SINGAPORE – A Frenchman who was listed as teaching at the Ministry of Education (MOE) Language Centre in Singapore has been arrested in Bangkok for allegedly having sex with children. French-language teacher Jean-Christophe Quenot, 51, was arrested by police in a hotel room in the Thai capital on Monday (Feb 4), according to reports in […]
SINGAPORE – An upcoming exhibition by the Singapore Chinese Cultural Centre (SCCC) will showcase how Chinese culture in Singapore has evolved and been shaped by other cultures, a move that President Halimah Yacob believes could help strengthen the country’s social glue. Speaking on Thursday (Feb 7) at an event jointly organised by the SCCC and […]
A 27-year-old Indian man plans to sue his parents for giving birth to him without his consent. Mumbai businessman Raphael Samuel told the BBC that it’s wrong to bring children into the world because they then have to put up with lifelong suffering. Mr Samuel, of course, understands that our consent can’t be sought before […]
TOKYO (AFP) – Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe struck a conciliatory tone with Russia at an annual rally Thursday (Feb 7) to demand the return of small northern isles claimed by both nations. The conservative leader did not explicitly demand sovereignty of the Southern Kuril islands, an emotive issue that has prevented the Asian economic […]
Authorities in the Philippines have declared an outbreak of the highly contagious measles virus in the capital, Manila. Data showed 196 people had contracted measles between 1-19 January, compared to only 20 cases in the same period last year. Some 50 people – mostly children – are believed to have died from the disease, officials […]
Indian Hindu devotees returning home the day after Mauni Amavasya, the most auspicious day for bathing, during the Kumbh Mela festival in Allahabad. Some 55 million Hindu devotees plunged into holy waters to cleanse their sins and seek salvation over the busiest days of the world’s largest religious gathering, officials said on Tuesday. Source: Read […]
BEIJING (NYTIMES) – Factory workers across China are staging sit-ins, demanding unpaid wages for “blood and sweat.” Taxi drivers are surrounding government offices to call for better treatment. Construction workers are threatening to jump from buildings if they don’t get paid. With economic growth in China weakening to its slowest pace in nearly three decades, […]
MOSCOW — After two days of talks in Moscow, the Taliban and prominent Afghan politicians, many of them former enemies, said on Wednesday that they had charted a broad road map for ending Afghanistan’s 18-year war, structured around the withdrawal of American forces from the country and the Taliban’s commitment to citizens’ fundamental rights. Hamid […]
Throughout this week, we will be looking back at some of the BBC website’s most-read stories of the year and asking: what happened after the news moved on? Today, our Seoul correspondent Laura Bicker looks at what, if anything, changed after historic talks between Donald Trump and North Korea’s Kim Jong-un in June. I’ve lost […]
(Reuters) – The shrinkage of the U.S. Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has played a significant role in exerting upward pressure on borrowing costs as parts of the U.S. economy have shown signs of decelerating, a study from the Kansas City Federal Reserve released on Wednesday showed. The study reflects a growing concern among economists and […]