Thai interior ministry says people from four border provinces moved to shelters as authorities say death toll from conflict has risen to 14
Thailand evacuated more than 100,000 people along the Cambodian border, it said on Friday, as the two countries fight their bloodiest military clashes in over a decade.
The interior ministry said 100,672 people from four border provinces had been moved to shelters, while the health ministry announced the death toll had risen to 14.
In a packed court thousands of kilometres from home, Cynthia Houniuhi saw years of work come to fruition with the landmark ICJ opinion on climate harm
“I’m so nervous about today … it’s going to be OK. Let’s pray.”
Those were the quiet but powerful words of Cynthia Houniuhi on Wednesday morning, just before the international court of justice (ICJ) handed down its historic advisory opinion on climate change at the Peace palace in The Hague.
Wall Street Journal reports ex-president’s letter, while New York Times reports Trump called Epstein ‘the greatest’
Donald Trump apparently isn’t the only president that sent a birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein. “The biggest name in the album” was Bill Clinton, the Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday. The ex-president’s letter appeared alongside nearly 50 others, including other prominent celebrities and executives.
Last week, the Journal reported that Trump had authored a “bawdy” letter to Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 after he was arrested on federal sex-trafficking charges. The letter was included in an album Epstein’s former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell compiled on the occasion of his 50th birthday in 2003. Trump has sued Rupert Murdoch, two Wall Street Journal newspaper reporters and the newspaper’s publisher Dow Jones for libel and slander over the reporting.
Bill Belichick’s relationship with Jordon Hudson has created a cloud of attention around the UNC football program, but players insist they’re unbothered by the noise.
Analysts say the Japanese are suffering a crisis of confidence that is feeding xenophobia amid economic insecurity and a record number of foreign residents
The emergence of a rightwing populist party in Japan’s upper house election on Sunday running on a Trump-style “Japanese First” slogan has raised concerns of a backlash against the growing foreign presence in the country.
The party, Sanseito, has successfully tapped into unease around an expanding immigrant population and a huge influx of tourists after the pandemic. But many see the underlying cause as economic insecurity among a population that both understands the need for overseas labour and visitors, and feels anxiety at the changes they bring and symbolise.
EU welcomes reversal as essential to European support for Ukraine; US announces US$330m in further military sales. What we know on day 1,248
The Ukrainian anti-corruption body, Nabu, said a new bill submitted to parliament on Thursday “restores all procedural powers and guarantees of independence of the Nabu and Sapo”. Nabu investigates corruption cases and Sapo prosecutes them. A Nabu statement said both agencies took part in the preparation of the new law and they urged the parliament “to adopt the president’s initiative … in its entirety as soon as possible. This will prevent threats to criminal proceedings brought by the Nabu and the Sapo.”
The EU welcomed Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s move to reinstate the independence of the anti-corruption agencies after the shock adoption this week of a bill that stripped their autonomy. After protests on the streets and from international allies of Ukraine, the Ukrainian president said the further bill would ensure the rule of law and the independence of the anti-corruption agencies. An EU spokesperson said: “We provide significant financial support to Ukraine and this is conditional to progress and transparency, judicial reform and democratic governance.” Those points were reinforced by European leaders with whom Zelenskyy consulted over the crisis, including Ursula von der Leyen, Friedrich Merz of Germany and the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer.
There were tensions over the Ukraine war as EU officials met the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, in Beijing on Thursday. Antonio Costa, the European Council president, said the EU officials discussed “at length” their expectations for China to discourage Russia in its war against Ukraine. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, prior to the meeting said China was “enabling Russia’s war economy”. Xi told EU to “properly handle differences and frictions … The current challenges facing Europe do not come from China.”
A Russian attack killed three family members already displaced by the war, authorities announced on Thursday. The father, mother and son had fled to the village of Pidlyman in the Kharkiv region of Ukraine after Russian forces invaded their home town. A strike later on Kharkiv city wounded 33 people, including a 10-year-old girl, a 17-year-old boy and girl, the governor said. A separate Russian drone and missile barrage wounded seven people including a child in the central Ukrainian region of Cherkasy, emergency services said.
The US state department on Thursday said it had approved military sales worth US$330m to Ukraine comprising $150m worth of maintenance, repair and overhaul capability for M109 self-propelled howitzers, and $180m to sustain air defences. The Pentagon said contractors involved would include BAE Systems, Allison Transmission, Daimler Truck North America, Sierra Nevada Corporation, Radionix and Systems Electronic Export. The US on Wednesday announced sales of $322m related to Hawk surface-to-air missiles and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles.
Reuters are reporting that an Indian companyshipped $1.4m worth of an explosive used in missile warheads, rocket motors and bombs to Russia in December 2024 despite the threat of US sanctions, according to Indian customs data seen by the news agency. One Russian company listed as receiving the compound, known as HMX or octogen, was an explosives manufacturer, which Ukraine’s SBU security service has linked to Moscow’s military. An SBU official said Ukraine launched a drone attack in April against one of the company’s factories.
The US government has identified HMX/octogen as “critical for Russia’s war effort”. The US state department did not comment to Reuters on the specific shipments but said it had repeatedly communicated to India that companies doing military-related business with Russia were at risk of sanctions. However, under Donald Trump, Russia-related sanctions work has slowed to a trickle. India’s foreign ministry said in a statement: “India has been carrying out exports of dual-use items taking into account its international obligations on non-proliferation,” adding that such exports were subject to “holistic assessment”.
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