BANGKOK: Thai police on Saturday said two suspects were in custody as authorities investigated a bombing in the north that killed at least three people and injured dozens of others.
An explosive device was thrown into a crowd during an outdoor performance at an annual festival in Umphang town in Tak province, which borders Myanmar, on Friday just before midnight, according to the Association of the Umphang Rescue Groups.
Local police said at least 48 people were injured and that police have not yet pressed charges against the suspects as the investigation is ongoing.
Thanathip Sawangsang, a spokesperson for the Defense Ministry, said that local police said there was a fight between rival groups of men before the explosion and that there was no wider security threat. He said the forensic evidence showed that the explosive device was a homemade bomb.
Tak province has a heavy military presence in its border areas, including in Umphang.
Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra expressed her condolences to the victims and their families, and ordered security personnel and relevant agencies in the area to investigate and help those who have been affected, said government spokesperson Jirayu Houngsap.
Thai police detain 2 suspects after a bomb in a border province killed 3 and injured scores
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Thai police detain 2 suspects after a bomb in a border province killed 3 and injured scores
- Local police said at least 48 people were injured and that police have not yet pressed charges against the suspects as the investigation is ongoing
- Local police said there was a fight between rival groups of men before the explosion and that there was no wider security threat
Georgia ruling party set to install loyalist president amid constitutional crisis
- The Black Sea nation has been in turmoil since the governing Georgian Dream party claimed victory in contested October parliamentary elections
- Its decision last month to delay European Union membership talks ignited a fresh wave of mass rallies
TBILISI: Georgia’s ruling party is set to appoint a far-right loyalist as president on Saturday in a controversial election process, amid a deepening constitutional crisis and weeks of mass pro-EU protests.
The Black Sea nation has been in turmoil since the governing Georgian Dream party claimed victory in contested October parliamentary elections.
Its decision last month to delay European Union membership talks ignited a fresh wave of mass rallies.
The opposition has denounced Saturday’s election as “illegitimate” and said sitting President Salome Zurabishvili remains the country’s sole legitimate leader.
Pro-Western Zurabishvili – who is at loggerheads with Georgian Dream – has refused to step down and is demanding new parliamentary elections, paving the way for a constitutional showdown.
On Saturday morning, protesters began gathering outside the parliament building, which was cordoned off by police forces.
An electoral college controlled by Georgian Dream and boycotted by the opposition convened in parliament to install former footballer Mikheil Kavelashvili as president.
Demonstrators shared tea to keep warm on the frosty morning, with water cannons parked nearby, an AFP reporter witnessed.
“Georgia never loses its sense of humor, celebrating the election of a footballer as president,” Zurabishvili wrote on social media.
She shared video footage of protesters playing football in the snow – a clear jab at Kavelashvili.
One of the protesters, 40-year-old Natia Apkhazava, said she arrived early “to protect our European future.”
“Our (parliamentary) election was rigged. We need new elections,” she said.
“We have been protesting here for 16 days... and we’ll keep fighting for our European future.”
Protests are scheduled to take place at a dozen of different locations in Tbilisi.
Thousands of pro-EU demonstrators filled the streets of the capital Tbilisi on Friday, before gathering outside parliament for the 16th consecutive day.
A former diplomat, Zurabishvili is a hugely popular figure among protesters, who view her as a beacon of Georgia’s European aspirations.
“What will happen in parliament tomorrow is a parody. It will be an event entirely devoid of legitimacy, unconstitutional and illegitimate,” Zurabishvili told a press conference on Friday.
Opposition groups accuse Georgian Dream of rigging the October 26 parliamentary vote, backsliding on democracy and moving Tbilisi closer to Russia – all at the expense of the Caucasus nation’s constitutionally mandated bid to join the European Union.
Kavelashvili, 53 – the sole candidate for the largely ceremonial post – is known for his vehement anti-West diatribes and opposition to LGBTQ rights.
Georgian Dream scrapped direct presidential elections in 2017.
With Zurabishvili refusing to leave office, opposition lawmakers boycotting parliament and protests showing no signs of abating, Kavelashvili is likely to see his presidency undermined from the onset.
One author of Georgia’s constitution, Vakhtang Khmaladze, has argued that all decisions by the new parliament are void.
This is because it ratified the mandates of newly elected lawmakers before the outcome of a court case filed by the incumbent president contesting the elections, he explained.
“Georgia is facing an unprecedented constitutional crisis,” Khmaladze said.
It remains unclear how the government will react to Zurabishvili’s refusal to step down after her successor is inaugurated on December 29.
Police have fired tear gas and water cannons during more than two weeks of demonstrations and arrested more than 400 protesters, according to the Social Justice Center NGO.
On Friday, Amnesty International said protesters had faced “brutal dispersal tactics, arbitrary detention and torture.”
There have also been raids on the offices of opposition parties and arrests of their leaders.
As international condemnation of the police crackdown mounted, French President Emmanuel Macron told Georgians their “European dream must not be extinguished.”
“We are by your side in supporting your European and democratic aspirations,” he said in a video address.
Earlier this week, Macron called Georgian Dream founder Bidzina Ivanishvili – the tycoon widely considered to be Georgia’s real power broker.
His decision to call Ivanishvili – rather than Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze – is indicative of the West’s hesitancy to recognize the legitimacy of Georgian Dream’s new government.
Washington has also imposed fresh sanctions on Georgian officials, barring visas for around 20 people accused of “undermining democracy in Georgia,” including ministers and parliamentarians.
Popular actor in southern India freed on bail after spending night in jail in stampede case
- Woman was killed in stampede during screening of Allu Arjun’s “Pushpa 2: The Rule” Bollywood flick
- Victim’s husband filed case against Arjun for not informing police of actor’s plan to attend screening
NEW DELHI: A popular actor in southern India was released from jail on bail on Saturday, a day after he was arrested by police in connection with a stampede that led to the death of a woman at the premiere of his movie earlier this month.
A 35-year-old woman died and her 8-year-old son was critically injured in the stampede, which occurred during the screening of Allu Arjun’s release for “Pushpa 2: The Rule” in southern Telangana state’s Hyderabad city on Dec. 4.
Arjun was arrested after the woman’s husband filed a case against him, his security team, and the theater’s management for not informing police of the actor’s plan to attend the screening, which resulted in a larger-than-expected crowd. Police charged the actor, his security team, and the theater’s management staff with culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Police have already arrested the theater’s owner and two of his employees in connection with the case.
A local court on Friday ordered the actor to spend 14 days in jail, but within hours the Telangana High Court granted him bail. However, the actor had to spend the night in jail because prison authorities did not receive a copy of the bail until late Friday, the Press Trust of India reported.
The accident happened after the 41-year-old actor made a surprise appearance at a local theater where the movie was being screened. As his fans surged toward the venue, the theater’s main gate collapsed, resulting in the stampede.
The actor did not comment on the police charges or his arrest. But shortly after the accident, Arjun wrote on the social platform X that he was “heartbroken by the tragic incident.” He later announced financial assistance of $29,000 for the woman’s family and promised to take care of the medical expenses for her injured son.
Deadly stampedes are relatively common in India, where large crowds gather in small areas with shoddy infrastructure and few crowd safety measures.
South Korea lawmakers vote to impeach President Yoon Suk Yeol over martial law bid
- Under the constitution Prime Minister Han Duck-soo becomes acting president
- If Suk Yeol is removed from office, a snap election will be called
SEOUL: South Korea’s opposition-led parliament impeached President Yoon Suk Yeol on Saturday, voting to suspend him from his official duties over his short-lived attempt last week to impose martial law.
Under the constitution Prime Minister Han Duck-soo, who was appointed by Yoon, becomes acting president.
Yoon is the second conservative president in a row to be impeached in South Korea. Park Geun-hye was removed from office in 2017.
The motion was carried after some members of Yoon’s People Power Party joined the opposition parties, which control 192 seats in the 300-member national assembly, clearing the two-thirds threshold needed for impeachment. The number of lawmakers supporting impeachment was 204, with 85 against, three abstentions and eight invalid ballots.
Although suspended, Yoon remains in office. The Constitutional Court will decide whether to remove him sometime in the next six months.
If Yoon is removed from office, a snap election will be called.
Yoon shocked the nation late on Dec. 3 when he gave the military sweeping emergency powers in order to root out what he called “anti-state forces” and overcome obstructionist political opponents.
He later apologized to the nation but also defended his decision and resisted calls to resign ahead of the vote.
One dead, dozens missing in Greece migrant boat sinking
- An Italian frigate and helicopters were operating at the site, with more ships heading to the area
Athens: One man died late Saturday when a migrant boat sank off Crete, Greece’s coast guard said, leaving 40 people reportedly missing while 39 survivors were rescued.
The boat sank 12 nautical miles southwest of the island, according to ERTNEWS, which reported the 40 missing.
A huge rescue operation is under way in the sea south of the island of Gavdos after the boat capsized shortly after midnight, the coast guard said.
An Italian frigate and helicopters were operating at the site, with more ships heading to the area.
Local media said another man was taken by helicopter to hospital in the city of Chania on Crete and was admitted to intensive care.
Greece has seen a 25-percent increase overall this year in the number of migrants entering, fleeing war and poverty, with a 30-percent increase to Rhodes and the southeast Aegean, according to the migration ministry.
Several similar accidents have struck in recent weeks. In the last one in late November, eight migrants, six of them minors, died north of the island of Samos, on a route frequently used by people smugglers.
The Detroit area’s many Syrians are celebrating Assad’s overthrow and planning long-delayed visits
- Nizam Abazid says he’s excited to see the country of his birth for the first time since 1998 but that he can now return without fear.
DEARBORN: Nizam Abazid is gleefully planning his first trip in decades to Syria, where he grew up. Rama Alhoussaini was only 6 years old when her family moved to the US, but she’s excited about the prospect of introducing her three kids to relatives they’ve never met in person.
They are among thousands of Detroit-area Syrian Americans who are celebrating the unexpected overthrow of the Syrian government, which crushed dissent and imprisoned political enemies with impunity during the more than 50-year reign of ousted President Bashar Assad and his father before him.
“As of Saturday night, the Assad regime is no longer in power,” Alhoussaini, 31, said through tears Tuesday at one of the Detroit-area school and day care facilities her family operates. “And it’s such a surreal moment to even say that out loud, because I never thought that I would see this day.”
It may be some time before either visits Syria. Though happy to see Assad go, many Western countries are waiting for the dust to settle before committing to a Syria strategy, including whether it’s safe for the millions who fled the country’s civil war to return.
Ahmad Al-Sharaa, who led the insurgency that toppled Assad after an astonishing advance that took less than two weeks, has disavowed his group’s former ties to Al-Qaeda and cast himself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance. But the US still labels him a terrorist and warns against any travel to Syria, where the US hasn’t had an embassy since 2012, the year after the war started.
But for Syrians in the US who have been unable to visit, the overthrow of the Assad government has given them hope that they can safely return, either for good or to visit.
“The end of the regime is the hope for all the Syrian people,” Abazid said this week, days after Assad and his family fled to Russia.
Abazid said he could go to Syria whenever, since he holds dual US and Syrian citizenship, but that he’ll wait a few months for things there to settle down.
Although European leaders have said it’s not safe enough yet to allow war-displaced refugees to return to Syria, Abazid said he and his brother aren’t concerned.
“When Assad’s forces were in power, my fate would’ve been in jail or beheaded,” Abazid said. “But now, I will not be worried about that anymore.”
Many Syrians who immigrated to the US settled in the Detroit area. Michigan has the largest concentration of Arab Americans of any state and is home to the country’s largest Arab-majority city, Dearborn. It also has more than 310,000 residents who are of Middle Eastern or North African descent.
As rebel forces seized control of Syria, capping a lightning-quick advance that few thought possible even a month ago, Syrians in and around Detroit — like their counterparts all over the world — followed along in disbelief as reports poured in about one city after another slipping from Assad’s grip. When news broke that Assad’s government had fallen, celebrations erupted.
Abazid, who owns a cellphone business in Dearborn, was born in Daraa, about 60 miles (95 kilometers) south of the Syrian capital, Damascus. He moved to the US in 1984 at age 18, and although he’s gone back a few times, he hasn’t visited since 1998 because of what he described as “harassment” by Syrian intelligence. That trip had to be heavily coordinated with US authorities, as he said Syrian authorities took him into custody and detained him for more than six months during a 1990 visit.
“When I was kidnapped from the airport, my family didn’t even know ... what it was about,” he told The Associated Press on Tuesday. “I still don’t know the reason. I have no idea why I was kidnapped.”
Abazid, 59, said his parents have died since that 1998 trip, but his five sisters still live in Syria. Each of his four brothers left Syria during the 1970s and 1980s, including one who hasn’t been back since emigrating 53 years ago, shortly after Bashar Assad’s father, Hafez Assad, rose to power.
Alhoussaini, who lives in West Bloomfield Township, said she was born in Damascus and moved to the Detroit area as a young girl, “mainly because there was nothing left for us in Syria.”
She said under the Assad family’s rule, her grandfather’s land was taken. Authorities detained him for almost a month. Her father was also detained before the family left.
“There never needed to be a reason,” Alhoussaini said. “My dad was able to return one time, in 2010. And he has not been able to go back to his home country since, mainly because we spoke up against the Assad regime when the revolution started in 2011. And we attended many protests here. We were vocal on social media about it, did many interviews.”
But with Bashar Assad gone and Syria in the hands of the rebels, “We don’t have to be afraid anymore to visit our country,” she said.
Her father, 61, is considering making a trip to Syria to see his siblings and visit his parents’ graves. Alhoussaini said she and her husband, who is from the northern city of Aleppo, want to take their kids over to visit with family and friends.
Alhoussaini’s three sisters, ages 40, 34 and 29, were also born in Syria. But none of them have been back.
Now, there is hope and amazement that people in Syria can celebrate in the streets, she said.
Alhoussaini said she thinks people who were born and raised in the US won’t be able to fully relate, because Americans enjoy a freedom of expression that people in Syria have never had.
“You can say what you want. You can go out into the street and protest whoever you want,” she said. “You will not be detained for it. You will not be killed for it.”
