World at ‘turning point’, war unleashed on Russia—Putin

RUSSIAN President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday at Moscow’s Red Square Victory Day parade that the world was at a “turning point” and claimed a “war” had been unleashed against Russia.

He vowed victory and said Russia’s future “rests on” its soldiers fighting in Ukraine.

The traditional Soviet-style event celebrating Moscow’s victory over the Nazis took place amid security fears, 15 months into Russia’s Ukraine offensive.

“Today civilization is again at a decisive turning point,” Putin said at the parade, which included elderly veterans and soldiers from Russia’s Ukraine campaign.

“A war has been unleashed against our motherland,” he claimed.

He called for Russia to be victorious: “For Russia, for our armed forces, for victory! Hurrah!”

Self-exiled ex-PM Thaksin seeks return to Thailand

17 years. I am an old man,” he tweeted.

THAILAND’S billionaire former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra said Tuesday he wants to return from self-exile before his July 26 birthday, in a tweet he posted just days before a general election.

The 73-year-old policeman turned telecoms tycoon, twice elected premier but ousted by a military coup in 2006, said he was ready to face justice after spending the past 15 years outside the kingdom to avoid corruption charges he long maintained were politically motivated.

The opposition Pheu Thai party, fronted by Thaksin’s daughter Paetongtarn, is ahead in most opinion polls for Sunday’s vote, increasing speculation that he may finally make good on repeated promises to return to Thailand.

“I have decided to return home to raise my grandchildren in July, before my birthday,” he wrote on his @ThaksinLive Twitter account.

Paetongtarn gave birth to her second child – his seventh grandchild – on May 1.

“I have lived away from my family for almost

The Russian leader has increasingly portrayed the campaign in Ukraine as an existential conflict, which he says the West has escalated by supporting the Ukrainian government.

Putin told soldiers taking part in Moscow’s Ukraine campaign, several hundreds of whom were present at the Red Square parade, that “the whole country is with you.”

“There is nothing more important now than your combat effort,” he said.

“The security of the country rests on you today, the future of our statehood and our people depend on you.” Putin also railed against “Western globalist elites,” accusing them of sowing conflicts and “coups” around the world.

“Their goal, and there is nothing new here, is to achieve the collapse and destruction of our country,” he said. AFP

Thaksin is still idolized by millions of poor rural Thais who benefited from his welfare policies, but loathed by the kingdom’s royalist-military elite.

Parties linked to Thaksin have won most seats at every Thai election since 2001, but lost two prime ministers to military coups and another to a court ruling.

Thaksin was convicted in absentia on corruption charges – and faces numerous other cases as well—but on Tuesday said he was ready to face the courts.

“I will enter the legal process and the day I return, the country will still be under the caretaker government of General Prayut,” he tweeted.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, the former army chief who ousted Thaksin’s sister Yingluck as premier to seize power in a 2014 coup, will formally remain in charge of the country until a new leader is sworn in, most likely in August. AFP

The accident occurred around 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Indore, the largest city in central Madhya Pradesh state.

“Fifteen people died due to impact and around 37 people were injured,” sub-divisional magistrate Omnarayan Singh told AFP.

Three children were among the dead, he said.

The bus was heading to Indore when it broke through the railing on the bridge and crashed into a dry river bed, the Times of India newspaper reported.

The bus driver had fallen asleep at the wheel before the crash and had fled from the scene, it said.

India accounts for 11 percent of the global road death toll despite only having one percent of the world’s vehicles, according to a World Bank report released in 2021.

The same report estimated 150,000 car crash fatalities in India annually, or one person every four minutes. AFP

N. Zealand student caught in cave flood

NEW ZEALAND emergency services said they are scouring a popular cave complex for a missing schoolboy Tuesday, after he was reportedly swept away by flood waters.

Rescue workers rushed to Abbey Caves north of Auckland, when a group of high school students on an outdoor pursuits exercise got into “difficulty”, police said.

Northland District Commander, Superintendent Tony Hill, said some of the group had “made it out” safely, but one student remained unaccounted for.

“Our thoughts are with the ‘whanau’ (family) of the missing child, as well as all those involved in the group outing and the school,” Hill said. Search and rescue crews from the police and the fire service have been deployed.

The group was reported to have been from Whangarei Boys High School, which told angry and distraught parents the school would close early on Tuesday.

The area has been pummelled by days of heavy rains and is under a severe thunderstorm warning, according to the local civil defence authority.

Abbey Caves are roughly five kilometers (three miles) from the city of Whangarei and feature three caves that “are prone to flash flooding”, according to the council website. AFP