Cambodia's long-serving, tough-talking leader, Hun Sen, on Friday said he is considering banning Facebook in his country, largely because he is fed up with the abuse he receives on it from his political enemies abroad.
In Japan, a nation reputed for loyalty to companies and lifetime employment, people who job-hop are often viewed as quitters. And that's considered shameful. Enter "taishoku daiko," or "job-leaving agents".
In 2017, after a string of terrorist attacks, the government relented. Lawmakers passed a bill allowing officers to fire on motorists who flee traffic stops, even when the officers are not in immediate danger.
France said on Friday the coming hours would be decisive after three nights of riots since a police officer shot dead a teenager at a traffic stop in a working class suburb of Paris. The violence has plunged President Emmanuel Macron into the gravest crisis of his leadership since the Yellow Vest protests that started in 2018.
Former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's political career was in tatters on Friday as Brazil's federal electoral court (TSE) barred the far-right nationalist from public office until 2030 for his conduct during last year's fraught election.
Sri Lanka could exit bankruptcy by September, President Ranil Wickremesinghe said on Friday, signalling a turnaround for the country which is emerging from its worst financial crisis in decades. Wickremesinghe "expressed confidence that Sri Lanka would overcome its bankruptcy status by September," his office said in the statement. Sri Lanka launched a much-anticipated domestic debt restructuring framework on Thursday that seeks to rework part of its the island nation's $42 billion domestic debt.
Several Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, have condemned the burning of the Quran by an Iraqi man in Sweden. The incident occurred during the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha and the end of the haj pilgrimage. The countries consider the act a dangerous provocation and an insult to Islam.
President Joe Biden mistakenly confused the US war in Iraq with the Russian invasion of Ukraine twice in the past 24 hours. Speaking to reporters, Biden said Russian President Vladimir Putin was losing the war in Iraq, when he meant Ukraine. He made a similar mistake while speaking to donors, referring to galvanizing allies in the "onslaught on Iraq," instead of Ukraine.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is attempting to project a sense of normalcy and assert his authority following the recent mutiny by Wagner mercenaries. Putin returned to Moscow and attended a forum, mingling with locals in contrast to the strict Covid-19 protocols usually imposed on meetings with him. However, questions remain about the extent of knowledge within the military and security services regarding the rebellion.
The killing of 17-year-old Nael Tuesday during a traffic check in Nanterre, captured on video, shocked the country and stirred up long-simmering tensions between young people and police in housing projects and other disadvantaged neighborhoods around France. Clashes first erupted Tuesday night in Nanterre and nearby, and the government deployed 2,000 police to maintain order Wednesday.
China engineered Covid-19 as a "bioweapon" to purposely infect people, a researcher at Wuhan Institute of Virology claimed. In an exclusive interview, Chao Shao, a researcher from Wuhan claimed that his colleagues were given four strains of the virus to find out which could spread best.
Taiwan has an 'enormous appetite' to expand ties with India and firming up the proposed free trade agreement between the two sides will be a "big encouragement" for Taiwanese companies to set up manufacturing bases in India, Taiwan foreign minister Jaushieh Joseph Wu said. Wu said Taiwan has been encouraging its companies that no longer find the Chinese market profitable to shift their production facilities to India.
Lightning strikes across Pakistan's eastern Punjab province killed at least 10 people, officials said Monday as heavy pre-monsoon rains lashed the region. The strikes on Sunday mainly took place in the Sialkot and Sheikhupura districts of Punjab. Lightning strikes are frequent across Pakistan, especially in Punjab's mountainous areas and plains.
Gunmen killed a member of Pakistan's minority Sikh community in an overnight attack in Peshawar. Claiming responsibility for the attack, IS said Manmohan Singh was a follower of a "polytheistic" Sikh sect.
Russian air strikes killed at least 13 people in rebel-held northwest Syria on Sunday, the deadliest attack on the country this year, a war monitor said.
The head of Wagner mercenary group Yevgeny Prigozhin announced Saturday that he was inside the army headquarters in Rostov-on-Don in southern Russia, and that his fighters controlled the city's military sites. Prigozhin earlier said his forces had crossed into Russia from the Ukrainian front, vowing to topple Russia's military leadership, saying he and thousands of his fighters were "ready to die."
A report released on Friday by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence revealed that US intelligence agencies could not determine whether researchers who fell sick in the Wuhan Institute of Virology in the fall of 2019 were infected with Covid-19, which subsequently spread globally. None of the intelligence released conclusively identifies lab-related work as the cause of the pandemic, and intelligence officials have said they are still seeking information from China.
At least three people were killed in Russian attacks in southern Ukraine on Tuesday, including two who died after a trolleybus company came under fire in the city of Kherson, regional officials said.
Kyiv urged Ukrainians not to panic or stockpile iodine tablets after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy alleged that Russia had prepared a radiation leak at an occupied nuclear plant.
The US Navy detected an implosion at the site where the submersible headed to the Titanic wreck site lost communication, and this information was immediately shared with the Coast Guard. The Coast Guard later confirmed that the submersible, called the Titan, suffered a "catastrophic implosion", killing all five crew members who were on board.
Pakistan PM Shehbaz Sharif met IMF MD Kristalina Georgieva in Paris on Thursday for release of halted funds ahead of the credit line’s expiry next week. The Paris pitch came amid claims back home that Shehbaz’s finance minister Ishaq Dar slapped a reporter who asked him questions on the stalled funds.
The race against time to find a submersible that disappeared on its way to the Titanic wreckage site entered a new phase of desperation on Thursday morning as the final hours of oxygen possibly left on board the tiny vessel ticked off the clock. The area of the North Atlantic where the Titan vanished Sunday is also prone to fog and stormy conditions, making it an extremely challenging environment to conduct a search-and-rescue mission.
"A leak of liquefied petroleum gas... caused an explosion during the operation of a barbecue restaurant," state news agency Xinhua said of the Wednesday evening blast, citing the regional Communist Party committee.
Rescuers searching for a missing submersible near the wreck of the Titanic on Wednesday concentrated their efforts on a remote area of the North Atlantic where undersea noises have been detected, though officials cautioned the sounds may not have originated from the vessel.A spectacular drone show lit up Belfast's night sky, forming the outline of the historic RMS Titanic. Around 950 drones created the glow...
