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.
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Starting a new life abroad is exciting—new culture, new lifestyle, and new chances to grow. But living far from home also means taking steps to protect your health in unfamiliar surroundings. Without the right coverage, even small health issues can...
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Dozens of Rohingya saved from being trafficked to Malaysia
PHOTO: Desperate Rohingyas try to flee Bangladesh on flimsy rafts – UNHCR Bangladeshi police say that they’ve stopped dozens of Rohingya Muslims from being trafficked to Malaysia by boat. Most of the ‘boat people’ were women according to the Reuters report. Human traffickers had convinced at least 69 Rohingya to leave the refugee camps in Cox’s Bazar. The camps had…
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Now you can ‘Grab’ a hotel as well
If you’ve used Grab you’ll realise what a big announcement this is. It immerses yet another service within their intuitive App. Grab, already a leading App in Southeast Asia, has announced the launch of its ‘Hotels’ booking service. The company says customers will now be able to book hotels and other accommodation from Agoda and soon, Booking.com directly from their Grab…
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Urgent meetings to consider impact of US-China trade war on Thai exports
The Thai government is reacting quickly to perceived threats to the Thai export business by the ongoing US-China trade wars which have been ramped up in the past week by, firstly, US President Donald Trump rising the tariffs on a raft of additional Chinese items. Then China announced yesterday that it will impose tariffs on US$60 billion of US goods from June…
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US-China trade tensions reverberate around the world
New global diplomatic and economic fault lines are appearing, with new and untested consequences emerging. ‘Volatile’ does’t even start to describe the current situation. US President Donald Trump’s combative stance, made clear with a new round of import tariffs imposed, continues to upend decades of trade diplomacy and cautious negotiations as he tries to coax China to change their trading…
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33 injured after Biman Air flight skids off Yangon Airport runway
A Biman Air aircraft has skidded off the runway in Yangon, Myanmar and broken into pieces. The Biman Airlines flight was carrying a reported 33 people. Biman is the flag carrier of Bangladesh. At least five women and 12 men were being taken by ambulance to North Okkalapa Hospital at around 9pm last night with more serious injuries. The Bombardier…
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Vietjet reports strong revenue for Q1 2019
Vietjet has reported revenue is up by nearly 28% during the first quarter of 2019. In its Q1 (first quarter) financial report the Vietnamese budget airline says international route revenue surpassed domestic revenue reaching 55% of total revenue. In the first quarter Vietjet launched four new international and two domestic routes, a total of 111 routes in its network. Vietjet…
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Brunei backs down on gay sex death penalty
Brunei’s sultan now says that death by stoning for gay sex and adultery will not be enforced after a global backlash, but critics are still calling for harsh sharia laws to be completely abandoned in the tiny ASEAN country. The code, also punishing theft with amputation of hands and feet, came into force in April in the sultanate on the…
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New Disneyland ‘Star Wars’ park opens May 31
May the forward sales be with you. Fans have raced to be the first to experience the new Disneyland Star Wars theme park, based on the iconic film series. The park is being opened at the original Disneyland site in Annaheim, California. The new theme park began accepting requests on Thursday to visit “Galaxy’s Edge” during the first three weeks…
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Huawei grows 41%, Apple tanks in China
PHOTO: Huawei remains a popular brand in Thailand with models at both ends of the price spectrum Huawei has dominated the Chinese smartphone market in Q1 2019, taking a record 34% share as rivals Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and Apple all struggled. Huawei may feeling the heat from a US-led campaign against the Chinese tech company, but in China its smartphones are outselling…
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Boeing 737 Max ‘sensor’ issues flagged 216 times to the US FAA
A small sensor, sitting just outside the cockpit of the Boeing 737 Max jets, was previously flagged in more than 200 incident reports submitted to the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). But Boeing admits it did not flight-test the scenario which may have caused the crashes of two of its brand new jets – one in Ethiopia and one in…
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New Japanese Emperor to ascend throne at 5pm today
Thailand’s not the only country with special royal occasions this week. For the first time in more than 200 years, Japan’s emperor will abdicate today. His son will ascend the Chrysanthemum Throne which ushers in a new era for the world’s oldest monarchy. The historic abdication has resulted in an unprecedented 10 day holiday for Japan marked as special days to celebrate…
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Kata Rocks launches new partnership with Singapore Yacht Show
The Singapore Yacht Show 2019, was held between April 11 to 14 2019 for its 9th year, at the prestigious ONE°15 Marina Sentosa Cove. This year, the Kata Rocks Superyacht Rendezvous (KRSR) launched a marketing partnership with the SYS2019 giving the KRSR team a great opportunity to meet a full range of people. From existing partners to new ones, by…
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Thai baht lowest since January
The Thai baht has been Asia’s best-performing currency during Q1, 2019. But things appear to be losing momentum as the baht falls to its lowest since January. The Thai baht weakened to as low as 32.035 per dollar, the lowest level since January 10th and falling through the psychological support of 32 baht in the US dollar. Sentiment for the…
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Sri Lankan death toll revised down
The Sri Lankan Health Ministry has revised down the death toll from last Sunday’s deadly terror attacks on churches and upscale hotels. The latest official toll is now 253, down from the previous death toll, which stood at 359. In a statement, the health ministry claimed the previous death toll released by the ministry was 290, and not 359 as…
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Sri Lanka attacks ‘retaliation for Christchurch’ – Government minister
The Islamist suicide bombings that killed 321 people, and injured many others in Sri Lanka at the weekend, are believed to have been carried out in revenge for last month’s attacks on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand. Fifty people were shot dead on March 15 at two mosques in the South Island, New Zealand city by an avowed white…
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LATEST: Sri Lanka bombings
A wave of explosions rocked Sri Lanka up-scale hotels and churches on Easter Sunday around the capital Colombo. This is what we know… • At least 215 people have been confirmed dead with up to 450 more injured in a series of bombings targeting churches holding Easter services and hotels in Sri Lanka. The toll is likely to rise during…
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Opening of a rail service between Thailand and Cambodia in Sa Kaew
The Thai PM Prayut Chan-o-cha is leading a delegation to officiate at the opening of a new rail service between Thailand and Cambodia at Klong Luek railway station in Sa Kaew province. The Thai government funded the maintenance and restoration of the two kilometre rail track between Klong Luek station and Poipet station in Cambodia. Rail services between Thailand and…
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Missing 14 year old Thai boy found dead in Tokyo
The mother of a Thai teenager who went missing in Tokyo last Monday has revealed that she has found her son but that he had died. Yuwajitra Watchara-arpa has not revealed the cause of the death of 14 year old Thian Sukanonsawat on the social network, saying merely that he had passed peacefully from an “unexpected accident”. The mother thanked…
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Boeing investigation continues as attention turns to the engines
Within the past six months, two Boeing 737 Max 8 have fallen out of the sky, both during the early climbing phase of the flight. In October, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed just off Jakarta, killing 189 people. And in March, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed in Bishoftu, Ethiopia, killing 157 people. Whilst the investigations continue into the two horrifying…
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French President Macron vows to rebuild Notre-Dame following fire
The Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris has suffered a colossal fire that even caused the Gothic spire of the historic church to crash to the ground as firefighters battled to get the blaze under control. 400 firefighters battled to control the blaze and at least save the building’s iconic front towers. They finally gained the upper hand as midnight approached in…
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The Great Worldwide Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp outage
OMG! Will we survive the great outage of April 14? Been turning your phone on and off? Resetting your wi-fi? Sweating that you can’t post your photo of the pad thai? It’s a worldwide Facebook outage and it’s affecting everywhere in the world. It’s also affecting the rest of the Facebook family of Apps. Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp are all…
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Three killed in Himalayan plane crash – Nepal
by Deepak Adhikari – PHOTO: AAP Three people have been killed and three injured after a Simrik Air place crashed into a helicopter while taking off from the Lukla airstrip near Mount Everest in north-eastern Nepal, near the border of China. The small plane was taking off this morning (Nepali time) from Tenzing-Hillary Airport, the gateway to Everest, when it hit a…
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Sea turtle returns to its nesting place – it’s now an airport!
by Philippine Daily Inquirer – Asia News Network Green sea turtles are among just a select few animals that take a long journey back to their birth place to lay the next generation of eggs. But what happens when their birth beach is no longer a nesting place but something else instead? In the Maldives, a female sea turtle’s homecoming was now…
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East Sulawesi rocked by 6.8 magnitude tremor – tsunami warning
A strong 6.8 magnitude earthquake rattled eastern Indonesia yesterday triggering a tsunami warning, soon retracted, sending panicked residents fleeing to higher ground. The quake struck off the east coast of Sulawesi island near where a 7.5 magnitude earthquake and tsunami around the city of Palu killed more than 4,300 people in September last year. Indonesia’s disaster agency issued a tsunami…
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British passports have removed the words ‘European Union’
Britain has now begun issuing passports with the words “European Union” removed from the front cover. It’s a pre-emptive move, even though the contentious Brexit is currently delayed and no clear date has been set when Britain will leave the bloc. The Home Office has confirmed that some passports introduced after March 30 no longer include references to the EU.…
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Protest at London’s Dorchester Hotel as international protests against Brunei ramp up
Anti-discrimination demonstrators staged a protest outside the Brunei-owned luxury Dorchester Hotel in London yesterday. The protest is part of ongoing protests around the world over the tiny South East Asian Sultanate of Brunei’s adoption of harsh new Sharia laws. The new laws include death by stoning for gay sex and amputation of hands for theft. The Dorchester Hotel is majority…
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Is your web page ‘mobile first’? If not, you’re losing out.
Mobile devices have become the main points of accessing information, news, bookings and retail across South East Asia. This is now the case for more than 90% of digital users in the region. It’s not just a move to the internet from traditional media portals (TV, papers/magazines, radio), it’s a move away from desktops and laptops onto mobile platforms. According…
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ASEAN launches $1 billion investment for green projects
South East Asian governments, the Asian Development Bank and major development financiers have launched a new US$1 billion (32 billion baht) initiative to spur green infrastructure investments across the region. The launch ceremony was witnessed by Thailand’s Minister of Finance Apisak Tantivorawong and ADB President Takehiko Nakao. Senior officials from ASEAN and private sector partners also joined the ceremony. ADB…
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Protests turn to Royal Brunei Airlines
PHOTO: Paddle Your Own Kanoo Protests over Brunei introducing draconian new laws with brutal punishments for gay sex, adultery and theft are now being aimed at the nationally-owned Royal Brunei Airlines. Virgin Australia Airlines has already confirmed it has cancelled its staff travel deal with the national carrier over the new anti-gay laws. Royal Brunei Airlines also have code-share agreements…
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Thai AirAsia connects Phuket direct to Phnom Penh
Low-cost carrier Thai AirAsia has announced direct flights between Phuket and the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. The new route comes as part of the airline’s ongoing establishment of a network across Asia and its push into the Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV) market. The new route starts June 1 and will be available four times a week. Thai AirAsia…
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