Thailand’s royal family collected the ashes of the king’s sister yesterday, ending the main phase of an elaborate six-day funeral that has briefly calmed the country’s turbulent political waters.
As monks in saffron robes intoned Buddhist chants, the Thai crown prince and princess received a lacquered, diamond-encrusted urn containing the remains of Princess Galyani, who died of cancer in January at the age of 84.
A solemn procession of more than 800 soldiers dressed in red and dignitaries clad in white then accompanied the urn from the specially built crematorium at a parade ground to the Royal Palace in old Bangkok.
Thousands of mourners turned out to watch the ceremony, which came a day after more than 100,000 Thais attended the lavish US$8.9 million cremation of the princess, the elder sister of King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
“I haven’t slept. Meditation all night long,” said Smarn Chringarm, 52, a member of a protest group that he said was trying to encourage the king to remove the elected government from power.
With the world’s longest reigning monarch and his family treated by Thais as semi-divine, but also non-political, the funeral has been a temporary unifying influence amid the three-month-old political crisis.
Anti-government protesters occupied the main official buildings in Bangkok in August in a bid to force out the government of Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, whom they say is a proxy for ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Allies of Thaksin, who was toppled in a military coup in 2006, and his enemies sat together on Saturday as the king lit the gilded 39m pyre for the princess.
The truce could hold until the king’s 81st birthday on Dec. 5, but then the hostilities between the government and the opposition People’s Alliance for Democracy are likely to reignite, analysts said.
The protest movement against the government exploded into violence on Oct. 7, with two people killed and nearly 500 injured after fierce clashes with police.
The monarchy officially plays no political role, but when the king’s wife Queen Sirikit donated thousands of dollars toward medical expenses and attended the funeral of one of those killed in last month’s protests, demonstrators hailed it as proof of royal support.
‘CROSSING THE LINE’: China’s embassy in Seoul criticized US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson, asking if his ‘hostile’ remarks were authorized by Washington South Korea and the US are in talks over recent public remarks by the commander of US Forces Korea, Seoul’s presidential office said yesterday, after the comments drew sharp criticism from China. In a recent podcast interview, US Forces Korea Commander General Xavier Brunson described South Korea as “the dagger in the heart of Asia” from China’s east coast, prompting the Chinese embassy in Seoul to say that he had “truly crossed the line.” The interview came amid growing speculation that Washington might seek to expand the role of US Forces Korea in countering the growing regional influence of China, a key
Through the noise of rushing papers and whirring belts at a print factory in Kyoto, two creators watch their photo essay come to life in broadsheet form — part of an effort to win new audiences in the age of artificial intelligence (AI). Despite the decline of the publishing industry, self-publication and handmade “zine” magazines are growing in popularity in Japan, reflecting the nation’s enduring love of paper in the digital era. While speaking to Agence France-Presse at the plant, his hands black with ink, one of the creators, Kazuma Obara, said: “I think [paper] is a medium that engages all five
Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the 1990s shooter game Doom and said they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. It is the science-fiction work of biotech boffins at Cortical Labs, who researched and developed the technology that harnesses the workings of the brain’s networking system. Each so-called “biological computer” contains about 200,000 living human brain cells, grown from stem cells that were harvested from blood donations. Having mastered the simple computer game Pong, where a paddle is moved up and down to send a ball
France experienced its hottest spring on record, the French weather service said on Tuesday, after an exceptional early heat wave that also broke highs for the season in England and Wales. Meteo-France said the average nationwide temperature over March to May was 13.8°C — about 1.7°C above the norm, and surpassing records set in 2011 and 2020. “The warmest spring since records began in 1900,” it said in a bulletin. All three months were warmer than average, but the onset of an “unprecedented heatwave” late last month pushed the mercury to highs typically seen at the height of the summer. “Our country had never
RSS