International news with relevance to Thai and regional readers
Ukraine’s interior minister was among more than a dozen people killed in a helicopter crash Wednesday near a kindergarten outside Kyiv, spurring condolences from allies. Officials initially said that 18 people had died but later revised the toll down to 16, including one of the minister’s deputies and three children. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described
Ambulance services were called to Sydney airport on Wednesday afternoon to meet an incoming Qantas plane that had issued a mid-air mayday alert. The flight — QF144 — was believed to be carrying more than 100 passengers from New Zealand, an ambulance spokeswoman said. The plane, a Boeing 737-800, appeared to land safely at Sydney
China’s population shrank last year for the first time in more than six decades, official data showed Tuesday, as the world’s most populous country faces a looming demographic crisis. The nation of 1.4 billion has seen birth rates plunge to record lows as its workforce ages, in a rapid decline that analysts warn could stymie
Killings of journalists and media workers surged 50 percent in 2022 to reach 86 worldwide, marking one death every four days, UN cultural body UNESCO said Monday. Last year’s increase followed three years with lower violence against reporters, with an average of 58 killings annually in 2019-21. “After several years of consecutive declines, the steep
Searchers on Monday found both the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from a passenger flight that crashed killing at least 68 people in Nepal’s worst plane accident in 30 years, officials said. The data on the recorders may help investigators determine what caused the Yeti Airlines ATR 72 aircraft, carrying 72 people, to crash in clear weather on Sunday just before
At least four Chinese-owned supertankers are shipping Russian Urals crude to China, according to trading sources and tracking data, as Moscow seeks vessels for exports after a G7 oil price cap restricted the use of Western cargo services and insurance. China, the world’s top oil importer, has continued buying Russian oil despite Western sanctions, after Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping launched what they called a no-limit partnership before the
At least 67 people were confirmed dead Sunday when a plane with 72 on board crashed in Nepal, police said, in the Himalayan country’s deadliest aviation disaster in three decades. “Thirty-one (bodies) have been taken to hospitals,” police official AK Chhetri told AFP, adding that 36 other bodies were still in the 300-metre (600-foot) gorge the
Ukraine said Russia had unleashed a fresh barrage of missiles Saturday, killing at least 14 people, as Britain became the first Western country to offer it the heavy tanks it has long been seeking. The British move drew a swift reaction from Moscow, which warned it would only “intensify” the conflict. Moldova meanwhile, said debris
Russia said on Friday that its forces had taken control of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, in what would be a rare success for Moscow after months of battlefield reverses, but Kyiv said its troops were still fighting in the town. Reuters could not immediately verify the situation in Soledar, a small salt-mining town that has for days been the focus of a relentless Russian assault. Kyiv and the West have
China’s economic growth for 2022 is expected to have been among its weakest in four decades after the twin crises of the pandemic and property woes, analysts said ahead of Tuesday’s GDP announcement. Ten experts interviewed by AFP forecast an average 2.7 percent year-on-year rise in gross domestic product (GDP) for the world’s second-largest economy,
Aviation authorities were racing Wednesday to figure out what caused the outage of a crucial alert system that forced the temporary halt on all US domestic takeoffs, triggering thousands of delays and cancellations. The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said normal operations were being restored but the early morning halt created knock-on effects that snarled travel throughout the day. The grounding order
The United States said Wednesday that attacks in space would invoke its defense treaty with Japan and announced the deployment of a more agile Marine unit in its ally as alarm grows over China. Weeks after unveiling plans to ramp up defense spending, Japan sent its defense and foreign ministers to Washington for talks on updating the decades-old alliance. They will be
