Thailand’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej missed a planned meeting with two government ministers on Friday, palace officials said, amid ongoing public concern over the state of the ailing 86-year-old’s health.
The two ministers were supposed to accompany Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha to meet the world’s longest-serving monarch on Friday evening to swear an oath in front of him before taking up office.
However, the palace said his medical team had advised against the king going ahead with the ceremony.
Photo: EPA
“A team of royal physicians recommended that the king is not ready to grant an audience. Therefore the date of the royal audience is postponed,” a statement from the Royal Household Bureau said late on Friday.
The elderly king has suffered from a series of ailments in recent years.
Early last month he was rushed from his palace in the southern seaside resort of Hua Hin to a Bangkok hospital, where he underwent an operation to remove his gall bladder and has remained admitted since.
He has also recently suffered from repeated bouts of colon inflammation which have been treated with antibiotics.
Earlier this month he was briefly escorted into the hospital grounds to sit on the river bank and pay homage to a statue of his father in an event shown on public broadcaster Thai PBS.
Well-wishers bowed before the monarch and chanted “Long live the king” in what the broadcaster said was his first public appearance since he was hospitalized.
Thailand’s military took over in a May coup after months of street protests.
The nation’s long-running political conflict broadly pits a Bangkok-based middle class and royalist elite, backed by parts of the military and judiciary, against rural and working-class voters loyal to former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
The military said their coup was needed to restore calm and order to the kingdom after years of instability.
However, the generals’ reach into Thai politics is also being driven by the anxiety over what happens when the six-decade reign of King Bhumibol ends, observers say.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
RIVER TRAGEDY: Local fishers and residents helped rescue people after the vessel capsized, while motorbike taxis evacuated some of the injured At least 58 people going to a funeral died after their overloaded river boat capsized in the Central African Republic’s (CAR) capital, Bangui, the head of civil protection said on Saturday. “We were able to extract 58 lifeless bodies,” Thomas Djimasse told Radio Guira. “We don’t know the total number of people who are underwater. According to witnesses and videos on social media, the wooden boat was carrying more than 300 people — some standing and others perched on wooden structures — when it sank on the Mpoko River on Friday. The vessel was heading to the funeral of a village chief in