BANGKOK: Thailand’s embattled prime minister will hold talks with party leaders in his ruling coalition Thursday as he seeks to control growing divisions that could lead to early elections later this year.
Prayut Chan-O-Cha heads a sprawling coalition facing criticism over his mismanagement of COVID-19, a pandemic economy still in the doldrums and simmering tensions over huge 2021 pro-democracy protests that have dominated the past 12 months.
The turbulent political atmosphere in Southeast Asia’s second-largest economy has seen a weakened opposition agitate for the prime minister to step down, calling for a no-confidence debate when parliament resumes in May.
And on Monday, Prayut’s one-time mentor, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, said early elections could be held after Thailand hosts the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in November.
While the deputy prime minister has no power over when polls are held, it is the first government indication on the date of national elections — months ahead of Prayut’s term ending in March 2023.
Speaking after his deputy’s remarks, Prayut refused to comment on a possible election date.
If polls are held after the APEC summit — or sooner — analysts say they could return an unfavorable result for Prayut.
“A lot of Thais want to see General Prayut out of office,” said professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak at Bangkok’s Chulalongkorn University.
“The economy is not doing well. The population still remembers the early pandemic incompetence when there were no vaccines in the country.”
Thailand’s economy has been hammered by the pandemic, growing by just 1.6 percent last year after a 6.2 percent contraction in 2020 — its worst performance since the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
Paul Chambers, of the Center of ASEAN Community Studies at Naresuan University in Thailand, believes the longer the premier can stave off elections, the better it will be for him.
“Prayut is so unpopular today that he could only be re-elected with the Senate’s help,” he said, a reference to Bangkok’s second chamber, which is stacked with pro-government figures.
“Thus, waiting as long as possible for the Senate to help him win re-election best helps Prayut sustain his power.”
The former army chief, who led a 2014 coup before taking power as prime minister after the 2019 election, leads a 16-party coalition that holds 248 seats compared with the opposition’s 208.
But his base is fragmenting. In January, a faction of 20 MPs from his Palang Pracharat party was kicked out over internal squabbles.
And last month, seven ministers from a junior coalition party refused to attend a cabinet meeting in a row over an extension to the concession for Bangkok’s Sky Train urban railway.
Prayut has sought to buttress his coalition by reaching out to smaller groups and must drum up enough support to survive a no-confidence debate tabled by the opposition when parliament reconvenes in May.
Titipol Phakdeewanich, dean of the political science faculty at Ubon Ratchathani University, said the mechanism was more of a pressure gauge for the opposition, and not likely to bring down the government.
In any case, the constitution drafted in 2017 tilts the scales in favor of pro-military parties.
In 2019, Prayut’s party was only the second-largest in terms of seats, but with the help of the Senate, stuffed with supporters, managed to form a coalition.
Thailand faces early election as coalition cracks widen
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Thailand faces early election as coalition cracks widen
- PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha heads a sprawling coalition facing criticism over his mismanagement of COVID-19
Pope recovering well from surgery but to skip Sunday blessing
Briefing reporters at the Gemelli hospital on Saturday, chief surgeon Sergio Alfieri also said the 86-year-old had agreed with doctors to stay there for at least all of next week.
Francis underwent a three-hour operation to repair an abdominal hernia on Wednesday.
“Only three days have passed. We asked the Holy Father to be prudent and avoid the strain (of standing at the balcony),” Alfieri said. “Each time he gets out of bed and sits in an armchair puts stress on the abdominal walls.”
A mesh prosthetic was inserted into the abdominal wall to help it heal and doctors want it to settle and attach properly to avoid another operation if it breaks, he added.
“You can understand how that would not be pleasing for him, and for me,” Alfieri joked.
PORTUGAL, MONGOLIA TRIPS STILL ON SCHEDULE
Vatican spokesperson Matteo Bruni said the pope would say Sunday’s traditional noon Angelus prayer in his hospital suite and the faithful could say it at the same time.
Alfieri said the pope was taken off intravenous tubes on Friday and had started a semi-liquid diet. All medical parameters were within the norm, there were no cardiac problems and complete healing of the abdominal scars would take about three months, he added.
The Vatican said blood test results were good and chest X-rays showed no problems.
Francis had part of one lung removed because of an illness when he was 21-year-old in his native Argentina.
Doctors had said after the operation that the pope should have no limitations on travels and other activities after recovery. He has trips to Portugal on Aug. 2-6 for World Youth Day and to visit the Shrine of Fatima, and to Mongolia Aug. 31-Sept. 4, one of the remotest places he will have visited.
Bruni reiterated that all audiences had been canceled until June 18 but after that the pope’s schedule would remain for now.
The pope traditionally takes all of July off, with the Sunday blessings being his only public appearance, so he will have the entire month to rest before the Portugal trip.
Indonesia set to deport Australian surfer who apologized for drunken rampage
- Bodhi Mani Risby-Jones, 23, from Queensland, was detained in late April on Simeulue Island, a surf resort
- Police accused him of going on a drunken rampage that left a fisherman with serious injuries
JAKARTA: Indonesia’s authorities were set to deport on Saturday an Australian surfer who apologized for attacking several people while drunk and naked in the deeply conservative Muslim province of Aceh.
Bodhi Mani Risby-Jones, 23, from Queensland, was detained in late April on Simeulue Island, a surf resort, after police accused him of going on a drunken rampage that left a fisherman with serious injuries.
Risby-Jones was released from prison on Tuesday after he went through a restorative justice process, apologized for the attack and agreed to pay compensation to the fisherman. That allowed him to avoid going to court and facing a possible charge of assault that could have landed him up to five years in prison.
His lawyer, Idris Marbawi, said the two sides agreed that Risby-Jones would pay the fisherman’s family for hospital fees and a traditional peace ceremony. The total payment was 300 million rupiah ($20,000). The fisherman underwent surgery in Banda Aceh, the provincial capital, for broken bones and an infection in his legs.
“Risby-Jones is the first foreigner to successfully resolve a case through restorative justice in Aceh province,” Marbawi said. “He deeply regretted what happened and vowed to return to Indonesia for surfing.”
After his release, Risby-Jones stayed at an immigration detention center. He was due to depart for Melbourne on Saturday evening, Marbawi said.
Footage of his release on Tuesday showed Risby-Jones being escorted by officers to a bus after hugging and saying goodbye to several prison wardens.
“It’s been a long time coming and I’m feeling amazing and super happy and grateful,” he said. “Everyone has been very nice and accommodated me well. Thank you.”
Violent acts by foreigners are rare in Aceh, the only province in Muslim-majority Indonesia that practices Shariah, a concession made by the central government in 2001 as part of efforts to end a decades-long war for independence.
Russia says will ‘respond’ after Iceland embassy closure
- "All of Reykjavik's anti-Russian actions will inevitably prompt a response," the Russian foreign ministry said
- Iceland on Friday said it would suspend work at its embassy in Moscow as of August 1 and asked Russia to limit its operations in Reykjavik
MOSCOW: Russia on Saturday said it would “respond” after Iceland became the first country to suspend its embassy operations in Moscow.
“All of Reykjavik’s anti-Russian actions will inevitably prompt a response,” the Russian foreign ministry said in a statement, accusing Iceland of “ruining” relations between the countries.
“We will take this unfriendly decision into account when we establish our relations with Iceland in the future,” the ministry added.
Iceland on Friday said it would suspend work at its embassy in Moscow as of August 1 and asked Russia to limit its operations in Reykjavik.
“The current situation simply does not make it viable for the small foreign service of Iceland to operate an embassy in Russia,” Foreign Minister Thordis Gylfadottir said.
In a symbolic move, staff could be seen taking down the Icelandic flag hanging from the side of the embassy in Moscow on Friday.
The Icelandic foreign ministry stressed that the decision “does not constitute a severance of diplomatic relations.”
But since commercial, cultural and political ties with Russia were “at an all-time low,” maintaining embassy operations in Moscow was “no longer justifiable,” it said.
The Nordic country has had an embassy in Moscow since 1944 which became a symbolic East-West meeting point toward the end of the Cold War.
Southern India makes history with first women-only Hajj flight
- Air India Express flight from Kozhikode carried 145 female pilgrims and six crew
- Kerala has the highest percentage of women pilgrims traveling without a mahram
NEW DELHI: An Indian Hajj flight run exclusively by women and carrying only female pilgrims has made history, authorities said on Friday, after it reached Saudi Arabia from the southern state of Kerala.
The Air India Express flight from Kozhikode arrived in Jeddah on Thursday night carrying 145 pilgrims.
It was operated by Capt. Kanika Mehra, First Officer Garima Passi, and four cabin crew members.
At the airport, the women were accompanied by Minority Affairs State Minister John Barla, who distributed their boarding passes.
“I am very proud,” C. Mohammed Faizi, chairman of the Kerala Haj Committee, told Arab News.
The passengers of the special flight are part of a group of 4,000 Indian female pilgrims who this year will reach the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah on their own.
India tweaked its Hajj policy following last year’s decision by Saudi Arabia to lift a rule that required female pilgrims to be accompanied by a mahram, or male guardian.
Most of the Indian pilgrims who applied for Hajj in the Ladies Without Mahram category are from Kerala.
“Without mahram, there are about 2,000 … The largest number without mahram are from Kerala,” Faizi said, attributing the high number to the level of education in Kerala and the fact that many women in the state are used to traveling to the Middle East to meet their relatives working there.
Kerala this year also boasts a higher overall percentage of female Hajj pilgrims than other Indian states.
“Sixty percent are women,” Faizi said.
Muslims constitute about a fourth of Kerala’s population of 35 million.
About 11,000 of them will be performing the Hajj pilgrimage this year under India’s quota of 175,000, and approximately 60 percent of them will be women.
Rains unleashed by typhoon worry thousands of people fleeing restive Philippine volcano
- More than 6,000 villagers have been forced to leave rural communities within a 6-kilometer radius of Mayon volcano’s crater
BONGA, Philippines: Thousands of people who fled their homes in the central Philippines to escape a restive volcano have to contend with another threat that’s complicating the ongoing evacuations: monsoon rains that could be unleashed by an approaching typhoon.
More than 6,000 villagers have been forced to leave rural communities within a 6-kilometer radius of Mayon volcano’s crater in northeastern Albay province. Thousands more need to be moved to safety from the permanent danger zone, officials said.
Others living outside the perimeter have packed their bags and voluntarily left with their children for evacuation centers in Albay, which was placed under a state of calamity on Friday to allow more rapid disbursement of emergency funds in case a major eruption unfolds.
Authorities raised the alert level for the volcano on Thursday after superheated streams of gas, debris and rocks cascaded down its upper slope, indicating activity below the surface that could precede a hazardous eruption within days or weeks.
A key tourist draw for its picturesque conical shape, the 2,462-meter Mayon is one of the country’s most active volcanoes. It last erupted violently in 2018, displacing tens of thousands of villagers.
Authorities warned that Typhoon Guchol, which is approaching the Philippines from the Pacific but is projected to skirt the archipelago, may still dump heavy rains — an unwelcome news for those living near Mayon’s slopes.
“There’s a typhoon and floodwaters may rush down Mayon and swamp this village. That’s one of our fears,” Villamor Lopez, a house painter, said.
He sat worriedly with his relatives clinging to their bags of clothes, rice in pouches and bottles of drinking water on a pickup truck hauling villagers from Daraga town in Albay to an emergency shelter several kilometers (miles) away.
Other residents chatted on a roadside near a chapel, still undecided whether to leave.
A loudspeaker in their laid-back community of low-slung rural houses and narrow dirt alleys warned people to prepare to evacuate anytime if the situation worsens. In the overcast sky above them, the volcano laid hidden by thick rainclouds.
Village leader Dennis Bon, who was preparing to drive Lopez and others to the shelter, said he would not risk waiting until the last minute.
“We have children, persons with disabilities and elderly residents here,” Bon said, before he drove off.
Albay Gov. Edcel Greco Lagman and Welfare Secretary Rex Gatchalian said they were prepared if monsoon rains were to trigger mudflows and rockfalls.
“We will still make sure that we will have no casualties from any compounded calamities,” Lagman said.
Despite growing worries among many villagers, those who have survived Mayon’s eruptions over decades were taking the latest threats in stride.
In Bonga village near the volcano, a few men gingerly took a bath in a stream of spring water flowing down Mayon’s lush foothills and washed two motorcycles near boulders as big as cars that had rolled down years ago during past eruptions.
They shrugged and smiled when asked if the volcano’s new rumblings had struck fear.
The Philippines lies along the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” the area around the ocean rim where tectonic plates meet that is prone to earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. A long-dormant volcano, Mount Pinatubo, blew its top north of Manila in 1991 in one of the biggest volcanic eruptions of the 20th century, killing hundreds of people.
