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by Briseida MEMA Agence France Presse TIRANA, Albania (AFP) — Armed with quirky web humour and pop references, Albania’s spunky Prime Minister Edi Rama is embracing the art of the internet meme, waging political battles online across an arsenal of social networks. When student protesters refused his offer for negotiations last month, the 54-year-old leader beckoned them on Instagram. But his call for dialogue was not a staid plea filmed behind a desk, but rather […]
SAN FRANCISCO, United States (AFP) — Microsoft on Wednesday pledged $500 million for loans and grants aimed at ramping up construction of affordable housing in the Puget Sound area of Washington state where the US technology giant has its home. “In recent years, our region hasn’t built enough housing for the people who live here,” Microsoft executives Amy Hood and Brad Smith said in a blog post. “We are committing $500 million as a company to […]
BANGKOK, Thailand (AFP) — Thailand is set to deploy rainmaking planes to seed clouds in an effort to tackle the pall of pollution that has shrouded the capital in recent weeks. The weather modification technique involves dispersing chemicals into the air to aid cloud condensation, which should in theory result in rain. “The Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation… expects the rainmaking to be done tomorrow (Tuesday) but it depends on wind and humidity […]
THAILAND, Bangkok (AFP) — Thailand is set to deploy rainmaking planes to seed clouds in an effort to tackle the pall of pollution that has shrouded the capital in recent weeks. The weather modification technique involves dispersing chemicals into the air to aid cloud condensation, which should in theory result in rain. “The Department of Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation… expects the rainmaking to be done tomorrow (Tuesday) but it depends on wind and humidity […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) – Australia gave its strongest hint yet on Wednesday that an 18-year-old Saudi woman in Bangkok would be granted humanitarian asylum, despite efforts by Riyadh and her family to force her return home. Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun has documented her bid to flee her allegedly abusive family with minute-by-minute social media updates, intensifying the global spotlight on Saudi Arabia’s rights record. As public pressure heightened, an Australian minister appeared to go beyond Canberra’s […]
(Eagle News)—The administration’s drug war sees no political nor social status, Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo said in a statement on Sunday, Jan. 6, after a former Maguindanao mayor was killed in an anti-drug operation. “Regardless of the social and political status of persons involved and /or engaged in the illegal drug industry, the same fate will necessarily befall them if they resist arrest and shoot it out with the arresting officers,” Panelo said. According to […]
by Marina KORENEVA Agence France-Presse RAPPOLOVO, Rusia (AFP) — A lion that escaped from an airport, a crocodile found at a rubbish dump and an elk attacked by stray dogs — all these animals have found refuge in an unusual private shelter in Russia. Dozens of bears have also passed through the Velez center, just outside Saint Petersburg, since it was opened in 2009 by businessman Alexander Fyodorov, who says he spent more than $1 […]
SEOUL, South Korea (AFP) — South Korea issued a raft of measures Friday to try to reverse one of the world’s lowest birth rates, offering potential parents increased benefits as it faces a looming population decline. The country’s fertility rate — the number of children a woman is expected to have in her lifetime — fell to 0.95 in the third quarter, the first time it has dropped below 1 and far short of […]
by Maria ANTONOVA Agence France-Presse OY, Russia (AFP) — Innokenty Tobonov sinks his harpoon into a long block of ice while his helpers expertly push it out of freezing lake waters onto the snow-dusted surface before sliding it towards an idling tractor. After an hour of cutting ice blocks out of the lake in temperatures of minus 41 degrees Celsius (minus 42 Fahrenheit), cold vapor has frosted his eyelashes. But this is no excuse for […]
by John BIERS Agence France Presse NEW YORK, United States (AFP) — Marco Saavedra had just graduated from college in 2011 three years after the global financial crisis erupted and just as the Occupy Wall Street movement was picking up steam. Like many in his generation, Saavedra faced slim pickings for jobs after college, a fate that has left millennials with a wealth gap that economists fear they won’t ever recover. It has also left […]
YANGON, Myanmar (AFP) — Myanmar’s military has released 75 child soldiers, a UN agency said, its first discharge this year as part of a gradual process to end decades of forced recruitment of underage fighters. There are no concrete figures on how many children are still among the estimated 500,000 troops that serve in Myanmar’s military, or the ethnic rebel armies that it battles in the country’s border regions. The state’s army — also referred […]
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AFP) — Malaysians are dashing to durian stalls across the country to munch on the pungent, spiky fruit after a long spell of unusually warm weather led to a bumper crop and sent prices tumbling. The fruit is highly divisive, with detractors describing it as smelling of gym socks and onions while enthusiasts liken its creamy texture and intense aroma to blue cheese. People head to street-side stalls during the durian […]
