Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Brazil.
Today's three stories you should know.
Sri Lanka
After weeks of chaos, things appear to be getting worse in Sri Lanka with protesters calling a national strike and the government digging in by declaring a state of emergency. It is the second time in five weeks that President Gotabaya Rajapaksa has invoked emergency powers as demonstrators demand he steps down over the country’s worst economic crisis since achieving independence in 1948.
More from Al Jazeera here.
Ethiopia
More horrific stories from arguably the world’s most under-reported war. BBC reports that the remains of hundreds of people are being systematically destroyed to cover up a campaign of ethnic cleansing in the north of the country. A conflict erupted in the Tigray region almost 18 months ago between the then regional ruling party, the TPLF, and the central government in Addis Ababa. Rights groups have since accused government forces of carrying out mass killings of Tigrayan civilians.
More from BBC here.
Brazil
In what is becoming a familiar pattern, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon hit a new record in April after previous records were broken in January and February. It is the first time deforestation has surpassed 1,000 square kilometers during a rainy season month. “The April number is very scary. Due to the rain, it is traditionally a month with less deforestation,” Suely Araújo, a senior public policy specialist at the Climate Observatory, a network of environmental groups, said.
More from AP here.