Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada laid flowers yesterday at the site where a Japanese cameraman was shot dead in April during violent street clashes between troops and opposition demonstrators.
Okada bowed in silence at the spot in Bangkok where Hiroyuki Muramoto was shot in the chest by an unknown gunman while covering the political unrest involving anti-government “Red Shirt” protesters and soldiers.
Japan’s top diplomat was expected to press the Thai government for information about the killing during talks later yesterday with Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya.
Muramoto, 43, was one of two foreign cameramen killed during the unrest in April and May. They were among 91 people — mostly civilians — who died in the clashes. Both sides accused each other of using live ammunition.
In a report last month, the media watchdog Reporters Without Borders called on Thai authorities to publish final reports on the death of Muramoto and Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi “as soon as possible.” It accused the army of failing to act with the “required restraint” to protect members of the media.
Thai officials said yesterday they had not yet concluded their investigation into the journalists’ deaths.
“For the case of the Italian photographer, initially we can say that he was shot from the front to back, and the bullet passed through [him],” Police Colonel Naras Savestanan told a news conference.
“We cannot identify the type of bullet or weapon that caused his death,” said Naras, the deputy director-general of the Department of Special Investigation, which is investigating the killings.
He said that the investigation was proving difficult because most of the victims were quickly taken from the place they were shot to hospital for treatment.
Polenghi, a freelance photographer and documentary maker, was shot while covering the military offensive in May that ended the Red Shirt protests.
Naras said that 209 suspects were still being detained in connection with the mass demonstrations by the Red Shirts, who were demanding immediate elections they hoped would replace a government they view as elitist and undemocratic.
NO EXCUSES: Marcos said his administration was acting on voters’ demands, but an academic said the move was emotionally motivated after a poor midterm showing Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr yesterday sought the resignation of all his Cabinet secretaries, in a move seen as an attempt to reset the political agenda and assert his authority over the second half of his single six-year term. The order came after the president’s allies failed to win a majority of Senate seats contested in the 12 polls on Monday last week, leaving Marcos facing a divided political and legislative landscape that could thwart his attempts to have an ally succeed him in 2028. “He’s talking to the people, trying to salvage whatever political capital he has left. I think it’s
Polish presidential candidates offered different visions of Poland and its relations with Ukraine in a televised debate ahead of next week’s run-off, which remains on a knife-edge. During a head-to-head debate lasting two hours, centrist Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski, from Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s governing pro-European coalition, faced the Eurosceptic historian Karol Nawrocki, backed by the right-wing populist Law and Justice party (PiS). The two candidates, who qualified for the second round after coming in the top two places in the first vote on Sunday last week, clashed over Poland’s relations with Ukraine, EU policy and the track records of their
UNSCHEDULED VISIT: ‘It’s a very bulky new neighbor, but it will soon go away,’ said Johan Helberg of the 135m container ship that run aground near his house A man in Norway awoke early on Thursday to discover a huge container ship had run aground a stone’s throw from his fjord-side house — and he had slept through the commotion. For an as-yet unknown reason, the 135m NCL Salten sailed up onto shore just meters from Johan Helberg’s house in a fjord near Trondheim in central Norway. Helberg only discovered the unexpected visitor when a panicked neighbor who had rung his doorbell repeatedly to no avail gave up and called him on the phone. “The doorbell rang at a time of day when I don’t like to open,” Helberg told television
A team of doctors and vets in Pakistan has developed a novel treatment for a pair of elephants with tuberculosis (TB) that involves feeding them at least 400 pills a day. The jumbo effort at the Karachi Safari Park involves administering the tablets — the same as those used to treat TB in humans — hidden inside food ranging from apples and bananas, to Pakistani sweets. The amount of medication is adjusted to account for the weight of the 4,000kg elephants. However, it has taken Madhubala and Malika several weeks to settle into the treatment after spitting out the first few doses they