Category World News

Indonesia’s President Prabowo Subianto has replaced five ministers in a lightning cabinet reshuffle after deadly protests rocked the Southeast Asian nation of 285 million people in recent weeks.

The cabinet shake-up on Monday follows rising public dissatisfaction with Prabowo’s administration and parliament’s perceived insensitivity over economic hardships affecting everyday people, which led to mass protests breaking out at the end of August.

Five ministers lost their jobs, including Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who previously served as the executive director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and managing director of the World Bank, and Budi Gunawan, the coordinating minister for politics and security.

Prabowo chose economist Purbaya Yudhi Sadewa, chairman of the Deposit Insurance Corporation, to replace Indrawati, who was one of Indonesia’s longest-serving finance ministers.

Indrawati’s replacement, Sadewa, 61, highlighted his experience at a news conference, noting he had provided fiscal expertise to the last two administrations.

The new finance minister said his focus is to speed economic growth by mapping out fiscal measures and ensuring that government spending is efficient without overhauling systems.

Prabowo also removed the ministers of cooperatives, youth and sport, and the minister for migrant workers protection.

Violent protests gripped the country last month after reports emerged that all 580 members of the House of Representatives received a monthly housing allowance of 50 million rupiah ($3,075), in addition to their salaries.

The housing allowance, introduced last year, was equal to nearly 10 times the minimum wage in Jakarta and even more for lower wages in rural areas.

The independent National Commission on Human Rights reported that 10 people died during the five-day protests and described an inhumane approach by security forces in handling the demonstrations.

Police have reported the protest death toll at seven.

Demonstrations also expanded following the death of 21-year-old motorcycle delivery driver Affan Kurniawan. He was reportedly completing a food delivery order when an armoured police car sped through a crowd of demonstrators and killed him.

With high rates of youth unemployment forcing many Indonesians to turn to precarious, low-paying work such as motorcycle taxi gig work, Kurniawan’s death prompted people to take to the streets.

The protests were swiftly met with police in riot gear, and water cannon and tear gas directed at activists, including on university campuses.

Prabowo told security forces to get tough on protests that showed signs of “treason and terrorism”.

But activists did not back down, targeting government buildings as well as the homes of several politicians during demonstrations, including ousted Finance Minister Indrawati’s home on August 31.

Calm has largely returned to the country after Prabowo revoked lawmakers’ perks and privileges last week, including the housing allowance, and suspended most of their overseas trips.

South Korea plans to dispatch a chartered plane on Wednesday to return hundreds of citizens detained in last week’s immigration raid in the US state of Georgia, Korean Air has said.

Korean Air, South Korea’s flagship carrier, said on Tuesday that it would operate a flight to Atlanta, Georgia, to repatriate the workers following their arrest at the construction site of a South Korean-operated electric-vehicle battery plant.

“Korean Air is planning to operate a charter flight to Atlanta tomorrow using a Boeing 747-8i,” a company spokesperson said.

US immigration authorities on Thursday detained about 475 people at the site of the $4.3bn Hyundai Motor Group-LG Energy Solution joint venture in Bryan County, Georgia.

About 300 of those swept up in the raid were South Korean nationals.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which has launched a sweeping crackdown on unauthorised migration under the direction of US President Donald Trump, said the arrested individuals were found to be working illegally in violation of the terms of their visas.

The raid has provoked outrage in South Korea, which has poured billions of dollars in investment into the US in recent years, and ranks among Washington’s closest allies in Asia.

South Korean Minister of Foreign Affairs Cho Hyun, who called the detention of his countrymen a “grave situation”, departed for Washington, DC, on Monday for talks on the issue.

Cho is expected to seek assurances from US officials that the workers will not face a multi-year ban from re-entry to the US, as is typical for those subject to deportation.

On Sunday, Trump issued a warning to foreign companies to “please respect” US immigration law, while insisting that foreign investment was welcome.

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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.