THAILAND
King fires ‘adulterous’ guards
The king has sacked four royal guards, two of them for “adultery,” in a fresh wave of palace purges a week after his royal consort was stripped of all titles for “disloyalty.” King Maha Vajiralongkorn ordered the dismissal of two male guards from the “bedroom section,” the Royal Gazette announced on Tuesday. “They have committed inappropriate acts and adultery,” the statement added. The other two officers failed to meet the standards of the royal guard and were dismissed without compensation, the Gazette said.
NORTH KOREA
Team to skip match in South
The government is not going to send the national women’s soccer team to a regional competition set to take place in South Korea in December. The East Asian Football Federation (EAFF) yesterday said that North Korea informed it in the middle of last month that it would not take part in the EAFF E-1 championship in Busan. South Korea’s soccer association has confirmed North Korea’s decision, saying that Pyongyang gave no reason for deciding not to send a team. The development is yet another sign of strained ties on the Korean Peninsula.
IRAQ
Backers agree to oust PM
Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi’s two main backers have agreed to work to remove him from office as protests against his government have gained momentum in Baghdad and much of the Shiite south is enveloped in violence. Populist Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who leads parliament’s largest bloc, had asked Abdul Mahdi to call an early election. When the prime minister refused, he called on his main political rival, Hadi al-Amiri, to help oust Abdul Mahdi. “We will work together to secure the interests of the Iraqi people and save the nation in accordance with the public good,” Amiri said in a statement.
TURKEY
Reconnaissance flights begin
The Ministry of Defense on Tuesday said that reconnaissance flights and mine-clearing operations had begun about 10km into Syria, where planned patrols with Russian troops are set to take place after the withdrawal of Kurdish fighters from the area. The ministry said in a statement that Russia had informed the government that Syrian Kurdish fighters had been taken beyond 30km from the border, and out of Syria’s Manbij and Tel Rifaat, along with their heavy weapons, within the 150-hour deadline.
CAMEROON
Landslide kills at least 42
At least 42 people were killed after their houses were swept away on Tuesday in a landslide caused by torrential rain in the city of Bafoussam, Cameroon Radio Television (CRTV) reported, showing images of rescuers desperately sifting through rubble for survivors. “Searches are ongoing. We fear there are further deaths,” a senior local official said on condition of anonymity. Forty-two bodies were taken to the hospital in the city, an official statement read on CRTV said. “The houses that collapsed were built on the side of a hill in a risk zone,” said the local official in the West Region, of which Bafoussam is the capital. He said the landslide was caused by torrential rains that have fallen over the past few days in the country as well as the wider region, with Central African Republic and Nigeria also seriously hit. President Paul Biya offered his condolences to families of the victims in a message on CRTV.
SWEDEN
Thunberg declines award
Teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg on Tuesday refused to accept an environmental award, saying the climate movement needed people in power to start to “listen” to “science” and not awards. She had been nominated for the Nordic Council’s annual environment prize by Sweden and Norway, but a representative for Thunberg told the audience at a ceremony in Stockholm that she would not accept the award, the TT news agency reported. In a post on Instagram from the US, Thunberg said: “The climate movement does not need any more awards. What we need is for our politicians and the people in power start to listen to the current, best available science.”
UNITED KINGDOM
Pot not mental health aide
People with psychiatric disorders might want to pass on the joint, a new study suggests. The paper, published on Monday in The Lancet Psychiatry, looked at 83 studies conducted over almost four decades on medical cannabinoids. The authors found little evidence that the products were safe and effective in treating six common disorders: depression, anxiety, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, Tourette syndrome, post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis. “There [is] evidence that people who use cannabis regularly may be at increased risk of developing depression and psychotic symptoms,” said lead author Louisa Degenhardt of the University of New South Wales in Sydney.
UNITED STATES
Musk faces defamation trial
Elon Musk will have to go to trial in December after a federal judge in Los Angeles rebuffed his latest request to throw out a defamation lawsuit filed by a British caver Vernon Unsworth that the Tesla chief executive referred to as a “pedo guy.” District Judge Stephen Wilson on Monday ruled that a jury would have to decide whether Musk’s tweets and “off-the-record” e-mails were malicious because he either knew they were not true or was reckless in making them. Musk started his public spat with Unsworth last year after the caver said in a CNN interview that a mini submarine Musk had sent to Thailand to help in a rescue of a group of boys trapped in a cave was a public relations stunt. Musk responded by calling Unsworth a “pedo guy” in a tweet and a “child rapist” in an e-mail to a BuzzFeed reporter.
UNITED STATES
Orchestra not going to China
The Eastman Philharmonia from the University of Rochester’s Eastman School of Music on Tuesday reversed course and canceled plans to tour China after Beijing refused to allow its three South Korean musicians to perform. Eastman dean Jamal Rossi issued a statement saying the 12-day tour would be postponed until everyone could go. Rossi said that he had worried that postponing the tour would have a negative impact on Eastman’s reputation in China, and potentially limit other opportunities for the school to recruit, perform and tour.
COLOMBIA
Five guards killed in attack
Five indigenous guards were killed and six injured on Tuesday during an attack authorities blamed on a dissident insurgent group that refused to join the nation’s peace accord. The victims were members of the authority responsible for security in indigenous territory nationwide and were attacked in Tacueyo, southwest of Bogota, the Association of Indigenous Councils of Toribio said in a statement.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
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