Injured police constable rescued by Army in Arunachal
Troops of the Indian Army’s Gajraj Corps rescued an injured police constable from the remote RR Hill region in Arunachal Pradesh’s West Kameng district, a defence official said on Friday.
Defence PRO Lt Col Mahendra Rawat said as soon as the army received information, an operation was launched in the late hours of August 20-21.
Braving dense forests and challenging terrain at night, the Army team reached the location, administered essential first aid and medical care, and evacuated the injured to a hospital in Assam’s Tezpur for advanced treatment.
“This prompt and coordinated humanitarian effort not only saved a precious life but also highlighted the spirit of synergy between the army, police, and civil administration,” the official said.
According to a police source, the injured constable has been identified as Sange Phuntso, working at the West Kameng Superintendent of Police (SP) office.
He, along with other officials, were carrying out geotagging work at the RR Hill Region when they lost their way and fell off a cliff and suffered a skull fracture, Bhalukpong police station officer in-charge Thumgon Tali said.
He said the constable is admitted to a hospital in Tezpur, Assam and is out of danger. P
Thai court acquits former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of royal defamation charge
Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was acquitted of a royal defamation charge by a court on Friday, in a case that could have sent him to prison for up to 15 years.
The 76-year-old Thaksin, smiling as he walked away from the courtroom, was the first to reveal the verdict, responding to journalists’ questions with the single word: “Dismissal.”
His lawyer, Winyat Chatmontree, also confirmed the acquittal verdict, as did the Bangkok Criminal Court later in a news release.
The law on defaming the monarchy, an offense known as lese majeste, is punishable by three to 15 years in prison. It is among the harshest such laws globally and increasingly has been used in Thailand to punish government critics.
The legal aid group Thai Lawyers for Human Rights has said that since early 2020, more than 270 people — many of them student activists — have been charged with violating the law.
The court’s news release said it had found the witnesses and evidence were too weak to support conviction.
Thaksin was originally charged in 2016 over remarks he made a year earlier to journalists in South Korea. The case was not pursued at that time because he was in exile and the necessary legal procedures could not be completed.
The news release said the court determined that the account of the interview presented by the prosecution was incomplete and lacked context, and a key point did not clearly refer specifically to then-King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
It also said the court thought that witnesses in the case against Thaksin might have been motivated by political bias, because they have participated in political protests against him, leaving open the possibility they may have unfairly interpreted his words.
Thaksin’s opponents, who were generally staunch royalists, accused him of corruption, abuse of power and disrespecting then-King Bhumibol, who died in 2016. Thaksin has always asserted that the cases against him were politically motivated.
When he was indicted last year, Thaksin’s freedom on bail was approved with the condition that he could not travel out of Thailand unless approved by court. His passport was confiscated.
Despite facing various prosecutions since leaving office, Thaksin has spent no time in prison. He was abroad in 2006 when a military coup ousted him. He briefly returned in 2008, only to return quickly to exile to avoid a possible prison term.
He r eturned to Thailand in 2023 when the Pheu Thai political party that he is closely associated with came to power. He was sent to serve an eight-year prison term on charges related to corruption and abuse of power but was transferred immediately to a hospital on medical grounds. After six months in a hospital suite, he was granted a pardon and parole and set free.
The decision to send him to a hospital instead of prison was widely questioned as to whether he was granted a special, undeserved privilege. The Supreme Court’s Criminal Division for Political Office Holders will rule next month in another case that puts him in jeopardy of imprisonment.
Since his return, Thaksin has maintained a high profile, traveling the country making public appearances and political observations that could upset the powerful conservative establishment that was behind his 2006 ouster.
His daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who became prime minister last year, is also in hot water. She stands accused of failing to handle in an ethical manner a June 15 call with Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen in which they discussed tensions over territory claimed by both nations. The Constitutional Court suspended her from her duties on July 1 and next week will rule whether she will lose her prime minister position for breaching ethics laws.
Thais have long been accustomed to sudden changes of government due to military coups, numbering more than a dozen since the 1930s. But in the past two decades, they have increasingly seen such changes imposed by the courts, which have ousted four prime ministers and dissolved three election-winning political parties, often on narrow technical grounds.
In most cases, the targets were viewed as challengers to the traditional royalist establishment, whose most powerful defenders are the army and the courts.
Five bodies found on Kenyan coast, linked to infamous starvation cult
At least five bodies, including two children, exhumed on Kenya’s coast are linked to an infamous starvation cult that came to light in 2023, police told AFP on Friday.
More than 400 people died in one of the world’s worst cult-related tragedies, which became known as the “Shakahola Forest Massacre”, discovered inland from the Indian Ocean town of Malindi.
The case rocked the country and made headlines globally, with self-proclaimed pastor Paul Mackenzie facing trial in the coastal city of Mombasa. He has pleaded not guilty to multiple counts of manslaughter.
Officers had excavated at least 27 sites further along the coast from Shakahola at a five-acre site near Binzaro village in Kilifi county’s Chakama area, Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) officer Robert Kiinge told AFP.
“We retrieved five bodies,” he said.
Kiinge said that the majority of the remains were in a state of advanced decomposition, indicating they had been in the ground for over a year, although he said one may have been buried as recently as seven to eight months ago.
“We had two remains of children,” he said, estimating their ages as between five and seven years old.
“Looking at what we are working on now there is no doubt there is connection with the old Shakahola,” he said.
Eleven people have been taken into custody, Kiinge said, although three of them are being treated as victims.
“The people we have in custody today are followers of Mackenzie,” he said.
The investigation was ongoing, Kiinge added, noting that until scheduled post-mortems they would not speculate on the cause of death.
The fresh discoveries come after a Mombasa court earlier this month adjourned the ongoing case of the Shakahola preacher, Mackenzie, citing the discovery of new evidence.
Shakahola led the government to move towards tighter control of fringe religious groups, after accusations that it could have prevented the deaths.
Efforts to regulate religion in the majority-Christian country have been fiercely opposed in the past as undermining constitutional guarantees of the division between Church and state.
World News Live: Car bomb and helicopter attack in Colombia kill at least 13, including police officers
A car bomb and a separate attack on a police helicopter in Colombia killed at least 13 people on Thursday, according to authorities. President Gustavo Petro attributed both incidents to dissidents of the defunct Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, commonly known as FARC.
World News Live: UN envoy warns of renewed violence in Syria a month into a fragile ceasefire
Syria’s transition remains “on a knife-edge” and violence could resume at any moment in the southern city of Sweida, which saw deadly clashes last month, the top UN envoy for Syria warned on Thursday.
World News: Pakistan SC grants bail to Imran Khan in May 9 cases, but ex-PM stays in jail
The relief, however, offers little respite to the PTI founder. Khan, in prison for more than two years, remains behind bars in the £190 million Al-Qadir Trust graft case, while several other corruption and terrorism-related trials remain pending against him.
US says road to peace in Russia-Ukraine runs through India
Claiming that “the road to peace (on the Russia-Ukraine front) runs through India, the Trump White House on Thursday doubled down on tariffing and sanctioning New Delhi, accusing it of fueling the conflict.
World News Live: Trump admin reviewing 55 million visas: Focus on deportable offences
The US state department is conducting a sweeping review of over 55 million valid visa holders as part of a broader vetting initiative aimed at identifying possible grounds for visa revocation and deportation, reported news agency AP.
