标签： Oceania

Thailand’s royal household has confirmed the passing of Princess Bajrakitiyabha Mahidol, King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s eldest daughter, at the age of 47. The announcement, made Friday, comes more than three years after the princess was hospitalized for a sudden illness that would ultimately claim her life. She died peacefully on Thursday evening after her abdominal infection led to a steady and irreversible decline in health, the Bureau of the Royal Household said in an official statement.

Following royal tradition, the princess will lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace, and a state funeral will be held with the highest royal honors, the statement added. Popularly known to Thais as “Princess Bha,” Bajrakitiyabha was the only child from the king’s first marriage to Princess Soamsawali. She first fell ill in December 2021, and by May of this year, her condition had deteriorated to the point that she required continuous medical device support for her lung and kidney function alongside round-the-clock medication.

A highly accomplished public figure beyond her royal status, Bajrakitiyabha built a diverse professional career as a trained prosecutor and diplomat. She pursued her education across three countries, earning a law degree from Cornell University in the United States after studying in Britain and her native Thailand, and went on to serve as Thailand’s ambassador to Austria. She also held multiple senior roles with the United Nations, and emerged as a prominent advocate for women’s rights, most notably pushing for improved living and working conditions for incarcerated women across the region. Speaking to students at her alma mater Cornell University during a 2012 visit, she described her multifaceted career as that of a “hybrid” professional, blending expertise in law, criminal justice and diplomacy.

In a televised national address following the announcement, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul paid tribute to the late princess, noting she was deeply loved, respected and admired by people across the kingdom. He praised her as kind, talented and of exemplary conduct, adding that she dedicated her entire life to advancing justice, equality, human dignity and rights across Thai society. Anutin called on all Thai citizens to join in national mourning and hold up the princess as an inspiration for public service to the nation and monarchy.

Within Thailand’s hierarchical social structure, where the royal family occupies the highest position of public reverence, Bajrakitiyabha held significant ceremonial influence. She was widely known to be close to her father, and just one year before her hospitalization, she was appointed to a senior leadership position in the king’s personal bodyguard command. Even Pavin Chachavalpongpun, a prominent Thai scholar known for his public criticism of the monarchy, offered a warm reflection after her death, recalling meeting her in Singapore and describing her as someone who treated every civil servant with inherent kindness and respect.

By Friday morning, crowds of mourners had already gathered outside Chulalongkorn Hospital, where the princess had received all her treatment since falling ill. Many held hand-signed portraits of the late princess, and dozens shared their grief with reporters. Sixty-six-year-old retiree Thanyaporn Arammekha, whose eyes were swollen from hours of crying, told reporters she had rushed to the hospital as soon as she heard the official announcement. “When I heard the announcement, I was very sad,” she said, noting that she had visited the hospital regularly throughout the princess’s treatment. She added that the Thai monarchy had long been a source of personal comfort for her after her parents’ divorce when she was a child, with former King Bhumibol Adulyadej (Rama IX) serving as a father figure.

Another retired provincial official, 67-year-old Kanokpan Chantarapetch, struggled to speak through her tears as she paid her respects. “I can’t really speak. I’m overwhelmed,” she told AFP. “I have loved Princess Bha since she was very young, and as a former government worker, I understand how much the royal family has done for the country.”

Bajrakitiyabha’s death marks the second major loss for the Thai royal family in less than six months, following the death of King Vajiralongkorn’s mother, former Queen Sirikit, in October at the age of 93. The 73-year-old king, who has seven children from four separate marriages, has not yet publicly named an heir to the throne. Current Thai succession laws prioritize male heirs for the throne. Thailand’s strict lese-majeste laws, which carry penalties of up to 15 years in prison per charge for any criticism of members of the royal family, continue to heavily regulate public discussion of the monarchy.

Five years after Myanmar’s military seized power in a 2021 coup, the ruling junta has pushed a carefully crafted narrative that the country has returned to stable, normal governance: it points to recently held elections, a newly installed civilian government, and the December lifting of Yangon’s restrictive 1 a.m. to 3 a.m. curfew as proof the nation is moving past its post-coup unrest. But the shadowy, high-adrenaline underground party scene thriving in the country’s largest city tells a far different story – one of widespread fear, unaddressed trauma, and a desperate search for escape amid a still-raging civil war.

Inside a sprawling, warehouse-turned-nightclub in Yangon, bass-heavy music blares at 150 decibels – as loud as a jet engine during takeoff – while cutting laser lights slice through clouds of cigarette and vape smoke. When the final set ends around dawn, many partygoers don’t rush to head home. Instead, they doze off on leather sofas scattered around the venue, a habit formed after years of avoiding late-night travel through streets controlled by military checkpoints and armed factions. “That became a habit, they’re used to it,” explained a 29-year-old veteran of Yangon’s underground elite party scene, who, like all other interviewees for this report, requested full anonymity out of fear of reprisal from military authorities.

For many of Myanmar’s young people, the desire to cut loose from daily stress collides with a persistent dread of moving through the streets after dark. Widespread arbitrary detention, forced conscription campaigns by both the military and opposing armed groups, and ongoing violence have left nearly half of all young people reporting they feel “unsafe” or “very unsafe” walking alone after sundown, according to a 2025 United Nations report – that’s more than double the rate recorded before the 2021 coup. By late evening, most public streets in Yangon are nearly empty, deserted save for stray dogs and occasional military patrols.

Local performer Sae Sar, who performs under a stage name to protect his identity, said this tension between the urge to connect and the fear of danger defines Yangon’s modern nightlife. “I know my fans are tired all day,” the 24-year-old artist said. “If they keep all their feelings inside, it can cause many problems.”

On weekends, the first stop for many night owls is Yangon’s iconic Chinatown, where neon signs line 19th Street and open-air beer bars spill out onto the sidewalk. This strip is the only major late-night public gathering spot in the city; as midnight approaches, every surrounding street has long emptied out. One local street vendor selling individual sachets of hangover cure says that six months after the curfew was lifted, the number of people out for the night has stayed roughly the same. “People just want to be happy, even though they are worried,” she explained. “They’re still going home early.” Lyrics from busking performers drift out onto the street, capturing the collective mood: “Life is short as a drying drop of water. Don’t be sad. Things will get better. Try just to be happy.”

Once 19th Street winds down around midnight, the party moves underground to the Sanchaung neighborhood. Once a center of anti-coup protests after 2021, the area has emerged as a hub for underground nightlife after security forces crushed the public pro-democracy movement. Many of the young activists who led those early protests have since joined anti-military resistance factions fighting in the country’s ongoing civil war, which has killed more than 70,000 people, displaced 3.7 million more, and pushed half of Myanmar’s population into poverty. Even when strict full-night curfews were in place in the years immediately after the coup, young people still gathered secretly to party, one local DJ told AFP. He argued that military authorities often turned a blind eye to these gatherings, reasoning that young people focused on partying “won’t focus on the resistance.”

Today, regular nightlife carries a distinctly different energy than it did before the coup, according to everyone interviewed for this report. The trade in illicit party narcotics has exploded in recent years: ketamine, ecstasy, and homemade “happy water” cocktails that mix unpredictable combinations of stimulants and sedatives are now widely available at underground events. “These days people judge whether a DJ is good or bad based entirely on how well the music complements their drug high,” the 31-year-old DJ said. “It is supply and demand.”

The search for escape from daily stress and trauma only ends at dawn, when bleary-eyed partygoers stumble out into the early morning light to head home, carrying the collective weight of the coup’s ongoing impact with them – a lingering post-coup hangover that no night of partying can fully wash away.

Pope Leo XIV is wrapping up his official visit to Spain this Friday, centering the final day of his trip on the urgent humanitarian crisis facing irregular migrants crossing to Europe, with scheduled meetings with displaced people and an open-air mass on the Atlantic island of Tenerife. As the spiritual leader of 1.4 billion Catholics around the globe, his closing appearances reinforce a clear message: the world must step up support for vulnerable migrants and crack down on the ruthless human trafficking networks that profit from irregular migration, a topic that remains one of the most divisive issues in contemporary European political debate. Tenerife forms part of Spain’s Canary Islands archipelago, a primary Atlantic entry point for tens of thousands of people fleeing poverty, conflict and instability in Africa and the Middle East who seek new, better lives in the European Union. On Friday, the pope will first address hundreds of migrants staying at the Las Raices migrant facility, a converted former military barracks that previously drew widespread public criticism for severe overcrowding and poor living conditions. Following that meeting, he will lead a large open-air mass for tens of thousands of worshippers gathered in Santa Cruz de Tenerife’s main port. The final leg of the papal trip began Thursday, when the pope arrived on Gran Canaria, another major island in the archipelago, after completing earlier visits to the Spanish mainland cities of Madrid and Barcelona earlier in the week. During his first day in the Canaries, he delivered a sharp rebuke of global indifference to the migrant crisis, holding a solemn ceremony to cast a memorial wreath into the waters off Arguineguin port to honor the thousands of migrants who have lost their lives attempting to cross the sea to reach the islands. “Human dignity has no passport,” he stated from the dock, before blessing a weathered blue wooden cross crafted from the remnants of a migrant vessel that washed ashore after a crossing. “Monsters lurk in these seas… traffickers who enslave women and children, and those whose indifference allows the poor to be swallowed up by exploitation or forgetfulness,” he added. Data from the International Organization for Migration confirms that nearly 1,200 migrants lost their lives or went missing on the dangerous crossing from North Africa to the Canary Islands last year alone, cementing the route as one of the deadliest migration corridors on the planet. With European national governments tightening migration policies amid rising political pressure from far-right parties across the continent, the pope pushed back against hardened approaches: Europe “cannot claim to uphold human dignity while growing accustomed to the Mediterranean and the Atlantic becoming unmarked graves,” he argued. He further emphasized that the ongoing tragedy demands a moral reckoning not just for destination countries in Europe, but also for nations of origin and transit, where widespread poverty and unaddressed conflict leave people vulnerable to exploitation by trafficking gangs. For migrant communities on the Canary Islands, the papal visit carries enormous weight during what many describe as a defining moment for the crisis. “We really value this visit. It’s very important for us at such a critical moment,” Mohamed Amjahdi, a Moroccan migrant who arrived on the islands by boat at the age of 17, told Agence France-Presse on the ground in Arguineguin. After concluding his events in Tenerife, the pope will depart for Rome, where he is expected to hold a press conference with traveling journalists aboard his return flight. Pope Leo XIV has made reforming global approaches to migration a core priority of his papacy, using high-profile international visits to draw global attention to the human cost of restrictive immigration policies and systemic indifference to displaced populations.