Thailand cracks down on knock-off ‘elephant trousers’ flooding in from China (www.telegraph.co.uk)
Myanmar: All men and women of eligible age now required to serve in army (www.wionews.com)
Indonesia State Apparatus Is Preparing to Throw Election to a Notorious Massacre General (theintercept.com)
Call for UK utility firms to face higher fines for ‘street scars’ on pavements (www.theguardian.com)
Putin challenger Boris Nadezhdin barred from Russia's election (www.bbc.com)
Mr Nadezhdin has been relatively critical of Vladimir Putin’s full-scale war in Ukraine when few dissenting voices have been tolerated in Russia....
India: Violence erupts in Uttarakhand's Haldwani after madrasa demolition; shoot-at-sight ordered (www.hindustantimes.com)
Giraffes appear to be on a path to joining the ranks of Winnie the Pooh and Peppa Pig on Beijing's internet watchlist (www.businessinsider.com)
Gaza: Unprecedented destruction will take tens of billions of dollars and decades to reverse (unctad.org)
China bets on open-source chips as US export controls mount - Reuters (news.yahoo.com)
BEIJING (Reuters) - When a Beijing-based military institute in September published a patent for a new high-performance chip, it offered a glimpse of China’s bid to remake the half-trillion dollar global chip market and withstand U.S. sanctions....
‘They told me we’re all Russians’: fears grow over ‘re-education’ of Ukrainian children (www.theguardian.com)
During the 14 months for which Veronika Vlasenko attended school in Russia, she was regularly told by teachers and fellow students that she would never be able to go home to Ukraine. “Every day they said to me that I would be staying here for ever and would never leave Russia,” she said. “They told me that Ukraine...
Kosovo's block on the Serbian currency raises alarm in the EU and US (apnews.com)
The European Union and the United States expressed their deep concern Sunday after Kosovo banned the use of the Serbian currency and police raided the premises of organizations working with the Serb minority in the north of the country....
The Paris Olympics Promise to Be Stunning. The Prices Already Are. (www.nytimes.com)
Want a prime spot to watch 10,000 athletes float by on the Seine or to catch beach volleyball in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower? Get ready for sticker shock....
‘Always a bed in prison’: Australia’s housing crisis blamed for rise in unsentenced prisoners (www.theguardian.com)
Death and donations: Did the volunteer group handling the October 7 dead exploit its role? (www.haaretz.com)
In the first and critical days of the war, the IDF decided to forego the deployment of hundreds of soldiers specifically trained in the identification and collection of human remains in mass casualty incidents. Instead, the Home Front Command chose to use Zaka, a private organization, alongside soldiers in the Military...
Exclusive: Ukraine must adapt to a reduction in Western military aid, embattled army chief says (www.cnn.com)
Ukraine’s embattled army chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi, says Ukraine must adapt to a reduction in military aid from its key allies and focus ever more strongly on technology if it is to win its war against Russia....
Canada considers sanctions on settlers in West Bank over violence (news.yahoo.com)
OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada is looking at imposing sanctions on “extremist” settlers in the West Bank, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Friday, a day after U.S. action against four Israeli men accused of being involved in violence in the occupied territory....
Weird ancient tree from before dinosaurs found in Canadian quarry (www.cbc.ca)
Russia’s New Threats to Exiles: Seized Assets and Forced Returns (www.nytimes.com)
In Bangkok this week, members of an antiwar Russian-language rock group were fighting deportation to Russia, detained in what supporters described as a cramped, hot, 80-person immigration holding cell....
US believes drone that killed soldiers was Iranian-made, sources say (www.yahoo.com)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The United States has assessed that Iran manufactured the drone that slammed into a U.S. base in Jordan over the weekend, killing three American soldiers and wounding more than 40, four U.S. officials told Reuters....
US military stockpiling supplies in Australia in readiness for any confrontation with China (www.theguardian.com)
Highly paid Sydney Metro contractors 'replaced' in wake of 'serious' allegations (www.abc.net.au)
Imran Khan, Pakistan former PM, sentenced to 14 years in prison for corruption (www.theguardian.com)
Ruling against Khan and wife Bushra Bibi comes just a day after a 10-year sentence was handed down, and just before Pakistan goes to the polls in a general election...
Military intelligence: Russia shows no intent to return bodies of POWs allegedly on crashed Il-76 (kyivindependent.com)
Russia shows no willingness to return bodies of Ukrainian prisoners of war (POW) allegedly killed in an Il-76 plane crash on Jan. 24, Ukraine’s military intelligence (HUR) spokesperson Andrii Yusov said in a comment to Suspilne, published on Jan. 30....