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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40016577

France’s hard-left veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon said that president Emmanuel Macron’s party was “beaten and defeated” on Sunday after his new left-wing alliance made a strong showing in the first round of parliamentary elections.

Macron is not guaranteed to win an absolute majority in parliament, exit polls showed.

Macron’s coalition bloc was expected to win between 270-310 parliament seats – with the mark for an outright majority set at 289 seats – on June 19, according to an Elabe projection showed, while the left was seen getting 170-220 seats, a big increase from 2017.

Initial projections by Elabe put the hard-left veteran Jean-Luc Melenchon’s NUPES bloc neck-and-neck with Macron’s Ensemble! alliance in the first round, with 26.20% and 25.8% respectively.

With the two-round system, which is applied to 577 constituencies across the country, the popular vote in the first round is not a good indication of who will eventually win a majority on June 19, when the second round is held.

“In view of this result, and the extraordinary opportunity it offers for our personal lives and the destiny of the common homeland, I call on our people to defeat them next Sunday. Of course, to definitively reject the disastrous politics of the majority, of Macron,” Melenchon told supporters after the vote.

At stake is Macron’s ability to pass his reform agenda, including a pension reform he says is essential to restore order to public finances. His opponents on the left are pushing to cut the pension age and launch a big-spending drive.

Published : June 13, 2022

By : Reuters

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40016576

The concept is to replicate the phenomenon of morning dew”, said Kumulus co-founder, Iheb Triki, while filling a paper cup with water coming out of a machine he said can help find solutions to the problem of water scarcity in Tunisia.

“So what happens?”, Triki asked while demonstrating the way his machine works. “We see that the air enters from here and passes through the first air filter to clean it from pollutants, it then goes into the machine to cool down the water, so we replicate dew.”

The first Kumulus-1 machine was set up in an elementary school in the remote town of El Bayadha, near the Algerian border, that lacks proper access to drinking water, according to the school’s principal, Hasan Aoubdi.

The machine has been set up in the school but the startup is still waiting for approval from the government before starting to use it, according to Triki.

The costs of setting up the first machine in the El Bayadha school were covered by Orange telecommunication company.

Triki hopes that the startup will develop and provide not only Tunisia but the wider region with solutions to produce drinking water in times of water scarcity.

According to the startup’s website, the Kumulus-1 machine, which they call an Atmospheric Water Generator, can produce between 20 and 30 litres of drinking water per day.

According to World Bank data, 21% of Tunisians, 20% of Moroccans and 28% of Algerians did not have access to safely managed drinking water in 2020.

Published : June 13, 2022

By : Reuters

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40016554

Iran and Venezuela signed a 20-year cooperation plan in Tehran on Saturday as the two countries, among the world’s top oil producers, grapple with U.S. sanctions that are crippling their exports.

The signing ceremony was overseen by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro and took place at the Saadabad Palace in north Tehran.

The plan includes cooperation in the fields of oil, petrochemicals, defence, agriculture, tourism, and culture and was signed by foreign ministers Hossein Amirabdollahian and Venezuela’s Carlos Faria.

It also includes repair of Venezuelan refineries and the export of technical and engineering services.

“Venezuela has shown exemplary resistance against sanctions and threats from enemies and Imperialists,” Iran’s Raisi said. “The 20-year cooperation document is testimony to the will of the two countries to develop ties in specific fields.”

“Sanctions and threats against the Iranian nation over the past 40 plus years have been numerous, but the Iranian nation has decided to turn these sanctions into an opportunity for the country’s progress,” he said.

Maduro, who arrived in Tehran on Friday (June 10), is on a two-day visit and heads a high-ranking political and economic delegation. Earlier, he visited Turkey and Algeria.

Maduro said through an interpreter that a weekly flight from Caracas to Tehran would begin on July 18.

Iran and Venezuela have expanded cooperation since 2020, particularly in energy projects and oil swaps.

Defying U.S. pressures, Iran has sent several cargos of fuel to Venezuela and helped in refinery repairs. Last month, Venezuela began importing Iranian heavy crude, widening a swap agreement signed last year to exchange Iranian condensate for Venezuelan heavy crude.

In May, Iran’s state-owned National Iranian Oil Engineering and Construction Co signed a contract worth about 110 million euros to repair Venezuela’s smaller 146,000 barrel-per-day refinery.

That agreement was sealed after recent negotiations attended by Iranian Oil Minister Javad Owji, who was in Venezuela early last month.

Published : June 12, 2022

By : Reuters

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40016553

Police in northwest Idaho rounded up more than two dozen members of a white nationalist group on Saturday before charging them with planning to stage a riot near a LGBTQ pride event.

The video showed about 20 men kneeling beside the truck with their hands bound, wearing similar khaki pants, blue shirts, white masks, and baseball caps.

Lee White, police chief in the city of Coeur D’Alene, told reporters that 31 members of Patriot Front face misdemeanor charges of conspiracy to riot and additional charges could come later.

A local resident spotted the men, wearing white masks and carrying shields, getting into a U-Haul truck and called police, telling the emergency dispatcher it “looked like a little army,” according to White.

Police pulled the truck over about 10 minutes after the call.

Police recovered at least one smoke grenade and documents that included an “operations plan” from the truck, plus shields and shin guards.

The men come from at least 11 states, White said, including Texas, Colorado and Virginia.

Patriot Front formed in the aftermath of the 2017 white nationalist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, when it broke off from another extremist organization, Vanguard America, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

Published : June 12, 2022

By : Reuters

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40016552

Hundreds of demonstrators took to the streets of Sao Paulo on Saturday to demand the decriminalisation of cannabis in Brazil.

The event organised by the “Marcha da Maconha” (March for the Marijuana) Movement returns this year after a two-year wait due to COVID-19 restrictions.

The demonstrators gathered outside Sao Paulo´s Museum of Art calling for a definitive truce on the war on drugs and for the decriminalization of the possession, cultivation, and consumption of medical and recreational cannabis.

“It’s not fair for a child to have 80 seizures a day and not have access to the treatment because the family can’t pay for the treatment (with Cannabidiol) they don’t have access to it,” said Barbara Gael, a demonstrator attending the march.

In Brazil, the growing and possession of small amounts of marijuana and other drugs were decriminalized in 2006 but buying and selling remain illegal.

Published : June 12, 2022

By : Reuters

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40016548

Canadian heartthrob Justin Bieber has shocked fans with a graphic video revealing the facial paralysis that forced him to cancel three concerts earlier this week.

The singer told fans via Instagram that he had been diagnosed with the rare Ramsay Hunt syndrome.

The 28-year-old pop star posted a three-minute video explaining the diagnosis. The shocking footage showed Bieber unable to move the right side of his face, his right eye unblinking, as he greeted his fans.

“Hey everyone, Justin here, I wanted to update you guys on what’s been going on,” he said.

“Obviously as you can probably see with my face. I have this syndrome called Ramsay Hunt syndrome and it is from this virus that attacks the nerves in my ear, my facial nerves and has caused my face to have paralysis,” said the singer, who boasts over 530 million social media followers.

“As you can see this eye is not blinking. I can’t smile on this side of my face … So, there’s full paralysis on this side of my face,” the singer told his fans in the video.

The syndrome is caused by a shingles outbreak that affects the facial nerves. Loss of hearing and facial paralysis associated with the syndrome are usually temporary, though they can be permanent in some cases, according to medical experts.

In his update posted on his Instagram Story, the singer wrote: “Been getting progressively harder to eat which has been extremely frustrating, please pray for me. Can’t believe I’m saying this. I’ve done everything to get better but my sickness is getting worse.”

On Tuesday, Bieber announced that he was postponing the “next few shows” of his seven-leg, 130-date Justice World Tour due to a “non-Covid related illness”.

Bieber is scheduled to perform in Bangkok on November 6 as part of a worldwide tour to promote his latest albums “Changes” and “Justice”, released in 2020 and 2021.

Published : June 11, 2022

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40016497

President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that no Iron Curtain would fall over the Russian economy, despite the sanctions imposed by the West, because Moscow would not close itself off from the world as the Soviet Union did.

The sanctions imposed over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have tipped Russia, one of the world’s biggest producers of natural resources, towards the biggest economic contraction since the years following the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union.

Asked about possible deals with partners such as China and India amid the “closure” of Russia’s economy, Putin, speaking ahead of next week’s St Petersburg Economic Forum, said Russia’s economy would remain open.

“We will not have a closed economy, we have not had one and we will not have one,” Putin told young entrepreneurs in a televised meeting.

“We did not have a closed economy – or rather we did in the Soviet times when we cut ourselves off, created the so-called Iron Curtain, we created it with our own hands. We will not make the same mistake again – our economy will be open.”

Putin, who was born in the Soviet Union, in 2005 cast the collapse of the USSR as the biggest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century because tens of millions of Russians were impoverished and Russia itself faced disintegration.

After major U.S. and European companies and investors left Russia, Moscow says it will turn away from the West and focus on developing its own domestic industry and develop partnerships with China, India and powers in the Middle East.

“A country like Russia cannot be fenced in,” Putin said.

Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion has killed thousands, displaced 13 million and raised fears of a broader conflict between the United States and Russia, by far the world’s biggest nuclear powers.

Putin says the West wants to destroy Russia, that the economic sanctions are akin to a declaration of economic war. Ukraine says it is fighting against an imperial-style land grab and that it will never accept Russian occupation.

Published : June 10, 2022

By : Reuters

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40016496

A cold case has been solved in Texas after a missing woman was found after more than 40 years, the Texas Attorney General’s office announced on Thursday.

The missing woman, who was found by investigators at the Texas Attorney General’s Office Cold Case and Missing Persons Unit, has been identified as Baby Holly, who went missing in the 80s as a young girl after her parents were murdered.

“In 1981, two deceased individuals were discovered in the wooded area in Houston, Texas. Their identities could not be determined at that time. What law enforcement did know is that they were likely murdered… we learned this couple had an infant daughter named, Holly, who was not found with the remains of the Clouses. And so, the search for baby Holly began,” he said.

“I’m excited to announce that baby Holly has been located alive and well 42 years later. I also am happy to announce that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children have offered and will be paying for Holly to be reunited, in person, with the Linn and Clouse families. Holly has been notified of the identities of her biological parents and got to meet her extended biological family for the first time this Tuesday,” he added.

After more than 40 years, Baby Holly is now a 42-year-old Oklahoma resident and she made contact with her biological family through DNA testing, according the Texas Attorney General’s office.

Published : June 10, 2022

By : Reuters

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40016493

Queen Elizabeth will become the world’s second longest-ruling monarch on Sunday, surpassing King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand whose reign lasted 70 years, 126 days before his death in 2016 at the age of 88.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej ruled over Thailand from 1946 and to this day, holds the title of the longest-reigning monarch in Thai history.

During King Adulyadej’s reign, the Thai royal family welcomed the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh on their five-day state visit to Thailand in 1996, where Queen Sirikit of Thailand hosted a state banquet in honour of Queen Elizabeth.

To commemorate King Adulyadej’s 70th anniversary of the accession to the throne in 2016, Queen Elizabeth sent a message to congratulate the king, saying: “the relationship between our two countries, which has lasted over 400 years, (and) has become even stronger during Your Majesty’s reign.”

The 96-year-old Elizabeth, Britain’s longest-reigning and currently the world’s oldest monarch, became queen on February 6, 1952, after the death of her father King George VI. She was crowned on June 2, 1953, at Westminster Abbey, the first coronation to be televised.

France’s King Louis XIV currently holds the record for the longest-reigning monarch, who ruled for around 72 years, beginning his reign from the age of 4 in 1643 until his death in 1715, aged 77.

On September 9, 2015, Queen Elizabeth surpassed the 63 years, that her great-great-grandmother Queen Victoria spent on the throne to become the country’s longest-reigning monarch in a line dating back to Norman King William the Conqueror in 1066.

Queen Elizabeth’s seven decades on the throne were marked by four days of celebration which began on Thursday (June 2) and saw the nation come together, rejoicing in the Queen’s 70 years and four months of reign.

Published : June 10, 2022

By : Reuters

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https://www.nationthailand.com/international/40016456

Two Britons and a Moroccan who were captured while fighting for Ukraine could face the death penalty after pleading guilty in a court of one of Russia’s proxies in eastern Ukraine, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.

Video published by RIA showed Britons Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner and Moroccan Brahim Saadoun in a courtroom cage with white bars.

RIA said Pinner and Saadoun had pleaded guilty to actions aimed at the violent seizure of power.

The video appeared to show Aslin pleading guilty to a lesser charge involving weapons and explosives. He was seen standing in the cage and leafing through a sheaf of legal documents as the charge was translated to him.

The news agency quoted prosecutors as saying the combined charges could mean the death penalty for all three.

Britain’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment late on Wednesday.

Saadoun was arrested in April. No comment was immediately available from the Moroccan foreign ministry on his case.

On the video of the previous hearing, released June 7, Aslin, Pinner and Saadoun were seen confirming that they knew the charges against them and agreeing to proceed with their case without witnesses. It is not clear whether the men were speaking freely.

The trial is taking place in the Donetsk People’s Republic, one of two breakaway Russian-backed entities in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine which Russia says it is fighting to “liberate” from Ukrainian forces.

Three days before launching its Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine, Russia recognized them as independent states in a move condemned by Ukraine and the West as illegal.

Aslin and Pinner were captured in April while fighting on the Ukrainian side. They were later shown on Russian TV asking to be freed in exchange for a Ukrainian ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, Viktor Medvedchuk, who had been detained by Ukrainian authorities.

Published : June 09, 2022

By : Reuters