International news with relevance to Thai and regional readers
HONG KONG (Reuters) – Bitcoin fell below $43,000 on Thursday, testing multi-month lows after minutes from the Federal Reserve’s last meeting showed it leaning toward more aggressive policy action, which sapped investor appetite for riskier assets. The world’s largest cryptocurrency was last at $42,700, down 1.7%, having lost 5.2% on Wednesday. A break below last
WASHINGTON, Jan 5 (Reuters) – A year after then-President Donald Trump’s supporters launched a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, signs of heightened security are visible everywhere, from police riot shields ready near doorways to metal detectors outside the House of Representatives chamber. Miles of steel fencing that ringed the Capitol complex after the riot came down in
Pope Francis risked the ire of the world’s childless dog and cat owners Wednesday, suggesting people who substitute pets for kids exhibit “a certain selfishness”. Speaking on parenthood during a general audience at the Vatican, Francis lamented that pets “sometimes take the place of children” in society. “Today… we see a form of selfishness,” said the pope. “We see that some people do
WASHINGTON (AP) — The fighting — so primitive and ferocious that one Capitol Police officer described it as “medieval” and another as a “trip to hell” — left more than 100 law enforcement personnel injured, some beaten with their own weapons. Video cameras captured the violence live, with rioters clubbing officers with flag polls and
SYDNEY (AP) — Australia and Japan will sign a treaty on Thursday to increase defense and security cooperation in a move that has been hailed as “historic” but which might anger China. Prime ministers Scott Morrison of Australia and Fumio Kishida of Japan will meet in a virtual summit to sign the agreement, which Morrison
BOSTON (AP) — A refugee who survived the Khmer Rouge’s brutal rule has become the first Cambodian American mayor in the United States. Sokhary Chau, a city councilor in Lowell, Massachusetts, was unanimously picked by his council peers to assume the legislative body’s top post on Monday. He also became the city’s first Asian American
The Beijing Winter Olympics begin one month on Tuesday with diplomatic boycotts, the coronavirus and the fate of Peng Shuai all hanging heavy over the Games. The Chinese capital on February 4-20 will become the first host of a Winter and Summer Olympics, having staged the Games in 2008, seen then as a coming-out party
Jan 1 (Reuters) – The Omicron coronavirus variant dampened New Year festivities around much of the world, as cities from Paris to Kuala Lumpur cancelled civic celebrations, but London threw a last-minute party on television and Cape Town suddenly lifted a longstanding curfew. The midnight hour passed in Paris without a planned fireworks display or
SHANGHAI, (Reuters) – Thousands of people left messages on the social media account of the late Chinese COVID-19 whistleblower Li Wenliang on the anniversary of the day he learned of possible pneumonia-causing virus cases in Wuhan and shared the information with fellow doctors. On Dec. 30, 2019, Li, an ophthalmologist at a hospital in Wuhan where the Sars-CoV-2 virus outbreak
US President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin will speak Thursday in a latest effort to defuse tensions surrounding Moscow’s military build-up on the border with Ukraine. It will be the second telephone call in less than a month between the two leaders, with Biden in early December warning Putin of “severe consequences”
Hong Kong police raided the office of a local media outlet and arrested six current and former staff on Wednesday, deepening fears for press freedom in a territory where media rights have been massively curtailed in recent years. Suppression of Hong Kong’s local press has increased in the wake of 2019’s huge and often violent
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — North Korea opened a key political conference Monday to review past projects and discuss new policies amid the pandemic and a diplomatic deadlock with the United States. The official Korean Central News Agency said Tuesday that leader Kim Jong Un presided over a plenary meeting of the Central Committee of
