17-06-2024 BANGKOK: Thailand’s nearly one-month-long Senate selection process kicked off last week, amid accusations that the system is skewed in favor of the conservative establishment, and as legal threats against the opposition risk derailing tentative steps back towards democracy. After seizing power in a 2014 coup, the Thai military directly …

17-06-2024 NEW YORK: The United States Surgeon General has called on Congress to require social media platforms to carry warning labels on their effects on young people’s lives, similar to those now mandatory on cigarette boxes. In a Monday opinion piece in The New York Times, Dr Vivek Murthy said …

17-06-2024 WASHINGTON/ PRAGUE/ NEW YORK: An Indian man suspected by the U.S. of involvement in an unsuccessful Indian government-backed plot to kill a Sikh separatist on American soil pleaded not guilty on Monday to murder-for-hire conspiracy charges in federal court in Manhattan. Nikhil Gupta has been accused by US federal …

17-06-2024 ROME: At least 11 people have died and 64 others are missing after two shipwrecks off southern Italy, according to a German charity, the Italian coast guard and United Nations agencies. The German aid group RESQSHIP, which operates the Nadir rescue ship, said it picked up 51 people from …

17-06-2024 OUAGADOUGOU: An armed group linked to al-Qaeda, Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM), has claimed responsibility for what it said was an attack on June 11 that killed more than 100 Burkina Faso soldiers in the Mansila area near the border with Niger, the SITE Intelligence Group said. On Sunday, …

16-06-2024 CANBERRA/ SYDNEY: Chinese Premier Li Qiang arrived in Australia on Saturday, saying relations were “back on track” as he started the first visit by a Chinese premier to the major trading partner in seven years. Australia is “uniquely positioned to connect the West and the East” and stands as …

16-06-2024 SINGAPORE CITY: Beaches on Singapore’s resort island and wealthy expat haven of Sentosa were closed after an oil spill at a nearby port on Friday spread to its waters. Sentosa Development Corp., which manages the island, was alerted on Friday night to “instances of oil spillage in the sea …

16-06-2024 Bureau Report + Agencies NEW DELHI/ AYODHYA/ VARANASI: A seminal moment in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s unsuccessful campaign to retain his parliamentary majority occurred days before India’s marathon election began in April. Speaking in the constituency that includes the Hindu temple town of Ayodhya, lawmaker Lallu Singh said that …

16-06-2024 ZURICH: One of Switzerland’s leading art museums says it will remove five paintings from one of its exhibitions while it investigates whether they were looted by the Nazis. The works, part of a collection at the Kunsthaus Zurich museum are by some of the world’s most acclaimed artists, including …

16-06-2024 NEW YORK/ HOUSTON: Blood-sugar monitoring devices could soon be on the arms of millions of Americans after regulators cleared two new devices for use without a prescription. Is it a way to improve our health? Or is the data just another distraction? In the middle of the night last …