Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva admitted in an interview with CNN yesterday that there had been instances of authorities pushing Rohingya boat people back to sea, contradicting earlier denials by the Thai military that abuses had been committed.
“It’s not exactly clear whose work it is,” Abhisit told CNN. “All the authorities say it’s not their policy, but I have reason to believe otherwise. I will certainly hold the guilty parties accountable, once I find out who is responsible.”
The Thai prime minister last month ordered an investigation into accusations that almost 1,000 Rohingya refugees had been pushed out to sea in 30 boats without engines and sufficient food supplies in December.
Tales of abuse by Thai Navy personnel emerged after hundreds of the Rohingya boat people were rescued in the territorial waters of Indonesia and India. Some 500 of the boat people pushed out to sea are still missing and feared drowned.
The Rohingya, from Myanmar’s Arakan State, have been denied citizenship in Myanmar and Bangladesh. Myanmar’s junta claims the Muslim minority originated from Bangladesh.
Persecuted and denied job opportunities and the right to own land in Myanmar, hundreds of thousands of Rohingya have fled to Bangladesh where they live in refugee camps.
Thousands of Rohingya men have paid smugglers to take them to Thailand and Malaysia in search of work.
Thailand’s military regards the Rohingya as a security threat, fearing they will join the separatist movement in the majority Muslim deep South, where almost 3,300 people have died in clashes and revenge killings over the past five years.
The Thai government has proposed talks between the concerned countries — Bangladesh, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar and Thailand — to find a long-term solution to the refugee problem.
The Rohingya issue is expected to be discussed on the sidelines of the upcoming ASEAN summit from Feb. 27 to March 1 at the Hua Hin beach resort, 130km southwest of Bangkok.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS