THAILAND
King approves Cabinet
King Maha Vajiralongkorn yesterday endorsed a new Cabinet, taking the country closer to a fully functional administration after months of political deadlock. Vajiralongkorn acknowledged the new Cabinet led by Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and the appointment of 34 ministers, the Royal Gazette said in a statement, including some from the previous deeply unpopular army-backed administration. “Srettha Thavisin, the prime minister, has selected a qualified Cabinet to administer the country further, so the King has commanded a new Cabinet,” the statement read. The new Cabinet sees Srettha as Minister of Finance and Anutin Charnvirakul — the former health minister from the previous military-led government — as the deputy prime minister.
NORTH KOREA
Cruise missiles fired
Pyongyang fired several cruise missiles towards the Yellow Sea in the early hours yesterday, the South Korean military said. An unspecified number of missiles were launched at about 4am, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said yesterday in the statement, adding the specifications of the missiles were being evaluated by South Korean and US intelligence authorities. “We have stepped up surveillance and monitoring and are maintaining utmost readiness in close coordination with the United States,” the Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
UNITED KINGDOM
Mohamed Al Fayed dies
Mohamed Al Fayed, the self-made Egyptian billionaire who bought the Harrods department store and promoted the discredited conspiracy theory that the British royal family was behind the death of his son and Princess Diana, has died, his family said. Born in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, Al Fayed began his career selling fizzy drinks and then worked as a sewing-machine salesman. Al Fayed owned establishment symbols such as Harrods, Fulham and the Ritz hotel in Paris. “Mrs Mohamed Al Fayed, her children and grandchildren wish to confirm that her beloved husband, their father and their grandfather, Mohamed, has passed away peacefully of old age,” his family wrote in a statement.
UNITED STATES
Riot leader gets 18 years
A one-time leader in the Proud Boys far-right extremist group, Ethan Nordean, was on Friday sentenced to 18 years in prison for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, tying the record for the longest sentence in the attack. “He is the undisputed leader on the ground on Jan, 6,” prosecutor Jason McCullough said. The Seattle-area chapter president was one of two Proud Boys sentenced on Friday. Dominic Pezzola was convicted of smashing a window at the US Capitol in the building’s first breach and sentenced to 10 years in prison.
UNITED STATES
Jimmy Buffett dies aged 76
Singer-songwriter Jimmy Buffett, who popularized beach bum soft rock with the escapist Caribbean-flavored song Margaritaville and turned that celebration of loafing into an empire of restaurants, resorts and frozen concoctions, has died. He was 76. “Jimmy passed away peacefully on the night of September 1st surrounded by his family, friends, music and dogs,” a statement on Buffett’s official Web site and social media pages said late on Friday. The statement did not say where Buffett died or give a cause of death. Buffett landed at No. 13 on Forbes’ America’s Richest Celebrities list in 2016 with a net worth of US$550 million.
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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