Author: News Desk

Thailand’s parliament has voted for Paetongtarn Shinawatra to be the country’s next prime minister, two days after Thailand’s Constitutional Court removed former premier Srettha Thavisin from office over ethics violation. The daughter of billionaire tycoon and former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, Paetongtarn, 37, will be Thailand’s second female prime minister, after her aunt Yingluck Shinawatra, and the youngest to hold the position. Paetongtarn won 319 votes in the House of Representatives to become the 31st Prime Minister of Thailand, after being nominated as the sole candidate by her Pheu Thai party’s ruling coalition to replace Srettha. Paetongtarn Shinawatra still needs to…

Sweden has reported its first case of mpox, the Scandinavian nation’s public health agency reported. A person who sought care at Region Stockholm has been diagnosed with mpox caused by the clade I variant. It is the first case caused by clade I to be diagnosed outside the African continent. In this case, a person has been infected during a stay in the part of Africa where there is a major outbreak of mpox clade I. The person in Sweden who has been confirmed to be infected has received care and rules of conduct, said Magnus Gisslén, state epidemiologist at the…

North Korea will reopen one city to foreign tourists in December after nearly five years of border closures due to the Covid pandemic, according to tour operators. Two China-based Shenyang’s KTG Tours and Beijing’s Koryo Tour operators have announced that tourists will soon be allowed to visit the mountainous northern city of Samjiyon. When the pandemic first began in early 2020, North Korea sealed itself off and didn’t ease sanctions until the middle of the previous year. According to BBC reports, the border closures also cut off imports of essential goods, leading to food shortages that were made worse by international sanctions because…

Russia and Ukraine have been accusing each other of a fire at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Russian forces had purposefully started the fire to blackmail Kyiv, while Russian-installed officials in the region blamed Ukrainian shelling. Both parties affirmed that there was no radiation surge or immediate nuclear threat, amid the tensions. The incident happened when the conflict was intensifying and coincided with Ukraine’s major military advances into Russian territory. Zelensky stressed that Russian forces had started a fire at the plant, which has been occupied by Moscow’s forces for more than two years. The…

Scientists have discovered the world’s oldest known seagrass in Finland, using a new method to determine the age of aquatic plants that put it at 1,403 years old. By measuring the number of genetic mutations occurring over time in seagrass, which reproduces by cloning itself over and over again, the scientists were able to determine the age of the original ancestor plant with groundbreaking precision. “This is the first really reliable clone age estimate,” study co-author Thorsten Reusch told AFP. Researchers used the new method, dubbed a “genetic clock,” at 20 sites across the world and found that a lush…

Arizona: U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris campaigned in Arizona on Friday, aiming to challenge Republican Donald Trump in key Western states. Meanwhile, Trump rallied in Montana to support a Republican Senate candidate. Harris, recently named Democratic presidential candidate, is on a weeklong tour across seven states that could decide the November 5 election. In Phoenix, she addressed volunteers and voters, winning the endorsement of LULAC Adelante, a political action committee of the oldest Latino civil rights group in the U.S. During her Glendale rally, attended by over 15,000 people, Harris addressed pro-Palestinian demonstrators critical of her stance on Israel’s conflict…

Bangladesh: Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus has been named Bangladesh’s interim leader, following the ouster of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. Yunus, 84, was named chief adviser to the temporary government just a day after Hasina left the country amid weeks of violent protests. Yunus, a longtime political foe of Hasina, has been praised for his innovative use of microloans to help the poor. However, Hasina has viewed him as a public adversary and recently, a local court sentenced him to six months in prison in a case he claims was politically motivated. Student protesters had demanded that Yunus lead…

United States: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has cautioned G7 ministers that Iran and Hezbollah are likely to attack Israel in the coming 24 to 48 hours. The assessment of Antony Blinken, which he told to Axios news, has also made Israel to consider launching a preemptive strike to deter Iran if it uncovered airtight evidence that Tehran was preparing to mount an attack. The speculations came after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened Israel’s security chiefs for a meeting on Sunday evening. The meeting, attended by Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, IDF Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Herzi Halevi, Mossad head…

Columbus: The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) invites the media and public to explore cutting-edge advancements in space food technology at the Deep Space Food Challenge symposium. The event will take place at the Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Centre in Columbus, Ohio, on August 16. Launched in 2019 in collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), the Deep Space Food Challenge is a multi-year international initiative aimed at developing sustainable food systems for extended space missions, including future trips to the Moon and Mars. Since the first phase in 2021, over 300 teams from 32 countries have…

Washington: US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin has revoked plea agreements made earlier this week with Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the September 11 attacks, and two of his accomplices currently held at Guantanamo Bay. The decision marks a significant shift in the handling of the high-profile case. Plea Deals Reversed The Pentagon initially announced on July 31st, that plea deals had been reached but provided no specific details. Sources indicated that the agreements likely involved guilty pleas in exchange for removing the death penalty as a potential sentence. However, Secretary Austin intervened on August 2nd, removing Susan Escallier,…