International news with relevance to Thai and regional readers
New Zealand set a 90-percent vaccination target Friday for scrapping lockdowns as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern unveiled a plan to open up despite the stubborn grip of the Delta variant. Ardern said her goal had shifted from eliminating Covid-19 to minimizing its spread in the community by ramping up vaccinations. She said the change meant
China has no desire to engage in a Cold War with the US and has no intention of forcing countries in the region to choose sides, said Chinese Ambassador to Thailand Han Zhiqiang. He also pledged to work for closer ties and cooperation between China and Thailand which he described as “one family”. The ambassador
A gas explosion at a restaurant ripped through a busy street in a major Chinese city on Thursday, killing at least three people and injuring dozens, state media reported. Dramatic footage from a nearby car’s dashboard camera, published by state media, showed a large cloud of smoke and dust erupting over the street, with
LONDON (Reuters) – Britain’s Queen Elizabeth, the world’s longest-reigning monarch, decided on Wednesday to rest for the next few days on advice from doctors and cancelled a planned visit to Northern Ireland, Buckingham Palace said. The palace did not say why the queen had been told to rest, though it said the 95-year-old monarch was in “good spirits” and looking forward to visiting Northern Ireland in
The death toll from days of flooding and landslides in India and Nepal crossed 100 on Wednesday, including several families swept away or crushed in their homes by avalanches of mud and rocks. Experts say that they were victims of ever-more unpredictable and extreme weather across South Asia in recent years caused by climate change
TOKYO, Oct 20 (Reuters) – A Japanese volcano spewed ash several miles into the sky when it erupted on Wednesday, prompting officials to warn people to steer clear of the threat of lava flows and falling rocks, but there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage. Mount Aso, a tourist destination on the main
LONDON, (Reuters) – Executives, beware! You could become your own worst enemy. CEOs and other managers are increasingly under the microscope as some investors use artificial intelligence to learn and analyse their language patterns and tone, opening up a new frontier of opportunities to slip up. In late 2020, according to language pattern software specialist Evan Schnidman, some executives in
(Reuters) – A Haitian gang that kidnapped a group of American and Canadian missionaries is asking for $17 million – or $1 million each – to release them, according to a top Haitian official. Justice Minister Liszt Quitel told Reuters that talks were under way with kidnappers to seek the release of the missionaries abducted over the weekend outside the capital, Port-au-Prince, by a gang called 400 Mawozo. The minister confirmed
Jerusalem (AFP) – Israel granted approval on Tuesday for 4,000 Palestinians to register as residents of the West Bank, the first such move in the Israeli-occupied territory in 12 years. The newly regularised residents had already been living in the West Bank, including 1,200 people considered “undocumented” because they had not been registered with the Palestinian Population Registry
Seoul (AFP) – North Korea fired a ballistic missile into the sea on Tuesday, South Korea’s military said, the latest in a series of tests by Pyongyang as a US envoy repeated calls for dialogue. The “unidentified ballistic missile” was fired from Sinpo into the sea east of the peninsula, Seoul’s Joint Chiefs of Staff
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Former President Donald Trump filed a lawsuit on Monday against the U.S. congressional committee investigating the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, alleging it made an illegal request for his White House records. Trump asserted in the lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia that materials sought by the House of Representatives’ Jan. 6 Select Committee are covered by a legal doctrine known as executive
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Colin Powell, the first Black U.S. secretary of state and top military officer, died on Monday at the age of 84 due to complications from COVID-19. He was fully vaccinated, his family said in a statement on Facebook. “We have lost a remarkable and loving husband, father, grandfather and a great American,”
