Foreign News
Thailand’s Paetongtarn Shinawatra sworn in as PM after royal sign-off
Thailand’s king has endorsed Paetongtarn Shinawatra as the country’s new prime minister two days after parliament elected her.
Paetongtarn, 37, was sworn in on Sunday, becoming the youngest prime minister of Thailand.
She nabbed the spot just days after Srettha Thavisin was dismissed as premier by the Constitutional Court, a judiciary central to Thailand’s two decades of political turmoil.on
Her approval as the country’s new premier by King Maha Vajiralongkorn, a formality, was read out by House of Representatives Secretary Apat Sukhanand at a ceremony in Bangkok.
Paetongtarn won nearly two-thirds in a House of Representatives vote on Friday, no stranger to the process coming from a family in Thai politics as the daughter of divisive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and niece of Yingluck Shinawatra, Thailand’s first female prime minister.
The second female prime minister of Thailand and leader of the Pheu Thai Party has the strong support of senior party leaders and coalition partners, said Al Jazeera’s Tony Cheng, reporting from Bangkok.
“She hasn’t chosen the cabinet yet, but we presume from the people who are with her today that her cabinet will be much the same as it was under her predecessor,” said Cheng, adding that Srettha was at the ceremony, the party wanting to show a level of continuity by not throwing him under the bus.
As part of the royal endorsement, Paetongtarn knelt in front of a portrait of the king and delivered a short speech
“As head of the executive branch, I will do my duty together with the legislators with an open heart,” she said. “I will listen to all opinions so together we can take the country forward with stability.”
Paetongtarn inherits a country struggling economically and which has waning support for her party.
At her first news conference, the newly elected leader said she would continue the policies of her predecessor Srettha, an ally, including “major” economic stimulus and reform, tackling illegal drugs, improving the country’s universal healthcare system and promoting gender diversity.
The economy is a real concern for Thai voters, with many questioning why her party has failed to roll out the digital wallet scheme, a promise made to give about $300 to every voter in Thailand, said Cheng.
According to Pravit Rojanaphruk, a columnist with Kaisar English, a Bangkok-based news outlet, the economy will be Paetongtarn’s “bread and butter” issue.
“Over the past 10 years, nine out of that 10 years under military and semi-military rule, the Thai economy has not been doing well,” he told Al Jazeera from Singapore. “It’s falling behind its neighbour and the public debt is high.”
The prime minister also said she has no plans to appoint her father Thaksin to any government position but will seek his advice, which is welcomed by many in the country’s government, the columnist added.
Srettha was in office for less than a year, symptomatic of Thailand’s cycle of coups and court rulings that have disbanded political parties and toppled multiple governments and prime ministers.
The billionaire Shinawatra family is another challenge for Paetongtarn, whose populist party suffered its first election defeat in more than two decades last year.
Earlier this month, the court that dismissed Srettha over a cabinet appointment dissolved the anti-establishment Move Forward Party – last year’s election winner – because of its campaign to amend a royal insult law that the court said risked undermining the constitutional monarchy.
But the new prime minister’s government will likely not be a worry on that front, said Rojanaphruk.
“Under the new prime minister, [the government] … will try to do its best to appease the military and the royalists, so they won’t touch the royal defamation law,” he said.
The hugely popular opposition, Pheu Thai’s biggest challenger, has since regrouped under the newly created People’s Party. The country, therefore, remains divided between them and the Pheu Thai Party, said Rojanaphruk
(Aljazeera)
US authorities have found debris from a medical transport aircraft that went missing with six people on board.
The Federal Aviation Administration told the BBC it had lost contact with the Gulfstream G-100 plane just after 01:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on Saturday, while it was travelling from Bermuda to Boston, Massachusetts.
The search for survivors continues off the coast of Nantucket, a Massachusetts island, the US Coast Guard said.
Authorities have notified the next of kin of those on the flight, four Canadian nationals and two Bermudian nationals.
“Search crews located a debris field confirmed to be from the aircraft off the coast of Nantucket,” the US Coast Guard said in an update on Saturday night. It added that ships, helicopters and planes were involved in searches that would through continue the night.
The plane departed from Bermuda’s L.F. Wade International Airport at 23:40 local time, according to flight data from FlightAware, and was due to land at Boston’s Logan International at 01:30 EDT (05:30 GMT).
According to the tail number released by the Coast Guard, the plane belonged to Latitude Air Ambulances, a company that provides international medical flights for patients returning home.
Among those on board were two pilots and two medical staff, both Canadian, Clarence Togeretz, director of flight operations at Latitude, told CBC News.
The crew flew to Bermuda to collect a patient and their relative, who are not Canadian, Togeretz said.
FlightAware’s tracker shows the aircraft significantly dropped in altitude before its communications went dark, plummeting from around 7,300m (24,000ft) to 3,300m (11,000ft).
Radio transmissions shows trouble with communications between the air traffic controller and the pilot, the Boston Globe reported based on transmissions provided by LiveATC.net.
“You’re coming in blind? Is that what you said?,” the air traffic controller asked. “Are you declaring an emergency, or no?”
The pilot’s response was inaudible.
“You’re coming in a little weak so I didn’t hear what your response was, if you were declaring an emergency or not,” the air traffic controller said, according to the Globe.
The air traffic controller later confirmed the pilot had declared an emergency.
An area fire dispatcher asked emergency crews just after 01:00 EDT to prepare to meet a plane with an “electrical issue”.
The dispatcher later said “the aircraft has lost radio and radar”.
The Coast Guard said it would provide an update on Sunday morning local time.
[BBC]
A car has crashed into a crowd of rugby league supporters in the eastern Australian city of Newcastle, injuring 10 people, including three children.
New South Wales police said on Saturday that two of the injured – a five-year-old girl and a 67-year-old man – were in a critical condition and the other eight were in stable condition in hospital.
Police said they had arrested the 18-year-old man driving the vehicle and were investigating what happened. They said the crash was not believed to be related to “terrorism”.
The crowd had gathered to farewell the local rugby league side, the Newcastle Knights, ahead of their grand final against the Sydney Roosters on Sunday.
Newcastle Lord Mayor Gavin Morris said the driver, a rugby league fan, had lost control of his vehicle and had been taken into custody.
“He was revving the car, he was excited, he was a supporter, he was there for the joy of the moment,” Morris told the national broadcaster ABC.
“Somehow he lost control of the car … and he’s gone into the crowd,” he added.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said: “My thoughts are with everyone injured or involved in the horrible incident this morning in Newcastle.”
“Rugby league brings people together, and this should have been a weekend of excitement and pride for Newcastle fans,” he wrote in a social media post.
[Aljazeera]
Polls have opened in Latvia for an election taking place against the backdrop of perceived security threats from Russia and a nationwide cost-of-living squeeze.
Saturday’s vote is the first electoral test for Prime Minister Andris Kulbergs after coming to power in May this year when his predecessor resigned due to a backlash from stray drone incursions from Ukraine.
Kulbergs, whose right-wing United List party is currently polling at about 20 percent, is expected to hold onto his position, but the decline of two allies in his current coalition means he is set for a complicated negotiation over the makeup of any future government.
Polls opened at 05:00 GMT and will close at 17:00 GMT. The results are not expected to change Latvia’s pro-European and pro-Ukrainian course.
About 1.5 million people are eligible to vote in the country’s 11th parliamentary election since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Latvian politics are highly fragmented, with parties rarely seeing above 20 percent vote share and coalitions being the norm.
This year, 14 electoral lists are contesting the election, but polls indicate only seven are likely to enter parliament, with the rest expected to fail to meet the minimum 5 percent vote threshold.
Rising living costs, low wages, strains on the healthcare system and long-term population decline have all featured prominently in campaign debates.
Most parties in Latvia are pro-Ukraine; however, the populist Sovereign Power party – which says it wants Ukraine to win but argues money spent supporting Kyiv would be better spent at home – looks likely to become the country’s second-biggest party, with more than 9 percent of the vote. Most other parties have ruled out forming a coalition with Sovereign Power.
Latvia First, a pro-Ukraine and populist nationalist party currently polling at about 9 percent, could be a potential coalition partner for PM Kulbergs.
The Progressives, a pro-European social democratic party, are polling at 6 percent.
Ethnic Russians make up roughly one in four Latvian citizens, but their vote, which has traditionally been cast along identity-based lines, looks set to be made according to economic and social issues.
Latvia is the poorest of the Baltic states, and it has sharply increased its defence spending since Russia invaded Ukraine, now allocating nearly 5 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) to defence.
[Aljazeera]
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