Flecked with sewage, a Thai prisoner grapples with an overflowing bucket as he and his fellow inmates clean Bangkok's congested drains for the first time in two years.. And for at least one of the prisoners, who had less than a year remaining to serve, cleaning the sewers helped him feel better about his past.
As Mozambique battles a brutal Islamist insurgency, the legacy of a decades-long civil war still haunts the African nation where many former rebels refuse to disarm.. This area of central Mozambique was a bastion of RENAMO, the rebel movement that battled the government for decades.
Looking back on her decision to leave Hong Kong with her family just before the city's handover from Britain to China 25 years ago, Mary still believes she made the right call.. Under the One Country, Two Systems principle set out with Britain, China agreed that Hong Kong would maintain a high degree of autonomy and independent judicial power and that the city's leader would be appointed by Beijing on the basis of local elections or consultations.
From the hill in northernmost Hong Kong where Jasper Law stood, the border with China was obvious -- a narrow river dividing farmlands and fishponds from the gleaming skyscrapers of megacity Shenzhen.. - 'Power imbalance' - Hong Kong's government now plans to transform the border area with a two-decade plan that will place integration with Shenzhen at the heart of economic development in the city's northernmost areas, shifting focus away from Hong Kong's glitzy Victoria Harbour.
Israel's parliament is expected to dissolve Wednesday, ending Prime Minister Naftali Bennett's year-long tenure and triggering a fifth election in less than four years that could see ex-premier Benjamin Netanyahu reclaim power. . Barring an 11th hour shock agreement to save the coalition or form a new government within the existing parliament, Bennett's eight-party alliance is due to end by midnight, installing Foreign Minister Yair Lapid as prime minister.
Philippine Nobel Peace Prize winner Maria Ressa's news company Rappler was ordered Wednesday to shut down, a day before President Rodrigo Duterte is due to leave office, but she vowed to keep the site running.. The International Center for Journalists has urged the Philippine government to reverse its order to shut down Rappler.
The European Union approved a plan to end the sale of vehicles with combustion engines by 2035 in Europe, the 27-member bloc announced early Wednesday, in a bid to reduce CO2 emissions to zero. . The measure, first proposed in July 2021, will mean a de facto halt to sales of petrol and diesel cars as well as light commercial vehicles and a complete shift to electric engines in the European Union from 2035.
In one of Saudi artist Ahmed Mater's best-known works, a silhouette of a gas pump morphs into a man holding a gun to his head –- a clear critique of oil's damaging influence. . The nature of visual artists' work gives them more space to speak out than Saudi activists might enjoy, said Eman Alhussein, non-resident fellow with the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington.
An EU ban on insuring ships transporting Russian oil could potentially hurt Moscow more than its embargo on the nation's crude, analysts say.. The EU insurance and reinsurance ban, covering all maritime transportation of Russian oil, comes as Moscow seeks to ramp up sales to China and India to help offset the embargo.
A total of 20 people have been tried over the November 2015 attacks by the Islamic State group on the Bataclan concert hall and other targets around Paris, with the verdicts expected on Wednesday.. "It's a duty for all Muslims to go to do jihad," he told the court in January, justifying the attacks in Paris as a response to Western bombing against Islamic State and its now-defunct caliphate in Iraq and Syria.
