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.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS