Category: Foreign

Our Reporter

Thailand’s Cabinet extended the country’s state of emergency for a fourth time, by one month through Aug. 31, an expected decision aimed at keeping the country’s COVID-19 count to one of the lowest in Asia, according to a government spokeswoman.

The country hasn’t detected any new coronavirus cases from local transmission for about two months.

Overall, it has reported 3,298 cases and 58 deaths from the virus, but officials said they are wary as new outbreaks have occurred in other places, including Hong Kong and Vietnam.

Critics of the government say the extension targets anti-government protests, which Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-Ocha said was not the case. Thousands of people, including many students, demonstrated in Bangkok and a few other cities this month calling for the premier’s resignation.

“I’m not obstructing any protests as long as they’re legal,” Prayuth said after the Cabinet meeting. “I’m concerned because the protesters are the future of this country. They have a drive for change,” but their actions may “create divisions” in society.

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Prayuth is a former general who took power in a coup in 2014, though his current term followed a national election in March 2019.

A reshuffle is coming after four ministers, including the finance chief, recently resigned. A new Cabinet lineup will be sent for royal endorsement in August, the premier said, without elaborating on who would be appointed.

Meanwhile, a new central bank governor was approved by the Cabinet. Sethaput Suthiwart-Narueput, 55, who has been a member of the monetary policy committee since 2014 and is an economic adviser to the premier, will replace Veerathai Santiprabhob, who declined to seek a second five-year term and whose tenure expires Sept. 30.

Thailand’s export-and tourism-reliant economy will shrink by as much as 8.1% this year, according to the central bank. The country didn’t report any foreign tourist arrivals in April to June.

In an effort to boost the economy, the Cabinet approved a plan by the National Security Council to ease border lockdowns, according to Narumon Pinyosinwat, a government spokeswoman. The NSC plan calls for medical tourists, trade exhibition attendees and foreign film crews to be granted visas. Also, more than 100,000 migrant workers from nearby Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos will be allowed entry.

(www.newsnow.co.uk)

Our Reporter

About 17 Taliban terrorists were killed and 11 others injured in clashes with security personnel in northern Faryab province, Afghanistan’s defence ministry said on Wednesday.

The clashes took place on Tuesday in Dawlat Abad and Almar districts of the province as “the Taliban were planning to attack security checkpoints and the forces prevent their attacks with air support of the Afghan air forces,” TOLOnews quoted the ministry’s statement as saying.

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“A military commander of the Taliban is also among the wounded. Three motorbikes and the group’s camp was also destroyed,” the statement said.

The Taliban did not comment on the clashes.

(www.newsnow.co.uk)

Our Reporter

China has suspended Hong Kong’s extradition treaties with the U.K., Canada and Australia as a response to the three countries’ decisions to do the same.

Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for the Chinese Foreign Office Tuesday announced the decision on state-controlled China Global Television Network, Reuters reported.

China’s move comes just over a week after Downing Street said it would suspend the U.K.’s extradition agreement with Hong Kong, in response to Beijing’s introduction of a new security law in Hong Kong despite widespread criticism.

The security law, unanimously passed by China’s National People’s Congress in June, was introduced after months of mass protests in semi-autonomous Hong Kong. The measure prohibits “acts of secession and subversion” and gives the government sweeping powers to punish protesters.

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“The wrong action of Canada, Australia and the U.K. in politicizing judicial cooperation with Hong Kong has seriously hurt the basis of judicial cooperation,” Wang said.

Earlier on Tuesday, the government of New Zealand had also announced it would suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong.

(www.newsnow.co.uk)

Our Reporter

The Israeli military on Friday said its helicopters struck Syrian army targets in response to mortars fired toward the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

“A number of targets were struck, including SAF observation posts and intelligence collection systems located in SAF bases,” the military said in a statement, referring to the Syrian Armed Forces.

Syria’s state news agency SANA quoted a military source as saying Israeli helicopters targeted three outposts in Syria’s southern Quneitra area with anti-tank guided missiles, causing two injuries and some forest fires.

The strike came a few hours after the Israeli military said blasts were heard from the Syrian-held area of the Golan Heights. No casualties were reported but a building and an Israeli vehicle were damaged, it said.

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Tension rose within the week along the Israel-Syria frontier after a fighter of the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah was killed in an apparent Israeli strike on the edge of Damascus on Monday.

The Israeli military said it has since boosted its forces on its northern front, where Israel borders Lebanon and Syria.

Following the killing of two Hezbollah members in Damascus last August, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s leader, vowed it would respond if Israel killed any more of its fighters in the country.

Hezbollah has deployed fighters in Syria as part of Iranian-backed efforts to support President Bashar Assad in a conflict that spiralled out of protests against his rule in 2011.

Israel sees the presence of Hezbollah and its ally Iran in Syria as a strategic threat and has mounted hundreds of raids on Iranian-linked targets there. It captured the Golan Heights from Syria in the 1967 Middle East war.

(www.newsnow.co.uk)

Our Reporter

Russia has registered 5,871 COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, bringing the cumulative total to 806,720, the country’s coronavirus response center said.

“Over the past 24 hours, Russia has confirmed 5,871 COVID-19 cases in 83 regions,” the response center said in a statement, adding that the total count has now reached 806,720.

Moscow has registered 648 cases in the past 24 hours, which is more than any other region in Russia, followed by the Sverdlovsk Region with 251 cases and the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Region with 193 new cases.

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The lowest number of new cases were detected in the Jewish Autonomous Region, with three new cases and the Chukotka Autonomous Region, registering one case in the past 24 hours.

As many as 146 COVID-19 patients died in Russia over the past 24 hours (154 on the previous day), which brings the death toll to 13,192.

A total of 8,366 coronavirus patients have been discharged (compared to 8,444 on the previous day), bringing the total number of recoveries to 597,140.

(www.newsnow.co.uk)

Agency Reporter

A German court convicted a 93-year old German man of helping to murder 5,232 prisoners, many Jewish, at a Nazi concentration camp in World War Two.

“Bruno D., who had been an SS guard in the Stutthof concentration camp near Gdansk in what is today Poland, was guilty of being involved in killings between August 1944 and April 1945,’’ the Hamburg court said on Thursday.

The court also handed him a suspended two-year sentence in one of the last cases against Nazi-era crimes.

He had acknowledged his presence at the camp however argued that did not amount to guilt.

According to the museum’s website, about 65,000 people, including many Jews, were murdered or died at Stutthof.

Prosecutors have argued that many were shot in the back of the head or gassed with the lethal Zyklon B gas.

As he was only 17 or 18 years old at the time of the crimes, he was subject to youth sentencing guidelines.

Prosecutors had however called for a three-year prison sentence.

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“In his final testimony to the court earlier this week, Bruno D. apologised for the suffering victims went through but stopped short of taking responsibility,’’ German media reported.

“I would like to apologise to all the people who have gone through this hell of insanity and to their relatives and survivors,” he told the court this week, broadcaster NDR and many other media outlets reported.

The defendant’s frail health has meant that court sessions were limited to two to three hours per day.

Although the number of suspects is dwindling due to old age, prosecutors are still trying to bring individuals to justice.

A landmark conviction in 2011 opened the way to more prosecutions as it was the first time that working in a camp was sufficient grounds for culpability, with no proof of a specific crime.

(Reuters/NAN)