International news with relevance to Thai and regional readers
Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Fisheries (MAFF) has asked Thailand to wait until the existing 8,000 tonnes import quota of Hom Tong banana is exhausted before applying for an increase. Under the Japan -Thailand Economic Partnership Agreement (JTEPA), 8,000 tonnes of Thai bananas are currently entitled to tariff exemptions. According to Thai trade representative
Beijing, China – China’s foreign minister warned Thursday that people in Taiwan seeking independence would be “liquidated by history”, as Beijing amps up its stern rhetoric towards the self-ruled island it claims as its own. “Anyone on the island of Taiwan who tries to go for Taiwan independence will inevitably be liquidated by history,” Wang Yi said,
Police in the southern province of Trang have detained a 60-year-old Swiss national who is alleged to have assaulted a Thai woman. Natchanan Kikkham filed a complaint with police on Tuesday, claiming that the man had bumped into her and walked away while in a department store. The woman then asked the Swiss man to
Donald Trump celebrated an “amazing night” as he closed in on the Republican presidential nomination with easy wins in the Super Tuesday primaries, setting up an all-but-certain rematch with President Joe Biden in November. Fifteen states and a US territory staged nominating contests on the biggest day of the 2024 race so far, with both
Melbourne, Australia – Leaders from Southeast Asia and Australia were Wednesday struggling to find common ground on the escalating crisis in Gaza, with nations split on a joint declaration. The deteriorating situation in the Gaza Strip was a topic of fierce debate as leaders from the 10-nation ASEAN bloc convened in Melbourne for a three-day summit
Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram were back up on Tuesday after a more than two-hour outage that was caused by a technical issue and impacted hundreds of thousands of users globally including Thailand. The disruptions started at around 22:00 ICT (1500 GMT), with many users saying on rival social media platform X they had been booted
Port-au-Prince, Haiti – Haiti’s capital was largely shut down Monday with residents only venturing out for essentials, AFP reporters witnessed, as authorities imposed a state of emergency after an attack on a prison freed thousands of inmates. As the latest crisis spiraled, Prime Minister Ariel Henry was still out of the country after a trip to
Five Thai people in Israel were injured, three of them seriously, when they were hit by shrapnel from an anti-tank rocket fired from Lebanon into a kibbutz in the north of the country on Monday night. The Thai Foreign Ministry said today that one non-Thai was killed the five Thais were injured in the incident.
Singapore, Singapore – Singapore said Monday its grant to Taylor Swift for her concerts in the city was nowhere near as high as speculated, following media reports that the superstar was offered millions of dollars per gig. Around 300,000 people from Singapore and around the region are expected to attend the six sold-out shows that began March 2 —
Thailand has offered an official apology to India over a remark made by a Thai trade representative at the 13th World Trade Organisation ministerial conference in the United Arab Emirates. The Thai representative is reported to have said, during the conference, that the Indian government’s measure to supply cheap rice to its people by subsidising
Oslo, Norway – Norway’s ailing King Harald V, 87, has been fitted with a pacemaker in a Malaysian hospital after contracting an infection while on holiday, the palace said. Harald was on Tuesday admitted to the Sultanah Maliha hospital on the island of Langkawi, where he was on holiday, with an infection. “The decision was taken this
Thailand’s economy is undergoing major changes, with ominous signs of a downward spiral. The country has been battling slow growth since the Asian financial crisis of 1997-1998, after being a “tiger” economy for close to a decade. In addition to a series of political crises, the country has also faced several other setbacks, such as
