Asia News Wrap: Record heat wave rips through Asia, and more

Here are a few stories from around Asia you may have missed this week.

Extreme heat has blasted Asia from India to Indonesia in recent weeks, causing heatstroke deaths, school closures and hospitalizations. Many countries in Asia have experienced their hottest April in decades. 

South Korea experienced its hottest April since records began in 1973, the state weather agency said on Tuesday, with average daily temperatures more than 2.5 degrees Celsius higher than in previous years. April was also the hottest month recorded in 40 years in Indonesia as the country's weather agency recorded an increase of nearly 1 degree Celsius, the highest temperature anomaly observed in any April of the past four decades. The country's Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency recorded an increase of nearly 1 degree Celsius for April's average temperature compared with the last three decades, from 26.9 degrees Celsius on average between 1991 and 2020 to 27.7 degrees Celsius in 2024.

China's new Long March-6C carrier rocket made its debut flight on Tuesday, placing four satellites in space. The rocket blasted off at 11:21 a.m. (Beijing Time) from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China's Shanxi Province, sending Neptune-01 and Smart-1C, a broad-band optical satellite and a high-resolution video satellite respectively, into planned orbits. It was the 520th flight mission of the Long March rocket series and marked the introduction of the latest of China's new generation of Long March carrier rockets.

One of the rocket's notable features is its adjustable satellite payload fairings, allowing it to accommodate a range of satellite sizes. This adaptability makes the rocket suitable for various needs and mission-specific requirements.

Three Taliban security personnel were killed when a motorcycle carrying an explosive device blew up in northern Afghanistan near a military vehicle being used in opium poppy eradication operations, an Interior Ministry spokesman said on Wednesday. "The explosion took place as the police convoy was passing for the purpose of opium poppy eradication," said Abdul Matin Qaniee, adding that five other people were injured.

Protests have broken out in several districts in the northern province of Badakhshan, where farmers object to Taliban security forces' attempts to wipe out opium cultivation which is the backbone of many household incomes in the country.

A volcano in eastern Indonesia erupted on Wednesday and spewed ash almost a mile into the sky, prompting officials to raise an alert level to the second highest and warn people to keep away. Mount Ibu, located on the island of Halmahera in North Maluku province, erupted at 11:11 a.m. local time and sent a thick column of dark smoke and ash above the peak. The volcano spewed ash 1.5 kilometers above its peak, Indonesia's volcanology agency (PVMBG) said. 

"Based on the results of visual and instrumental monitoring... Mount Ibu's activity level has been raised from level two to level three" of a four-tiered system, said PVMBG chief Hendra Gunawan in a statement. The authorities formed an exclusion zone between 3km and 5km around the volcano's crater.

Thailand will re-list cannabis as a narcotic by year-end, its prime minister said on Tuesday, in a U-turn just two years after becoming the first country in Asia to decriminalize its recreational use. The moves comes despite rapid growth of the domestic retail sector for marijuana, with tens of thousands of shops and businesses springing up in Thailand in the past two years in an industry projected to be worth up to $1.2 billion by 2025. 

"I want the Health Ministry to amend the rules and re-list cannabis as a narcotic," Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said on social media platform X. "The ministry should quickly issue a rule to allow its usage for health and medical purposes only." Cannabis was decriminalized for medical use in 2018 and recreational use in 2022 under a previous government.

(Cover: A student drinks water while standing outside the classroom during a heat wave at a primary school in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, May 7, 2024. /CFP)