THAILAND
Anti-royalist gets 50 years
A court of appeals has handed a political activist what is believed to be a record sentence for insulting the monarchy, giving him a 50-year prison term after finding him guilty of 25 violations of the law, a lawyers’ group said on Thursday. Mongkhon Thirakot, 30, was last year sentenced to 28 years in prison by the Chiang Rai provincial court for 14 of 27 posts on Facebook for which he was charged. The Northern Region court of appeals in Chiang Rai on Thursday found him guilty not just in the 14 cases, but also in 11 of the 13 cases for which the lower court had acquitted him, the Thai Lawyers for Human Rights said. The court of appeals sentenced him to an additional 22 years in prison, bringing his total to 50 years. Technically, he had been given a prison term of 75 years, but the sentence was cut by one-third in acknowledgement of his cooperation in the legal proceedings. Mongkhon’s defense team said they would appeal the case to the Supreme Court.
INDIA
Burmese soldiers flee
Nearly 300 Burmese soldiers crossed the border to flee an advance by armed insurgents fighting the country’s junta, an Indian paramilitary officer said yesterday. Clashes have rocked parts of Myanmar near the border since the Arakan Army attacked security forces in November. This week, the group said it had taken over the town of Paletwa and six military bases along the border of India’s Mizoram state, where the soldiers had crossed on Wednesday. A total of 276 troops carrying their arms and ammunition arrived at Bondukbangsora Village, an officer from the Assam Rifles paramilitary force said. “We have given them shelter at our camp,” he said, adding that his unit was collecting biometric data from the soldiers and had sought approval from the defense ministry to return them to Myanmar.
CANADA
Nunavut gets rich land
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Thursday signed over control of resource-rich Arctic lands to the government of the predominantly Inuit territory of Nunavut, in what was billed as the largest land transfer in the nation’s history. Nunavut, at more than 2 million square kilometers, is almost three times the size of Texas, and is believed to hold some of the richest resource deposits in the country, including gold, diamonds and rare earth minerals, as well as oil and gas. Trudeau signed a devolution agreement with Nunavut Premier P.J. Akeeagok in Iqaluit. It effectively gives the territorial government of Nunavut responsibility over its lands and resources, and the right to collect royalties that would otherwise go to the federal government. The agreement is to be fully implemented over the next three years.
PHILIPPINES
Landslide kills 10 people
A landslide set off by days of heavy rain buried a house where people were holding Christian prayers in the south, killing at least 10 people, including five children, officials said yesterday. Two people were injured, and at least one more villager remained unaccounted for following the landslide in a remote mountain village in the gold-mining town of Monkayo in Davao de Oro province, said Ednar Dayanghirang, regional head of the Office of Civil Defense. Three more bodies were found yesterday, after the search was paused mid-afternoon on Thursday due to the risk of another landslide. “They were praying in the house when the landslide hit,” Dayanghirang said by telephone Thursday night. “It’s sad, but it’s the reality on the ground.”
North Korean leader Kim Jong-un sent Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) greetings with what appeared to be restrained rhetoric that comes as Pyongyang moves closer to Russia and depends less on its long-time Asian ally. Kim wished “the Chinese people greater success in building a modern socialist country,” in a reply message to Xi for his congratulations on North Korea’s birthday, the state-run Korean Central News Agency reported yesterday. The 190-word dispatch had little of the florid language that had been a staple of their correspondence, which has declined significantly this year, an analysis by Seoul-based specialist service NK Pro showed. It said
On an island of windswept tundra in the Bering Sea, hundreds of miles from mainland Alaska, a resident sitting outside their home saw — well, did they see it? They were pretty sure they saw it — a rat. The purported sighting would not have gotten attention in many places around the world, but it caused a stir on Saint Paul Island, which is part of the Pribilof Islands, a birding haven sometimes called the “Galapagos of the north” for its diversity of life. That is because rats that stow away on vessels can quickly populate and overrun remote islands, devastating bird
‘CLOSER TO THE END’: The Ukrainian leader said in an interview that only from a ‘strong position’ can Ukraine push Russian President Vladimir Putin ‘to stop the war’ Decisive actions by the US now could hasten the end of the Russian war against Ukraine next year, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday after telling ABC News that his nation was “closer to the end of the war.” “Now, at the end of the year, we have a real opportunity to strengthen cooperation between Ukraine and the United States,” Zelenskiy said in a post on Telegram after meeting with a bipartisan delegation from the US Congress. “Decisive action now could hasten the just end of Russian aggression against Ukraine next year,” he wrote. Zelenskiy is in the US for the UN
A 64-year-old US woman took her own life inside a controversial suicide capsule at a Swiss woodland retreat, with Swiss police on Tuesday saying several people had been arrested. The space-age looking Sarco capsule, which fills with nitrogen and causes death by hypoxia, was used on Monday outside a village near the German border. The portable human-sized pod, self-operated by a button inside, has raised a host of legal and ethical questions in Switzerland. Active euthanasia is banned in the country, but assisted dying has been legal for decades. On the same day it was used, Swiss Department of Home