VENEZUELA OPPOSITION RALLY TO COINCIDE WITH START OF NEW ASSEMBLY
CARACAS: Venezuela’s opposition will hold a protest rally Thursday to coincide with the expected inauguration of a new assembly that will rewrite the constitution in what has been decried as a power grab by President Nicolas Maduro. At the close of a day in which two prominent opposition leaders were arrested, the opposition announced the demonstration will be Thursday, instead of Wednesday as originally planned. The change came after opposition lawmaker Freddy Guevara said the Maduro government plans to install the “fraudulent” assembly on Thursday. It was elected Sunday amid protests and deadly violence but the government has not specified what day it would take up its seats. It just said within 72 hours of being elected. Early Tuesday the intelligence service hauled two prominent opposition leaders back to prison in the dead of night, triggering an international outcry as embattled Maduro moved to shore up his power after the election, widely denounced as a sham.
TWO FORMER THAI PMS ACQUITTED OVER 2008 PROTEST DEATHS
Thailand’s highest court on Wednesday acquitted two ex-prime ministers and two former top police officers over their role in a 2008 crackdown on anti- government protesters that killed two people. Former premier Somchai Wongsawat and his then- deputy Chavalit Yongchaiyudh faced negligence charges over a police operation to remove protesters who had laid siege to parliament. The deadly incident was one of many violent flare-ups over the past decade between their political camp and a conservative Bangkok-based establishment. But in its
FLOODS IN THAILAND’S NORTHEAST KILL 23
BANGKOK: Heavy rains have brought some of the worst floods for years to Thailand’s rural northeast where 23 people have died over the past month, officials said Wednesday. Flash floods have disrupted air travel, inundated rail tracks and swallowed farmland across the rice-farming region of Isaan, affecting more than one million Thais. Twenty-three people have died since July 5, the disaster department said in a daily update. All were swept away by the floodwaters and drowned, it said. Junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha flew to the hardest-hit province of Sakon Nakhon on Wednesday to inspect a reservoir that had cracked under the downpour, triggering flash floods. Ten provinces are still battling severe floods as rains continue to lash the upper part of the northeast region, according to the weather bureau.
BRAZIL’S CONGRESS TO VOTE ON PRESIDENT’S CORRUPTION TRIAL
BRASÍLIA: Brazil’s center-right President Michel Temer faces a vote by lawmakers Wednesday to decide whether to put him on trial for corruption in the latest political turmoil shaking Latin America’s biggest country. Temer is accused of taking bribes from a meatpacking industry executive—part of a wider scandal sucking in major politicians of every stripe. If two-thirds of deputies in the lower house of Congress accept the charge, Temer will be suspended for 180 days and face trial at the Supreme Court. The upheaval comes only 12 months after the same lawmakers ejected Temer’s leftist predecessor Dilma Rousseff in an impeachment trial.