Japanese railways and airlines are canceling services as Typhoon Ampil gathers strength in the western Pacific, with the storm expected to hit on Friday during the peak summer travel season.

As of early Thursday local time, Typhoon Ampil was recording sustained winds of 140 kph (85 mph), according to the latest advisory from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). That makes it the equivalent of a Category 1 hurricane in the Atlantic basin.

And it’s likely to strengthen further in the next 36 hours, since the storm is moving over very warm water – meaning more moisture in the air to fuel the typhoon. By Friday evening, as it nears Japan southeast of Tokyo, it could become the equivalent of a Category 3 hurricane, according to a JTWC forecast.

Two major airlines, Japan Airlines and All Nippon Airways, canceled about 500 flights in total serving the capital’s Haneda and Narita airports, according to public broadcaster NHK.

Rail travel has been disrupted too. Six lines on Japan’s extensive bullet train network are suspending services between certain stations and warning of major delays on Friday – including the important Tokaido line that connects Tokyo with Osaka.

Japan’s meteorology officials have warned that some parts of northern and eastern Japan may see violent winds, rough seas, heavy rain, flooding, landslides and overflowing rivers, according to NHK. They urged the public to exercise caution and stay prepared.

The storm’s center is expected to remain slightly offshore as it turns toward the northeast and moves away from Japan, according to JTWC and Japan’s Meteorological Agency. If it stays offshore and only brushes the coast, it might only have a light impact on Japan, bringing rain and wind to some areas including Tokyo.

However, it could have a much stronger effect if the direction changes to bring the center closer to the coast, or even makes landfall.

The storm is expected to weaken by Saturday morning local time and die down as it moves into cooler waters over the weekend.

As Kyiv’s forces advance farther into Russia following their surprise incursion last week, Ukrainians living near the border are watching with mixed feelings: a sense of justice combined with fear of what could come next.

“We entered their territory not because we wanted to, but because they came to our home and took away our peaceful life. Now they have to deal with it. I hope that it will not be in vain and that we will get peace.”

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that Kyiv’s forces were pushing farther into Russia after claiming hundreds of square miles of its territory. Kyiv said its troops have been expanding on a “buffer zone” inside Russia, which they say will better protect communities in northern Ukraine.

Fedorkovska, 21, came to the evacuation center with her 72-year-old grandmother, who was inconsolable after leaving her husband and the home they’ve shared for 52 years.

The two women were among hundreds of Ukrainians evacuated from border areas in recent days. Fedorkovska, a student, said her 85-year-old grandfather insisted on staying behind, telling her: “You save your grandmother, and I will guard what we own.”

The surprise counteroffensive brought a much-needed boost for Ukraine’s military, but it has also left some Ukrainians, including Fedorkovska and her grandmother, worried about what will happen once Russia gathers enough troops to the area to push back.

Mariupol, in the Donetsk region, fell to Russian control in 2022 following months of besiegement and bombardment, thousands of reported deaths, and tales of horror and starvation.

Russian aerial attacks

Nila Buhaiova, who works at the Department of Social Protection in the Sumy regional administration, said hundreds of people came through the center’s doors in recent days.

“The evacuation has intensified over this past week … when the shelling of the Sumy district started, people could not stay anymore, so they left. On Friday there were 270 people, on Saturday 382, and on Sunday 250,” she said.

The numbers are dwarfed by the evacuations on the Russian side of the border. Local officials in the Kursk region said some 180,000 people there have been put under evacuation orders, with thousands more evacuated from neighboring Russian regions.

But for many Ukrainians, it’s hard to feel sorry for their neighbors.

Fedorkovska’s grandparents stayed in their home in Myropillya after the war broke out in 2022, even though the village is surrounded by Russia’s Kursk region on three sides and has been under frequent attack ever since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

But the area has become too dangerous now that Ukraine has launched its surprise incursion.

“After the start of the Kursk operation, artillery and mortar attacks stopped because our guys drove them away from the border. But the attacks with guided bombs and aircraft have intensified. Now they can’t reach us with artillery, so they shoot from the aircraft,” Fedorkovska said, explaining why her grandmother had finally decided to evacuate.

“We want people to understand what it’s like to live under constant shelling, to live in a place where you have lived your whole life, a place you put your heart and soul into, where you raised your children, went to school … and that you are forced to leave and move somewhere else because there’s constant shelling now.”

Olena Lozko is an accountant from the Ukrainian village of Velyka Rybytsia, which sits about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) from the Russian border. She too has left in recent days amid the intensifying attacks by Moscow’s forces.

“We are very happy that our soldiers are attacking, but we are very scared. We have nowhere to go, and we are very afraid of these glide aerial bombs,” she said. “The situation is getting worse.”

Russia’s FAB-1500 guided glide bomb is a 1.5-tonne weapon nearly half comprised of high explosives. They are delivered by fighter jets from about 60-70 kilometers away, out of range of many Ukrainian air defenses.

‘You attack – we attack too’

People farther away from the front lines hope that giving the Russians a taste of their own medicine could help bring the conflict to an end.

“It’s a signal to Russia that any action can cause a reaction. You attack – we attack too,” said Borys Lomako, a café owner from Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which is also near the border with Russia.

“It’s life-affirming to me that we’re going to fight for our border, and we’re doing more than just pushing [the Russians] back to the front line. You enter our territory, we enter yours. Psychologically this is a change of position in this war,” he said.

Andrii Legin, a 40-year-old resident of the capital Kyiv, said he fears the response of Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he called a “crazed dictator.”

“Russia may respond in any way, starting with a completely frantic military response. Or perhaps some kind of shift will happen among the Russian people because the war has moved to Russian territory. Let’s see how the Russians react to this,” he said.

He said he is certain of one thing, however.

“I don’t think it will do any good if we Ukrainians enjoy it,” he said. “Yet if this is the only way to call for peace, then maybe it does work.”

Conflict between elephants and humans is a growing, and potentially deadly, problem in some parts of India. Now, the state of Assam, a northeastern region famous for its rolling tea plantations, has launched a mobile app that alerts villagers of approaching herds in an effort to reduce the risk of catastrophic encounters.

While estimates vary, such conflicts in the state led to more than 200 elephant deaths and 400 human deaths from 2017 to 2022, according to data from Aaranyak, a local conservationist group that developed the “Haati App” or “Elephant App” in collaboration with the Assam government.

The app is designed to give villagers and farmers a vital heads-up when wild elephants are close to human settlements, aiming to help people avoid dangerous encounters.

“Fueled by a combination of a population boom and poverty, man has expanded his frontiers, while animals have found their jungles shrinking,” said Aaranyak, which in Sanskrit means “to belong to the forest.”

Assam is home to over 5,000 wild elephants, the second highest in the country after Kerala in the southwestern tip of India, which has around 6,000, according to a 2017 report by the Ministry of Environment, Forests & Climate Change.

Fewer than 50,000 Asian elephants are left in the world, and they are listed as endangered species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List. Indian elephants are a subspecies of Asian elephants native to the country, and there are about 40,000 left in the wild, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

While India has over 100 national parks and around 30 elephant reserves, many of these animals are losing their natural habitats due to increased farming and human activities, conservation groups have long warned.

Elephants are large and often travel in herds, and about half a million families in India are affected by crop-raiding elephants each year, according to WWF.

Some farmers resort to culling elephants to protect their families as any encounter with animals that weigh at least 5 tons can quickly become deadly.

On World Elephant Day, which fell on Monday, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi affirmed the government’s effort to provide suitable habitat for elephants to thrive.

“For us in India, the elephant is linked to our culture and history, too. And it’s gladdening that over the last few years, their numbers have been on the rise,” Modi said on Facebook.

However, illegal encroachment into protected areas and forest clearing for roads and infrastructure development have led to significant habitat loss and fragmentation for elephants, which are sacred symbols in Hinduism and Buddhism.

Wider issue in Asia

Elephants have lost almost two-thirds of their habitat across Asia, as a result of hundreds of years of deforestation and increasing human use of land for agriculture and infrastructure.

The study in the journal Scientific Reports published in April found India to be the country with the second greatest decline in elephant habitats, with 86% of suitable land lost between 1700 and 2015. That’s second only to China, which lost 94% over the same period.

The Asian elephant is found across 13 countries across the continent, but their forest and grassland habitats have been eroded by more than 64% – equating to 3.3 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) of land – since 1700, researchers said. That is roughly twice the size of Alaska.

People in Kiribati went to the polls on Wednesday for the first round of voting in a national election expected to serve as a referendum on rising living costs and the government’s stronger ties with China.

A second round of voting is scheduled on Aug. 19 for all parliamentary seats that are not won by a majority vote on Wednesday. Results from the first round are expected Thursday.

The nation of low-lying atolls with 120,000 people is one of the most threatened in the world by rising sea levels and does not command the resource wealth or tourism branding of other Pacific islands. But its proximity to Hawaii and its huge ocean expanse have bolstered its strategic importance and provoked an influence skirmish between Western powers and Beijing.

The Kiribati government switched its allegiance from pro-Taiwan to pro-Beijing in 2019, citing its national interest and joining several other Pacific nations that have severed diplomatic ties with Taipei since 2016.

Kiribati is one of the most aid-dependent nations in the world and is rated at high risk of external debt distress by the International Monetary Fund. Its existence is threatened by coastal erosion and rising seas that have contaminated drinking water and driven much of the population onto the most populous island, South Tarawa.

Analysts say few details about the campaigning or this week’s vote have appeared online and there are few English-language news sources in the country. The blocked or delayed entry of Australian officials to Kiribati and a stalled flow of information between the governments in recent years have prompted anxiety in Canberra about the scale of Beijing’s influence.

“A lot of countries in the region are really trying to find their place with a lot of geostrategic competition,” said Blake Johnson, a senior analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. Kiribati has “taken the approach of keeping its cards pretty close” and is not divulging details “that might impact the way those relationships are trending,” he said.

The election will decide 44 of the 45 seats in Parliament but not the Kiribati presidency, which is due to be resolved in October. A public vote will be held to choose the leader from three or four candidates selected from among those elected this month.

The incumbent, Taneti Maamau, who has been in office since 2016, is expected to seek another term as leader if returned to his seat.

The increased cost of living, scarce medicine supplies and fuel shortages are expected to be central issues for voters. Analysts say voters are likely to reward the incumbent government for the introduction of universal unemployment benefits and increased subsidies for copra, or dried coconut flesh.

“People are taking time to link that the challenges they’re facing are a result of the policies that are in place,” Rimon Rimon, an independent journalist in Kiribati, said by phone. He said the prospect of incumbents being reelected was “quite strong at the moment.”

The question of how much influence Beijing has is not a simple one. Dismay from Australia, New Zealand and the United States about China’s sway is not always specific or well-articulated and has often caused frustration in the Pacific, Johnson said.

He said Australia’s worries include reports that Beijing has trained and equipped Kiribati police officers, and the suspension of foreign judges serving in the island nation.

“Interestingly, these Western countries maintain their own connections with China, but when small island states do the same, it suddenly raises concerns,” said Takuia Uakeia, director of the Kiribati campus of the University of the South Pacific. “This is well understood by the people.”

Rimon, the journalist, said policy shifts since Kiribati switched to a pro-Beijing stance include a requirement that researchers and reporters apply for permits for filming and a more “hard-line” approach to information access. The government remains very secretive about the content of 10 agreements signed between Kiribati and China in 2022, he added.

Voters who spoke by phone on Wednesday said a list of polling places had only been published by the government on Tuesday and there had been uncertainty before voting opened about whether identification cards were required to vote.

Political parties are loose groups in Kiribati, and lawmakers do not confirm their allegiance until elected to office. Kiribati was traditionally a society governed by consensus, with strong democratic principles and respect for its constitution, but the contest for foreign influence had sowed divisions, Rimon said.

“How we’re seeing things in terms of donors and cooperation with partners is that we’re not sure how this is helping us that they’re competing in this sense,” he said.

There are 115 candidates contesting the election, including 18 women. Candidates were unopposed for four seats — three of them incumbent lawmakers from the governing Tobwaan Kiribati Party, according to Radio New Zealand.

Toomaj Salehi, the Iranian dissident rapper who escaped the death penalty earlier this summer has been cleared entirely of the original charges by a lower court in Isfahan, central Iran.

Salehi became a key voice of anti-government dissent in Iran during the 2022 ‘Woman, Life Freedom’ protests, with lyrics that galvanized protesters and urged them to unite. He was sentenced to death after being convicted of “corruption on earth” last year.

But in a reversal of the high-profile case, Salehi’s sentenced was later overturned by the Iranian Supreme Court and referred back to the lower court in Isfahan for re-sentencing.

His lawyer in Iran, Amir Raesian announced on X Tuesday that Salehi had been acquitted.

But the Iranian rapper will remain behind bars for now.

“Today, this branch issued its decision regarding Mr. Salehi’s case by holding a hearing and listening to the arguments of the lawyers of the case,” Salehi’s lawyer Raesian told reformist newspaper Shargh Daily. “According to the decision, Mr. Salehi was acquitted of corruption charges.”

Salehi still faces two legal charges; he has been also accused by Iranian authorities of publishing false statements on social media and disrupting public order. On Wednesday, the Isfahan appellate court referred these two charges to a criminal court after finding that it could not rule on these charges.

Rights advocacy group Index Against Censorship, who have campaigned heavily for Salehi’s release, recently called for his “immediate release” from incarceration.

In a social media post as Salehi faced into his latest hearing on August 9, the group stressed that Salehi should never “have had to spend a single day behind bars, let alone in front of a judge.”

A German military base near the western city of Cologne was temporarily closed on Wednesday as authorities investigated the possible sabotage of water supplies.

The Cologne-Wahn barracks employs around 5,500 people, including 4,300 soldiers and 1,200 civilians, according to German newspaper Der Spiegel.

A military spokesman, Ulrich Fonrobert, said that a hole was discovered in a fence leading to waterworks at the Cologne-Wahn barracks.

He continued: “In addition, the barracks were closed because it could not be ruled out at the time that the person was still on the premises.” However, the perpetrators were not found “despite an intensive search.”

The barracks have now reopened although the drinking water system has been shut down as a precautionary measure, Fonrobert said.

“We are taking this incident very seriously; police, military police and military counterintelligence services (MAD) are investigating,” he added.

Also on Wednesday, the security level at a NATO air base in the western German town of Geilenkirchen was raised due to a suspected case of sabotage in a similar incident to that of the Cologne-Wahn base, Reuters reported. However, after checking the condition of the water, the air base was not sealed off, according to a NATO spokesperson.

It is unclear who entered the Cologne-Wahn barracks. Wednesday’s incident comes amid heightened concerns that Russia could be carrying out sabotage attacks across Europe.

In May NATO said it was “deeply concerned about recent malign activities” by Moscow. The statement pointed to potential “sabotage, acts of violence, cyber and electronic interference, disinformation campaigns, and other hybrid operations.”

The statement pointed to potential “sabotage, acts of violence, cyber and electronic interference, disinformation campaigns, and other hybrid operations.”

German authorities have issued an international arrest warrant for a Ukrainian man suspected of carrying out the explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipeline two years ago.

The explosions left gas billowing from Nord Stream 1 and 2 – two major conduits that transported Russian gas to Europe – and prompted a huge operation to find who was responsible.

A spokeswoman for Poland’s Public Prosecutors Office, Anna Adamiak, confirmed Poland had received a warrant from Germany seeking the arrest of a Ukrainian man, named as Volodymyr Z. Reuters, citing Polish prosecutors, said he was able to leave Polish territory as German authorities had not included him on a database of wanted people.

The news comes after three German outlets reported that the man – described as a male diver – along with two other Ukrainian suspects, are believed by German federal prosecutors to have launched an audacious underwater attack on the pipeline from a sailing boat in September 2022.

The origin of the explosions has been a subject of intense speculation and further stoked political tensions in Europe seven months after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Neither of the pipelines were actively transporting gas to Europe at the time of the leaks, though they still held gas under pressure.

Investigators found evidence of explosives at the sites in November 2022, leading Swedish prosecutors to conclude that the blasts were caused by an act of sabotage.

According to the new German media reports, investigators in Germany believe that the sailing boat set sail from Rostock, Germany in September 2022, stopping in Denmark, Sweden and Poland, with a six-person crew including five men and one woman.

During that voyage, the crew is reportedly suspected of diving into the Baltic Sea and attaching explosives to the massive Nord Stream pipelines, which subsequently detonated and damaged both lines, according to the outlets.

The New York Times meanwhile reported in 2023 that intelligence reviewed by US officials suggested a group loyal to Ukraine, but acting independently of the government in Kyiv, were involved in the operation.

Ukraine’s government has always denied any involvement in the blasts.

The Nord Stream project had been controversial long before Russia invaded Ukraine. Several Western countries, among them Poland, raised fears it would increase Moscow’s influence over Europe.

Germany nonetheless championed the expensive multimillion dollar, 750-mile second pipeline, before eventually pulling the plug on the plans after Russia’s invasion, just as it was set to become operational.

This story has been updated with additional information.

The last operating public hospital in Sudan’s North Darfur state is at risk of closure, Doctors Without Borders (MSF) warned Wednesday, amid fierce fighting between the country’s rival military factions that have left more than 18,000 people dead and 33,000 injured.

Civil war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) broke out in April last year and has intensified in El Fasher, the North Darfur capital, since May when the paramilitary RSF group encircled the city.

The MSF-supported Saudi Hospital in El Fasher has suffered extensive damage following the continued bombardment of the city over the last week, leaving it barely functional, MSF said. At least 15 people were killed in those attacks and more than 130 others were wounded, it added.

The facility is the last remaining public hospital in the city with the capacity to treat the wounded and perform surgery, according to MSF.

On Sunday, another attack on the hospital hit the surgical ward, killing a patient carer and injuring five others.

“Sunday’s attack on Saudi Hospital – which is the largest hospital in North Darfur state – makes it crystal clear that the warring parties are making no efforts to protect health facilities or the civilians inside them. Patients fear for their lives as a result of the relentless attacks,” Michel Olivier Lacharité, head of MSF’s emergency operations, said in a statement Wednesday.

As people flee to the Zamzam camp for displaced people near El Fasher in western Sudan, which was hit by shelling one week ago, MSF’s field hospital is under “exceptional pressure” with casualties continuing to arrive, the aid agency said.

Crisis facing children

The latest dire reports from El Fasher come as UNICEF, the UN’s children’s agency, said Sudan’s humanitarian crisis was “the biggest in the world” for children, by numbers.

“Tens of thousands” of Sudanese children are at risk of death if action is not urgently taken, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder warned at a press briefing on Tuesday.

“Thousands of children have been killed or injured in Sudan’s war. Sexual violence and recruitment are increasing. And the situation is even worse where an ongoing humanitarian presence remains denied,” Elder said.

Five million children have been forced to flee their homes, making Sudan the world’s largest child displacement crisis, Elder stressed, adding that children are dying as famine starts to take hold in the Zamzam camp.

“This month’s determination of famine in one part of Sudan risks spreading and leading to a catastrophic loss of children’s lives,” the spokesman said.

In a secluded part of Ecuador’s Amazon rainforest, river transport is far more common than road travel. Here, boats glide along the Wichimi River, a wide channel that snakes through the dense foliage, and powering the silent vessels is the Ecuadorian sunshine.

Five boats, each boat topped with a sleek solar-panelled roof, are being used by 12 indigenous Achuar communities across a stretch of eastern Ecuador bordering Peru. The boats have been provided by Kara Solar, a non-profit organization based in the region. Not only are the Achuar responsible for fixing, running and maintaining the boats — the solar vessels are shaping daily life for the community by offering transport for education, health services and eco-tourism.

For years, many Achuar here have used gasoline-powered boats on the river, but the fuel must be flown in by plane from Ecuador’s capital, Quito, making it more expensive and adding to the carbon emissions associated with its use.

“Local people (are) increasingly buying gasoline motors that use a lot of oil and contaminate the river,” said Angel Wasump, Kara Solar’s director of operations, who and a member of the Achuar community.

“Since the (solar) boats arrived, families have been giving up these motors completely,” he added.

Sustainable solar power

Kara Solar founder Oliver Utne traveled to Ecuador from Minnesota 16 years ago after graduating college. Working at an Achuar-owned local business in a remote Amazon community, he saw firsthand the difficulties people had in accessing basic resources such as electricity and transportation. It was then Utne realized the potential for using technology as a tool for the conservation of Achuar territory and culture.

“They (the Achuar) showed me that they do have a desire for agency and autonomy. I realized that I wanted to help empower them to reach this goal.”

Utne returned to the US with newfound inspiration, studying solar energy before qualifying as a solar installer. He immediately returned to the Amazon and began working with the community to navigate the best use of solar technologies.

“The idea of (solar) boats at first was kind of a joke,” said Utne. “We’d talked about its feasibility, but no one had really taken it seriously.”

He said that in 2013 he collaborated with MIT and two Ecuadorian universities — Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral and Universidad San Francisco de Quito — on a study of river navigability and electric propulsion systems adapted for the Amazon.

“The study came back very positive; the solar boats could work if powered correctly,” he said. It also revealed that the boats only needed a relatively small motor to move a lot of people, requiring less solar panels.

The first electric boat was completed in 2016, named “Tapiatpia” after the legendary electric eel featured in Achuar folklore. Utne stresses that the Achuar community was consulted throughout the three-year design process.

Each boat varies in size, the biggest with capacity for up to 20 passengers. They travel at up to 12 miles (19 kilometers) per hour with a range of up to 60 miles (97 kilometers). If the boats’ electric batteries run out of power they can be charged via nine onshore charging stations, which are solar energy grids located in communities along the river. In addition to charging boats, these provide power for schools, internet access, computer labs and eco-lodges.

Kara Solar formally launched in 2018 and is staffed on the ground by members of the Achuar community. The organization estimates that the boats operating in Ecuador have completed over 300 trips in total, carrying over 1,000 passengers and collectively traveling over 450 kilometers per month. The most common uses are transporting local children to and from school and providing wildlife tours for eco-tourists

“These are not our boats, these belong to the indigenous people who are there, and we are their support system,” said Utne. “We are accompanying them and providing advice and sharing these lessons learned across the Amazon.”

As well as reducing carbon emissions and pollution, the silent vessels mean eco-tourists can get a closer view of wildlife without scaring it away.

“The boat serves as a tangible symbol of what conservation could look like,” said Wasump. “It’s (like) a return to what’s most important in Achuar culture. These boats have represented a way for us to reconnect with this vision of what development could look like.”

Growing the vision

Part of Kara Solar’s mission is to provide communities with technical training and skills development in solar installation, which is entirely led by Achuar technicians in the Achuar language. The organization has built four solar centers in Ecuador, providing an open space for educators and students, powered entirely by solar energy.

It has also adopted this model in other countries and earlier this year Kara Solar partnered with the Wampís Nation, in northern Peru, having installed two shuttle boats and two solar centers there in November 2023, with funding from the Welsh government.

In 2025, Kara Solar will launch a new project on the Kapawari River, in Pastaza, eastern Ecuador, that aims to replace 50 gasoline-powered boats with solar-electric ones. The initiative will connect four isolated settlements along the Kapawari, which also serves as a vital sanctuary for endangered pink river dolphins.

Cheryl Martens, director of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Inequalities at the San Francisco University of Quito, believes the model could be expanded. “Kara Solar has the potential to be scaled up, not only in terms of river transport systems within and beyond the Amazon,” she said. “The solar technology developed for this project is also providing sustainable solutions to communication systems such as high frequency radio in some of the most remote areas of the Amazon … where cell phone communication is not available.

“The project has involved Achuar communities throughout and has trained Achuar technicians to install and fix the solar technology required for running the boats. For that reason, this solar canoe technology has a greater chance of success.”

Kara Solar’s executive director, Nantu Canelos, a former solar boat captain, agrees that community involvement is key. For him, true progress is only possible if the Achuar are leading the way, with support from others. “I want to invite everyone to join us in a collective effort to make these dreams come true in the Amazon, because the Amazon is truly at risk, and we can feel it here,” he said.

“The climate is changing, and we are experiencing those changes,” he added. “It’s also important for us to change ourselves from within our territory.

“This is a call to the global community, especially young people, to understand that the actions we take in the Amazon are crucial, not only for Indigenous people but for the entire world.”

Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin has been removed from office after a court ruled he had violated the constitution, in a shock decision that plunges the kingdom into further political uncertainty.

The verdict comes a week after the same court dissolved the country’s popular progressive Move Forward Party, which won the most seats in last year’s election, and banned its leaders from politics for 10 years.

The Constitutional Court in Bangkok ruled Wednesday that Srettha, a real estate tycoon and relative political newcomer, had breached ethics rules by appointing a lawyer who had served prison time to the Cabinet.

Five of the court’s nine judges voted to dismiss Srettha and his Cabinet, ruling that the prime minister was “well aware that he appointed a person who seriously lacked moral integrity.”

A new government must now be formed, and the ruling Pheu Thai-led coalition will nominate a new candidate for prime minister, which will be voted on by the 500-seat parliament.

The verdict means more upheaval for Thailand’s already turbulent political landscape, in which those pushing for change have frequently run afoul of the establishment – a small but powerful clique of military, royalist and business elites.

Over the past two decades, dozens of lawmakers have faced bans, parties have been dissolved and prime ministers have been overthrown in coups or by court decisions – with the judiciary playing a central role in the ongoing battle for power.

Srettha’s appointment to the top job last August ended three months of political deadlock after the 2023 elections but resulted in his Pheu Thai party entering a governing coalition with its longtime military rivals.

The case against Srettha was filed in May by a group of 40 military-appointed former senators, who sought to remove him from office due to the Cabinet appointment of Pichit Chuenban, a close aide to former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

Pichit was jailed for six months in 2008 for contempt of court after trying to bribe Supreme Court officials in a land case involving Thaksin.

Srettha has denied wrongdoing and has said Pichit, who has since resigned, was properly vetted and the party followed proper procedures.

Srettha’s popularity has declined in recent months, polls showed, as his key economic policies have faced opposition and delays.

But Wednesday’s ruling shocked political analysts who believed the court would side with the prime minister.

Srettha’s priority since taking office has been to fix the country’s sluggish economy.

The deposed leader had touted a signature 500 billion baht ($13.8 billion) digital wallet handout scheme that he said would create jobs and spur spending in underdeveloped regions. The plan is yet to be rolled out.

Srettha also set a goal for Thailand to attract more foreign investment and become a global tourism hub, expanding visa-free policies and announcing plans to host major events in a bid to boost the economy.

Pheu Thai and the establishment

Populist Pheu Thai is the latest incarnation of parties aligned with divisive former leader Thaksin, who was ousted by the military in a 2005 coup.

Thaksin, a telecoms billionaire and former owner of Manchester City Football Club, is the head of a famed political dynasty that has played an outsized role in Thai politics for the past two decades.

His dramatic return from a 15-year self-imposed exile last year coincided with the Senate’s vote to appoint Srettha as the country’s 30th prime minister.

That vote secured Pheu Thai as the head of a multi-party coalition. Move Forward, which pulled off a stunning election victory in May 2023 with its hugely popular reform agenda, was forced into opposition.

Move Forward had proposed radical reforms to capitalize on years of rising anger with how Thailand is governed, including amendments to the country’s notoriously strict lese majeste laws that criminalize insulting senior members of the royal family.

In July 2023, conservative senators prevented Move Forward from forming a government over its reform campaign. And last week, the Constitutional Court accused the party of “undermining the monarchy” and ordered it to be disbanded, in a blow to the vibrant progressive movement. The former members have since reconstituted the party under a new name.

With Srettha now out of office, political negotiations will restart, with coalition partners jostling for Cabinet positions and the top job.

Pheu Thai leader Paetongtarn Shinawatra, Thaksin’s youngest daughter, would be among the likely prime ministerial candidates.

This is a developing story and will be updated.