World News
World news, global politics, business, technology, and culture—stay updated with breaking stories, international trends, and major events. Get the latest from The Thaiger, your trusted source for global news.
-
Man with Covid-19 disguised as his wife to board flight
Stories have been going viral about how after lockdowns and travel restrictions, airlines are struggling with defiant and badly behaved passengers. But an Indonesian man who is infected with Covid-19 went to extreme measures to sneak aboard a flight this week disguised by dressing up as his Covid-19 negative wife. The man who had tested positive for Covid-19 swapped identities…
-
The Netherlands gears for future with flood-control project
“We were really lucky,” says Jan Heymans from the Dutch village of Neer on the Maas river. “The new flood wall was completed just a few months ago. Without it, everything here would have been flooded.” With massive steel gates and 10-cm-thick (4-inch-thick) glass panels at the top, the wall was able to resist the heavy rainfall from Germany and…
-
Opinion: The Cuban authorities are afraid of us
No one in the queue speaks. A woman looks down at her shoes, while a young man drums his fingers on the wall. Some time has passed since Cubans took to the streets in a protest unprecedented in the last 62 years, and the outrage is still very palpable. As images of police brutality, more testimonies from mothers whose children…
-
West Africa’s liver cancer cases linked to hepatitis
The World Cancer Research Fund collects data on the prevalence of cancer types across the globe. When it comes to liver cancer, 8 West African nations are in the top 25 countries with highest prevalence of liver cancer. These include Liberia, Guinea, Ghana Burkina Faso and Senagal. In fact, liver cancer is the most common cancer in the Gambia, with…
-
Nord Stream 2 deal stokes fears of Russian aggression in eastern Europe
For most countries in central and eastern Europe, the German-Russian Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline is not simply a controversial project. Rather, they see it as a measure of the credibility of German policy in the region. And, right now, that credibility is in tatters. This week’s US-German agreement in the Nord Stream 2 dispute, which would allow the…
-
The EU and North Macedonia: More ‘trauma’ before membership?
North Macedonia was officially included in the agenda for EU enlargement in 2005; the promissory note that Brussels offered Skopje on the conditions of good behavior and reforms is now older than the country’s new name. Yet with a track record of steady reforms, Skopje has seen the process slowed down to a virtual halt, which has not only raised…
-
Swedish prison hostage situation resolved with pizza
Have you ever just had a really strong food craving? In a Swedish prison this week, 2 inmates were able to take 2 guards hostage and refused to release them until their demand was met: pizza. The pair of inmates incarcerated in Hallby high-security prison outside of Eskilstuna on murder charges were able to force their way into a secure area…
-
Pegasus spyware: Mexico one of the biggest targets
It was Saturday afternoon when Marcela Turati discovered that she was one of the 25 journalists in Mexico who had been allegedly targeted by Pegasus spyware technology, just hours before an international network of researchers released information about the surveillance project that sent shockwaves around the world. At first, Turati was stunned and couldn’t believe it — but it soon…
-
COVID, scandals and controversies taint Tokyo Olympics
The Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games stumbled into a new scandal on Thursday, just hours before the official opening event at the new National Stadium, with a senior organizer of the event dismissed for jokes he made in the past about the Holocaust. Kentaro Kobayashi, a comedian and one of the creative directors of Friday evening’s opening ceremony, was fired after…
-
Egypt: ‘Facebook Girl’ may be free, but oppression remains rife
This week’s Muslim holiday, Eid al-Adha, brought great news to around 40 detainees in Cairo’s prisons: that they were free to go. Among them were three popular journalists and three human rights activists. However, these releases don’t yet mean they have been acquitted: All 40 still have to appear in court at trials slated for at some time later this…
-
Thailand: Critics fear crackdown under COVID emergency powers
Repeated extensions of Thailand’s emergency legislation have granted Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha sweeping powers to curb the spread of COVID-19, but critics have warned that these present a risk to civil liberties. “The emergency decree… has granted the prime minister broad powers… and has threatened the right to freedom of expression and access to information which is an integral component…
-
Poland and Hungary lash back against EU rule of law report
Bad faith, blackmail, political attack, double standards: Such were the terms used in reactions from government politicians in Poland and Hungary after the European Union presented its second report on the state of the rule of law in EU member states in Brussels on Tuesday, July 20. The report describes the situation in Poland and Hungary in particular as highly…
-
The EU declares war on money laundering
“The rules we have in place to prevent money laundering are among the toughest in the world,” said the vice president of the European Commission, Valdis Dombrovskis, “but they must also now be systematically applied.” There hasn’t been enough of this in recent years. In practice, many EU member states don’t actually implement the rules or are simply too lax…
-
Kenya: Elephant herds seen from a unique angle
The sunrise at Amboseli National Park is breathtaking. A hot air balloon is prepared for a fascinating experience. Tourists will view animals from a different angle. The balloon can fly up to 20 meters. And the elephants remain undisturbed. The unique view delights everyone. Amboseli National Park has over 3,000 elephants. There has been no single case of elephant poaching…
-
AfricaLink On Air – 21 July 2021
News+++Tanzania arrests opposition leader+++Fighting domestic violence in Niger+++Kidnapped Nigerians freed+++Slow Niger Delta clean up angers locals+++Sexual harassment on Rwanda’s mines+++Veritcal farming grows in Kenya SOURCE: DW News
-
Nigeria cracks down on separatists as security issues mount in the north
Activist Sunday Adeyemo, known popularly in Nigeria as Sunday Igboho, was arrested in neighboring Benin on Monday evening, according to media reports. He was about to take a flight to Germany at the time. A senior Benin police official confirmed the arrest, saying Igboho “will be extradited to Nigeria as soon as the two countries have agreed on conditions.” It…
-
Russian arms trader working closely supplying Burmese military
The head of a Russian state arms trader was attributed as saying that Russia is working closely with the Burmese military junta to supply military equipment. According to the Interfax news agency, the head of Rosoboronexport, the arms trader in question, spoke of the partnership between the military coup that overthrew the government in Myanmar on February 1 and the…
-
Pegasus spyware allegations leave Indian democracy hanging by a thread
The Indian government has found itself at the heart of a spyware scandal that has sent seismic waves across the entire political world. A collaborative investigation, based on information accessed by non-profit Forbidden Stories and Amnesty International and shared with a host of publications, into the Pegasus spyware has revealed a list of potential targets for surveillance. More than 300…
-
Teenager arrested after student allegedly killed with an axe at Singapore school
High school students in Singapore have been left reeling after the murder of a 13 year old boy on campus. A 16 year student is in custody, charged with murder, after the horrifying event at River Valley High School. Coconuts reports that the unnamed student, who appeared in court via video link, has been sent for a psychiatric assessment. Singapore’s…
-
Ethiopia: Fear Tigray conflict could trigger all-out war
Special forces and militias from a number of Ethiopia’s regions are mobilizing to back the federal government’s military operations in Tigray, signaling a widening of the conflict. Regular forces from Amhara — a large region abutting the south of Tigray — have been fighting alongside federal troops ever since Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed launched the military offensive in Tigray…
-
Peru: Pedro Castillo declared president
Former school teacher Pedro Castillo has won the disputed election in Peru and will become the country’s next president, election officials said on Monday. The presidential vote, which had taken place on June 6, had been held up by claims of election fraud by his right-wing rival Keiko Fujimori. Why were the results held up? Castillo had led unofficially by…
-
Commercial space cowboys reach for the stars
In the wake of NASA’s Apollo and space shuttle missions, it seemed that the halcyon days of space exploration had had their run. Interest waned and many people no longer saw the point. More recently, however, interest has been piqued again, not least by the myriad of international missions to Mars. The latest craze is commercial space tourism as offered…
-
Philippines coast guard says they chased off Chinese warship
The Philippines Coast Guard says they chased off a Chinese warship in the South China Sea. The square off is yet another aggressive encounter between the two nations in what is considered disputed waters. In an official statement today, relating to a July 13 report, the Philippines Coast Guard says they had sent a verbal challenge to the Chinese warship…
-
8 women arrested in Tak for Myanmar river crossing
8 women were arrested for allegedly crossing the Moei River in Myanmar into northern Thailand’s Tak province, early this morning. The women carried “personal baggage” and were apprehended in a corn plantation by a 4th Infantry Regiment patrol. Local villagers had alerted officials to the crossing which led to the arrests. The women’s ages ranged from 22 to 32. They…
-
Czech gold for future generations?
Jilove u Prahy is a picturesque town with almost 5,000 inhabitants and a great many historical monuments. This region, along the River Sazava, a tributary of the Vltava near Prague, is a popular recreational area for citizens of the Czech capital. In the 14th century, Jilove u Prahy was the third-most-important town in the kingdom of Bohemia, after Prague and…
-
Belgians pick up the pieces after deadly floods
The Belgian town of Pepinster, southeast of Liege, has just woken up from a nightmare. Wading through knee-high brown water with his wife and son, local resident Paul Brasseur looked back at what was left of their family home. “We’re alive and that’s all that matters — not everyone was so lucky,” he said. The Brasseurs’ house on the banks…
-
US, NZ, Oz, Austrian citizens’ brief shot at Covid-19 vaccines
Good news! Several foreign governments including the United States, Australia, New Zealand, and Austria announced they would offer vaccines for their citizens currently in Thailand. But bad news – supplies ran out long before most people received any notification of the opportunity. Many countries had claimed it was impossible to assist their expats in Thailand in getting vaccines, while France…
-
The Singapore Covid experiment – is there a path to the new normal?
“Singapore’s reopening would be gradual, package by package, nothing big bang. Each step of the way, make sure we keep populations safe.” Singapore, with its 5.7 million residents, is looking to a longer term blueprint to manage Covid. Whilst some countries are still committee to containing and controlling the virus, some Singaporean ministers are imagining a future where Covid is…
-
Getting paid to play — Kenya’s esports boom
The future of professional sports in Kenya — from where some of the world’s top athletic performers originate — is still rather uncertain in the face of the COVID pandemic. Athletes preparing for the Tokyo Olympics, or anyone wanting to get out and exercise, have had to make do with alternative spaces as coronavirus measures put many gyms and stadiums…
-
BioNTech vaccine makes 10x more anitbodies than Sinovac
A recent Hong Kong study reports that people who are inoculated with the BioNTech vaccines have 10 times more antibodies than those who receive the Sinovac vaccine. While antibody numbers is not the only factor in a successful vaccine, the lower levels of neutralising antibodies in the Sinovac Vaccine may substantially lower its effectiveness. The study was published yesterday and…
Broke? Find employment in Southeast Asia with JobCute Thailand and SmartJob Indonesia. Rich? Invest in real estate across Asia with FazWaz Property Group or get out on a yacht anywhere with Boatcrowd. Even book medical procedures worldwide with MyMediTravel, all powered by DB Ventures.