Thailand’s junta leader has appointed the scion of a notorious political clan to run the kingdom’s money-spinning “Sin City” of Pattaya, as he woos allies ahead of an anticipated run in next year’s elections.
Pattaya is a lucrative tourist hub and the heart of Thailand’s massive sex industry.
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha booted out the current mayor and installed Sonthaya Khunpluem to the post, an announcement in the Royal Gazette said.
Pattaya also serves as the administrative center of the multi-billion-dollar Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), the country’s biggest ever investment project.
“It is necessary to have a high potential, experienced, and competent Pattaya city administrator in order to benefit and support the activities in the EEC,” the Royal Gazette announcement late on Tuesday said in explaining the sudden change.
Sonthaya is the frontman for an independent political party in Chonburi Province, one of the three provinces covered by the EEC.
The Khunpluems are led by patriarch Somchai, dubbed the “godfather of the East” of Thailand, a shadowy, powerful businessman with vast land and construction interests.
He was jailed in 2013 for murder and corruption convictions after a decade on the run, but freed late last year by Prayuth’s government on health grounds.
His family were formerly aligned with the Shinawatras — the political dynasty who have won all national elections since 2001 — but whose party was toppled by a 2014 coup.
Prayuth ousted then-Thai prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s government, accusing her family of graft and toxifying politics with populist policies and crony-government.
The promotion of a Khunpluem to the Pattaya mayoralty points to a “deal” between the clan and junta, said Paul Chambers, an expert on Thai politics at Naresuan University in the northern Thai city of Phitsanulok.
By 2027, Denmark would relocate its foreign convicts to a prison in Kosovo under a 200-million-euro (US$228.6 million) agreement that has raised concerns among non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and residents, but which could serve as a model for the rest of the EU. The agreement, reached in 2022 and ratified by Kosovar lawmakers last year, provides for the reception of up to 300 foreign prisoners sentenced in Denmark. They must not have been convicted of terrorism or war crimes, or have a mental condition or terminal disease. Once their sentence is completed in Kosovan, they would be deported to their home country. In
Brazil, the world’s largest Roman Catholic country, saw its Catholic population decline further in 2022, while evangelical Christians and those with no religion continued to rise, census data released on Friday by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) showed. The census indicated that Brazil had 100.2 million Roman Catholics in 2022, accounting for 56.7 percent of the population, down from 65.1 percent or 105.4 million recorded in the 2010 census. Meanwhile, the share of evangelical Christians rose to 26.9 percent last year, up from 21.6 percent in 2010, adding 12 million followers to reach 47.4 million — the highest figure
LOST CONTACT: The mission carried payloads from Japan, the US and Taiwan’s National Central University, including a deep space radiation probe, ispace said Japanese company ispace said its uncrewed moon lander likely crashed onto the moon’s surface during its lunar touchdown attempt yesterday, marking another failure two years after its unsuccessful inaugural mission. Tokyo-based ispace had hoped to join US firms Intuitive Machines and Firefly Aerospace as companies that have accomplished commercial landings amid a global race for the moon, which includes state-run missions from China and India. A successful mission would have made ispace the first company outside the US to achieve a moon landing. Resilience, ispace’s second lunar lander, could not decelerate fast enough as it approached the moon, and the company has
‘THE RED LINE’: Colombian President Gustavo Petro promised a thorough probe into the attack on the senator, who had announced his presidential bid in March Colombian Senator Miguel Uribe Turbay, a possible candidate in the country’s presidential election next year, was shot and wounded at a campaign rally in Bogota on Saturday, authorities said. His conservative Democratic Center party released a statement calling it “an unacceptable act of violence.” The attack took place in a park in the Fontibon neighborhood when armed assailants shot him from behind, said the right-wing Democratic Center, which was the party of former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The men are not related. Images circulating on social media showed Uribe Turbay, 39, covered in blood being held by several people. The Santa Fe Foundation
RSS