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.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
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