International news with relevance to Thai and regional readers
TAIPEI/WASHINGTON, Aug 14 (Reuters) – A delegation of U.S. lawmakers arrived in Taiwan on Sunday for a two-day trip during which they will meet President Tsai Ing-wen, the second high-level group to visit while there are military tensions between the self-ruled island and China. Beijing, which claims democratically governed Taiwan as its own territory, has
CHAUTAUQUA, N.Y. (AP) — Salman Rushdie, whose novel “The Satanic Verses” drew death threats from Iran’s leader in the 1980s, was stabbed in the neck and abdomen Friday by a man who rushed the stage as the author was about to give a lecture in western New York. A bloodied Rushdie, 75, was flown to
PHOENIX (AP) — Arizona began moving in shipping containers to close a 1,000-foot gap in the border wall near the southern Arizona farming community of Yuma on Friday, with officials saying they were acting to stop migrants after repeated, unfulfilled promises from the Biden administration to block off the area. The move by Arizona comes
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A ship approached Ukraine on Friday to pick up wheat for hungry people in Ethiopia, in the first food delivery to Africa under a U.N.-brokered plan to unblock grain trapped by Russia’s war on Ukraine and bring relief to some of the millions worldwide on the brink of starvation. For months, fighting in
CETINJE, Montenegro (AP) — A man went on a shooting rampage in the streets of this western Montenegro city Friday, killing 10 people, including two children, before being shot dead by a passerby, officials said. Montenegrin police chief Zoran Brdjanin said in a video statement shared with media that attacker was a 34-year-old man he
SEOUL, Aug 13 (Reuters) – North Korea has dropped a face mask mandate and other social distancing rules as leader Kim Jong Un declared victory over COVID-19 this week, state media said on Saturday, three months after its first acknowledgement of the virus outbreak in the isolated country. Kim presided over a COVID meeting on Wednesday and ordered the lifting of maximum anti-epidemic measures imposed in May,
Around one million children in London will be offered a polio booster vaccine after the virus was detected in sewage samples across the capital, health officials said Wednesday. “Following the discovery of type 2 vaccine-derived poliovirus in sewage in north and east London,” a targetted booster does would be offered to children between one and
Dozens of people in China have fallen ill with a new virus that is also found in shrews, a report has said, but there is so far no evidence of human-to-human transmission. The infections were found in China’s eastern Shandong and central Henan provinces, affecting 35 people, according to a report in the New England
Taiwan’s army held another live-fire drill Thursday after Beijing ended its largest-ever military exercises around the island, as it repeated threats to bring the self-ruled democracy under its control. Beijing has raged at a trip to Taiwan last week by US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi — the highest-ranking elected American official to visit in decades
A year since returning to power in Afghanistan, the Taliban are a stronger military force than ever, but threats to their rule do exist. To tighten their grip, the Taliban have poured thousands of fighters into the Panshjir Valley, home to the only conventional military threat the Islamists have faced since their takeover. The scenic
BEIJING/TAIPEI, Aug 10 (Reuters) – China’s military has “completed various tasks” around Taiwan but will conduct regular patrols, it said on Wednesday, potentially signalling an end to days of war games but also that Beijing will keep up its pressure on the island. Furious at a visit to Taipei last week by U.S. House of
Sri Lanka’s ousted President Gotabaya Rajapaksa is due to arrive in Bangkok tomorrow (Thursday) from Singapore, after the Thai government agreed to allow him temporary shelter in the country, with the intention of onward travel. Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said that the former president holds a diplomatic passport, which was approved by the Sri
