Protesters gather in Bangkok to demand Thai prime minister's resignation over leaked Cambodia call
BANGKOK — Hundreds of protesters gathered in Thailand's capital on Saturday to demand the resignation of Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, part of the brewing political turmoil set off by a leaked phone call with former Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen.
Paetongtarn faces growing dissatisfaction over her handling of a recent border dispute with Cambodia involving an armed confrontation May 28. One Cambodian soldier was killed in a relatively small, contested area. The clash set off a string of investigations that could lead to her removal.
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CNN
37 minutes ago
- CNN
Protesters line highway in Florida Everglades to oppose ‘Alligator Alcatraz'
A coalition of groups, ranging from environmental activists to Native Americans advocating for their ancestral homelands, converged outside an airstrip in the Florida Everglades Saturday to protest the imminent construction of an immigrant detention center. Hundreds of protesters lined part of US Highway 41 that slices through the marshy Everglades — also known as Tamiami Trail — as dump trucks hauling materials lumbered into the airfield. Cars passing by honked in support as protesters waved signs calling for the protection of the expansive preserve that is home to a few Native tribes and several endangered animal species. Christopher McVoy, an ecologist, said he saw a steady stream of trucks entering the site while he protested for hours. Environmental degradation was a big reason why he came out Saturday. But as a South Florida city commissioner, he said concerns over immigration raids in his city also fueled his opposition. 'People I know are in tears, and I wasn't far from it,' he said. Florida officials have forged ahead over the past week in constructing the compound dubbed as 'Alligator Alcatraz' within the Everglades' humid swamplands. The government fast-tracked the project under emergency powers from an executive order issued by Gov. Ron DeSantis that addresses what he views as a crisis of illegal immigration. That order lets the state sidestep certain purchasing laws and is why construction has continued despite objections from Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava and local activists. The facility will have temporary structures like heavy-duty tents and trailers to house detained immigrants. The state estimates that by early July, it will have 5,000 immigration detention beds in operation. The compound's proponents have noted its location in the Florida wetlands — teeming with massive reptiles like alligators and invasive Burmese pythons — make it an ideal spot for immigration detention. 'Clearly, from a security perspective, if someone escapes, you know, there's a lot of alligators,' DeSantis said Wednesday. 'No one's going anywhere.' Under DeSantis, Florida has made an aggressive push for immigration enforcement and has been supportive of the federal government's broader crackdown on illegal immigration. The US Department of Homeland Security has backed 'Alligator Alcatraz,' which DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said will be partially funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. But Native American leaders in the region have seen the construction as an encroachment onto their sacred homelands, which prompted Saturday's protest. In Big Cypress National Preserve, where the airstrip is located, 15 traditional Miccosukee and Seminole villages, as well as ceremonial and burial grounds and other gathering sites, remain. Others have raised human rights concerns over what they condemn as the inhumane housing of immigrants. Worries about environmental impacts have also been at the forefront, as groups such as the Center for Biological Diversity and the Friends of the Everglades filed a lawsuit Friday to halt the detention center plans. 'The Everglades is a vast, interconnected system of waterways and wetlands, and what happens in one area can have damaging impacts downstream,' Friends of the Everglades executive director Eve Samples said. 'So it's really important that we have a clear sense of any wetland impacts happening in the site.' Bryan Griffin, a DeSantis spokesperson, said Friday in response to the litigation that the facility was a 'necessary staging operation for mass deportations located at a preexisting airport that will have no impact on the surrounding environment.' Until the site undergoes a comprehensive environmental review and public comment is sought, the environmental groups say construction should pause. The facility's speedy establishment is 'damning evidence' that state and federal agencies hope it will be 'too late' to reverse their actions if they are ordered by a court to do so, said Elise Bennett, a Center for Biological Diversity senior attorney working on the case. The potential environmental hazards also bleed into other aspects of Everglades life, including a robust tourism industry where hikers walk trails and explore the marshes on airboats, said Floridians for Public Lands founder Jessica Namath, who attended the protest. To place an immigration detention center there makes the area unwelcoming to visitors and feeds into the misconception that the space is in 'the middle of nowhere,' she said. 'Everybody out here sees the exhaust fumes, sees the oil slicks on the road, you know, they hear the sound and the noise pollution. You can imagine what it looks like at nighttime, and we're in an international dark sky area,' Namath said. 'It's very frustrating because, again, there's such disconnect for politicians.'
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Serbia's police clashes with anti-government protesters
BELGRADE (Reuters) -Serbian police on Saturday evening clashed with anti-government protesters demanding snap elections and an end to the 12-year rule of President Aleksandar Vucic. Police deployed scores of officers in riot gear around government buildings, parliament and nearby Pionirski Park, where throngs of Vucic's backers from across the country gathered in a counter-protest. After the protest ended at around 10 p.m. (2000 GMT), some protesters who wanted to confront Vucic's backers threw bottles, rocks and flares at the police, who used force to disperse them in several locations across Belgrade's city centre. The protesters shouted: "Keep the shields down," calling on the police to stop intervening. Police detained several dozen protesters, while six police officers were reported injured in clashes, Dragan Vasiljevic, the director of police, told a press conference late on Saturday. Vucic said protesters attempted to topple the state. "They (protesters) wanted to topple Serbia, and they have failed," he wrote on his Instagram page. In a statement, students accused the government of an escalation of tensions. "They (authorities) ... opted for violence and repression against the people. Every radicalisation of the situation is their responsibility," students wrote on the X social network. In a statement, Ivica Dacic, the interior minister, said police will act to maintain public order. "The police will take all measures to establish public order and peace, ... and apply all its powers to repel attacks, and arrest all those who attacked the police," Dacic said. Months of protests across the country, including university shutdowns, have rattled Vucic, a populist, whose second term ends in 2027, when there are also parliamentary elections scheduled. Vucic's opponents accuse him and his allies of ties to organised crime, violence against rivals and curbing media freedoms, something they deny. The protesters, who want the government to heed their demands by the end of the protest, have pledged non-violence. Vucic has previously refused snap elections. His Progressive Party-led coalition holds 156 of 250 parliamentary seats. Earlier on Saturday, Vucic said unspecified "foreign powers" were behind the protest. He said police should be restrained, but warned that violence will not be tolerated. 'The country will be defended, and thugs will face justice,' he told reporters in Belgrade. Sladjana Lojanovic, 37, a farmer from the town of Sid in the north, said she came to support students. "The institutions have been usurped and ... there is a lot of corruption. Elections are the solution, but I don't think he (Vucic) will want to go peacefully," she told Reuters. In the days ahead of the protest, police arrested about a dozen anti-government activists, charging them with undermining the constitution and terrorism. All denied the charges. Protests by students, opposition, teachers, workers and farmers began last December after 16 people died on November 1 in a Novi Sad railway station roof collapse. Protesters blame corruption for the disaster. The Belgrade rally coincides with St. Vitus Day, venerated by most Serbs, which marks the 1389 Battle of Kosovo with Ottoman Turks.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Graft case piles pressure on Turkey's main opposition
A court hearing that could upend the leadership of Turkey's main opposition CHP is the latest bid to hobble the party behind a wave of spring protests that shook the government, analysts say. The hearing, which takes place on Monday at an Ankara court, could render null and void the result of a leadership primary within the Republican People's Party (CHP) in November 2023 on grounds of alleged fraud -- thereby overturning the election of leader Ozgur Ozel. In February, the Ankara public prosecutor opened an investigation into allegations of vote buying at the congress which resulted in Ozel defeating longtime incumbent Kemal Kilicdaroglu. The CHP has denied the allegations. The outcome could see several CHP figures -- including jailed Istanbul mayor Ekrem Imamoglu -- facing up to three years in prison and a political ban for graft, Turkish media reported. And if the election result is cancelled, the party leadership would almost certainly revert to 76-year-old Kilicdaroglu. He was ousted five months after losing a bitterly fought presidential campaign against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan that was widely seen as the most important vote in generations, leaving the party in crisis. - Taming the opposition - "This is a bid to reshape the CHP and create an opposition that is controlled by a government which is becoming more and more authoritarian," Berk Esen, a political science expert at Istanbul's Sabanci University, told AFP. "This will provoke a split within the party, putting a weak, defeated leader in charge whom the voters don't want any more," he said. Kilicdaroglu has already said he would be willing to take on the party leadership again if the court overturned the primary result, sparking uproar within the CHP. "It would be out of the question to not recognise such a verdict. Would it be better if a trustee was appointed to lead the party?" he said, also voicing his disapproval of the mass protests called by the CHP following Imamoglu's arrest and jailing in March. Widely seen as the only politician capable of defeating Erdogan at the ballot box, Imamoglu was arrested in connection with a graft and terror probe which the CHP has denounced as groundless. He was jailed on the day that he was named CHP's candidate for the 2028 presidential race, his removal sparking Turkey's worst street unrest since 2013. "I feel a deep sense of betrayal. I cannot stomach such remarks when so many people are in prison," Imamoglu said in response to Kilicdaroglu's remarks. "Kilicdaroglu is a politician who will be remembered very badly. Some accuse him of working for (Erdogan's ruling) AKP but I think it's more a case of his ambition knowing no bounds," said Esen. "He is collaborating with an authoritarian government in order to get his own power back." Following Imamoglu's arrest, Ozel went from being a relatively low-profile leader to the face of the protests, his impassioned speeches sharpening both his own image and that of the CHP, which has since held rallies across the country and is now leading the polls. According to a survey by Ank-Ar Research published last week, if an election were to be held now, the CHP would win 34.6 percent, more than five percentage points higher than the 29.4 percent for the AKP. And the government is not happy. - No more demonstrations - "From the government's perspective, it is crucial they get the CHP off the streets because Ozel is seen as dangerous," said Eren Aksoyoglu, an expert in political communication. "By contrast, Kilicdaroglu is making conciliatory noises to those in power, saying he no longer wants any demonstrations and that he is ready to negotiate a change to the constitution," he said. If he were to take over the party leadership, it would "put the CHP in a position where it was negotiating with the government rather than fighting it," agreed Esen. Observers say a more sympathetic opposition would give Erdogan much greater room for manoeuvre in the government's negotiations with the PKK after the Kurdish militants said they were ending their decades-long armed struggle. It could also help the government push through a constitutional amendment to allow Erdogan to extend his term in office beyond 2028 -- a step that would require opposition support to be voted through. "I don't think Kilicdaroglu would be able to hold on to the CHP leadership in the long term, but if the process (of leadership change) is drawn out over the course of a year, for example, that would let the government to change the constitution," said Esen. And that would spell "total disaster for the opposition", he said. In any event, Monday's hearing would likely spark "a new wave of protest, which will have economic and political consequences for the government", he added. bg/hmw/sbk
