Asia Laos New rules for intellectual property protection wereintroduced, allowing businesses to protect industrial designs internationally through a single application under the Hague System; It simplifies registration and administrative procedures, reducing costs
America Brazil Brazilian police have seized former President Jair Bolsonaro's passport and accused him of manipulating a draft decree to overturn election results, allegedly pressuring military chiefs for a coup and plotting to jail a Supreme Court justice
Oceania Fiji The term 'Micro' will be included, from 1 August, in the name of the Ministry that will be known as the 'Ministry of Commerce, Cooperatives, Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises and Communications', given the growing importance of this category
Africa Uganda Peter Oloya, a former child soldier who survived the horror of being kidnapped by the LRA, is now an internationally renowned artist and his art is expressed through working with clay
Asia South Korea One-third of tourists who visited Korea in 2023 were 30 years old or younger, according to the Korea Tourism Data Lab, the online information platform of the Korea Tourism Organization, and 42,3% came from Japan, a 15,7% increase from 10 years earlier
Asia Cyprus The interior ministry is in the process of examining and evaluating the entire lifeguard system to ensure it is managed more efficiently; the announcement came just a day before the lifeguard’s plan to go on strike
Asia Laos The 'Couples Counselling' project, supported by UNFPA and funded by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, offers to help couples with a reproductive health counselling service
Asia Malaysia Malaysia ranks eighth on the list of best places to retire according to International Living's Annual Global Retirement Index 2024, and is the only Asian country to make it into the top 10
Europe Hungary The number of visitors to the Fiumei Street Cemetery, the Jewish Cemetery on Salgótarjáni Street and the National Mourning Park in the New Public Cemetery is increasing year by year, turning Budapest's historical cemeteries into tourist attractions
Africa Zambia Schools in Zambia reopened for the first time this year, after several five-week delays after the Christmas holidays following an ongoing cholera epidemic in the country
Asia India Thousands of farmers are protesting against Modi's government and the conservative Bharatiya Janata Party with riots in several cities, repressed with tear gas and water cannons; access points have been closed with barbed wire, spikes and concrete blocks
Europe Latvia Electronic timetables at public transport stops in Rīga have had their day and no longer display information: the public transport company Rīgas Satiksme plans to replace these screens and install new ones throughout the city
Africa Sudan Some areas of Sudan are connected to the internet again after a blackout that lasted over a week, reports monitoring site Netblocks
Europe France The government announced the much requested temporary suspension of the programme it had launched in January to incentivise the use of electric cars, which allowed citizens to rent an electric car by spending between €100 and €150 per month