It is 7:00 am in Dubai and as the sun peeks above high-rises, it reveals an animated scene below: about 200 people, mostly men, wielding bats and taped-up tennis balls in a weekly festival of street cricket.. Tennis balls wrapped in tape -- to make them less bouncy, which better replicates leather cricket balls for bowling and batting -- hurtle across the tarmac, bumping off kerbs and rolling under parked cars.
In less than a year, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev violently suppressed the worst unrest in his country's history, neutralised his all-powerful predecessor and stood up to Russia's Vladimir Putin.. Protests broke out across the vast country that turned into violent unrest and centred on Kazakhstan's economic centre, Almaty.
Kazakhstan will hold snap presidential elections Sunday expected to cement the incumbent Kassym-Jomart Tokayev's grip on power, months after deadly unrest spurred a historic power shift in the Central Asian country.. His vast, ex-Soviet country is precariously perched geopolitically, with historic economic and military ties with Moscow and Beijing emerging as a regional power broker.
A former Russian spy who recently turned on the military over its invasion of Ukraine is one of four men accused of downing Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 in 2014.. Since Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February, he has criticised retreats by Russian troops and predicted the need to mobilise when Moscow was denying this was necessary.
A Dutch court gives its verdict Thursday in the trial of four men over the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 above Ukraine in 2014, as tensions soar over Russia's invasion eight years later.. Eight years later, the region where MH17 crashed has become one of the key battlegrounds in Russia's nearly nine-month-old war in Ukraine.
Myanmar's junta said Thursday it will release 700 prisoners, including a former British ambassador, a Japanese journalist and an Australian adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi's ousted government.. Three former ministers from Suu Kyi's ousted government and detained US-Myanmar citizen Kyaw Htay Oo would also be released, the junta official said.
Myanmar's junta said Thursday it will release 700 prisoners, including a former British ambassador, a Japanese journalist and an Australian adviser to Aung San Suu Kyi's ousted government.. Former British envoy Vicky Bowman, Australian economics adviser Sean Turnell and Japanese journalist Toru Kubota "will be released to mark National Day", a senior officer told AFP. Bowman, who served as ambassador from 2002 to 2006, was detained with her husband in August for failing to declare she was living at an address different from the one listed on her foreigner's registration certificate.
North Korea has fired an "unidentified ballistic missile", Seoul's military said Thursday, the latest in a record-breaking blitz of launches as Pyongyang warned of a "fiercer" military response to the US and its regional allies.. "North Korea fires an unidentified ballistic missile into East Sea," South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said, referring to the body of water also known as the Sea of Japan.
Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysia's perennial opposition leader, has often been on the cusp of power but age is catching up with him and Saturday's election could be his last chance to win the top job.. Anwar returned to parliament months later after winning a by-election.
Pacific rim leaders fly into Bangkok on Thursday for a summit on pandemic recovery and the global economic turmoil unleashed by the war in Ukraine.. China's President Xi Jinping will arrive in Bangkok later Thursday, days after a landmark summit with Biden in Bali.
