“Red-shirt” supporters of former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra ended a rally in Bangkok yesterday, claiming more than 5 million signatures for a petition seeking royal clemency for the fugitive billionaire.
Protesters from the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) rallied overnight near Bangkok’s Grand Palace to support an appeal to King Bhumibol Adulyadej to allow Thaksin to return from exile a free man.
Nattawut Saikeu, a UDD leader, told supporters that 5,411,928 people had signed the petition by the time it closed at midnight on Friday.
PHOTO: EPA
“This is the fight to bring back democracy to the people and we will win in the end ... We do not care if we are to die, or be put in jail,” he told the crowd.
Thaksin won landslide election victories in 2001 and 2005, but was overthrown by the military in a 2006 coup. He was found guilty of corruption last October and sentenced in absentia to two years in prison.
He denies the charges and still commands a loyal following, especially among the rural poor.
Thaksin called in to the rally late on Friday and thanked all those who had signed the petition.
“I hope I can be among you soon. I am 60 this year and it is my hope that I can return home when I turn 61,” Thaksin told the cheering crowd estimated at about 30,000.
The petition, which may be submitted next week, calls on the 81-year-old king to pardon Thaksin to help pave the way for his political return.
The campaign has caused outrage among royalists and political opponents, who accuse Thaksin and his backers of insulting the revered monarch by trying to drag him into a political dispute.
King Bhumibol, the world’s longest-reigning monarch, is officially above politics, but has intervened at times of crisis.
Republican US lawmakers on Friday criticized US President Joe Biden’s administration after sanctioned Chinese telecoms equipment giant Huawei unveiled a laptop this week powered by an Intel artificial intelligence (AI) chip. The US placed Huawei on a trade restriction list in 2019 for contravening Iran sanctions, part of a broader effort to hobble Beijing’s technological advances. Placement on the list means the company’s suppliers have to seek a special, difficult-to-obtain license before shipping to it. One such license, issued by then-US president Donald Trump’s administration, has allowed Intel to ship central processors to Huawei for use in laptops since 2020. China hardliners
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
RAMPAGE: A Palestinian man was left dead after dozens of Israeli settlers searching for a missing 14-year-old boy stormed a village in the Israeli-occupied West Bank US President Joe Biden on Friday said he expected Iran to attack Israel “sooner, rather than later” and warned Tehran not to proceed. Asked by reporters about his message to Iran, Biden simply said: “Don’t,” underscoring Washington’s commitment to defend Israel. “We are devoted to the defense of Israel. We will support Israel. We will help defend Israel and Iran will not succeed,” he said. Biden said he would not divulge secure information, but said his expectation was that an attack could come “sooner, rather than later.” Israel braced on Friday for an attack by Iran or its proxies as warnings grew of
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the