WASHINGTON (AFP) -The Islamic Center of San Diego in California was placed on lockdown Tuesday as a precaution following a threat, with police urging the public to avoid the area. “The Islamic Center of San Diego is currently on lockdown out of an abundance of caution,” the San Diego Police Department said on the U.S. social media platform X, adding there is a police presence at the location “to ensure everyone’s safety.” “Please avoid the area,” it added.

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JAKARTA (Reuters) - Hundreds of Indonesian students and civil society groups protested on Wednesday in the capital Jakarta and other cities against President Prabowo Subianto’s policies, including the handling of ongoing forest fires. Worsened by the El Niño weather pattern that leaves peatland vulnerable to fires, Indonesia has been faced with its worst forest fires and resulting haze in 11 years, increasing respiratory illnesses and polluting the air of neighboring countries Malaysia and Singapore. Protesters crowded a Jakarta landmark roundabout, with some wearing gas masks, holding up signs protesting over forest fires and demanding the government designate the blazes as a national disaster.

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SEOUL (AP) - North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has said “primary” task of the country’s military commanders was to “getting fully ready” their units “for fighting a war”, stressing combat readiness, state media reported Wednesday. Kim made the remarks during a photo session with participants in the third meeting of Company Leaders of the Korean People’s Army a day earlier, KCNA reported. “The primary revolutionary task of the company leaders is to round off the combat preparations of their units for getting fully ready for fighting a war and the way for its implementation is to bring about a radical improvement in the strenuous and intensive training,” Kim said. 

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BELGRADE (Reuters) - After a leaderless student-led protest movement swept Serbia’s former President Aleksandar Vucic from power in a historic snap election on Sunday, the country is waiting to hear who it will appoint as prime minister and to other key ministerial positions as it forms a government. Here are some of the prominent candidates on the students’ list. Dejan Soskic, an economist and professor at the University of Belgrade’s Faculty of Economics, served as governor of the central bank between 2010 and 2012, before resigning in protest at legislative amendments that he argued compromised the institution’s independence. He has for years been a vocal opponent of Vucic’s government.

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PARIS (AFP) - Climate change must be declared a “global health emergency” to shape governments’ policies after heat caused three million deaths between 2016 and 2023, a report in The Lancet said Wednesday. Published by the British medical journal ahead of the COP 31 climate summit in November, the 10th edition of the report brought together 146 researchers from 30 countries to assess the impact of climate change on the health of the world’s population. It said there were a record 710,000 heat-related deaths in 2023 with more than 70 percent of that toll linked to human-caused climate change.