AP, Vatican City
The Vatican and Myanmar have agreed to establish diplomatic relations.
The announcement came Thursday, on the same day that Pope Francis met with Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, the country’s top civilian leader.
Myanmar’s government is facing international criticism for its activities in the western state of Rakhine, where troops are accused of carrying out widespread abuses against the Muslim ethnic Rohingya minority in what the government says is a counter-insurgency operation.
Netanyahu slams UNESCO vote on Jerusalem
AFP, Jerusalem
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday slammed an “absurd” UNESCO resolution he said denies the Jews’ historical connection with Jerusalem by presenting Israel as an occupying power there.
The resolution, passed Tuesday at the UN organisation’s Paris headquarters, denounced actions taken by “Israel, the occupying power… to alter the character and status of the holy city of Jerusalem.”
India troops block Kashmir villages amid massive rebel hunt
AP, Srinagar
Thousands of Indian government forces cordoned off at least two dozen villages in southern Kashmir on Thursday while they hunted for separatist militants believed to be hiding in the area.
Police said the operation, launched after a spate of rebel attacks and anti-India protests, was the biggest in recent years in the disputed Himalayan territory.
Rain threatens US Midwest
Reuters, Missouri
Unrelenting rain will drench the already saturated U.S. Midwest on Thursday and Friday, forecasters said, after floods in the region killed at least five people and forced residents in vulnerable areas to evacuate their flooded communities. Parts of Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas, Indiana and Oklahoma could see as much as an additional 4 inches (10 cm) of rain as a slow-moving system is expected to hover over the region for at least one more day, the National Weather Service said in flood warnings and watches.
