Chennai Super Kings left the bottom of the table and joined four other teams on four points by achieving two successive wins for the first time in exactly two years. Despite losing the toss and bowling in heavy dew, CSK kept Kolkata Knight Riders winless this season by sealing a 32-run victory at Chepauk.

Sanju Samson, Dewald Brevis and Ayush Mhatre got CSK to 192 on a surface that was not easy to dominate on outside the powerplay, and then Anshul Kamboj and Khaleel Ahmed got the big wickets of Finn Allen and Sunil Narine inside the powerplay. Having scored double of KKR’s 36 in the first six overs, CSK slammed the door with their spinners bowling eight overs for 47 runs and four wickets.

Facing early elimination now, KKR’s bowling improved with the return of Varun Chakravarthy, but their batting continued to be lightweight for the modern T20 game even though they pushed Narine up to open the batting.

About 250 Rohingya and Bangladeshis, including children, are missing after their boat capsized last week in the Andaman Sea, according to the United Nations’ refugee and migration agencies.

The trawler, which had departed from Bangladesh and was bound for Malaysia, “reportedly sank due to heavy winds, rough seas and overcrowding”, the agencies said.

The Bangladesh Coast Guard told AFP news agency one of its ships rescued nine people from the vessel on 9 April. It is unclear when exactly the boat capsized.

Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya, one of Myanmar’s many ethnic minorities, have been fleeing across the border into Bangladesh since a deadly crackdown in 2017.

The Rohingya, who are primarily Muslim, are denied citizenship by the government of Myanmar, a Buddhist-majority country.

Poor living conditions in Bangladesh however have also prompted some Rohingya to make precarious journeys on overcrowded vessels to Malaysia, a Muslim country which some envision to be a safe haven in the region.

Rafiqul Islam, one of the survivors, told AFP he floated for nearly 36 hours before being rescued, adding that he was burned by oil that spilled from the vessel.

The 40-year-old said the promise of a job in Malaysia was what persuaded him to get on the boat.

“This tragic incident reflects the dire consequences of protracted displacement and the absence of durable solutions for the Rohingya,” the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in its statement jointly issued with the International Organization for Migration.

Ongoing violence in Rakhine, their home state in Myanmar, has “faded hopes of safe return in the near future”, the agencies said, noting that shrinking humanitarian assistance and challenging living conditions in refugee camps have pushed them to “take such dangerous sea journeys in search of safety and opportunity”.

These boats are often small and cramped, lacking in basic facilities like fresh water and sanitation. They do not always make it to their destinations. Some die at sea, while others are sometimes detained or deported.

Some have also been turned away upon nearing Malaysia and Indonesia, either by authorities or local coastal communities. In January 2025, Malaysia turned away two boats carrying around 300 refugees after giving the passengers food and water.

“People are dying in the fighting, dying from hunger. So some think it’s better to die at sea than to die slowly here,” a Rohingya refugee in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, had previously told Reuters.

In their statement on Tuesday, the UN agencies called on the international community to sustain funding for Rohingya refugees and their host communities in Bangladesh.

They added: “As Bangladesh marks its new year, this tragedy is a reminder of the efforts urgently needed to address the root causes of displacement in Myanmar and create conditions that would allow Rohingya refugees return home voluntarily, safely and with dignity.”

[BBC]

President Donald Trump has suggested talks aimed at ending the war in Iran could resume this week, after negotiations collapsed at the weekend, prompting the US to blockade Iranian ports.

“You should stay there [Islamabad], really, because something could be happening over the next two days, and we’re more inclined to go there,” Trump was quoted as saying in an interview with the New York Post.

His remarks came as the American military said no ships had passed through the US-enforced blockade of Iranian ports and coastal areas in the first 24 hours of the operation.

The stand-off has raised doubts over the prospects for a two-week ceasefire that is due to expire next week.

The Iranian side has not yet responded to Trump’s remarks, but United Nations Secretary General António Guterres said it was “highly probable” that talks would restart.

Gulf, Pakistani and Iranian officials also said negotiating teams from Washington and Tehran could return to Pakistan later this week, with no date yet agreed, Reuters news agency reports.

Hopes that diplomacy might continue helped soothe oil markets, pushing benchmark prices below $100 on Tuesday.

Iran has effectively shut the Strait of Hormuz, a crucial global waterway for oil and gas transport, since it came under attack from US and Israeli air strikes on 28 February.

More than a dozen US warships and some 10,000 US military personnel are now enforcing the blockade against vessels of any country entering or leaving Iranian ports, starving Iran of a vital economic lifeline.

It is aimed at putting pressure on Tehran by targeting two of the country’s major money sources: oil revenue and the significant tolls Iran demanded from ships for passage through the critical waterway.

US Central Command (Centcom), which has responsibility for US military activity in the Middle East and parts of Central Asia, said six merchant vessels had “complied with direction” from American forces to turn around and return to Iranian ports in the first 24 hours of the blockade.

Ship-tracking data analysed by BBC Verify showed that at least four Iran-linked shipping vessels had crossed the Strait of Hormuz despite the blockade. At least two of the ships had previously been at Iranian ports.

A further three ships that were not linked to Iran were seen to have crossed the strait after the blockade started on Monday, BBC Verify found.

Initial high-level negotiations that took place in the Pakistani capital of Islamabad over the weekend failed to produce any deal, with the US saying that Iran hadn’t agreed to its terms.

Iran’s nuclear ambitions were a key sticking point.

The US had proposed a 20-year suspension of all uranium enrichment by Iran, a US official told the BBC’s US partner CBS News.

But Tehran had suggested a halt of five years, sources told other US media.

Vice-President JD Vance, who led the US negotiations in Islamabad, told a conservative political event on Tuesday that he believed Iran wanted a deal.

“There is a lot of, of course, mistrust between Iran and the United States of America,” Vance told a Turning Point USA event in Georgia. “You are not going to solve that problem overnight.”

As the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned the war could plunge the global economy into recession, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told the BBC that a small bit of economic pain is worthwhile for long-term international security.

But China described the blockade as “dangerous and irresponsible” and warned that it would only “exacerbate tensions and undermine the already fragile ceasefire agreement”.

Meanwhile, Israel and Lebanon have agreed to launch direct negotiations after talks in Washington on Tuesday, stemming from Israeli airstrikes on its northern neighbour targeting the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah.

The meeting at the US state department marked the first direct talks between the two countries’ officials since 1993.

A US official stressed to the BBC that there was no link between the negotiations between the US and Iran in Islamabad and the Israel-Lebanon talks in Washington.

[BBC]