International news with relevance to Thai and regional readers
The grandmother of the French teenager whose killing by police sparked riots called for calm Sunday, as the home of the mayor of a Paris suburb was attacked with a burning car in a new eruption of violence. The government of President Emmanuel Macron has been battling five nights of violent protests since 17-year-old Nahel
Dutch King Willem-Alexander issued a historic royal apology Saturday for the Netherlands’ involvement in slavery, saying he felt “personally and intensely” affected. Thousands of descendants of slaves from the South American nation of Suriname and the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao attended the celebrations in Amsterdam for “Keti Koti” (“breaking the chains” in
France deployed 45,000 police officers and some armoured vehicles on the streets on Saturday as riots rocked French cities for a fourth night over a teenager’s fatal shooting by an officer during a traffic stop. Buildings and vehicles have been torched and stores looted, and the violence has plunged President Emmanuel Macron into the gravest crisis of his leadership since the Yellow Vest protests that started
French President Emmanuel Macron was Friday to chair a new crisis meeting of ministers after a third straight night of nationwide protests over the deadly police shooting of a teenager saw cars torched, shops ransacked and hundreds arrested. The overnight unrest followed a march on Thursday in memory of the 17-year-old, named Nahel, whose death has revived
Myanmar’s economy is slowly improving, but it is a fragile recovery. Economic growth is no longer stagnant, but is also “unequal”, with the most of the burden placed on the poorest, according to Mariam Sherman, Country Director of Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos at the World Bank. Despite the prediction of a 3% increase in GDP,
Japan and South Korea agreed on Thursday to revive a $10-billion currency swap deal, a symbolic but significant step as the countries’ leaders seek to improve long-strained ties amid increasing geopolitical risks. The deal was struck between Japanese Finance Minister Shunichi Suzuki and his South Korean counterpart Choo Kyung-ho at a meeting in Tokyo, in
The Chinese spy balloon shot down by a US fighter jet over the Atlantic in February did not collect intelligence as it flew across the United States, the Pentagon said Thursday. “It’s been our assessment now that it did not collect while it was transiting the United States or overflying the United States,” said Pentagon spokesman Pat Ryder. Ryder said the US “took steps to mitigate” intelligence collection by the balloon. “Certainly the efforts we
Drag queen Hurricane Kimchi has torn through Seoul’s nightlife scene like their meteorological namesake for a decade, part of a burgeoning LGBTQ community fighting for their rights in socially conservative South Korea. It’s not the K-pop image that South Korea usually projects to the world. Gay marriage is banned in the country, social pressure keeps
Human remains have likely been recovered from the wreckage of the submersible that imploded during an underwater voyage to view the Titanic, the U.S. Coast Guard said Wednesday. The news came hours after the announcement that debris from the Titan, collected from the seafloor more than 12,000 feet (3,658 meters) below the surface of the
President Joe Biden is making a big bet on the US economy powering him to re-election next year with the unveiling of a “Bidenomics” pitch to voters this week. After inheriting an economy ravaged by the Covid pandemic, then beset by lingering inflation and supply chain woes, Biden has had a hard time persuading Americans
If a landmark reconciliation between Saudi Arabia and Iran has eased tensions in the Gulf, clouds have also lifted at the hajj pilgrimage, where Iranian visitors finally feel welcome again. Seven years of enmity between the Sunni and Shiite powers had made for a cool reception for Iranian pilgrims joining worshippers from around the world
As dawn broke over the occupied West Bank, Mamoun Abu al-Rob and his son crossed into Israel, where a volunteer was waiting to take them to a hospital. Past the Rehan crossing in the northern West Bank, where Palestinian workers were passing through a dimly lit corridor, Abu al-Rob walked towards Yael Noy’s car as
