Archive September 9, 2025

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Thailand’s Supreme Court has ruled that former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra must serve one year in prison, in a watershed case for the kingdom.

The court issued its ruling on Tuesday in a review of whether Thaksin’s stay in the private room of a police hospital from 2023 to early 2024 counted as time served towards an earlier prison sentence.

Thaksin, 76, was sentenced to eight years’ imprisonment in 2023 for fraud and abuse of power following his surprise return to Thailand after 15 years in exile.

His sentence was commuted to one year by the king, and he was later released early due to his age.

Despite the seriousness of the charges, the former premier never spent a day in prison and instead remained in hospital due to health concerns.

“Of all the options that were on the table, either complete release or some form of home arrest, this is the worst option,” said Al Jazeera correspondent Tony Cheng from Bangkok.

Cheng said that the verdict would be unsurprising for many Thais.

“People were quite disappointed he spent all that time in police hospital; he didn’t even end up serving a night in jail in the end. I think this will be seen as some kind of justifiable sentence for the crimes that many people feel that he was guilty of during his time in power,” he said.

Thaksin’s return to prison marks the latest blow for his troubled political dynasty, which has held sway over Thai politics for 25 years.

The billionaire businessman served as prime minister from 2001 until 2006, when he was ousted by a military coup. He left Thailand in 2008, but his Pheu Thai party and its allies have remained highly influential ever since.

Despite wielding influence from abroad, Thaksin was never able to regain his former popularity following his return to Thailand, according to Cheng.

“It was felt that this could be a second coming for Thaksin, but over the past two years we’ ve really seen his influence wane. He wasn’t able to bring to bear that dynamism that we had seen before,” he said.

Thaksin’s Pheu Thai party returned to power in 2023, but last week it was ousted by the Bhumjaithai Party, its one-time ally and coalition partner.

It was the second setback in as many weeks after Thaksin’s daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, was formally removed from her post as prime minister over her mishandling of a border conflict with Cambodia.

She held the post for less than a year.

Last week, Thaksin generated speculation online that he might once again try to flee Thailand after he made an unexpected trip to Dubai – a city where he spent time in exile in the past.

Thaksin’s private plane was bound for Singapore on Thursday night when it suddenly rerouted midair to the Middle East, raising questions online about whether he intended to return.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has overseen a test of a new rocket engine designed for intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that he described as marking a “significant change in expanding and strengthening” the country’s strategic nuclear forces.

The country’s official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Tuesday that the successful test marked the ninth and final ground test of the solid-fuel rocket engine, built with carbon fibre and capable of producing 1,971 kilonewtons of thrust – a measure of propulsive force which is more powerful than earlier North Korean rocket engines.

The KCNA said that Kim expressed satisfaction after Monday’s test, calling the “eye-opening” development of the new rocket engine a “significant change” in North Korean nuclear capabilities.

The announcement that tests on the solid-fuel rocket are now complete comes a week after Kim visited the research institute that developed the engine, and where he unveiled that a next-generation Hwasong-20 ICBM is currently under development.

The development of North Korea’s ICBM arsenal adds to Pyongyang’s efforts in recent years to build weapons that pose as a viable threat to the continental United States, according to defence analysts.

Pyongyang’s nuclear ambitions are seen as a means to bolster North Korea’s status as a nuclear power and give it leverage in negotiating economic and security concessions with the US and other world powers.

North Korea also marked the 77th anniversary of its founding on Tuesday, by the current leader’s grandfather, Kim Il-sung.

In a separate report, KCNA said that Chinese President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter to Kim and called for strengthened “strategic communication” between Beijing and Pyongyang.

“The Chinese side is ready to join hands in promoting the China-DPRK friendship and the socialist cause of the two countries through the intensified strategic communication and brisk visits and close cooperation with the DPRK side,” Xi wrote, using the acronym for North Korea’s official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.

Last week, Kim joined Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi in Beijing for China’s Victory Day Parade commemorating the end of World War II.

Syria has “strongly condemned” Israeli attacks on several sites in and around Homs city in the west of the country and around the coastal city of Latakia.

The Israeli air strikes in the early hours of Tuesday represent “a blatant violation of the sovereignty of the Syrian Arab Republic”, the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

The ministry also described the Israeli attacks as “a direct threat” to Syrian security and regional stability, the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said.

SANA did not provide details on the size of the attacks on Homs and Latakia, or possible casualties following the strikes.

The United Kingdom-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said that Israeli warplanes attacked a Syrian air force base in Homs, where locals heard huge explosions, though there were no initial reports of casualties.

In Latakia, Israeli fighter jets attacked a military barracks, and locals reported that ambulances were heard rushing to the scene of the strikes, though there were also no initial reports of casualties in that attack.

Israel’s continuing and unprovoked attacks on Syria are “part of a series of aggressive escalations pursued by Israel against Syrian territory”, and the government rejects “any attempts to undermine its sovereignty or harm its national security”, the Foreign Ministry said in its statement.

The ministry also called on the international community, particularly the United Nations Security Council, to take a “clear and firm stand to put an end” to the Israeli attacks, which the ministry said are a “flagrant violation” of international law and the principles of the UN Charter, SANA said.

According to the SOHR, Israel has carried out almost 100 attacks so far this year, including 86 strikes from the air and 11 attacks by Israeli ground forces, leading to the destruction of some 135 sites in the country and the killing of 61 people.

In just the period between December 8, 2024 – the date of the fall of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus – and December 31, 2024, Israel carried out more than 500 air attacks on targets across the country.

While Israel had for years waged a secretive campaign of aerial bombardment against Syria’s military infrastructure, its attacks on its neighbour have ramped up since the war on Gaza and the fall of the al-Assad regime.

In late August, six Syrian soldiers were killed in an Israeli drone strike on Damascus , which came a day after a ground incursion into Syrian territory by Israeli troops.

Rupert Murdoch’s family has reached a deal to end the years-long succession battle over the mogul’s media empire.

The deal, announced by News Corp on Monday, will see eldest son Lachlan Murdoch take control of a sprawling media portfolio that includes Fox News, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Post, and The Times.

The agreement helps ensure that Murdoch’s media properties will retain their conservative bent long after the 94-year-old patriarch’s death.

Under the settlement, Lachlan, who is widely viewed as more aligned with his father’s conservative views than his siblings, and his two younger sisters, Grace and Chloe, will be beneficiaries of a new family trust that has a controlling stake in Fox Corporation and News Corp.

The deal stipulates that the trust will be in place until 2050.

Voting rights will rest “solely” with Lachlan, 54, who has served as chairman of News Corp and CEO of Fox since his father stepped down from the day-to-day running of the businesses in 2023.

Lachlan’s three oldest siblings, James, Elizabeth and Prudence, will relinquish their stakes in an existing family trust, receiving an equal split of the equity sales.

Under the deal, the three elder siblings will be subject to a “long-term standstill agreement” barring them from acquiring shares of News Corp and Fox Corporation and “taking certain other actions with respect to the companies”.

US media estimated the payout for the three siblings at about $3.3bn.

“News Corp’s board of directors welcomes these developments and believes that the leadership, vision and management by the Company’s Chair, Lachlan Murdoch, will continue to be important to guiding the Company’s strategy and success,” News Corp said in a statement.

The settlement caps a saga that has captivated political and media circles, and drawn comparisons with the plot of HBO’s award-winning drama Succession.

“Rupert Murdoch has built his reputation on being aggressive in securing what he wants, and he wanted Lachlan Murdoch to control both Fox Corp and News Corp,” Lynne Vincent, an associate professor of management at Syracuse University’s Whitman School of Management, told Al Jazeera.

“Not surprisingly, that is what is going to happen. Rupert Murdoch is very effective at getting what he wants.”

Vincent said Lachlan Murdoch’s control of the media portfolio would ensure “business as usual” at the outlets.

“From what we know, Lachlan Murdoch’s views and values are very similar to Rupert Murdoch’s,” she said.

“From an organisational perspective, this provides Fox Corp and News Corp with a sense of stability, which might be appealing to some stakeholders.”

The legal fight over Rupert Murdoch’s succession plans erupted in 2023, when the Australian-born mogul sought to change the structure of the family trust to give full control of his companies to Lachlan after his death.

James, Elizabeth and Prudence, who stood to inherit equal control of the companies along with Lachlan, took their father to court to block the bid.