The high-rise building, meant to be the new office for the State Audit Office, was the only building in Bangkok that collapsed following the 28 March earthquake in Myanmar.

Authorities in Thailand have officially ended the search operation at a building under construction in Bangkok that collapsed following an earthquake that killed dozens over a month ago.The magnitude-7.7 quake on 28 March had its epicentre in Myanmar, more than 1,200 kilometres away, and killed at least 96 people in Bangkok, mostly at the site of the building collapse.Eighty-nine bodies have been retrieved from the rubble while seven people remain unaccounted for at the site, officials said.They said they would continue to test hundreds of pieces of human remains to identify those still missing.The collapse sparked questions about the enforcement of construction safety regulations and corruption.The high-rise building, meant to be the new office for the State Audit Office, was the only building that suffered a total collapse that day.Police said on Tuesday they are still investigating and will continue to collect evidence from the collapse site until the end of this month.Authorities are probing several companies and individuals for any wrongdoing in relation to the collapse, including the state-run Chinese contractor, China Railway No. 10 Engineering Group.The investigation has led to the arrest of its Chinese executive in Thailand, identified as Zhang, and three Thai shareholders on suspicion of operating the business through the use of nominees.Foreigners can operate a business in Thailand but it must be a joint venture with a Thai partner and they cannot own more than 49% to protect local competitiveness.Another Thai-Chinese company, Xin Ke Yaun Steel, also came under scrutiny over the quality of the steel rods provided for the building.Industry Minister Akanat Promphan said two types of steel rods found at the collapse site did not pass safety standards and that Xin Ke Yuan supplied both.The company has denied any wrongdoing.

US ambassador to Zambia called a press conference to reveal a $50 million (€45 million) cut in health aid to the African country over alleged corruption.

Zambia's foreign minister has criticised a lack of diplomacy from envoys after the US ambassador used a press conference to announce that Washington was cutting medical aid to the southern African country due to the "systemic theft" of donated medication.The US ambassador to Zambia, Michael Gonzales, last week told a media briefing that Washington would cut $50 million (€45 million) in annual aid to the nation's health sector because the state had failed to stop the theft of life-saving drugs provided by the US.An investigation of some 2,000 pharmacies in Zambia from 2021 to 2023 found nearly half of them were selling medicines and products paid for by US aid funds, Gonzales said.Zambia had failed to do enough to address the alleged corruption after the US informed the government of the theft scandal in April last year, according to Gonzales, who said he decided to speak to the press after several unproductive meetings with local officials.In a thinly-veiled rebuke that did not mention anyone by name, Mulambo Haimbe — the Zambian foreign minister — bemoaned an "increasing tendency" by envoys to ignore diplomatic channels, and said this risked jeopardising the "spirit of mutual respect".Communicating with the government through the press constituted interference and violated diplomatic conventions, Haimbe said."We remain open to addressing any matters of concern through appropriate diplomatic channels," he added.Following Gonzales' press conference last week, Zambian Health Minister Elijah Muchima said the government acknowledged the concerns of the US and was committed to resolving the "unfortunate issue".Muchima reassured the public last week that there was "no immediate risk of shortages" due to the US funding cut because the nation had sufficient stocks of all medications.On Monday, Zambia's Home Affairs Minister Jacob Mwiimbu said about 75 people have been arrested following raids on at least 400 health facilities over the alleged corruption.The US gives Zambia $128 million (€115 million) a year for drugs, medical supplies and other support for its health sector. Gonzales said the cuts would affect medications for HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, which are three critical diseases affecting Zambians.Gonzales said he had recommended to Washington that the US continue to procure and deliver life-saving medicines and supplies to Zambia until January 2026 to provide time for the government to develop a transition plan. The US ambassador said the reduction in funding was "wholly separate" from the foreign aid freeze announced by the administration of US President Donald Trump in January.

The number of irregular migrant arrivals reached a record of 63,970 in 2024, according to Interior Ministry data.

"If I was able to gain enough money in fishing, I would never have come to Europe.” These are the words of Memedou Racine Seck, a Senegalese migrant and former fisherman. His experience underscores the findings of a new report that concludes that overfishing by foreign vessels is driving rising numbers of Senegalese to risk the world’s deadliest migration route to Spain’s Canary Islands. Seck told the non-profit Environmental Justice Foundation (EFJ), who authored the research, that 13 people died on board during his journey to Spain. Fishing is key to Senegal’s economy, providing employment for some 3% of its workforce, and is central to the country’s food security.   But the livelihoods of small-scale Senegalese fishers face a growing threat from industrial fishing by foreign vessels which export most of their catch to markets in the EU and, increasingly, China. The report comes after two environmental NGOs, ClientEarth and Oceana, filed a lawsuit against the Spanish government last month accusing it of failing to investigate and sanction Spanish-flagged vessels suspected of illegal fishing practices off the coasts of Senegal and Guinea Bissau.Decades of overfishing The country’s fish populations are threatened, the report found, citing modelling that suggests 57% of the species fished in Senegal are collapsing. It points to decades of overfishing by both industrial and small-scale fleets, as well as ballooning export volumes. Ships relying on bottom trawling, where vessels drag a weighted net across the ocean floor, are particularly damaging to marine ecosystems, and more than 90% of Senegal’s industrial fishing fleet are bottom trawlers.The report concludes that overfishing and illegal fishing are depleting fish populations, exacerbating food insecurity and driving up poverty. In turn, this is pushing people to take their chances with the perilous crossing from West Africa to Spain’s Canary Islands. The number of irregular migrant arrivals to Spain reached a record of 63,970 in 2024, according data from Spain’s interior ministry — more than double the figure from 2022. The majority arrived in the Canary Islands, where arrivals soared by 200% between 2022 and 2024. Senegal is among the top three nationalities of arrivals to the islands. Rising numbers of people are attempting the journey, despite the route from West Africa to the Canary Islands being among the most dangerous crossings in the world. A total of 3,176 migrants are estimated to have died trying to cross from Senegal to the Canary Islands in 2023, according to the Spanish NGO Caminando Fronteras. In August 2023, a boat was discovered drifting off the coast of Cape Verde, having left Fass Boye, a coastal fishing community in Senegal, a month before. There were only 38 reported survivors among the 101 people on board. ‘No boats go to sea lately’ Modou Boye Seck, who lost his “sons, nephews, and grandson in this tragedy”, blamed Senegal’s fishing crisis. He told the EFJ: “No boats go to sea lately. And that's the difficulties the young people are dealing with, and it caused this tragic death upon them, and that's the most heartbreaking thing.” Karim Sall, President of AGIRE, a Senegalese organisation operating in the Joal-Fadiouth marine protected area, expressed his anger at the impact foreign overfishing was having on coastal communities.“I get so angry when [foreign nations] complain about immigration because they are the real pirates and what they did is worse than clandestine immigration," he said. “We are risking our life to go, but they come here to steal our fish. It’s theft — plundering our resources to feed their own inhabitants while we suffer.”The report outlines key recommendations to the Senegalese government, the EU, and industrial fishing entities operating in Senegalese waters, to deal with the crisis facing Senegal’s fisheries and cut the numbers making the crossings.It calls for more robust governance and transparency to support Senegal’s fishing sector and the communities that rely on it.Steve Trent, CEO and Founder of the EFJ, stressed the myriad impacts of the crisis facing Senegal’s fishing sector.“Small-scale fishers face overwhelming competition from industrial vessels, leading to deteriorating living conditions, diminished food security, and lost livelihoods. The consequences are far-reaching, contributing to a troubling increase in migrant deaths at sea.” He urged the European authorities to “end this now, and return Senegal’s fisheries to the people of Senegal”.

Following his visit to the Saudi capital Riyadh, US President Donald Trump's regional tour includes trips to Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

US President Donald Trump started a tour of major Gulf nations on Tuesday with a visit to Saudi Arabia, where he is seeking to secure hundreds of billions of dollars in investments from one of Washington's most important partners in the Middle East. Trump was welcomed at the airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh by the country's de facto ruler Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is otherwise known as MBS. A bilateral meeting between the leaders was followed by a lunch at Riyadh’s royal court, which was attended by several high-profile US business executives, including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. Also in tow was Tesla mogul and Trump adviser Elon Musk, who was pictured speaking to the US president and MBS at the lunch.Trump picked Saudi Arabia for his first major overseas trip since returning to the White House in January — although he did travel to Italy last month for the funeral of Pope Francis — because the kingdom has vowed to make large investments in the US.MBS has already committed to some $600 billion (€540bn) in new Saudi investment in the US, but Trump has teased that he wants $1 trillion (€890bn). "I really believe we like each other a lot," Trump said on Tuesday while sitting next to the crown prince at the start of their bilateral meeting.Later on Tuesday, Trump is set to take part in a US-Saudi investment conference before being feted with a lavish state dinner. The other two countries on Trump's itinerary are Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Qatar hit the headlines over the weekend after Trump said he was willing to accept a luxury Boeing 747-8 jumbo jet as a gift from the wealthy state's ruling family.The US president is expected to announce deals with the three countries that will touch on artificial intelligence, expanding energy cooperation and could include new arms sales to Saudi Arabia. The Trump administration earlier this month announced initial approval to sell $3.5 billion (€3.1bn) worth of air-to-air missiles for Saudi Arabia's fighter jets.Trump is trying to show that his transactional strategy for international politics is paying dividends as he faces criticism from Democrats who argue that his global tariff war and approach to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine are isolating the US from its allies.Saudi Arabia and fellow OPEC+ nations have already helped their cause with Trump during the early stages of his second term by boosting oil production. The US president sees cheap energy as a key way of lowering costs and stemming inflation at home. Israel exclusion raises eyebrowsThe Trump administration's decision to not schedule a trip to Israel during this tour has raised questions about Washington's stance towards its longtime ally. Several analysts have said the choice may reflect Trump's priorities being focused on economic benefits for the US, rather than broader diplomacy or security issues. "The main message coming out of this, at least as the itinerary stands today, is that the governments of the Gulf...are in fact stronger friends to Trump than the current government of Israel at this moment," said William Wechsler, a senior director at the Atlantic Council, a US think tank. Before this trip to the Middle East, Trump announced that Washington was halting a nearly two-month US airstrike campaign against Yemen’s Houthis, saying the Iran-backed rebels have pledged to stop attacking ships along a vital global trade route.The US did not notify Israel — which the Houthis continue to target — of the agreement before Trump publicly announced it. It was the latest example of Trump leaving the Israelis in the dark about his administration's negotiations with common adversaries.In March, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was not informed by the Trump administration about US talks with Hamas over the war in Gaza until after they had begun. Netanyahu also only found out about the ongoing US discussions with Iran when Trump announced them during an Oval Office visit by the Israeli leader last month.US Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff said last week that he envisaged progress soon on expanding the Abraham Accords, a set of deals brokered by Trump in his first term in which Arab states including the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco recognised Israel.However, Trump's ultimate goal of Saudi-Israel normalisation is highly unlikely given that Riyadh has made clear it wants US security guarantees, assistance with the kingdom's nuclear programme and progress on a pathway to Palestinian statehood in exchange.There appears to be no prospect of making headway on a Palestinian state with the Israel-Hamas war raging and recent Israeli threats to flatten and occupy Gaza.

As Ukraine’s president is getting ready to travel to Istanbul, the Kremlin has not yet responded to whether Vladimir Putin will attend the meeting on Thursday. Will Putin come for a face-to-face meeting with Zelenskyy?

As the world awaits news from Moscow, Russia still refuses to say if President Vladimir Putin will attend Thursday's meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart in Turkey.The Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russia will announce its representative for the expected peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul once Putin "deems it necessary".He also did not confirm whether Russia’s president would attend the meeting himself or send someone else.All Peskov said was that "the Russian side continues to prepare for the talks in Istanbul".Meanwhile, Kyiv is also preparing, as Zelenskyy repeated again that he is ready to come to Turkey personally and is expecting an answer from Moscow.“Moscow has remained silent all day regarding the proposal for a direct meeting. A very strange silence”, he said on Monday evening, adding that one way or another, Russia "will have to end this war".“The sooner, the better. There is no sense in continuing the killing,” Zelenskyy emphasised.Zelenskyy’s office has signalled that Ukraine’s president would not meet any other official apart from Putin, however.Presidential advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said on Tuesday that any talks with lower-level representatives would be pointless."Only Putin can make a decision to continue the war or stop the war," Podolyak said.Podolyak is well-informed in this regard: he was representing Ukraine in the first attempted talks between Russia and Ukraine, just days after Moscow’s full-scale invasion in early 2022.‘Istanbul 2022’On 28 February 2022, four days into Moscow's full-scale invasion, Ukrainian and Russian officials sat down for the first attempted negotiations to put an end to the war. The delegations met on Ukraine's border with Moscow's key ally, Belarus, following the call between Zelenskyy and his counterpart in Minsk, Alexander Lukashenko.After a few rounds of talks in Belarus and then online, the delegations met in Istanbul on 29 March 2022.Ukraine called for an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Russian forces from its territory.Russia insisted on what the Kremlin calls "root causes" of the war, voiced by Putin, as the reasons to invade Ukraine. According to Moscow, these include NATO’s alleged violation of commitments not to expand into eastern Europe and along Russia's borders, the Ukrainian government's alleged discrimination against ethnic Russians and more blurry arguments, such as what Putin calls the "denazification" of Ukraine. Putin and Russia have failed to provide evidence for any of these allegations so far.Now, the Kremlin wants the new round of talks to proceed from where the sides left off in March 2022.Istanbul 2022 vs Istanbul 2025Addressing the media outlets late at night over the weekend, Putin proposed that Russia and Ukraine "resume" the direct negotiations that he claimed "Ukraine interrupted" on 15 May 2022.Russian presidential aide Yuriy Ushakov later reiterated the Kremlin's official position, saying that negotiations should account for "developments of the 2022 talks".The Istanbul 2022 draft agreement included terms US-based think tank Institute for the Study of War equates to complete Ukrainian surrender.According to the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, the 2022 draft protocols demanded that Ukraine forego its NATO membership aspirations and amend its constitution to add a neutrality provision that would ban Ukraine from joining any military alliances, concluding military agreements, or hosting foreign military personnel, trainers, or weapon systems in Ukraine.Moscow also demanded that Russia, the US, the UK, China, France and Belarus serve as security guarantors of the agreement.Russia demanded that the guarantor states "terminate international treaties and agreements incompatible with the permanent neutrality of Ukraine" including military aid agreements.Moscow also insisted that the Ukrainian military should be limited to 85,000 soldiers and Ukrainian missiles wouldn’t exceed the range of 40 kilometres, which would allow Russian forces to deploy critical systems and materiel close to Ukraine without fear of strikes.Three years later, Moscow seems to be willing to insist on the same demands, despite the fact that Russia has not fulfilled any of its strategic goals in Ukraine, couldn’t capture any regional capital and has not even reached the administrative borders of Luhansk and Donetsk regions, the areas Moscow has occupied since its initial invasion in 2014.