THAILAND
Court rules against party
The Constitutional Court yesterday ruled the biggest party in parliament had contravened the constitution in seeking to change a law against insulting the monarchy, in what could set a precedent for any future review of one of the world’s strictest lese majeste laws. The Move Forward Party won last year’s election on a progressive platform that included a once unthinkable proposal to amend the law, which carries penalties of up to 15 years in jail for each perceived insult of the crown. The court ordered the party to abandon that plan, which it said was tantamount to an attempt to “overthrow the democratic regime of government with the king as a head of state.”
SOUTH KOREA
US pilot ejects before crash
A US Air Force pilot yesterday safely ejected from an F-16 jet that crashed into waters off the southwestern coast. The unidentified pilot was conscious and was transported to a medical facility for assessment, the US Eighth Fighter Wing said in a statement. It said it closely worked with US and South Korean mission partners to recover the pilot, who experienced an unspecified in-flight emergency and ejected before the plane crashed into the sea. The cause of the crash, which reportedly occurred in waters near the port city of Seosan, was being investigated.
CHINA
Couple executed for killings
The government yesterday executed a couple for throwing two young children out of the window of an apartment building, in a case that caused nationwide outrage. Zhang Bo (張波) and Ye Chengchen (葉誠塵) were previously found responsible for the fatal falls of the two-year-old girl and one-year-old boy from the 15th floor of a residential tower in Chongqing. Zhang, who was the father of the two children, had begun an affair with Ye, who was initially unaware he was married and had children. She then urged Zhang to kill his two children, which she “regarded as obstacles” to their getting married and a “burden on their future life together,” the Chongqing No. 5 Intermediate People’s Court said in a statement. In November 2020, Zhang threw his children out of the window of the apartment in the absence of their mother, with whom he had agreed to divorce.
AUSTRALIA
Sheep, cattle marooned
A ship carrying about 14,000 sheep and 2,000 cattle is marooned off the coast in sweltering heat after it was forced to abandon a trip through the Red Sea, causing an outcry from people concerned about the animals’ welfare. The vessel left on Jan. 5 for Israel, where it was to unload, but diverted from its course in the middle of last month due to the threat of attack by Yemen’s Houthi militia before being ordered home by the government. The animals are now in limbo and could be sent back to sea for a month-long journey to Israel around Africa, industry officials and the government said. Farm and exporter groups say the animals on board the MV Bahijah are in good health, but with temperatures close to 40°C, animal rights have criticized the situation. The ordeal shows that the live export trade is “rotten to its core,” lawmaker Josh Wilson said. “What is being contemplated is a 60-day voyage for 14,000 sheep on a stinking hot, and literally stinking, metal vessel,” he told 10 News. “It’s very hard to imagine that that is consistent with the animal welfare standards that Australians expect to be applied to Australian animals.”
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
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
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
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