Sri Lanka has reinstated fuel rationing and raised fuel prices by about 33 percent following the outbreak of war between the United States, Israel, and Iran on February 28. Iran’s decision to halt most traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for 20 percent of global oil and gas, has severely disrupted supplies to the island nation, which imports 60 percent of its energy needs through the strait. The government has introduced a QR-based rationing system similar to that used during the 2022 economic crisis, limiting weekly fuel allocations for vehicles and implementing a no-work-on-Wednesday policy to conserve fuel.

Officials say the government is absorbing part of the international price increase, resulting in monthly losses of $63 million. Bus fares have risen by more than 12 percent, while liquefied petroleum gas prices are up 8 percent. Negotiations are under way with Russia for fuel imports, and Sri Lanka has declined Iran’s offer due to lack of transport capacity. Experts warn that continued disruption could raise food prices by 15 percent and threaten food security, as fertiliser supplies are also affected.

President Anura Dissanayake’s administration is expanding storage capacity and pursuing agreements with India and the UAE to renovate facilities, but economists caution that the crisis’s duration remains unpredictable.

Tens of thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday in what organisers described as the largest anti-far-right demonstration in British history. The Together Alliance, supported by around 500 groups including trade unions, antiracism organisations and Muslim representative bodies, led the rally that converged on Whitehall near the Houses of Parliament. Organisers claimed half a million participants, while police estimated about 50,000. The event was met by a much smaller group of counterprotesters waving Israeli and pre-1979 Iranian flags.

Speakers and participants said the march aimed to counter the rise of racism and Islamophobia in mainstream politics, citing figures such as Reform leader Nigel Farage and far-right activist Tommy Robinson. Demonstrators described the atmosphere as inclusive and festive, comparing it to the Notting Hill Carnival. Several left-wing politicians, including Jeremy Corbyn, Zarah Sultana, Dianne Abbott, and Andy Burnham, joined the crowds, while Amnesty UK praised the event as a call for dignity, compassion and human rights.

The protest took place amid warnings from the group Hope Not Hate that the British far right is becoming “bigger, bolder and more extreme than ever before.”

Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar announced on Saturday that Iran has agreed to allow 20 Pakistani-flagged vessels to transit the Strait of Hormuz, with two ships scheduled to cross daily. Dar described the move as a “harbinger of peace” and a “welcome and constructive gesture,” suggesting it could help stabilize a region strained by conflict and energy shortages. His announcement, addressed to senior U.S. and Iranian officials, underscored Islamabad’s broader diplomatic role in efforts to end the ongoing war.

The Strait of Hormuz has been largely closed since coordinated U.S. and Israeli strikes on Iran on February 28 killed Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, sparking a conflict that has severely disrupted global trade. With about 2,000 vessels stranded and oil prices surging above $100 a barrel, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has imposed strict passage controls, requiring ships to pay for escorted transit. Iran’s parliament is now considering legalizing these tolls as a revenue source.

The deal follows a week of intense Pakistani diplomacy, including talks between Pakistan’s army chief and U.S. President Donald Trump. Islamabad has offered to host peace talks if all parties agree.

Malaysia has been detaining Israeli passport holders in increasing numbers at Kuala Lumpur International Airport, according to a report published on March 28 by Wynet Global. In recent months, at least eight Israelis have been held, some while attempting to enter Malaysia and others while using the country as a transit point to other Asian destinations. The two nations do not maintain formal diplomatic relations.

One incident involved four young Israelis detained during a transit stop on their way from Thailand to the Philippines. Two of them said they had consulted a chatbot about the safety of transiting through Kuala Lumpur and received a positive response before deciding to travel. In another case, two Israeli men traveling from Cambodia to the Philippines were detained and later sent back to Cambodia after two days.

The report noted that detentions usually last 24 to 48 hours but can extend when other countries refuse entry to deported Israelis. The Israeli embassy in Singapore has intervened in several cases, and Ambassador Eliyahu Vered Hazan urged citizens to avoid travel or transit through Malaysia due to growing risks and complications.

A mobile court led by Sitakunda Upazila Nirbahi Officer and Executive Magistrate Md. Fakhrul Islam conducted an operation in the Bhatiari area on Saturday amid a nationwide fuel supply crisis. The court fined Bhatiari Filling Station Tk 50,000 under the Mobile Court Act for concealing government information and discrepancies in oil stock records. Officials found that the station reported 1,100 liters of octane but actually stored 1,069 liters more than declared.

To prevent illegal fuel hoarding or smuggling, the administration has appointed tag officers at every petrol pump for regular monitoring. While most stations maintained accurate records, irregularities were confirmed at Bhatiari Filling Station, prompting legal action. The same mobile court also fined three minibuses Tk 2,000 each for overcharging passengers on the Alangkar–Sitakunda route.

Officials said the trend of overcharging has recently increased, causing financial distress to passengers. They pledged to continue regular drives and urged passengers to report any fare violations immediately. Local residents welcomed the initiative as timely and beneficial for restoring discipline in the fuel and transport sectors.

At least seven people were killed in an Israeli attack on the southern Lebanese city of Al-Haniyah, according to the Health Emergency Operations Center under Lebanon’s Ministry of Health. The agency reported that among the dead were six Syrians, including one child.

In a separate incident, two police officers were killed in Iraq’s Mosul city following a U.S.-Israeli strike on a police facility, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said in a statement cited by Al Jazeera. The ministry confirmed that the attack directly targeted an Iraqi police installation.

The incidents come amid heightened regional tensions, with both Lebanon and Iraq reporting casualties from strikes linked to Israel and its allies.

Millions of people across more than 3,100 cities in the United States joined the 'No Kings' protests on Saturday, denouncing President Donald Trump’s policies, rising living costs, and the war with Iran. The demonstrations also spread to several European countries, including Italy, France, Germany, and Spain, where large crowds gathered in solidarity. Major US cities such as Minneapolis, Boston, Washington DC, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Chicago, and Seattle saw significant turnouts, with Philadelphia hosting one of the largest gatherings.

New York Attorney General Letitia James, who participated in the protests, said she and thousands of others were fighting to protect democracy, emphasizing that no one is above the law and that respect for due process forms the foundation of American democracy. Television host Padma Lakshmi also addressed the demonstrations, calling for accountability, transparency, and empathy from elected leaders.

Organizers noted that this year’s protests follow previous 'No Kings' demonstrations and come amid economic strain and nationwide immigration crackdowns. The movement’s expansion into Europe underscores growing international concern over Trump’s leadership and policies.

Bangladeshi physician Dr. Ashrafun Nahar has achieved success in in-vitro maturation (IVM) research aimed at treating infertility among women suffering from polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). Her team conducted the study at the Colorado Center for Reproductive Medicine in the United States, and the findings were presented at the American Society for Reproductive Medicine’s annual scientific congress and expo. The research identified the benefits of antioxidant supplementation in oocytes, showing particular promise for PCOS patients.

According to the study, IVM is an advanced assisted reproductive technology that matures immature eggs outside the body, reducing the need for hormone injections compared to IVF. The research involved 15 patients with an average age of 30.5 years, average BMI of 28.5 kg/m², and average anti-Müllerian hormone level of 8.5 ng/mL. The process used minimal hormonal stimulation and avoided human chorionic gonadotropin triggers. Some oocytes were matured with mitoquinone to assess antioxidant effects.

The study reported five live births from the current IVM research and a total of 14 IVM births at the Colorado center, highlighting the potential of this low-risk fertility treatment for PCOS patients.

The Babylon.js team has announced the release of Babylon.js 9.0, described as its most feature-rich and powerful update yet. The new version introduces a range of enhancements aimed at improving performance, visual fidelity, and creative flexibility for web-based 3D rendering. Key additions include a Clustered Lighting system for faster multi-light scenes, emission texture support for area lights, and a new Node Particle Editor that allows visual creation of complex particle systems. The update also debuts Flow Maps, gravity attractors, and a Volumetric Lighting system for realistic atmospheric effects.

Further advancements include the full release of the Frame Graph system, which provides fine-grained control over the rendering pipeline and significant GPU memory savings. Babylon.js 9.0 also adds animation retargeting, enabling animations to be shared across characters with different skeletons, and extends Gaussian Splatting capabilities with new file formats, shadow support, and composable volumetric scenes. The developers expressed gratitude to the community and contributors for their ongoing support.

The release marks a major step toward Babylon.js’s mission to deliver an open, high-performance web rendering engine that empowers developers to create immersive, next-generation experiences.

Mistral AI has released Voxtral TTS, its first text-to-speech model designed for multilingual, emotionally expressive voice generation. The 4-billion-parameter model delivers realistic speech in nine languages, including English, French, German, Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, Hindi, and Arabic. It supports diverse dialects, low latency, and quick adaptation to new voices, making it suitable for enterprise-grade voice agent workflows. Voxtral TTS is available for testing in Mistral Studio and through an API priced at $0.016 per 1,000 characters.

The model emphasizes contextual understanding and speaker modeling, capturing natural speech patterns such as rhythm, pauses, and emotional tone. Comparative human evaluations show Voxtral TTS achieves superior naturalness to ElevenLabs Flash v2.5 while maintaining similar latency. It can adapt to a custom voice using as little as three seconds of reference audio and demonstrates zero-shot cross-lingual voice adaptation, producing natural-sounding speech with accent transfer.

Voxtral TTS integrates with Mistral’s broader audio intelligence ecosystem, including Voxtral Transcribe, and is also available as open weights on Hugging Face under a CC BY NC 4.0 license.

At least 22 migrants died in the Mediterranean Sea while attempting to travel from Libya to Greece, according to reports received on Saturday night. Twenty-six others were rescued from the same boat, including 21 Bangladeshis. Families of the missing said the deaths were not caused by a boat sinking but by starvation and thirst after the vessel suffered mechanical failure and drifted for nearly a week.

Relatives from Sunamganj district in Bangladesh confirmed that among the dead were ten people from the area, including residents of Dirai, Doarabazar, and Jagannathpur upazilas. Survivors reported that many bodies were thrown into the sea. The rescued group included 21 Bangladeshis, four from South Sudan, and one from Chad. Two of the survivors were hospitalized in Heraklion, Crete, in critical condition.

The incident highlights the continuing peril faced by migrants attempting to cross the Mediterranean, with mechanical failures and lack of food and water proving deadly for many aboard.

The World Trade Organization opened its 14th ministerial conference in Yaounde, Cameroon, on Thursday amid warnings of a potential “disorderly collapse” if members fail to agree on new global trade rules. Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala said the world was experiencing the worst trade disruptions in 80 years and that the old world order would not return. The meeting comes as global economic turmoil, driven by conflict in the Middle East and rising protectionism, challenges the multilateral trading system.

Sharp divisions emerged among major economies over the WTO’s “most-favoured nation” (MFN) principle, which requires equal tariff treatment for all partners. The United States, represented by Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, criticized the system as unworkable and called for smaller group agreements. China’s Commerce Minister Wang Wentao defended MFN as the “bedrock” of global trade, warning against discriminatory treatment. The European Union proposed a more flexible framework, while the United Kingdom cautioned that failure to reach consensus could fragment the system.

The Yaounde gathering follows years of stalled negotiations, with the WTO’s consensus-based decision-making often paralyzed by individual objections, leaving the future of multilateral trade cooperation uncertain.

A month after the US and Israel launched strikes on Iran on February 28, polls show widespread public disapproval of the conflict and rising fuel prices, yet US lawmakers have taken no concrete steps to limit President Donald Trump’s authority. The Senate again failed to pass a War Powers resolution this week, voting 53–47 along party lines, while House Democratic leaders have reportedly backed away from holding a similar vote despite having enough support to pass it.

Analysts cited political caution among Democrats and strong partisan alignment among Republicans, with most GOP lawmakers backing Trump’s prosecution of the war. Public surveys show 61 percent of Americans disapprove of the conflict, and Trump’s approval rating has fallen to its lowest point since taking office. The administration has not outlined a clear endgame, instead emphasizing Iran’s military degradation and the killing of senior officials.

The Pentagon has deployed additional troops to the region, raising fears of a ground invasion. Some Republicans have questioned a $200 billion funding request, while dissenting conservative voices warn the war contradicts Trump’s “America First” promises. Observers say the conflict’s duration and economic impact could shape its political fallout ahead of the midterm elections.

London’s Metropolitan Police arrested 18 supporters of Palestine Action on Saturday after announcing a reversal of its earlier decision to halt such arrests. The protesters were detained under terrorism legislation while sitting on the steps of New Scotland Yard holding signs expressing opposition to genocide and support for Palestine Action. The arrests came days after Deputy Assistant Commissioner James Harman said the force would resume enforcement because the government’s appeal against a High Court ruling had not yet been resolved.

In February, the High Court ruled that the government’s decision to ban Palestine Action as a terrorist organisation was unlawful and disproportionate. However, the government obtained a stay pending appeal, leaving the ban technically in force. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has pledged to challenge the ruling, while Chief Magistrate Paul Goldspring paused hundreds of related prosecutions until the appeal is heard. Critics argue that the police’s renewed arrests defy the court’s judgment.

The crackdown has drawn international criticism, including from the UN and Amnesty International, which warned that the ban risks criminalising free expression. Defend Our Juries has announced a mass sign-holding protest at Trafalgar Square on April 11 as the government’s appeal proceeds.

Reza Pahlavi, the son of Iran’s former shah, addressed the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Grapevine, Texas, on Saturday, calling on US President Donald Trump to reject any deal with Iran and instead pursue regime change. Declaring his intention to “make Iran great again,” Pahlavi received a standing ovation from the audience, some of whom chanted “Long live the king.” His remarks coincided with the one-month anniversary of the US and Israel’s joint war against Iran, which has killed at least 1,937 people and injured tens of thousands.

Pahlavi has become a prominent opposition figure among the Iranian diaspora, whose supporters often display his image and the pre-revolutionary flag at global protests. While some exiles have voiced concern over the war’s toll on civilians, Pahlavi has aligned himself with Trump’s most hawkish allies, insisting that “this regime in its entirety must go.” Analysts, however, caution that Iran’s government is unlikely to collapse and may emerge more hardened.

Within the US, the war has exposed divisions among conservatives. Polls show strong Republican support for the conflict, while overall US voters largely oppose it. Some right-wing commentators and younger activists have criticized the war as a betrayal of Trump’s earlier promises to avoid foreign entanglements.