News Headlines - 25 March 2019
Japanese social media has been ablaze in recent days with outrage at the perceived failure of the country’s music industry and police to properly investigate an alleged assault on a member of a popular girl band.
▽Polls close in Thailand's general election, 1st since coup - The Mainichi
Up for grabs are all 500 seats in the lower house of parliament. Preliminary results for 350 seats that are directly elected are expected to be known by 8 p.m., with the remaining 150 seats to be allocated on a proportional party-list basis... Three main parties in the fray are the pro-junta Palang Pracharath Party, the Pheu Thai Party, which won the last election in 2011 but was ousted in the 2014 coup, and the Democrat Party, which is seen as a potential "kingmaker" party.
Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who has led the government since his coup in May 2014, is the Palang Pracharath Party's candidate to lead a new civilian government.
▽Macron under fire for criticising elderly woman injured at "yellow vest" protest - The Local
France's Emmanuel Macron has been accused of lacking empathy after criticising an elderly "yellow vest" protester who was badly injured during a demonstration in Nice at the weekend... Macron, who travelled to the area on Sunday to meet visiting Chinese President Xi Jinping, told the Nice Matin newspaper that he wished Legay a "speedy recovery" but also "a form of wisdom"... The remarks were immediately criticised by Legay's family, which has accused police of using disproportionate force to clear protesters.
▽Too poor to play: children in social housing blocked from communal playground | The Guardian
At least one multimillion-pound housing development in London is segregating the children of less well-off tenants from those of wealthier homebuyers by blocking them from some communal play areas.
Guardian Cities has discovered that developer Henley Homes has blocked social housing residents from using shared play spaces at its Baylis Old School complex on Lollard Street, south London. The development was required to include a mix of “affordable” and social rental units in order to gain planning permission.
▽Auschwitz Museum asks visitors not to balance on train tracks | DW
The Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum implored visitors to respect the memories of the 1.1 million people who were killed at the concentration camp - and not to balance on the train tracks that brought Holocaust victims to the site... The Auschwitz Museum added in a later post that photography will not be banned at the site, but that "we ask visitors to behave respectfully, also when taking pictures."
