What happened
More than 900 people have died and hundreds remain missing after catastrophic floods and landslides struck Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Thailand. Sri Lanka has recorded 334 deaths after Cyclone Ditwah triggered widespread flooding and mudslides, with Colombo’s low-lying districts still underwater and nearly 148,000 people displaced. In Indonesia, 442 people have died and hundreds are unaccounted for on the island of Sumatra, where several areas remain unreachable. Thailand has reported 162 deaths during its worst flooding in a decade.

Who said what
Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has declared a state of emergency, warning: “We are facing the largest and most challenging natural disaster in our history.”

The floods are “the latest example of the impact of the climate crisis on storm patterns”, said Angelique Chrisafis in The Guardian. Southeast Asia is “one of the areas most vulnerable to climate change”, said Laura Sharman on CNN.

What next?
Rescue efforts are being hampered by blocked roads, damaged communications and a shortage of heavy equipment. With Cyclone Ditwah now heading toward India’s southern coast, authorities fear further disruptions as monsoon conditions continue.

What happened
The UK government has submitted the Cornish language, Kernewek, for part III status under the European charter for regional or minority languages, placing it on the same legal footing as Welsh, Irish and Scottish Gaelic. The upgrade, the strongest protection available, would require the state to promote the use of Cornish across education, courts, administration, media and cultural life.

Who said what
Cornwall Council leader Leigh Frost welcomed the move, calling it “brilliant news” and saying it showed that “Cornish matters”. This is “‘Pur dha’ news for Cornish language speakers”, agreed Samuel Montgomery in The Telegraph. “That’s ‘very good’ in Kernewek,” he explained. It is a “remarkable rise for a language that was once considered dead”, said Lee Trewhela on Cornwall Live.

What next?
Cornish has seen a rapid growth in interest, including more than a million online dictionary searches last year, 650 translation requests, annual class enrolments above 200 and nearly 6,000 children learning through Go Cornish. Cornwall Council estimates that 2,000 to 5,000 people now speak basic Cornish. Campaigners hope that the new protections will expand teaching and embed the language more widely.

Israel’s famed Iron Dome air defence system – the envy of many nations around the world – may eventually have a copycat version in Taiwan. The president of Taiwan has announced a “historic” £30 billion in defence spending that will include developing a “T-dome” air defence system enhanced with artificial intelligence, drones and other hi-tech equipment to boost Taiwan’s “asymmetric” defence against a Chinese attack.

Tensions are mounting over the self-governing democracy, which Beijing still considers Chinese territory. Chinese President Xi Jinping has repeatedly expressed his intention to “reunify” the island with China and Taiwan’s President Lai Ching-te, writing in The Washington Post, said Beijing’s “willingness to alter the status quo by force has become increasingly evident” through its “intensifying provocations” around the island.

Equipped with “multi-layered defence, high-level detection and effective interception”, the T-Dome would “weave a safety net” to protect citizens, said Lai.

The planned missile defence system would likely be used to protect the island in case of invasion, or against “targeted strikes calibrated to force Taiwan to negotiate without triggering a military response from the US”, according to the Financial Times.

But Taiwan’s defence spending has already doubled in recent years and Lai will have to get the supplementary budget approved by a parliament controlled by the Kuomintang partly, which is closer to Beijing. Hsu Chiao-hsin, a Kuomintang politician, called the planned spending “astronomical”, said The Washington Post, and suggested that it could “turn Taiwan into a wartime state”.

China responded with predictable aggression; its foreign ministry said Taiwan would “never succeed” in its attempts to resist reunification.