts in this direction, Azertac reported. In his meeting with the president of the European Council, Pashinyan discussed the “military-political and humanitarian situation in the region”, according to Armen Press.  The two sides also discussed the upcoming May 14 trilateral meeting with the participation of the Azerbaijani president and attached importance to holding a five-sided meeting together with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Chisinau on June 1, within the framework of the European Political Community Summit.

 

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BELGRADE, Serbia (AP) – Serbian authorities on Sunday displayed many of around 13,500 weapons they say people have been handed over since this month’s mass shootings, including hand grenades, automatic weapons, and anti-tank rocket launchers. The authorities have declared a one-month amnesty period for citizens to hand over unregistered weapons or face prison sentences as part of a crackdown on guns following the two mass shootings that left 17 people dead, many of them children. Populist President Aleksandar Vucic accompanied top police officials on Sunday for the weapons’ display near the town of Smederevo, some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of the capital, Belgrade. Vucic said the approximately half of the weapons collected were illegal while the other half were registered weapons that citizens nonetheless handed over. He added the weapons will go to Serbia’s arms and ammunitions factories for potential use by the armed forces.

 

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BANGKOK (AFP) – Officials in Thailand began counting votes Sunday in a general election, touted as a pivotal chance for change nine years after incumbent Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha first came to power in a 2014 coup. He is now running against the daughter of the politician who is the military’s top nemesis. The polls closed at 5 p.m. and some results were expected in early evening, with a fuller picture coming later Sunday night. Thai elections use paper ballots that are counted publicly at polling stations. The opposition Pheu Thai Party, headed by Paetongtarn Shinawatra, is widely predicted to win at least a healthy plurality of the seats in the 500-member lower House. After casting her ballot, Paetongtarn said every vote is important for effecting change in Thailand and that she has high hopes for the final result. But who heads the next government won’t by decided by Sunday’s vote alone. The prime minister will be selected in July in a joint session of the House and the 250-seat Senate. The winner must secure at least 376 votes and no party is likely to do that on its own.

 

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WASHINGTON (POLITICO) – U.S. President Joe Biden denounced white supremacy as the “most dangerous terrorist threat” to the nation in his commencement address to Howard University’s graduating class. “White supremacy … is the single most dangerous terrorist threat in our homeland,” Biden said, adding, “And I’m not just saying this because I’m at a Black HBCU. I say this wherever I go.”  Addressing the 2023 graduates of the university at the Capital One Arena in D.C., Biden depicted the U.S. as a nation roiled by internal conflict and alluded to core messages of both his 2020 and 2024 campaign platforms. Invoking the battle cry he used to galvanize voters in the 2020 election cycle, he called on his audience to “fight for the soul of the nation”.  “Fearless progress toward justice often means ferocious pushback from the oldest and most sinister of forces,” Biden stated, noting, “That’s because hate never goes away. … It only hides under the rocks. And when it’s given oxygen it comes out from under that rock. And that’s why we know this truth as well: silence is complicity. We cannot remain silent.”