Malaysia's last bachelor crown prince married a Thai science graduate in a traditional Muslim ceremony witnessed by royal dignitaries from both countries and dubbed a fairytale wedding by the local media. \nTengku Muhammad Faris Petra Sultan Ismail Petra, 35, who is next in line to be the sultan of northeastern Kelantan state, wedded Kangsadal Pipitpakdee, 23, at Kelantan's royal palace late Monday in glittering rites known as "akad nikah," or the solemnizing of marriage. \nThe prince recited a sacred oath of marriage in front of a senior cleric and then exchanged rings with Kangsadal, who is the daughter of Viroj Pinitpakdee, a former member of Parliament from the southern Thai province of Pattani. \nThailand's Queen Sirikit, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak and Thai Foreign Minister Surakiart Sathirathai were among the guests at the wedding in Kelantan, a staunchly Islamic state that borders southern Thailand. \nOther details were not immediately available because media outlets were barred from the ceremony. \nHowever, preparations for the event electrified Kelantan's residents and received wide coverage. The Star newspaper called it a "fairytale wedding," while the New Straits Times announced that Tengku Faris would be a "royal bachelor no more." \nTengku Faris was Malaysia's last remaining unmarried crown prince. Nine of the country's 13 states have sultans as ceremonial rulers who take turns to be the king of Malaysia. \nKangsadal, also a Muslim, took the name of Tengku Zubaidah following the wedding. She received a crash course on local customs and royal life over the past three months. \nThe couple reportedly met two years ago at a wedding in Bangkok. \nBanners proclaiming the occasion lined the streets of Kelantan's capital, Kota Bahru. Some roads were closed to the public to ensure that VIP vehicles could proceed smoothly to the palace. \nKangsadal was raised in Pattani, one of three Muslim provinces in predominantly Buddhist Thailand. She later furthered her studies at Bangkok's Mahidol University.
China is racing to quash a new COVID-19 flareup that risks spilling over into one of its most economically significant regions, raising the specter of disruptions that could roil global supply chains for solar panels, medicines and semiconductors. Infections have surged in Si County in the eastern province of Anhui, with officials reporting 287 cases for Sunday and nearly 1,000 since late last week. Authorities locked down Si and a neighboring county late last week to try and stop the virus from spreading to Jiangsu Province, the second-biggest contributor to China’s economic output and a globally important manufacturing hub for the
A flight test of a hypersonic missile system in Hawaii on Wednesday ended in failure due to a problem that occurred after ignition, the US Department of Defense said, delivering a fresh blow to a program that has experienced stumbles. It did not provide details of what took place in the test, but said in an e-mailed statement that “the department remains confident that it is on track to field offensive and defensive hypersonic capabilities on target dates beginning in the early 2020s.” “An anomaly occurred following ignition of the test asset,” Pentagon spokesman US Navy Lieutenant Commander Tim Gorman said in
OPPOSITION PROTESTS: Many people in Myanmar suspect China of supporting the military takeover, while Beijing has refused to condemn last year’s army power grab China’s top diplomat on Saturday arrived on his first visit to Myanmar since the military seized power last year to attend a regional meeting that the Burmese government said was a recognition of its legitimacy and opponents protested as a violation of peace efforts. Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) is to join counterparts from Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam in a meeting of the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation group in the central city of Bagan, a UNESCO World Heritage site. The grouping is a Chinese-led initiative that includes the countries of the Mekong Delta, a potential source of regional tensions
CERN UPGRADES: ompared with the collider’s first run that discovered the Higgs boson in 2012, this time around there would be 20 times more collisions Ten years after it discovered the Higgs boson, the Large Hadron Collider is about to start smashing protons together at unprecedented energy levels in its quest to reveal more secrets about how the universe works. The world’s largest and most powerful particle collider started back up in April after a three-year break for upgrades in preparation for its third run. From today it will run around the clock for nearly four years at a record energy of 13.6 trillion electronvolts, the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) announced at a news conference last week. It is to send two beams of protons
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