BANGKOK: Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has recovered from COVID-19, he said on Wednesday, as he prepares to face trial on charges of insulting the monarchy.
The 74-year-old two-time premier ousted in a 2006 coup is expected in court on June 18 for prosecution under the kingdom’s strict lese-majeste laws.
Prosecutors announced the charges last week but were unable to summon Thaksin because he was sick with COVID-19.
“I am recovered,” Thaksin said after a visit to a salon in central Bangkok.
The encounter with AFP journalists in the Thai capital put paid to rumors circulating in Thailand that Thaksin had left the country.
He declined to comment on his upcoming case, which relates to comments he made in 2015 to South Korean media.
“I’d rather not say anything now,” he said.
Billionaire tycoon Thaksin spent 15 years in self-imposed exile before returning to the kingdom last August and immediately being jailed on historic graft and abuse-of-power charges.
The timing of his return — on the day his Pheu Thai party came to power in coalition with pro-military parties — led many to conclude a deal had been done to cut his jail time.
The rumors grew when the king soon cut Thaksin’s sentence from eight years to one, and he was freed on parole in February.
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, of Pheu Thai, said on Tuesday he did not believe talk of Thaksin quitting the country again.
“I believe he is ready to fight. He had been abroad for a long time so I think he has already entered the judicial system,” Srettha told reporters.
Thaksin insists he has retired, but he has made numerous public appearances since his release and still casts a long shadow over the kingdom’s politics.
Former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra says recovered from COVID-19
https://arab.news/6396f
Former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawatra says recovered from COVID-19
- Prosecutors announced the charges against former PM last week but were unable to summon him because he was sick with COVID-19
- Billionaire tycoon Thaksin spent 15 years in self-imposed exile before returning to the kingdom last August
Canada’s top envoy to the US will resign before review of free trade agreement
- Hillman helped lead the trade negotiations during US President Donald Trump’s first term
TORONTO: Canada’s ambassador to the US for the last six years said Tuesday she’s resigning next year as the two major trading partners plan to review the free trade agreement.
Ambassador Kirsten Hillman said in a letter it is the right time to put in place someone who will oversee talks about the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement that is up review in 2026.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Hillman “prepared the foundations for Canada in the upcoming review” of the agreement.
Carney noted she’s one of the longest-serving ambassadors to the United States in Canada’s history.
Former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Hillman in 2017. She was the first woman appointed to the role.
Hillman helped lead the trade negotiations during US President Donald Trump’s first term and worked with US and Chinese officials to win the release of two Canadians detained in China.
Dominic LeBlanc, the minister responsible for Canada-US trade, and Hillman had been leading trade talks with US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and US Trade Representative Jamieson Greer.
Trump ended trade talks with Carney in October after the Ontario provincial government ran an anti-tariff advertisement in the US, which upset the US president. That followed a spring of acrimony, since abated, over Trump’s insistence that Canada should become the 51st US state.
Asked this week when trade talks would resume, Trump said, “we’ll see.”
Canada is one of the most trade-dependent countries in the world, and more than 75 percent of Canada’s exports go to the US Most exports to the US are exempted by the USMCA trade agreement but that deal is up for review.
Carney aims to double non-US trade over the next decade.
About 60 percent of US crude oil imports are from Canada, and 85 percent of US electricity imports as well.
Canada is also the largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum and uranium to the US and has 34 critical minerals and metals that the Pentagon is eager for and investing in for national security.
