A car bomb explosion that slightly injured seven people on Koh Samui in southern Thailand might be linked to the country’s political turmoil, a spokesman for the Thai government said yesterday.
Initial reports indicated that the attack late on Friday was carried out by the same group behind recent blasts in Thailand’s capital that caused no fatalities, Major General Sansern Kaewkamnerd said.
He did not elaborate, but the leader of the junta who took power in a coup in May last year has blamed the Bangkok blasts on groups opposed to the military takeover.
Photo: EPA
In the Koh Samui explosion, an improvised bomb was hidden in a pickup truck in the basement parking area of the Central Festival mall and went off after a fashion show, the island’s disaster prevention and mitigation head Poonsak Sophonpathumrak said.
Seven people suffered minor injuries and were released from hospital without being kept overnight, Surat Thani Provincial Governor Chatpong Chatputi said.
Authorities said the pickup truck was likely stolen from one of the three southernmost Thai provinces plagued by an Islamic insurgency. More than 5,000 people have been killed in the three provinces since 2004.
The military linked the Koh Samui blast to two small bombs that exploded outside a major shopping mall in Bangkok in early February, slightly injuring two people.
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha said at the time that the blasts were aimed at discrediting the government.
Last month, a series of arrests were made in connection with a grenade that was tossed at Bangkok’s Criminal Court and those detained were apparently sympathizers of the antigovernment Red Shirt movement, which was formed by supporters of former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra after he was deposed in a 2006 coup.
Government critics have suggested that some of the bombings might have been carried out by the military government to justify its continued suppression of basic rights and liberties.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
FIRST TRIAL: Ko’s lawyers sought reduced bail and other concessions, as did other defendants, but the bail judge denied their requests, citing the severity of the sentences Former Taipei mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) was yesterday sentenced to 17 years in prison and had his civil rights suspended for six years over corruption, embezzlement and other charges. Taipei prosecutors in December last year asked the Taipei District Court for a combined 28-year, six-month sentence for the four cases against Ko, who founded the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The cases were linked to the Core Pacific City (京華城購物中心) redevelopment project and the mismanagement of political donations. Other defendants convicted on separate charges included Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Taipei City Councilor Angela Ying (應曉薇), who was handed a 15-year, six-month sentence; Core Pacific
RSS