Bolstered by royal endorsement, coup leader warns citizens not to criticize, protest
Bolstered by royal endorsement, coup leader warns citizens not to criticize, protest
BANGKOK — Bolstered by an endorsement from Thailand’s king, the nation’s new military ruler issued a stark warning Monday to anyone opposed to last week’s coup: don’t cause trouble, don’t criticize, don’t protest — or else the nation could revert to the “old days” of turmoil and street violence.
Speaking in his first public appearance since the coup, Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha defended the army’s takeover, saying he had to restore order after seven months of increasingly violent confrontations between the now-ousted government and demonstrators who had long urged the army to intervene.
“I’m not here to argue with anyone. I want to bring everything out in the open and fix it,” said Prayuth, who spoke at the army headquarters in Bangkok dressed in a crisp white military uniform.
“Everyone must help me,” he said, adding: but “do not criticize, do not create new problems. It’s no use.”
The tough words came as an aide to former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra said she had been released Monday from military custody after being held for three days at an undisclosed location without access to a telephone. The aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation, said Yingluck had returned to her home.
Nigerian military says abducted girls have been located, but it can’t go in with force
ABUJA, Nigeria — Nigeria’s military has located nearly 300 school girls abducted by Islamic extremists but fears using force to try to free them could get them killed, the country’s chief of defense said Monday.
Air Marshal Alex Barde told demonstrators supporting the much criticized military that Nigerian troops can save the girls. But he added, “we can’t go and kill our girls in the name of trying to get them back.”
He spoke to thousands of demonstrators who marched to Defense Ministry headquarters in Abuja, the capital. Many were brought in on buses, indicating it was an organized event.
Asked by reporters where they had found the girls, Barde refused to elaborate.
“We want our girls back. I can tell you we can do it. Our military can do it. But where they are held, can we go with force?” he asked the crowd.
After Euroskeptic rise muddles European Union’s future, EU leaders must find a way out
BRUSSELS — Euroskeptics celebrated across the continent on Monday, from Britain to France and beyond, over their unmatched success in the European Parliament election. Now they are keen to put up internal borders again, keep foreigners out of their labor markets, abolish the common euro currency and let their nations go it alone in a globalized world.
The 28 European Union leaders meeting in Tuesday’s postelection summit have a different task: making sure the surge of anti-EU and anti-establishment parties that claimed almost 30 percent of the EU’s 751-seat legislature doesn’t dislodge the 64-year project of closer cooperation between European nations.
They will also need to look for a way to reconnect with an ever more disenchanted European electorate that stayed away from the polls in massive numbers — and cast plenty of protest votes when they did show up.
Trust in political leadership “is going down dramatically,” EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso acknowledged Monday in Sintra, Portugal.
British Prime Minister David Cameron, faced with the rise of the Euroskeptic UK Independence Party at home, struck a similar note, saying nothing will be business-as-usual any more.
By wire sources