Japan's prime minister says he plans to visit Lithuania in July to attend a NATO leaders’ summit as his country steps up cooperation with the Western organization

Thailand's new government took a step closer to forming with the speaker of the House of Representative chosen Tuesday in what has been an arduous task before the next prime minister is named. The House vote for prime minister is the next major move, expected next week. The leader of the surprise election winner Move Forward Party, 42-year-old businessman Pita Limjaroenrat, has faced strong opposition from conservative lawmakers in his bid to take the job. A successful candidate must have the backing of a combined majority of the elected lawmakers in the Lower House and the military-appointed Senate, which represents the country’s traditional ruling class. Wan Muhamad Noor Matha, the Prachachat Party's veteran leader who is better known as Wan Noor, was the sole nomination for the speakership and was automatically chosen with no house vote required. “I will perform my duty with political neutrality,” Wan Noor gave a speech after the nomination. “I will perform my duty with transparency, honesty, and I will fully comply with the constitution and the rules of the parliament.” The House Speaker position was highly sought after as it could influence the passage of legislation. Move Forward said it needed the post to ensure their progressive policies, often blocked by conservative lawmakers, will pass through. But many members of the populist Phue Thai Party insisted that their party should take the crucial post as it was the second winner of the election. Weeks of tensions between the two parties over the speaker’s post had raised concerns over the unity of their coalition and added to the anxiety Move Forward is facing in forming a government, but the proposals Tuesday went according to a compromise the two parties made the day before. Move Forward and Pheu Thai, the two biggest parties in the coalition, each got a candidate endorsed for the two deputy speaker posts. Several Move Forward supporters expressed their disappointment in the speaker deal, fearing it would be seen as the party backing down, which could undermine their reform agendas. Party leader Pita wrote Tuesday on Facebook that the decision was reached in order to “preserve the unity of the work among parties of the coalition government” and that he fully trusts Wan Noor will serve the post with integrity and for the right causes. The general election in May saw Move Forward and Pheu Thai score a major win over parties in the army-backed ruling government. The victory alarmed the country’s conservative ruling establishment — especially with Move Forward, which they regard as radical and a threat to the monarchy because of modest reforms it had proposed during the election campaign. The election results reflected a public weary of nine years under Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who as army commander seized power in a 2014 coup. He was returned as prime minister after the 2019 election. Read More Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide

If TikTok is to be believed, American men are absolutely obsessed with ancient Rome – and now a historian has explained why. The trend: “How often do you think about the Roman Empire?” has swept the social media platform in recent weeks. Scores of women have posted about how often their husbands or boyfriends said they think about it. More often than not, it’s more than once a day. But why the fascination? Historian Tom Holland could have the answer – and it doesn’t reflect well on America. Firstly, he writes in Time magazine, it is likely to be something more “visceral” than the great orators and writers like Cicero and Ovid, whose work still gets academics excited 2,000 years later. Instead, he says, it is because the Roman empire was “the apex predator of antiquity: powerful, terrifying, box-office”. Not only this, he adds, but the fact that it was so long ago means modern audiences don’t feel as uncomfortable with the cruel and violent acts of the Roman Empire as with more recent examples. “The Romans, much like the dinosaurs, are not merely glamorous—they are also safely extinct.” However, writes Holland, an author and co-host of podcast The Rest Is History, there is more to it than that: “Romans, more than any other ancient people, seem to offer America a distorted reflection of itself.” @theyaresam_ the roman empire is actually fascinating “Just as American conservatives today look back wistfully to the Founding Fathers as patrons of an age of rugged independence and virtue, so did the Founding Fathers look back with an equal wistfulness to the early years of Rome. “There, for any infant republic victorious in a war against a great monarchy, was a morality tale to be found that could hardly help but serve as inspiration. “The Romans, like the Americans, had originally been ruled by a king; then, resolved no longer to live in servitude, they had dared all in a heroic and ultimately successful campaign to expel him.” The picture gets less rosy when you look to 21st century comparisons, he continues. Both the US and Rome suffered from from wars in Iraq, the rise of rival superpowers, “political vendettas pursued in the law courts” and “the emergence of radicals preaching that the last will be first, and the first will be last, to the excitement of many, and the consternation of others”. When Americans think of Rome, Holland concludes, they are thinking of a civilisation that is both “strange and familiar; terrifying and glamorous; safely extinct and the image of themselves”. Let's just hope the US doesn't suffer the same fate as the Roman Empire any time soon. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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