Thai PM meets army commander in attempt to defuse political crisis

Thailand's Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra speaks to troops during a visit to Morakot Operations Base in Ubon Ratchathani province, Thailand. (Handout by Royal Thai Government)
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Updated 20 June 2025
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Thai PM meets army commander in attempt to defuse political crisis

  • PM Paetongtarn visited troops in northeast Thailand on Friday to patch things up with Lt. Gen. Boonsin Padklang after she was caught disparaging him as an “opponent” during the call with Hun Sen

BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra held make-up talks on Friday with an army commander she criticized in a leaked phone call as she struggled to defuse a crisis threatening to topple her government.
The daughter of controversial billionaire ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra and in office for less than a year, Paetongtarn is facing calls to quit or announce an election as anger flares over the call with former Cambodian leader Hun Sen.
Her main coalition partner, the conservative Bhumjaithai party, pulled out on Wednesday, saying she had insulted the country and the army and leaving her government on the point of collapse.
She suffered another blow on Friday as reports emerged that another coalition partner was threatening to quit unless she stepped down as prime minister.
The crisis has sent the Thai stock market plunging to a five-year low and comes as the kingdom struggles to fire up its sluggish economy, with US President Donald Trump’s threatened trade tariffs looming.
Paetongtarn, 38, visited troops in northeast Thailand on Friday to patch things up with Lt. Gen. Boonsin Padklang after she was caught disparaging him as an “opponent” during the call with Hun Sen.
Boonsin commands Thai forces along the border with Cambodia, where a long-running dispute flared into deadly clashes last month, and Paetongtarn’s criticism of him drew accusations of disloyalty from right-wing nationalist critics.
Paetongtarn said after their meeting that the matter was settled.
“It went very well. I’ve spoken to the commander and there’s no longer any issue,” she told reporters.
For his part, Boonsin said “everything is normal.”

The meeting with Boonsin followed a public apology from Paetongtarn — at a news conference flanked by military and police chiefs — on Thursday as pressure on her mounted.
Paetongtarn was criticized as being weak and deferential in the call with Hun Sen, a veteran politician known as a wily operator, but her comments about the army commander were potentially the most damaging to her.
Thailand’s armed forces have long played a powerful role in the kingdom’s politics and politicians are usually careful not to antagonize them.
The apology and apparent reconciliation with the army commander may not be enough to save Paetongtarn’s premiership.
The departure of Bhumjaithai has left the government’s coalition with a razor-thin majority in parliament and losing another partner would likely see it collapse.
There was a glimmer of good news for Paetongtarn on Friday morning as the conservative Democrat Party pledged to stay in the coalition.
However, Public broadcaster ThaiPBS reported that the United Thai Nation (UTN) party, which has 36 seats and is now the biggest party in the coalition after Pheu Thai, is considering quitting.
The broadcaster said UTN was going to issue an ultimatum to Paetongtarn: either she quits as premier or they withdraw, bringing down the government.
There are also suggestions of a split within UTN, but the government’s majority is now so small that it could be fatal even if only half the party’s MPs leave.

Paetongtarn may also be facing the prospect of street protests, as political activists involved in huge demonstrations that helped sink previous leaders linked to her family called for her to go.
The activists have called for a rally in central Bangkok on Saturday and another on June 28, although it remains to be seen whether Paetongtarn will survive that long.
She took office in August last year at the head of an uneasy alliance between Pheu Thai and a group of conservative, pro-military parties whose members have spent much of the past 20 years battling against her father.
Thaksin, twice elected PM, was thrown out in a military coup in 2006 and the bitter tussle between the conservative, royalist establishment and the political movement he founded has dominated Thai politics throughout that time.
Hun Sen, Cambodia’s longtime ruler who stepped down in 2023 and had close ties with Thaksin, said on Friday that the row over the leaked call had “shattered” more than “30 years of heartfelt bonds between our two families.”


Greece to adopt legislation against migrant ‘invasion’ from Libya

Updated 3 sec ago
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Greece to adopt legislation against migrant ‘invasion’ from Libya

  • Conservative lawmakers are expected to approve emergency legislation enforcing the temporary ban
  • Proposed law to allow authorities to detain asylum seekers in camps for up to 18 months
ATHENS: Greece on Friday was to enforce a three-month freeze on asylum claims from migrants arriving by boat from North Africa, to stem a surge from Libya that the government has called an “invasion.”
Conservative lawmakers, who hold a parliamentary majority, are expected to approve emergency legislation enforcing the temporary ban, allowing authorities to detain asylum seekers in camps for up to 18 months.
“We have made the difficult but absolutely necessary decision to temporarily suspend the examination process of asylum applications for those arriving by sea from North African countries,” Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said in a statement to German tabloid Bild on Friday.
“This decision sends a clear message, leaving no room for misinterpretation, to human trafficking networks: Greece is not an open transit route. The journey is dangerous, the outcome uncertain, and the money paid to smugglers ultimately wasted,” he said.
Greece’s migration ministry says over 14,000 migrants have reached the country this year, including over 2,000 in recent days from Libya.
“Greece cannot have boats totaling 1,000 people a day,” Migration Minister Thanos Plevris told Skai TV, adding that the country will undertake a “draconian revision” of how it deals with migrants.
Plevris – formerly a member of the far-right LAOS party and now part of Mitsotakis’s New Democracy party – has called the recent influx an “invasion from North Africa.”
The move has been criticized by rights groups as a violation of international and EU law, and opposition parties have called it unconstitutional.
Noting an “exceptional” situation, European Commission migration spokesperson Markus Lammert said on Thursday: “We are in close contact with the Greek authorities to obtain necessary information on these measures.”
Greece took similar steps in 2020 during a migration surge at its land border with Turkiye.
To manage the influx, the government could reopen camps built after the 2015 migration crisis, government spokesman Pavlos Marinakis said this week.
Mitsotakis also told parliament that it would build up to two additional camps on the island of Crete.

Kremlin says it awaits ‘major statement’ from Trump

Updated 5 min 58 sec ago
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Kremlin says it awaits ‘major statement’ from Trump

  • Trump has expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Russia-Ukraine conflict

MOSCOW: Russia is awaiting the “major statement” that US President Donald Trump announced he would deliver on Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday.

Trump told NBC News on Thursday that he will make a “major statement” on Russia on Monday, without elaborating what it will be about.

In recent days, Trump has expressed frustration with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

When asked about the new NATO weapons deliveries to Ukraine, Peskov called it “just business” as Kyiv had already been receiving weapons prior to this development.


Rubio meets China’s Wang in Malaysia amid trade tension

Updated 52 min 21 sec ago
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Rubio meets China’s Wang in Malaysia amid trade tension

  • Washington’s top diplomat is in Malaysia on his first trip to Asia since taking office
  • Marco Rubio’s visit is part of an effort to renew US focus on the Indo-Pacific region

KUALA LUMPUR: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Kuala Lumpur on Friday, their first in-person meeting at a time of simmering trade tensions between the two major powers.

Washington’s top diplomat is in Malaysia on his first trip to Asia since taking office, attending the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum alongside counterparts from Japan, China, South Korea, Russia, Australia, India, the European Union and Southeast Asian states.

His meeting with Wang comes amid escalating friction globally over US President Donald Trump’s tariffs offensive, with China this week warning the United States against reinstating hefty levies on its goods next month.

Beijing has also threatened to retaliate against nations that strike deals with the United States to cut China out of supply chains. Rubio’s visit is part of an effort to renew US focus on the Indo-Pacific region and look beyond conflicts in the Middle East and Europe that have consumed much of the Trump administration’s attention.

But that has been overshadowed by this week’s announcement of steep US tariffs on many Asian countries and US allies that include 25 percent on Japan, South Korea and Malaysia, 32 percent for Indonesia, 36 percent for Thailand and Cambodia and 40 percent on Myanmar and Laos.

Analysts said Rubio would be looking to press the case that the United States remains a better partner than China, Washington’s main strategic rival, during the visit. The State Department said Rubio met counterparts of Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia on Friday.

A day earlier, he told Southeast Asian foreign ministers the Indo-Pacific remained a focal point of US foreign policy.

China, initially singled out with tariffs exceeding 100 percent, has until August 12 to reach a deal with the White House to keep Trump from reinstating additional import curbs imposed during tit-for-tat tariff exchanges in April and May.

‘Bullying behavior’

China’s Wang has been fierce in his criticism of the United States in Kuala Lumpur and told Malaysia’s foreign minister the US tariffs were “typical unilateral bullying behavior” that no country should support or agree with, according to remarks released by Beijing on Friday.

He told Thailand’s foreign minister the tariffs had been abused and “undermined the free trade system, and interfered with the stability of the global production and supply chain.”

During a meeting with his Cambodian counterpart, he said the US levies were an attempt to deprive Southeast Asian countries of their legitimate right to development.

“We believe that Southeast Asian countries have the ability to cope with complex situations, adhere to principled positions, and safeguard their own interests,” Wang said, according to China’s foreign ministry.

The foreign secretary of US ally the Philippines said on Friday President Ferdinand Marcos Jr would meet Trump in Washington this month and discussions would include the increase in the US tariff on its former colony.

Rubio told reporters on Thursday he would also likely raise with Wang US concerns over China’s support for Russia in its war against Ukraine.

“The Chinese clearly have been supportive of the Russian effort and I think that generally, they’ve been willing to help them as much as they can without getting caught,” he said.

Rubio met together with Japanese foreign minister and South Korea’s first vice foreign minister in Malaysia on Friday, at a time of concerns about the tariffs.

According to a US State Department statement, they discussed regional security and a strengthening of their “indispensable trilateral partnership” including security and resilience of critical technologies and supply chains, energy, trusted digital infrastructure, and shipbuilding.


Pakistani father kills daughter over TikTok account: police

Updated 11 July 2025
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Pakistani father kills daughter over TikTok account: police

  • TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels
  • Pakistani women have found both audience and income on the app, which is rare in the country

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan police on Friday said a father shot dead his daughter after she refused to delete her account on popular video-sharing app TikTok.

In the Muslim-majority country, women can be subjected to violence by family members for not following strict rules on how to behave in public, including in online spaces.

“The girl’s father had asked her to delete her TikTok account. On refusal, he killed her,” a police spokesperson said.

According to a police report shared with AFP, investigators said the father killed his 16-year-old daughter on Tuesday “for honor.” He was subsequently arrested.

The victim’s family initially tried to “portray the murder as a suicide” according to police in the city of Rawalpindi, where the attack happened, next to the capital Islamabad.

Last month, a 17-year-old girl and TikTok influencer with hundreds of thousands of online followers was killed at home by a man whose advances she had refused.

Sana Yousaf had racked up more than a million followers on social media accounts including TikTok, where she shared videos of her favorite cafes, skincare products, and traditional outfits.

TikTok is wildly popular in Pakistan, in part because of its accessibility to a population with low literacy levels.

Women have found both audience and income on the app, which is rare in a country where fewer than a quarter of the women participate in the formal economy.

However, only 30 percent of women in Pakistan own a smartphone compared to twice as many men (58 percent), the largest gap in the world, according to the Mobile Gender Gap Report of 2025.

Pakistani telecommunications authorities have repeatedly blocked or threatened to block the app over what it calls “immoral behavior,” amid backlash against LGBTQ and sexual content.

In southwestern Balochistan, where tribal law governs many rural areas, a man confessed to orchestrating the murder of his 14-year-old daughter earlier this year over TikTok videos that he said compromised her “honor.”


Wildfires force evacuations at Grand Canyon’s North Rim and Colorado’s Black Canyon national park

Updated 11 July 2025
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Wildfires force evacuations at Grand Canyon’s North Rim and Colorado’s Black Canyon national park

  • The Grand Canyon’s North Rim in Arizona also closed Thursday because of a wildfire on adjacent Bureau of Land Management land near Jacob Lake

JACOB LAKE, Ariz: Visitors and staff at two national parks in the US West have been evacuated because of wildfires.
Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park, about 260 miles (418 kilometers) southwest of Denver, closed Thursday morning after lighting sparked blazes on both rims, the park said. The wildfire on the South Rim has burned 2.5 square miles (6.5 square kilometers), with no containment of the perimeter.
The conditions there have been ripe for wildfire with hot temperatures, low humidity, gusty winds and dry vegetation, the park said, adding that weather will remain a concern Friday.
The Grand Canyon’s North Rim in Arizona also closed Thursday because of a wildfire on adjacent Bureau of Land Management land near Jacob Lake. The Coconino County Sheriff’s Office said it helped evacuate people from an area north of Jacob Lake and campers in the Kaibab National Forest nearby.
The fire began Wednesday evening after a thunderstorm moved through the area, fire officials said. It has burned about 1.5 square miles (3.9 square kilometers) with zero containment.