Read the daily news to learn English

Malta’s ‘trial of the century’ revives interest in murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia

On the steps of the courts of justice in Valletta, there is a bronze statue of Malta’s late president. A bundle of papers in one hand, Guido de Marco stands on a plinth, looking out at passersby in the busy street below. Every morning since Wednesday this week, his daughter has walked up the steps of the same courthouse, in dark glasses and smart clothes, a bundle of papers in her hand. A sought-after criminal lawyer, Giannella de Marco is representing the man accused of ordering the 2017 murder of the investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, in a case that continues to dominate public debate nearly nine years after the event. The man she is defending, Yorgen Fenech, is another establishment figure. If Malta has an equivalent to the Trump dynasty, the Fenechs are it. Their firm runs several Hilton hotels and it owns the Portomaso tower, the island’s second tallest structure. For Caruana Galizia’s family, a gruelling fight against the powerful and well-connected has taken place since the car bombing that ended her life. The journalist had made enemies at the very highest levels through her investigations. In a deeply polarised society, she had become a target of frequent attacks by government supporters. In a statement this week, the nonprofit group Reporters Without Borders described the Fenech trial as “historic” and an “emblematic European case”, a reminder that eyes outside Malta are watching. Herman Grech, editor-in-chief of the Times of Malta, says the scandal has resonated far beyond its shores. His play about the scandal, They Blew Her Up, has toured Europe, filling theatres. “This is undoubtedly the most consequential trial we’ve had in the 21st century,” he said. “The murder of Daphne was the biggest shock of my generation. We had seen other car bombs, but when it targets one of your own, it’s terrifying. It did bring down one of Malta’s most popular prime ministers.” Caruana Galizia’s biggest scoops concerned members of the government of Joseph Muscat, a young politician who had returned the Labour party to power after years in opposition. In 2019, amid concerns about political interference in the police investigation, and shortly after Fenech’s arrest, Muscat resigned. The family secured a public inquiry, which ran for 18 months and concluded, in July 2021, that the state had allowed “an atmosphere of impunity” to spread from the highest level of government to regulators and the police, leading to a collapse in the rule of law and creating a “favourable climate” for the murder. Their foundation has set up a news publisher, Amphora Media, and the family has capitalised on public attention to push for greater safeguards for journalists, making it harder to use the law to silence reporting of genuine public interest. Caruana Galizia was facing 43 civil and five criminal libel suits at the time of her assassination. On the day she died, she was on her way to the bank to arrange some payments because her accounts had been frozen as part of the legal proceedings. In Brussels, the Maltese MEPs David Casa and Roberta Metsola – now in her second term as president of the European parliament – campaigned with the family to secure new legislation designed to allow judges to dismiss the most abusive libel claims before they reach trial. The ripples have been felt as far as the UK, where Labour and Conservative politicians have called for similar measures, and two private members’ bills are being brought forward, one in the Lords and one in the Commons. Back in Malta, the trial has revived interest in the case. But conspiracy theories abound on social media, and many feel as though they have lost the thread, leaving them unsure of who or what to believe. While Caruana Galizia never wrote about Fenech, she was investigating him when she was killed, and the police have said they believe this was the motive for the murder. Fenech denies any involvement in the crime, and his lawyers have claimed he was framed. Years later, the case still divides public opinion and some remain openly hostile to Caruana Galizia’s memory. “Most people are happy she was got rid of,” said Albert, a barman in Valletta. “The people want to put it behind them. For the people the case is solved, it was solved efficiently.” While Muscat resigned, his party retains many supporters. Labour secured a historic fourth term in a snap election held in May under Muscat’s successor, Robert Abela. Abela was this week forced to deny the date for the vote was chosen in order to get ahead of any fallout from whatever happens in court. Sources say what the government fears most is that the trial, delayed multiple times, will collapse on a technicality. It is a chapter they wish to see closed. For now, the jury continues to hear the evidence. “We’ve waited a long time for this trial to begin,” said the journalist’s sister, Corinne Vella. “Our family has learned to be prepared for anything, but the evidence against the accused is simply overwhelming which gives us real hope we’ll finally see justice for Daphne’s murder.”

Ukraine war briefing: Germany calls reports Russian soldiers are being trained in China ‘deeply disturbing’

The Chinese ambassador in Berlin has been summoned for urgent talks about media reports that Russian soldiers were being trained in China, the German foreign ministry said on Friday. These “deeply disturbing” reports point to support for Russia from Chinese state actors, in particular the Chinese People’s Liberation Army, it said. “Anything that enables Russia to continue its war of aggression against Ukraine also represents a threat to our security,” the ministry said. On 20 May, the German daily Die Welt reported that the Chinese army had secretly trained several hundred Russian soldiers on its territory, some of whom had been deployed in Ukraine, citing classified documents from European intelligence services. Russia’s ⁠Defence Ministry claimed ⁠on ⁠Friday its forces had “completely” taken ⁠control of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine, ⁠whose capture Moscow ‌has long sought in its advance through Donetsk ‌region. The battle for this city, which had about 78,000 inhabitants before the war, has been taking place since late 2025 and now constitutes the main Russian effort on a front more than 1,000km long. “The city is now entirely under our control,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. There was no independent verification of the claim. A massive Russian glide bomb strike on the centre of the northern Ukrainian city of Sumy on Friday has killed at least four people, including a ⁠child, ⁠and injured 27, regional governor Oleh Hryhorov said. Other areas in the Sumy region and in southeastern Ukraine, closer to the frontlines, also came under Russian ⁠attack, killing a total of six people. After the attack, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for Ukraine’s allies to intensify pressure on Russia “so that the terror can be stopped”. Sumy region, under near-constant attacks by Russian forces, is on the Russian border and Moscow has been trying to expand what it describes as a buffer zone there. Ukraine is looking ⁠for ways to lower tension ⁠with Warsaw, Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk said on Friday, adding that Poland’s neighbour to the east should come to terms with its history in order to join the European Union. Diplomatic relations between the two countries ⁠deteriorated after Polish President Karol Nawrocki stripped Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Poland’s top honour because Zelenskyy had named an army unit after insurgents who massacred Poles in the second world war. Tusk, a political opponent of Nawrocki, has been trying to smooth tensions, and said he ‌had received positive signals from Friday’s meeting ‌between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and his Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski in Warsaw. There are proposals for consultations between historians and talks between religious leaders from both nations, Tusk said. Lithuania’s president said Friday his country wants to be integrated into western nuclear deterrence against Russia as it moves to end a ban on atomic weapons deployment. Speaking at a Berlin press conference, President Gitanas Nauseda said Lithuania was taking steps to remove the constitutional ban and added: “We would like to be the integral part of this nuclear deterrence.” “A few days ago, I initiated a constitutional amendment to remove the existing restriction on the possible deployment of nuclear weapons in Lithuania,” he added. Shortly afterwards, a group of 50 Lithuanian lawmakers submitted an amendment, which still has to be put before parliament. The World Athletics Council on Friday reaffirmed its decision ⁠to exclude Russian and Belarusian athletes from international competition, four years ⁠after it ⁠initially imposed sanctions over the invasion of Ukraine. World Athletics voted to end its eight-year ⁠doping ban of the Russian Athletics Federation in 2023 but the separate ban over ⁠the invasion of Ukraine kept out their athletes. “We presented options for the ‌Council to ‌consider on this matter, however the original decision remains ‌on the sanctions that protect the integrity and fairness of our competitions, with no tangible movement towards peace negotiations having materialised,” World Athletics President Seb Coe said in a statement.

Sheila MacKay obituary

My friend Sheila MacKay, who has died aged 75, was a community worker, an educator and a lifelong activist for peace and justice. She spent her life exploring what it means to tackle inequality by working within groups where people supported one another. She was also immense fun. With her lifelong partner, Margaret Bremner, Sheila was in 1984 one of the founder members of the Gareloch Horts, a women’s nonviolent direct-action group that, more than 40 years on, is still protesting against the UK’s nuclear weapons. She took part in many eye-catching actions at the nuclear bases at Faslane, Coulport and Greenham, at international arms fairs and at the parliament buildings in Scotland and London, for which she was arrested many times. Born in Glasgow to Kathleen (nee Reid), a welfare officer, and James MacKay, a chartered accountant, Sheila grew up sharing her parents’ social concerns and ideals. Her fight against injustice started in childhood when she realised that her brother’s shorts had pockets, but hers did not. After Glasgow high school for girls, Sheila did an arts degree at Glasgow University, graduating in 1972, then spent two years on a VSO assignment in Brunei. Back in the city, she completed her training in community education at Jordanhill College and went on to community work in Clydebank, then adult education in Maryhill, creating women’s training courses in areas such as confidence building and women’s health, as well as basic education. After two years as a youth worker at Runshaw College in Preston, Lancashire, Sheila moved to Edinburgh in 1992, where she worked as a women’s project leader at Save the Children, as an outreach worker with Edinburgh Rape Crisis (1994-99), for the Scottish Centre for Nonviolence (1994-99), and as a team leader with East Lothian community and adult education (2002-12). Sheila’s nephews Patrick and Alistair both lived with a rare genetic disease which, in their teens, left them using wheelchairs. Like their contemporaries, they wanted to travel the world, so in 2003 Sheila and Margaret put together the audacious and amazingly successful Wicked World Tour, which took both boys to the US, Australia, New Zealand and south-east Asia. With a choir called San Ghanny (meaning “we shall sing” in Arabic), Sheila twice went to Palestine, in 2012 and 2017, to sing alongside and in solidarity with oppressed communities in the occupied West Bank. I met Sheila when I joined the Horts in 2001. She lived with a sense of wonder and openness, inviting people to be the best version of themselves, but at the same time loving everyone exactly as they were. She and Margaret had a civil partnership in 2008. Margaret survives her, as do her brother, Hamish, and her nephews, Steven and Gavin. Her sister, Jean, and Patrick and Alistair, predeceased her.

Deaths in France surged 30% during hottest week of record June heatwave

The number of deaths recorded in France surged by nearly 30% during the hottest week of the record-breaking heatwave that scorched much of Europe last month, the public health authority has said, adding that it expected the toll to rise further. Public Health France said on Friday there had been “an increase of 29.1%, corresponding to 2,025 additional deaths compared with the previous week”. It said the figure was probably an underestimate and “mortality will rise further”. The new and still incomplete figures doubled the preliminary estimate of at least 1,000 additional deaths given by the authority last Sunday. That earlier estimate covered just three of the hottest days of extreme heat. Belgium’s health ministry said excess mortality totalled about 1,200 between 18 and 29 June, with 530 of the ⁠deaths among people 85 or older. The Dutch government said the heatwave had led to about 480 excess deaths, mainly of elderly people. The updated French tally covers the week of 22 to 28 June, during which France registered its hottest-ever days, with previous day- and night-time highs shattered in cities and towns across the country. Hundreds of records also fell in other parts of Europe. Public Health France said it had counted 8,973 deaths so far for that week but cautioned that the number was still only partial. It said the preliminary total was 29% more than the 6,948 deaths registered for the previous week of 15-21 June. It said the increase was concentrated almost entirely among people aged 45 and over, with the over-65s worst-affected. “Although we are seeing a clear rise among 45- to 64-year-olds, people aged 65 and over account for the largest share of deaths,” it said. Deaths in the home recorded the biggest increase, nearly doubling within a single week, and Paris was the worst-affected region; the number of deaths recorded in the capital rose by 62% week on week, Public Health France said in its weekly report. Nicolas Revel, the director general of the Paris public hospital system, has said he expected the death toll from the June heatwave to be lower than that of 2003, but “probably” higher than an extreme heat episode last year that claimed 5,700 lives. More than two-thirds of Europeans experienced 35C-plus temperatures during the June event, AFP said, basing its calculations on temperature data from the European Drought Observatory and population figures from the Joint Research Centre. The environmental consequences of the extreme heat have been felt across Europe. In Italy, droughts have left several waterways in a “critical state”, according to the Po River Basin Authority. Lake Maggiore, at the foot of the Alps, is only 48% full; elsewhere, dry sections of the Po riverbed have been left exposed. In response to the drought, the Veneto region declared a state of emergency on Thursday. The heat has also caused a Glacier Loss Day on 29 June on Switzerland’s Rhône Glacier, causing excessive melting of decades or centuries-old snow. The resulting water could have filled an Olympic-sized swimming pool every 6 seconds for two weeks, Matthias Huss, director of Glacier Monitoring Switzerland, told Reuters. Elsewhere, all-time temperature records were broken in Germany, Poland, Slovakia, Czechia and Hungary, as well as June records in the UK and Switzerland, while France’s average temperature measured across the country also hit an absolute high. These temperatures would have been virtually impossible in June without climate change, say climatologists from the World Weather Attribution.

Pope praises US history of welcoming immigrants in implicit rebuke to Trump

Pope Leo has used his first major address to his home country to praise the US history of ⁠welcoming migrants, urging Americans to live up to the ideals put forward in the ⁠Declaration of Independence. In his latest implicit rebuke to Donald Trump, the first US leader of the Roman Catholic church said the word “America” had become ‌a “byword for freedom” across the world because of the way the country welcomed migrants. In a speech given live from the Vatican to the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia ‌as he received the Center’s Liberty Medal, Leo said he hoped that ideals of “unity, justice and peace” held by the founding fathers would guide the US as it celebrated its 250th anniversary. “This historic anniversary presents ⁠us with the opportunity to reflect once again on the nation’s founding principles in the hope that America will remain ever true ‌to the dream that has earned it the title of land of the free and home of the brave,” the pope said. Leo will mark the US’s 250th anniversary on Saturday with a brief visit to the southern Italian island of Lampedusa, one of the main entry points to Europe for people making the perilous sea crossing from north Africa in search of refuge. Leo will arrive in Lampedusa by helicopter early on Saturday morning and make his first stop at a cemetery where there are many unmarked graves of people who died during the Mediterranean journey. He will then visit the Porta d’Europa (Gateway to Europe), a migrant memorial monument, before blessing a plaque on a pier named after his late predecessor, Pope Francis, who denounced the “globalisation of indifference” when he visited the island in July 2013 on his first official papal trip. Like Francis, Leo has clashed with Trump over his immigration policies, calling in November for “deep reflection” in the US about the treatment of people held in detention. Relations with the Trump administration worsened further after the pontiff strongly condemned the US-Israeli war in Iran. Days before Leo’s trip to Lampedusa, JD Vance, the US vice-president, said the Vatican’s views on immigration were “troubling”. Leo is yet to take up Trump’s invitation to the White House, made by Vance during a meeting at the Vatican the day after Leo’s inaugural papal mass in May last year. The US is not on Leo’s overseas itinerary for 2026, although there were reportedly expectations among some in Trump’s administration that he would attend the Fourth of July celebrations. Marco Politi, a Vatican journalist and author, said: “Leo’s trip to Lampedusa is strongly symbolic and is also a political sign. He is focusing on the theme of immigration. This means reaffirming what he recently said in Spain about the dignity of every human being, but the trip is also a political message against the persecution of immigrants and what is being done by ICE agents in the US. “Furthermore, it is a strong political message against all the parties in Europe who sow hatred and polarise.” Andrea Vreede, the Vatican correspondent for the Dutch broadcaster NOS, said Leo’s trip was partly to pay homage to Francis but also to make a point to Trump. “The pope is telling Trump what is important to him, and that is migrants. He chose 4 July to make this point.” Lampedusa, home to roughly 6,000 residents and located closer to Tunisia than mainland Italy, has for decades been the first port of call for people crossing the Mediterranean in flimsy boats from north Africa. More than 182,000 people have transited the island’s reception centre in the past three years, Vatican News reported this week, citing data from the Italian Red Cross. Since 2014, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has recorded tens of thousands of deaths of people who set off from Tunisia or Libya. Despite a sharp drop in arrivals along Italy’s southern shores in recent years, the fatalities continue. Between January and early April, the IOM reported nearly 1,000 people either dead or missing in the Mediterranean. Leo will celebrate mass and speak to people who have survived the journey as well as humanitarian workers in Lampedusa before leaving shortly after midday. Kandeh Abdourahman, a cultural mediator who works on the island for the International Rescue Committee, said: “I was one of those thousands who crossed the Mediterranean and landed in Lampedusa in 2015, exhausted and uncertain. The pope’s visit speaks to every one of us – a reminder that our stories are seen, that ‘welcome’ is not just a word but an act of humanity that can help us reach all 118 million people displaced in the world today.”

New pipeline in Canada to proceed after C$150bn pledged to ease BC and First Nations concerns

The governments of Canada and the province of Alberta will move forward on a major new oil pipeline after the pair announced a plan to ease concerns of British Columbia and First Nations on the Pacific coast. Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, shuttled between British Columbia and Alberta on Thursday to announce more than C$150bn in new investments in both provinces, part of a broader project of reducing trade with the United States and expanding his country’s presence in overseas markets. Leaning on the familiar framing of a “more dangerous and divided world”, Carney pledged to strengthen domestic industries, saying in Vancouver that the country needed to “move faster, build bigger and work together”. Carney promised billions for a port expansion in Vancouver, expanded power infrastructure for a new liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal and investments in new protections for the endangered southern resident killer whale. But the marquee project is a new pipeline that follows the route of the existing Trans Mountain pipeline before diverting at the end to a new terminal. The project will transport 1m barrels a day, according to the Alberta government. Carney said Canada and Alberta would be “equal partners” in the pipeline project, and there would be “a meaningful ownership stake for Indigenous communities”. The two governments would also work to achieve “substantial” methane reductions. Consultations will begin immediately with Indigenous communities, provinces and territories. Carney said his government would leave in place a longstanding federal ban on tankers loading or unloading oil from British Columbia’s north coast – an environmental safeguard that First Nations have long said is non-negotiable. Alberta’s premier, Danielle Smith, who had long advocated the northern route – which would have required overturning the tanker ban – said on Wednesday the planned southern route represented “the fastest, most cost-effective path to expanding Canada’s energy exports”. Smith is also under growing pressure from a separatist element in her province to demonstrate that Alberta can sign major energy deals with the federal government. The shift from a northern pipeline to a southern route reflects both a major shift from Alberta – and a recognition by governments that Indigenous opposition would dramatically slow any new project. British Columbia’s premier, David Eby, said his government would not fight the pipeline after they “found out the hard way” when they lost a court battle over the original expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline. He said the new deal had strong safeguards and residents would be “fairly compensated for the environmental risks we would take on any new pipeline project”. Marilyn Slett, president of the Coastal First Nations and elected chief of the Heiltsuk Nation, called the announcement a “good day” following news that the tanker ban would remain in place. “British Columbians, Canadians and the First Nations who call this place home want this region to remain protected. There is no technology that can clean up an oil spill at sea, and a single oil spill could destroy our way of life,” she said in a statement. “Protecting our coast is not a barrier to economic prosperity, it is the source of it.” A number of First Nations had previously pledged to withdraw support for multibillion-dollar LNG projects if the 50-year tanker ban was lifted. The Climate Action Network said it agreed with Carney’s framing that Canada was in a “treacherous moment of geopolitical instability” but said climate change – not trade partners – was the biggest source of instability. “Continuing to expand fossil fuel production when Canadians are already living with climate chaos is simply dangerous,” the group said. Expanding the Trans Mountain pipeline represents one of largest and most expensive infrastructure cost overruns in Canadian history. While the pipeline has proven strategically beneficial, it is unclear if taxpayers will ever recoup their investment. “If this was a smart economic venture, if there was any kind of reasonable return on investment to be made, a private company or companies would have put up the cash,” Chris Severson-Baker, executive director of the Pembina Institute, an independent Canadian clean energy thinktank, said in a statement. “Instead, Albertan and Canadian taxpayers will now shoulder the cost of 90% of this project – which will likely run into the tens of billions of dollars.”

In Thailand’s sex tourism hub, bright lights flash, loud music blares – and underage girls are exploited

Sky Kanyarat was playing pool in the early hours of the morning in one of Thailand’s most famous red light districts when a middle-aged foreigner with a heavy gait approached her. She had often seen him walking past the bar where she worked in Pattaya, a city about a two-hour drive from Bangkok. But this was the first time Kanyarat had seen him come in. As he passed under the bunting of flags from around the world, it appeared “he was drunk from somewhere else because he walked wobbly,” says Kanyarat, who identifies as a ladyboy, a term commonly used in Thailand’s transgender community. He sat with her colleague, Tang, on a rattan cane couch, bought them both a drink and began nuzzling and massaging her. The man asked Tang to go home with him, but she didn’t want to, and he left the bar at about 2am. It would be more than two days before Kanyarat would see his face again – and this time, it was on the news. The man was Simon Peter Carman and he had been charged with murder. Soon after leaving the bar on 25 June, police allege Carman went to the nearby palm-tree lined beach strip and met a 17-year-old girl named Thunchanok Donhomla who had only arrived a week before in Pattaya from Kalasin, an area in north-east Thailand with high levels of poverty. Police allege CCTV footage captured Donhomla holding Carman’s hand as they waited for an elevator in his condo’s lobby. She was not seen alive again. The following night, her naked body and her belongings – her clothes, vape and platform sandals – were found in a suitcase left in high grass near the railway tracks. Donhomla’s death has drawn international headlines and her family are demanding justice. Experts say her death speaks to broader issues in Thailand’s sex industry – including the underage girls exploited by it. Thailand’s sex tourism capital Pattaya is known as the sex tourism capital of Thailand – despite locals’ attempts to fight it. At night, sex workers lean against palm trees fanning themselves, as a constant flow of songthaew – or converted trucks – pick up and drop off male tourists. On the city’s garishly lit walking street, loud music blares from go-go clubs and people wave menus in multiple languages, offering everything including ping-pong shows. There are clubs targeted at specific clientele – “Russian Girls Show” and “Bollywood Night”. About 116,000 Thai nationals are registered as living in the city, as well as about 40,000 to 70,000 foreigners living either full-time or for extended periods. There are also an estimated 60,000 sex workers. Many come from underdeveloped rural provinces. Three kilometres away from the main strip, the more relaxed suburb of Jomtien caters to retirees and long-stay visitors – like Carman. Here the bars are clustered along a lane, where fruit sellers push carts full of watermelons and bananas. Some of the bars have traditional palm-thatching and names that evoke paradise or Australiana. The clientele are mostly older, white men, some with their arms draped around a woman’s waist or placed on her thigh. It’s not far from here that police allege Carman met Donhomla. Donhomla had come to visit a friend who had moved to Pattaya from their home province of Kalasin. Police are investigating whether the friend worked in the adult service industry. Carman told police he took Donhomla to the condo where he lived. He claimed they had an argument, and he killed her in self-defence. Police said a medical examination found Donhomla likely died from suffocation. According to police, Carman said he did not know what to do with Donhomla’s body and put her in a suitcase in his bathroom. Police allege CCTV footage shows Carman leaving the condo with a suitcase at about 9pm. The next day, Donhomla’s friend reported her missing to the police before going to Carman’s condo. Within hours Carman was arrested and later charged with murder, concealing a corpse in an attempt to hide the cause of death, and abduction of a minor over 15 but not yet 18 years of age for indecent purposes, and taking a person over 15 but not yet 18 for indecent purposes, even if the person consents. He denies the charges. Donhomla’s stepmother, Oradee Bussarakum, told Reuters she wants Carman “to face the full consequences”. “We just hoped it wouldn’t turn out the way we feared. Now our eyes are swollen from crying,” she says. The lane shaken by Donhomla’s death On the Tuesday after Donhomla’s death, Kanyarat is back at the blue-walled bar, sitting on a red-plastic covered stool and putting on makeup. She is barefoot – it’s early evening, and the lane is just coming to life. Most of the chairs in the bar are still empty. Immediately after she saw the news, Kanyarat texted her friends who work in the lane. They all felt the same – “scared”. After she heard about the alleged murder, Tang says she couldn’t sleep. She hadn’t felt unsafe when she was with him – he seemed “normal”, like the other customers. But, as Kanyarat puts it, normal in a Jomtien bar is working in an environment where for every 10 customers of hers, four “are not good”. “Some clients have used force against me, locked me in their arms or strangled me, pulled my hair,” Kanyarat says. Sometimes she has run away, not waiting for anything worse to happen. “If those clients come back to the bar, I won’t go out with them again. In one case [a client] strangled me so strongly I kicked him because I was about to suffocate. After kicking him I grabbed my wallet with my payment and ran away.” Despite this, Kanyarat says she likes her work. But others in the lane are shaken – another woman who asked not to use her name says she’s so scared, she doesn’t want to continue working. The regulars’ bar For months, Carman had lived in a condo in a featureless grey apartment block, one of three identical buildings next to each other about a 20-minute walk from the lane. Carman’s favourite bar was just downstairs in the adjacent building. In the early afternoon on the Tuesday after Donhomla’s death, wind chimes tinkle in the distance and many regulars are already drinking and smoking. “Happy birthday” bunting is still hung up for one customer whose birthday was the day before. “Hello darling,” one regular says to the owner as they walk in. When asked if he knew Carmen, the customer – who moved to Jomtien from the UK almost a year ago – says yes. “We all knew him around here.” The owner of the bar, who did not want to provide her name, says she was shocked when she heard the news. She had known Carman for at least eight years – he used to live in the area but had moved back to Australia during the Covid-19 pandemic. While he was in Australia, he called her from his farm and showed her his tractor. She rented him a room in November when he came back and since then, he came to the bar every day. Her customers are normally friendly, she says – they offer to help her if she’s carrying something heavy, for instance. But Carman wasn’t necessarily well liked. The Finnish man, who, like the others, did not want to provide his name for reasons of anonymity, says Carman was not his friend. The British customer says Carman “wasn’t my cup of tea. Bit strange.” A ‘massively concerning’ industry Pattaya’s red-light district image goes back to the Vietnam war era when it became an R&R spot for American soldiers. Authorities and businesses are now trying to push the city as a family-friendly destination, says Dr Pipatpong Fakfare, an associate professor specialising in researching tourism at Bangkok University. But “that history never really left the city’s brand,” Fakfare says. Despite sex tourism operating openly, prostitution is illegal, and there are specific laws preventing sexual activity with people under 18. But the laws are inconsistently enforced – and even result in sex workers being punished. Some politicians and advocacy groups in Thailand are actively pushing for sex work to be decriminalised. Thai feminist organisation the Manushya Foundation said Thai sex workers endure routine violence “just to survive”, including homicide rates 17 times higher than the general female population and widespread abuse by clients, pimps, and even police. “The influx of Western tourists seeking ‘exotic experiences’ perpetuates exploitative dynamics, while women involved remain stigmatised and criminalised instead of protected.” Australians make up a high proportion of tourists who engage in the sexual exploitation of children under 18 in south-east Asia and the Pacific, according to an article published last year in the Bond Law Review. Laura Parker, CEO and co-founder of the Exodus Road, a not-for-profit dedicated to combating human trafficking, says the demand for sex tourism is “massively concerning”. But what concerns her most is how easily the exploitation of minors can be concealed when there’s a normalised commercial sex market. “When buying sex is treated as ordinary, the trafficking of children and coerced adults becomes harder to see and easier to ignore,” Parker says. Fakfare says the sexual exploitation of children in Thailand’s sex industry is directly linked to poverty and tourism demand. “It deserves to be treated as its own serious problem, not folded into the general debate about adult sex work.” Destiny Rescue Australia, which works to find and help children being exploited in Thailand, consistently finds children rarely enter exploitation by choice. “Instead, they are groomed, manipulated, deceived or coerced by offenders who deliberately exploit existing vulnerabilities,” says the group’s CEO, Greg Bradley. Questions remain over why Donhomla came to Pattaya. But back in Kalasin, her community is feeling the toll of her death. Hundreds of people attended her funeral and there was “tremendous grief”, Phra Vichien, the abbot of the monastery where her funeral was held, told the ABC. The victim’s father, Thongchai Donhomla, told Reuters he was struggling to come to terms with the loss. “My daughter had ⁠no mother, so whenever she wanted anything, she would find a way herself, and she always helped me, too.”

Spain’s conservatives and far-right Vox increase ties with Andalucía coalition

The prospect of a national coalition between Spain’s conservative People’s party (PP) and the far-right Vox party has drawn closer still after the two groupings sealed another deal that will allow the PP to continue ruling the southern region of Andalucía. The PP, which has governed the former socialist bastion for the past seven years, lost its absolute majority in May’s regional election, forcing it to look to Vox to help it stay in power in Spain’s most populous region. The incumbent PP regional president, Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, had hoped to govern alone to avoid depending on Vox, which has been seeking to drag the PP further to the right in regional coalitions by insisting Spanish-born people receive priority over those born abroad for housing and public services. Although Moreno had rubbished Vox’s so-called “national priority” policy as “a sensationalistic but empty slogan” during the campaign, the coalition agreement, signed on Thursday, explicitly guarantees “national priority in accessing public benefits”. The agreement also rejects the immigration policies of Spain’s socialist-led central government and says Andalucía will not accept any more unaccompanied migrant children. Other priorities include opposing “the imposition of ideological agendas when it comes to caring for the environment”, defending intensive livestock farming “in the face of criminalisation from the animal rights lobby and the climate policies developed in Brussels”, and protecting and preserving bullfighting. As in other regions where the PP and Vox govern in coalition – Extremadura, Aragón and Castilla y León – the new Andalucían government wants to overturn legislation that was introduced four years ago to bring “justice, reparation and dignity” to the victims of the civil war and the subsequent Franco dictatorship. It intends to replace it with a so-called “harmony law”, which the national government, historical memory associations and UN experts have all decried as a blatant attempt to whitewash, justify or eradicate the horrors of the Franco era. Moreno hailed the coalition pact as a “sensible, fair and legal legislative agreement” that would bring four years of stability, while his boss, the national PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, paid tribute to the returning regional president’s “commitment, capacity for dialogue, and vocation of service”. Vox’s leader in Andalucía, Manuel Gavira – who will serve as a regional vice-president – said the deal would ensure a government “that defends common sense and improves the lives of the people of Andalucía”. May’s regional election proved a disaster for the Spanish Socialist Worker’s party (PSOE), which is led by the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez. It dropped from 30 seats to 28 in the 109-seat regional parliament – its worst ever result in Andalucía. The PP, despite finishing first, decreased its seat count from 58 to 53, while Vox picked up another seat to finish with 15. The leftwing Adelante Andalucía party climbed from two seats to eight, and the leftist coalition Por Andalucía held on to the five seats it won four years ago. Sánchez’s inner circle and his party are being battered by a series of corruption cases as Spain gears up for next year’s general election. The polls suggest the PP will finish first but may struggle to secure an outright majority, leaving it dependent on Vox to govern nationally. Feijóo has repeatedly refused to rule out a national coalition with Vox. In a recent TV interview, the PP leader – who was touted as the man who would bring the party back to the centre ground when he was appointed four years ago – said that while he hoped to govern alone, he had no intention of “demonising” Vox. “If it turns out that we need to make a deal for a coalition government, we’ll sit down and we’ll form a government coalition that’s in line with the basic principles of our parties and we’ll set out a series of red lines that I won’t cross,” he told Antena 3’s El Hormiguero last month. The PSOE’s organisational secretary, Rebeca Torró, said the Andalucía deal showed that there was no such thing as a “moderate PP” or a “hardline PP”, adding: “There’s only a PP that’s exactly the same as Vox.” Torró said that each such alliance followed a familiar playbook: “Backward steps in equality, attacks on the rights of LGBTI people, a weakening of public services, a questioning of climate change, and the normalisation of speech that jeopardises rights and freedoms that were hard-won over the course of decades.” Feijóo’s predecessor Pablo Casado was weakened by his inability to decide how to respond to growing competition from Vox. Despite relying on Vox to prop up three regional PP governments, he eventually turned on the far-right party in an incendiary speech to congress six years ago. “You brag about being populists with your demagoguery that offers easy – and usually fake – solutions to complex problems,” said Casado. “The People’s party doesn’t want to be another party of fear, of rage, of resentment and revenge, of insults and skirmishes, nor of manipulation, lies and backwards opposition.”