Officers devise unusual plan to arrest man suspected of stealing about $64,000 worth of Buddhist artefacts
Thai police donned a lion costume during this week’s lunar new year festivities to arrest a man accused of stealing about $64,000 worth of Buddhist artefacts.
Dressed as a red-and-yellow lion, officers made the arrest on Wednesday evening after responding to a report this month of a home burglary in the suburbs of Bangkok.
Continue reading...Ex-leader sentenced to life imprisonment with hard labour over failed martial law declaration in 2024
A South Korean court has sentenced the former president Yoon Suk Yeol to life imprisonment with labour over his failed martial law declaration in December 2024, finding him guilty of leading an insurrection and making him the first elected head of state in the country’s democratic era to receive the maximum custodial sentence.
The Seoul central district court found that Yoon’s declaration of martial law on 3 December 2024 constituted insurrection, carried out with the intent to disrupt the constitutional order.
Continue reading...Lunar new year has ushered in a rare zodiac symbol with a reputation for energy and independence
As the lunar new year begins, the focus has turned to the Chinese zodiac and the arrival of the year of the fire horse – a rare pairing in the 60-year lunar cycle.
Drawing on Chinese metaphysics, the fire horse blends the horse’s reputation for energy and independence with the intensity of the fire element, giving it a distinct place in the zodiac tradition.
Continue reading...Research suggests more than 75,000 killed in the first 16 months of conflict, 25,000 more than announced at the time
More than 75,000 people were killed in the first 16 months of the two-year war in Gaza, at least 25,000 more than the death toll announced by local authorities at the time, according to a study published on Wednesday in the Lancet medical journal.
The research also found that reporting by the Gaza health ministry about the proportion of women, children and elderly people among those killed was accurate.
Continue reading...New EP Days of Ash features songs about Renee Good, Iranian protesters and other political topics, and precedes new ‘defiantly joyful’ album later in 2026
• Alexis Petridis on Days of Ash: six new tracks that reaffirm the band as a vital political voice
U2 have released their first collection of new music since 2017 – a politically charged EP entitled Days of Ash, which focuses on a series of high-profile global deaths including the killing of Renee Good by ICE agents.
Good, a mother of three children who was killed on 7 January while protesting against ICE activity in Minneapolis, is the subject of the opening song, American Obituary.
Continue reading...Xalet del Catllaràs contains elements of architect’s naturalistic style, expressed in works such as Park Güell and Sagrada Família
An elegant modernist building in the mountains north of Barcelona, originally constructed to house engineers establishing a nearby mine, has been confirmed as a work of Antoni Gaudí, Catalonia’s most celebrated and distinctive architect.
The Xalet del Catllaràs, about 80 miles from Barcelona in the county of Berguedà, was built in 1905 and commissioned by Eusebi Güell, Gaudí’s lifelong patron. Güell was the owner of a cement company with mines in the region and he needed somewhere to house the engineers, many of them British, who would help extract the coal for his factories.
Continue reading...Exclusive: UK graduates in Germany, Belgium and possibly other countries informed of rises as salary threshold is cut
Britons living in some European countries face a huge rise in their student loan repayments later this year, the Guardian can reveal, in a move that threatens to trigger a fresh backlash for Rachel Reeves.
UK graduates working in Germany and Belgium – and possibly other countries – have been told that their monthly repayments will increase from April, the Guardian can reveal.
Continue reading...Kimberly Prost and Luz del Carmen Ibáñez Carranza vow US reprisals will not affect work of international criminal court
When the Canadian Kimberly Prost learned Donald Trump’s administration had imposed sanctions on her, it came as a shock.
For years, she has sat as a judge at the international criminal court, weighing accusations of war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity; now she is on the same list as terrorists and those involved in organised crime. “It really was a moment of a bit of disbelief,” she said.
Continue reading...Sara Duterte, daughter of a former president who is facing charges of crimes against humanity at the Hague, pledged to offer her ‘life, strength and future’ in service of the Philippines
Philippine vice-president Sara Duterte, daughter of the imprisoned former leader Rodridgo Duterte, has announced she will run for president in the country’s 2028 election.
Sara Duterte, 47, said she would offer her “life, strength and future” in service of the Philippines, in a speech on Wednesday that accused President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, of presiding over a period marked by rampant corruption.
Continue reading...Eye-catching martial arts performance at China gala had viewers and experts wondering what else humanoids can do
Dancing humanoid robots took centre stage on Monday during the annual China Media Group’s Spring Festival Gala, China’s most-watched official television broadcast. They lunged and backflipped (landing on their knees), they spun around and jumped. Not one fell over.
The display was impressive, but prompted some to wonder: if robots can now dance and perform martial arts, what else can they do?
Continue reading...CEO said services have restarted after termination of grants led to criticism that US was ceding ground to China
Radio Free Asia has resumed broadcasts to people in China, its chief executive said on Tuesday, after Trump administration cuts last year largely forced the US-funded outlet to cease operations.
For years, RFA and its sister outlets, including Voice of America (VOA), had been financed with funding approved by the US Congress and overseen by the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
Continue reading...US family who were 100th to be granted residency under investor scheme say they want to give back to ‘amazing’ New Zealand
Wealthy Americans are dominating applications for New Zealand’s “golden visa”, driven by a love for the country’s natural beauty and entrepreneurial spirit, as well a desire to escape Trump’s administration.
New rules for the Active Investor Plus visa came into effect in April 2025, lowering investment thresholds, removing English-language requirements and cutting the amount of time applicants must spend in the country to establish residency from three years to three weeks. Successful applicants can only purchase homes in New Zealand worth more than $5m.
Continue reading...Mehdi Mahmoudian released 17 days after arrest for signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader and regime’s protest crackdown
Mehdi Mahmoudian, the Oscar-nominated cowriter of It Was Just an Accident, has been released from an Iranian prison 17 days after his arrest, according to local media reports.
Mahmoudian was arrested in Tehran shortly after signing a statement condemning Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and the regime’s violent crackdown on demonstrators. On Tuesday, he was released from the Nowshahr prison, along with two other signatories of the statement, Vida Rabbani and Abdollah Momeni.
Continue reading...Avalanche warning for Sierra Nevadas while southern California experiences heavy rain and flooding
California is being blanketed by a winter storm that has brought the coldest air mass in three years to the state – along with heavy snowfall, road closures and power outages.
The University of California Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Lab, near Donner Pass, reported 28in of snow on Tuesday, with another 3ft expected in the next two days. I-80 is closed from Colfax to the Nevada state line due to snow.
Continue reading...Three boats targeted in eastern Pacific and Caribbean as Trump continues pursuit of alleged ‘narco-terrorists’
US military officials have said American forces launched assaults on three alleged drug-smuggling boats, killing 11 in one of the deadliest days of the Trump administration’s months-long campaign against alleged traffickers.
The military action on Monday brought the number of fatalities caused by US strikes to 145 since September, when Donald Trump called on American armed forces to attack people deemed “narco-terrorists” on small vessels. There have been 42 known strikes in notorious drug-trafficking routes such as the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean, according to the Associated Press reported.
Continue reading...Interim president José Jerí voted out by country’s congress amid scandal concerning secretive meetings
Peru’s interim president has been forced out of office in an “express impeachment” after a political scandal over his secretive meetings with Chinese businessmen.
Lawmakers voted by 75 votes to 24 to proceed with the removal of José Jerí, who had been at the helm for just four months.
Continue reading...At least 80 film-makers and stars sign open letter after German festival jury president Wim Wenders says they should keep out of politics
More than 80 current and former participants of the Berlinale, including Javier Bardem, Tilda Swinton and Adam McKay have signed an open letter condemning the festival’s “silence” on Gaza.
It comes after the film festival was swept up in what it called a “media storm” over the alleged sidelining of political discourse at the event.
Continue reading...Group says they intend to establish permanent settlement but Mauritius’s attorney general calls their move a ‘publicity stunt’
Four Chagos Islanders have landed on one of the archipelago’s atolls to establish what they say will be a permanent settlement, in an attempt to complicate a British plan to transfer the territory to Mauritius.
The Mauritius attorney general said the move was a publicity stunt designed to create conflict over a 2025 agreement with Britain on handing over sovereignty of the British Indian Ocean Territory, which is opposed by some Chagossians who accuse Mauritius of decades of neglect. Mauritius has denied the accusations.
Continue reading...Prior of hermitage says digital technologies are designed to be addictive and present ‘challenge for monastic life’
The prior of a hermitage in Tuscany has urged monks living in the secluded retreat to avoid the use of social media and streaming services, arguing that their rooms are sacred places for prayer and “not for Netflix or other platforms”.
Father Matteo Ferrari, the prior general of the Camaldolese congregation and of the Camaldoli monastery and hermitage in Arezzo, Tuscany, said such digital technologies were “specifically designed to create addiction” and “should absolutely be avoided”.
Continue reading...Descendants of Jewish brothers forced to sell company to Nazis say appropriation by German far right is ‘repulsive’
The Jewish descendants of a German motorbike manufacturer that was forced by the Nazis to be relinquished have voiced their repulsion at the appropriation of the vehicle by far-right populists.
Members of the family, whose ancestors were forced to flee Germany in the 1930s, say they consider the use of the bike’s name by the anti-immigrant Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) as a “mockery of our history”.
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