Thai seafood industry crackdown sparks arrests
More than 100 people have been arrested in a crackdown on abuses in Thailand's multi-billion dollar seafood industry, officials say.
Last April the European Union threatened to boycott the industry unless it tackled illegal fishing and allegations of human trafficking.
On Monday, police said a taskforce set up since had investigated 36 cases and also rescued 130 trafficking victims.
Thailand is the world's third largest exporter of seafood.
Human rights groups have long highlighted abuses in the Thai industry, saying it is reliant on illegal fishing practices and overfishing, and involves trafficked workers from neighbouring countries who, they say, work in conditions akin to slavery.
Deputy National Police Chief Thammasak Witcharaya said that in the 16 months prior to the task force being set up only 15 cases were investigated, insisting that the crackdown had intensified.
He added that nearly all of the 102 suspects arrested were prosecuted and 36 sent to prison.
Malaysia accuses Switzerland of 'misinformation' over stolen 1MBD billions
Exclusive: Malaysian cabinet minister tells the Guardian the Swiss attorney general got his facts wrong in US$4bn corruption allegations
Malaysia has accused Switzerland of breaking protocol and circulating misinformation when its attorney general said last week that billions of dollars had been stolen from Malaysian state-owned companies.
In the most scathing response by a member of the government to date, Malaysia’s Minister of Communications Salleh Said Keruak told the Guardian that “these premature statements appear to have been made without a full and comprehensive appreciation of all the facts.”
“It’s very unusual, and against normal protocol, for a senior official of one country to speak publicly on the internal matters of another country. Yet that is what the Swiss Attorney General has done,” he said.
Ways out of a blind alley in Ukraine
Almost one year after the Minsk agreement to resolve the Ukraine crisis, diplomats are working frantically behind the scenes but the two sides are still entrenched. Frank Hofmann reports from Kyiv.
Since the end of Orthodox Christmas in the first week of January, diplomats have again been meeting every Wednesday in Minsk. Also present at the meetings are representatives of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) and moderators from its member states, including Germany and France. Several "working groups" then discuss political and economic questions and breaches of the ceasefire between Ukrainians, Russians, and the Russian-backed rebels.
The OSCE observers have plenty to worry about, because fighting is on the increase again, and weapons are being brought back into the buffer zone. Economic issues are being negotiated with a German representative from the Foreign Office in Berlin as mediator. The rebels' representatives and Russia are mostly demanding an end to Kyiv's economic blockade of the occupied territories. Kyiv points out that "hardly any banks will be prepared to send a security van there full of money" - which could be used to pay people's pensions or social security benefits. Kyiv's argument is that you might as well transfer the money directly to the rebels.
Who are the Senegalese men joining the Islamic State group?
One of the young Senegalese men who left to wage jihad under the banner of the Islamic State (IS) organisation in Libya was a promising young medical student named Sadio Gassama. Now he and his fellow fighters proudly post on Facebook about their new lives as members of the jihadist group. This comes as a shock to Sadio’s former classmate, who remembers Sadio as pious, but not as someone who’d wage jihad.
Senegal is on edge after jihadist attacks have swept West Africa in the past few months, striking Mali in December 2015 and previously calm Burkina Faso in January 2015. Senegal is worried that it might be the jihadists’ next target. In a sweep aimed at cracking down on insecurity, Senegal arrested 900 people in the cities of Dakar and Thies last month. Though most of these arrests were not on terror-related suspicions, the police said that the raids were carried out because of the terrorist threat.
Senegal is on edge after jihadist attacks have swept West Africa in the past few months, striking Mali in December 2015 and previously calm Burkina Faso in January 2015. Senegal is worried that it might be the jihadists’ next target. In a sweep aimed at cracking down on insecurity, Senegal arrested 900 people in the cities of Dakar and Thies last month. Though most of these arrests were not on terror-related suspicions, the police said that the raids were carried out because of the terrorist threat.
Wait, you're saying all Indians aren't rang-playing slum children who love chilling on rooftops?
Ok, so here's why Coldplay's 'Hymn for the Weekend' made us go hmmm.
Ever since news broke that Sonam Kapoor and Beyonce would be teaming up for this vid we'd been waiting for it with bated breath. But as we watched the music video for the Super Bowl tune we experienced a sense of déjà vu: we'd seen this before. All of it.
Where? In every other music video shot in India that was conceived of, shot or produced by a foreigner.
'Hymn for the Weekend' is so obviously a foreigner's fever dream of what India is: a place homogeneously steeped in poverty, mysticism and an intense desire to celebrate the white tourist.
Right-wing speech hides refugee realities in the US
Away from political debates about refugees, some previously run-down cities are being rejuvenated by their arrival.
Buffalo, New York - When Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a halt on Muslims entering the United States, he was probably not thinking about Nadeen Yusuf, a hard-working Iraqi refugee who lives in Buffalo with her family.
A year after coming to the US, Yusuf already speaks decent English. She wakes at 4am each day for her shift in a supermarket bakery before heading to run her craft market stall. Down the line, she wants to buy a house and manage a home-making school for teenage girls.
Not only is she living the American dream of upward mobility, but families like the Yusufs are credited with breathing new life into crime-ridden parts of Buffalo and helping a rust-belt city turn the page on decades of decline.
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