Three Cabinet ministers in Thailand were forced to leave their posts Wednesday after a court found them guilty of sedition for taking part in sometimes-violent protests in 2013-2014 against the government then in power. The Criminal Court in Bangkok found Digital Economy Minister Buddhipongse Punnakanta, Education Minister Nataphol Teepsuwan and Deputy Transport Minister Thaworn Senneam guilty along with about two dozen other defendants in a case that was launched in 2018. Nataphol was among 10 Cabinet member who survived a no-confidence vote on Saturday over their performance in the current government.
A few days after Joe Biden claimed victory in the presidential election, a San Diego company quietly asked federal officials for permission to send 5 million tons of natural gas each year across the U.S.-Mexico border to an export terminal the company hopes to build along the Gulf of California. The facility would be Sempra Energy's second fossil fuel export plant in Mexico. The Biden administration's decision could offer an early preview of how aggressively it will confront the climate crisis.
Three men suspected of having supplied the bomb which killed Maltese anti-corruption journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia in 2017 were arrested on Tuesday, police said. Their arrest came as a man accused of carrying out the killing agreed to a plea deal, accepting his responsibility for the assassination in return for a reduced, 15-year jail term instead of possible life behind bars. A legal source said Vince Muscat had provided police with vital information about the case, which has shone a spotlight on corruption in the European Union's smallest country.
Developments surrounding Iran's nuclear program are at a โcritical pointโ and lifting sanctions on the country is key to breaking the deadlock, China's Foreign Ministry said Wednesday. Spokesperson Wang Wenbin's comments came a day after Iran officially began restricting international inspections of its nuclear facilities in a bid to pressure European countries and the U.S. into lifting crippling economic sanctions and restoring the 2015 nuclear deal. As a permanent member of the U.N. Security Council, China is a party to the agreement known as the JCPOA, while also maintaining friendly relations and close economic ties with Tehran.
A 22-year-old Russian social media influencer is facing heavy criticism online for posing naked on top of an endangered elephant in Bali, Indonesia for her 553,000 Instagram followers. Alesya Kafelnikova received backlash for the short video she posted on Feb. 13, where she was filmed lying naked on top of a โcritically endangeredโ Sumatran elephant, according to The Sun. In a follow-up post, Kafelnikova shared an image presumably with the same elephant and said in the caption, โTo love nature is human nature.โ
Britain must show it is fully using the avenues available under the Brexit divorce deal to minimise trade disruption in Northern Ireland before seeking concessions, a senior EU official said on Tuesday. Britain's exit from the EU's trading orbit in January has created trade barriers between Northern Ireland - which remains in the EU's single market for goods - and the rest of the United Kingdom. Maros Sefcovic, a vice president of the European Commission, said he hoped to learn of British efforts during an online meeting on Wednesday .
Venezuela's government on Wednesday ordered the expulsion of the chief European Union diplomat in the South American nation following the bloc's decision to impose sanctions on several Venezuelan officials accused of undermining democracy or violating human rights. Isabel Brilhante Pedrosa was given 72 hours to leave the troubled country. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza said Brilhante Pedrosa was declared persona non grata by decision of President Nicolรกs Maduro.
Mitt Romney (R-Utah) and Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) on Tuesday unveiled a plan to gradually raise the minimum wage to $10, rather than the $15 their Democratic colleagues are targeting. The reaction among conservatives was mixed. Brad Polumbo, writing in The Washington Examiner, called the plan an "abandonment" of fiscal conservatism, likening it to "something out of" Sen. Bernie Sanders' (I-Vt.) office.
Former Nissan Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa told a Japanese court Wednesday he believed the compensation for his predecessor Carlos Ghosn was too low โby international standards,โ and so he supported Ghosn's retirement packages to prevent him from leaving. โMr. Ghosn had outstanding abilities and achievements,โ Saikawa said, testifying in Tokyo District Court in the criminal trial of Greg Kelly, a former senior executive at Nissan Motor Co. โWe needed to prepare for Mr. Ghosn's eventual retirement to keep him motivated and to have him continue to work for Nissan,โ he said in answer to a prosecutor's questioning.
Democratic Senator Joe Manchin will throw his support behind Congresswoman Deb Haaland to lead the Biden administration's Interior Department, he said in a statement on Wednesday, likely securing her confirmation to become the first Native American in a cabinet position. Manchin's "yes" vote is seen as crucial to Haaland's confirmation because he is a supporter of fossil fuel development who wields significant power in a U.S. Congress split 50-50 among Democrats and Republicans, meaning every Democratic backer counts. "While we do not agree on every issue, (Haaland) reaffirmed her strong commitment to bipartisanship, addressing the diverse needs of our country and maintaining our nation's energy independence," Manchin said in a statement.
In a two-page memo addressed to GOP donors, voters, leaders, and activists, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) declared: "The Republican Civil War is now canceled." It isn't clear if his fellow Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, are listening. Scott is chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and in the memo, first obtained by Fox News, he writes that Democrats control the White House, Senate, and House, but Republicans have a path to victory in 2022.
Visiting Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has proclaimed his Muslim-majority nation a choice destination for religious tourism by Sri Lankans, most of whom are Buddhists. In talks with President Gotabaya Rajapaksa on Wednesday, Khan highlighted Buddhist heritage sites in Pakistan and stressed the building of cultural ties, the Pakistan Embassy said in a statement. โPakistan probably has one of the greatest Buddhist heritages in the world and we invite people from Sri Lanka to visit them,โ Khan said a day earlier after meeting with Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa.
China hit back on Wednesday at growing criticism by Western powers of its treatment of ethnic minorities in the regions of Xinjiang and Tibet and of citizens in the former British colony of Hong Kong. Hours earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in a wide-ranging speech to the U.N. Human Rights Council, said that the Biden administration would denounce atrocities in Xinjiang. "At this high-level segment, the U.K., EU, Germany, USA, Canada, and some other countries abused this forum of the Council to make groundless charges against China, to interfere in internal affairs of our country.
The designer-approved dishwashers look goodโand perform even better Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
A group of Rohingya refugees is adrift in a boat in the Andaman Sea without food or water, the United Nations said Wednesday, as their families worried that many may have already died. The U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, said it understands that some of the refugees died after the boat left southern Bangladesh about two weeks ago. The U.N. and rights groups including Amnesty International have said many of the refugees were ill and suffering from acute dehydration.
Utah senator Mitt Romney has predicted that Donald Trump will win the Republican presidential nomination if he decides to run in 2024. Mr Romney, the Republican nominee for president in 2012, made the comments during a discussion with The New York Times's Andrew Ross Sorkin at the DealBook DC Policy Project on Tuesday evening. Mr Trump failed to be re-elected in 3 November's presidential election and was subsequently impeached by the House after a mob of his supporters breached the US Capitol after attending a rally where he told them to โshow strengthโ and โbe strong.โ
As Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. seeks to become a major voice on U.S. foreign policy, she is looking to make sanctions one of her hallmark issues.
The first big real-world study of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine to be independently reviewed shows the shot is highly effective at preventing COVID-19, in a potentially landmark moment for countries desperate to end lockdowns and reopen economies. Up until now, most data on the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines has come under controlled conditions in clinical trials, leaving an element of uncertainty over how results would translate into the real world with its unpredictable variables. The research in Israel - two months into one of the world's fastest rollouts, providing a rich source of data - showed two doses of the Pfizer shot cut symptomatic COVID-19 cases by 94% across all age groups, and severe illnesses by nearly as much.
Iowa Republicans were moving swiftly Wednesday to sharply limit early voting in the state, months after a general election overseen by a Republican secretary of state resulted in record turnout and overwhelming victories by GOP candidates. Republican Gov. Kim Reynolds, a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump, has indicated she'd consider them. โLast fall we had elections overseen by a Republican secretary of state in which Republicans gained seats in the Iowa House and the U.S. House, so if there is any significant voter fraud in this state then two things are true," Democratic Sen. Herman Quirmbach of Ames said.
The six-story Executive Residence building is the White House's largest, consisting of two basement levels, a ground floor where building staff work, a state floor for events and receptions, and two floors where the first family lives and sleeps.
The Biden administration is moving slowly but surely toward reengaging with the Palestinians after a near total absence of official contact during former President Donald Trump's four years in office. As American officials plan steps to restore direct ties with the Palestinian leadership, Biden's national security team is taking steps to restore relations that had been severed while Trump pursued a Mideast policy focused largely around Israel, America's closest partner in the region. On Tuesday, for the second time in two days, Biden's administration categorically embraced a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, something that Trump had been purposefully vague about while slashing aid to the Palestinians and taking steps to support Israel's claims to land that the Palestinians want for an independent state.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the new firebrand Republican in Congress, is likely to face threats from both parties when she runs for reelection next year, political leaders in her district say. Insider spoke with Republican and Democratic leaders in Georgia's 14th Congressional District after a rash of scandals put Greene in the national spotlight and resulted in the House of Representatives voting to remove her from committees earlier this month. Greene was highly scrutinized even before winning her seat in Congress in November, thanks to her connections to the QAnon conspiracy-theory movement and ardent support of false election-fraud claims.
From ornate to subtle, these beautiful screens double as functional art Originally Appeared on Architectural Digest
On Tuesday night, The Late Show's Stephen Colbert dragged the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) for branding this year's edition โAmerica Uncanceledโ and then canceling a speaker over his history of anti-Semitic comments. Yes, Dominion filed a whopping $1.3 billion lawsuit against Giulianiโciting 50 โdemonstrably falseโ (Dominion's words) claims he made that their voting machines flipped votes from Trump to Bidenโand even tied Giuliani's baseless claims about rigged Dominion machines to the rioters who stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, referencing a speech that Giuliani gave earlier that day in the lawsuit.
The United States this week will begin processing people held in the Matamoros migrant camp at the Texas border for entry into the country after the area was hit hard by severe weather, the Department of Homeland Security said on Wednesday. The camp, across the Rio Grande from Brownsville, Texas, is home to hundreds of migrants, most from Central America, hoping to be granted refuge across the border. They have endured sub-zero temperatures over the last week while living in flimsy tents.
โHow about we skip โhe wonโt winโ cycle and not do 2016 all over again. Trump can absolutely win another presidential election.โ
โWith independents deserting him, there is simply no path for Trump to get back into the White House โ except as a tourist.โ
โThey might as well cancel the 2024 primaries...because there is no way he can lose.โ
โThe next Republican presidential primary will be heavily shaped by Trump โ whether or not he decides to run again.โ
โDonald Trump will not be running for president again. He will, however, continue to tease the possibility of a 2024 run.โ