Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa announced a transitional government on Saturday, appointing 23 ministers in a broadened cabinet seen as a key milestone in the transition from decades of Assad family rule and to improving Syria’s ties with the West, Reuters reported.

Syria’s new Sunni Islamist-led authorities have been under pressure from the West and Arab countries to form a government that is more inclusive of the country’s diverse ethnic and religious communities.

That pressure increased following the killings of hundreds of Alawite civilians – the minority sect from which toppled leader Bashar al-Assad hails – in violence along Syria’s western coast this month.

The cabinet included Yarub Badr, an Alawite who was named transportation minister, while Amgad Badr, who belongs to the Druze community, will lead the agriculture ministry.

Hind Kabawat, a Christian woman and part of the previous opposition to Assad who worked for interfaith tolerance and women’s empowerment, was appointed as social affairs and labor minister.

Mohammed Yosr Bernieh was named finance minister, read the report.

It kept Murhaf Abu Qasra and Asaad al-Shibani, who were already serving as defence and foreign ministers respectively in the previous caretaker cabinet that has governed Syria since Assad was toppled in December by a lightning rebel offensive.

Sharaa also said he established for the first time a ministry for sports and another for emergencies, with the head of a rescue group known as the White Helmets, Raed al-Saleh, appointed as the minister of emergencies.

In January, Sharaa was named as interim president and pledged to form an inclusive transitional government that would build up Syria’s gutted public institutions and run the country until elections, which he said could take up to five years to hold.

The government will not have a prime minister, with Sharaa expected to lead the executive branch.

Earlier this month, Syria issued a constitutional declaration, designed to serve as the foundation for the interim period led by Sharaa. The declaration kept a central role for Islamic law and guaranteed women’s rights and freedom of expression, Reuters reported.

A powerful earthquake rocked Southeast Asia on Friday, killing several people, bringing down a skyscraper under construction in Bangkok and toppling buildings in neighbouring Myanmar, where the ruling junta declared a state of emergency in some areas.

At least three people were killed in the town of Taungoo in Myanmar when a mosque partially collapsed, witnesses said, while local media reported that at least two people died and 20 were injured after a hotel collapsed in Aung Ban, Reuters reported.

In Thailand, at least one person was killed and dozens of workers were rescued from under the rubble of the skyscraper that had been under construction in Bangkok, Thailand’s National Institute of Emergency Medicine said.

Bangkok’s city authorities declared the capital a disaster-stricken area, saying they needed to assess and monitor damaged areas, and assist people who might still be at risk.

In Bangkok, people ran out onto the streets in panic, many of them hotel guests in bathrobes and swimming costumes as water cascaded down from an elevated pool at a luxury hotel, witnesses said.

The United States Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake, which struck at lunchtime, was of 7.7 magnitude and at a depth of 10 km (6.2 miles). It was followed by a powerful aftershock.

The epicentre was about 17.2 km from the Myanmar city of Mandalay, which has a population of about 1.5 million.

Myanmar’s ruling military declared a state of emergency in multiple regions.

“The state will make inquiries on the situation quickly and conduct rescue operations along with providing humanitarian aid,” it said on the Telegram messaging app.

Mandalay is Myanmar’s ancient royal capital and at the centre of the country’s Buddhist heartland.

Social media posts showed collapsed buildings and debris strewn across streets in the city. Reuters could not immediately verify the posts.

One witness in the city told Reuters: “We all ran out of the house as everything started shaking. I witnessed a five-storey building collapse in front of my eyes. Everyone in my town is out on the road and no one dares to go back inside buildings.”

Another witness in the city, Htet Naing Oo, told Reuters that a tea shop had collapsed with several people trapped inside. “We couldn’t go in,” she said. “The situation is very bad.”

At least three people died after a mosque in Taungoo partially collapsed, two eyewitnesses told Reuters.

“We were saying prayers when the shaking started… Three died on the spot,” said one of two people who spoke to Reuters.

Local media reported a hotel in Aung Ban, in Shan state, crumbled into rubble, with one outlet, the Democratic Voice of Burma, reporting two people had died and 20 were trapped.

Video and images posted by Myanmar Now showed a roof cratered at a market in the capital, Naypyitaw.

In Mandalay, the outlet’s images showed a clock tower had collapsed and part of the wall by Mandalay Palace was in ruins.

China’s Xinhua news agency said strong tremors were felt in southwestern Yunnan province, which borders Myanmar, but there were no reports of casualties.

Witnesses contacted in Yangon, Myanmar’s largest city, said many people ran out of buildings.

OFFICE TOWER SHAKES IN BANGKOK

One office tower in downtown Bangkok swayed from side to side for at least two minutes, with doors and windows creaking loudly, witnesses said.

Hundreds of employees filed out via emergency stairs as some shocked and panicked workers froze. Loud shrieks could be heard as the building continued to sway.

Outside, hundreds gathered in the afternoon sun, while staff with medical kits found office chairs for the elderly and people in shock.

China’s Xinhua news agency said strong tremors were felt in southwestern Yunnan province, which borders Myanmar, but there were no reports of casualties.

Kamal Kharrazi, an adviser to Iran’s supreme leader, said on Thursday Tehran has not closed all doors to resolve its disputes with the United States and is ready for indirect negotiations with Washington.

Tehran has so far rebuffed U.S. President Donald Trump’s warning it to make a deal or face military consequences. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei called the message deceptive and Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said talks are impossible unless Washington changes its “maximum pressure” policy.

“The Islamic Republic has not closed all doors. It is ready for indirect negotiations with the United States in order to evaluate the other party, state its own conditions and make the appropriate decision,” Kharrazi said, according to the semi-official Iranian Students News Agency.

Iran is meant to soon reply to Trump’s letter, with Araqchi saying last week that Tehran would take into consideration both Trump’s threat and opportunities in its response.

In his first 2017-21 term, Trump withdrew the U.S. from a 2015 deal between Iran and world powers that placed strict limits on Tehran’s disputed nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

After Trump pulled out in 2018 and reimposed sweeping U.S. sanctions, the Islamic Republic breached and has since far surpassed those limits in its escalating programme of uranium enrichment.

Western powers accuse Iran of having an clandestine agenda to develop nuclear weapons capability by enriching uranium to a high level of fissile purity, above what they say is justifiable for a civilian atomic energy programme.

(Reuters)