Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra promised yesterday to deliver a new wave of development help for the largely Muslim south following an eruption of violence that has rocked his government.
"These three provinces in the next five years will be very different," he said of a region placed under martial law after gunmen stormed an army camp and more than 20 state schools were torched last Sunday.
"I will do everything in my power to develop them," he said in his weekly radio address, again attributing the violence in a region with a reputation for lawlessness to criminals, not the Islamic separatists some top aides say are responsible.
Thaksin has dismissed statements by top aides that Islamists possibly connected to Jemaah Islamiah, the Southeast Asian network responsible for the nightclub bombings on the Indonesian island of Bali in 2002, were behind the attacks.
Nevertheless, the imposition of martial law in the three provinces near the Malaysian border, an intense manhunt by heavily armed soldiers and police and a round-up of suspects, including Islamic teachers, has not quelled the violence.
Police in the southern town of Thakbai said they had defused a time bomb in one of their stations.
South Korea’s air force yesterday apologized for a 2021 midair collision involving two fighter jets, a day after auditors said the pilots were taking selfies and filming during the flight and held them responsible for the accident. “We sincerely apologize to the public for the concern caused by the accident that occurred in 2021,” an air force spokesman told a news conference, adding that one of the pilots involved had been suspended from flying duties, received severe disciplinary action and has since left the military. The apology followed a report released on Wednesday by the South Korean Board of Audit and Inspection,
Indonesian police have arrested 13 people after shocking images of alleged abuse against small children at a daycare center went viral, sparking outrage across the nation, officials said on Monday. Police on Friday last week raided Little Aresha, a daycare center in Yogyakarta on Java island, following a report from a former employee. CCTV footage circulating on social media showed children, most younger than two, lying on the floor wearing only diapers, their hands and feet bound with rags. The police have confirmed that the footage is authentic. Police said they also found 20 children crammed into a room just 3m by 3m. “So
About 240 Indians claiming descent from a Biblical tribe landed at Tel Aviv airport on Thursday as part of a government operation to relocate them to Israel. The newcomers passed under a balloon arch in blue and white, the colors of the Israeli flag, as dozens of well-wishers welcomed them with a traditional Jewish song. They were the first “bnei Menashe” (“sons of Manasseh”) to arrive in Israel since the government in November last year announced funding for the immigration of about 6,000 members of the community from the states of Manipur and Mizoram in northeast India. The community claims to descend from
‘TROUBLING’: The firing of Phelan, who was an adviser to a nonprofit that supported the defense of Taiwan, was another example of ‘dysfunction’ under Trump, a US senator said US Secretary of the Navy John Phelan has been fired, a US official and a person familiar with the matter said on Wednesday, in another wartime shakeup at the Pentagon coming just weeks after US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ousted the Army’s top general. The Pentagon announced his departure in a brief statement, saying he was leaving the administration “effective immediately,” but it did not provide a reason or say whether it was his decision to go. The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Phelan was dismissed in part because he was moving too slowly to implement reforms to
RSS