The photo exhibition at Siam Paragon shopping mall, which started on Friday and ends on Monday, includes stories and rare photos of the couple, and photos from past British Royal Family weddings.

The exhibition is also giving people in Thailand the opportunity to write congratulatory messages to the couple, said Executive of Siam Paragon, Chadatip Chutrakul. The messages will eventually be sent directly to Kensington Palace to present to the couple with the help of the British Embassy, she said.

Thailand and Britain have long historical ties and both countries have much in common, especially related to them both having constitutional monarchies.

At the “Siam Paragon Celebrates the Royal Wedding in Collaboration with the British Embassy Bangkok”, there are the exhibitions narrating the love story between the royal couple, as well as information about other wedding ceremonies involving the British Royal Family.

The event includes many zones, including Prince Harry and Meghan The Royal Wedding Journey, Royal Wedding and The Tiara, The Royal Engagement and Royal Wedding Dress through the Ages.

Prince Charles will walk Meghan Markle down the aisle during her marriage to his son Prince Harry after her father pulled out of the ceremony for health reasons, Kensington Palace announced Friday.

“Ms Meghan Markle has asked His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales to accompany her down the aisle… on her wedding day,” said a palace statement.

“The Prince of Wales is pleased to be able to welcome Ms Markle to the royal family in this way.”

Rustem Amirov was alone on the 8,516 metre (27,940 feet) mountain, which neighbours Mount Everest, when he died of altitude related complications on Thursday.

“He was climbing solo without any guides with him. The body has not been brought down to the base camp yet,” Gyanendra Shrestha, a government liaison officer at Everest base camp, told AFP.

Climbers attempting Lhotse use the same base camp as those aiming for Everest’s summit.

They follow the same route up the mountain, scaling the sheer Lhotse Face — a 1,125 metre wall of ice — before the path to the neighbouring summits divides.

Amirov, an experienced climber who had previously led an expedition on the 8,201 metre Cho Oyu peak — also in the Nepali Himalaya — only arrived at Everest base camp in early May, according to his Facebook page.

Most climbers arrive in April and spend at least a month acclimatising to the harsh, low oxygen environment.

Altitudes above 8,000 metres are known as the “death zone” among climbers. The air contains less than a third of the oxygen at sea level and humans cannot survive at those heights for long.

Deprived of oxygen, fluid builds up on the lungs and brain, which is fatal if climbers do not reach a lower altitude in time.

Most climbers use bottled oxygen to reduce the effects of high altitude. It was not clear if Amirov was climbing with supplemental oxygen.

A post on Amirov’s Facebook page said that a rescue team was sent but failed to reach him in time.

“High altitude porters were sent to rescue him, and help him down to camp two. Unfortunately it was too late. He was unconscious when he passed away,” the post said.

Hundreds of climbers are attempting to reach the summit of Everest during the April-May climbing season. Just a few dozen are aiming for the top of Lhotse.

Nepal is home to eight of the world’s 14 highest peaks and foreign climbers that flock to its mountains are a major source of revenue for the country.

The rapid growth of the climbing industry has created sharp competition among companies for business, but also led to fears that some are skimping on safety measures for climbing at extreme altitudes.

Dozens of officers from an elite unit were sent to guard the trial of Aman Abdurrahman who is accused of authorising a gun and suicide attack in the capital Jakarta two years ago that left four attackers and four civilians dead.

They were the first attacks claimed by Islamic State in Southeast Asia.

Abdurrahman — considered the de facto head of all IS supporters in Indonesia — is also the spiritual leader of local extremist network Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD).

Authorities said JAD was behind the 2016 attack and suicide bombings in Indonesia’s second-biggest city Surabaya this week.

Two families — including a 9 and 12 year old girl — blew themselves up at churches and a police station, killing 13.

Authorities have not charged Abdurrahman, 46, over this week’s attacks.

On Friday, prosecutors called for Abdurrahman to be executed for the 2016 attacks.

“We demand this panel of judges sentence Aman Abdurrahman to death,” lead prosecutor Anita Dewayani, told the South Jakarta district court.

Abdurrahman is already in jail on a separate terror conviction.

The families who committed the suicide bombings knew each other and belonged to the same religious study group, along with third family linked to the attacks.

All had ties to JAD with the father of the church suicide bombers identified as a local leader in the group.

The Hawaii Volcano Observatory said the explosion within Kilauea’s Halemaumau crater — the biggest since the volcano became more active on May 3 — had produced a volcanic cloud that reached as high as 30,000 feet (9,000 meters) and was drifting downwind to the northeast.

“Not your average wake-up call at the Kilauea Volcano summit,” the US Geological Survey said of the 4:17 am (local time) blast that lasted a few minutes.

The Observatory said residents living along the path of the ash plume should take shelter, and maintained a code red aviation alert signaled on Tuesday, meaning no air traffic was permitted in the area.

“At any time, activity may again become more explosive, increasing the intensity of ash production and producing ballistic projectiles near the vent,” it said in a statement.

Authorities by afternoon said weak winds and rain meant that ash fallout from the latest eruption was largely contained in areas around the Kilauea summit.

“We’ve had reports of light ash fall in Hawaii’s Volcanoes National Park and we expect that folks may be experiencing trace ash fall around Volcano Village,” Michelle Coombs, a volcanologist at the US Geological Survey, told reporters at a daily briefing.

“We expect activity could wax and wane like this in the near future,” she added.

Kilauea is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and one of five on Hawaii’s Big Island.

It started erupting on May 3, prompting about 2,000 people to flee from their mountainside homes.

The latest steam-driven burst on Thursday came two days after Halemaumau crater sent “ballistic blocks” of rock and another massive plume of volcanic ash shooting into the sky.

Kevin Kushel, a resident of the island, told AFP that Thursday’s plume of smoke could be seen miles away.

“I just went to Pahoa and it’s a smoke-filled nightmare, the likes of which I’ve only imagined from reading about Pompeii,” he said.

Precursor to major eruption

Scientists believe the volcanic activity may be a precursor to a major eruption similar to the one that shook the island in the mid 1920s.

But they say they expect no loss of life given that the most exposed residential areas have been evacuated and the region where the volcano is located — on the southeastern part of the island — is not densely populated.

Geologists say the latest eruptions are being caused by lava levels substantially draining at the summit.

“The magma is something like 300 or 400 meters below the surface, and when that happens, ground water can get that close to the volcano where the magma is and it can heat up steam… and issue out of the ground explosively,” Ken Rubin, who heads the department of geology and geophysics at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, told AFP.

He added that earthquakes caused by the movement of magma usually take place before such eruptions, as has been the case at Kilauea.

“The last time the volcano near the summit was in the same condition as now was in 1924 and in that year, we had about a two-week period of large explosive eruptions out of the summit,” he said.

So far, about 40 homes and other buildings have been destroyed by the red-hot lava that has been flowing from the volcano since early this month.

Authorities have warned residents to stay away from the neighborhoods evacuated, warning that toxic sulfur dioxide seeping out of nearly two dozen fissures — cracks in the ground — caused by the volcano could prove deadly.

“Severe conditions may exist such as choking and inability to breathe,” the county’s civil defense agency said earlier this week. “This is a serious situation that affects the entire exposed population.”

“Cladding is one issue, there are many other features and many other shortcuts out there that could result in other disasters in the future which we need to address,” review author Dame Judith Hackitt told BBC Radio 4.

“It is about more than simply issuing a ban on certain materials,” she said, advocating for a “new regulatory framework” rather than an outright embargo.

The engineer said tests are already mandated to ensure materials used in tower block construction are of “limited combustibility” or that they have been “fully tested” — but that individuals are currently “cutting costs and not taking responsibility.”

Twenty-four storey Grenfell Tower was covered in panels of cladding which were never subjected to fire safety testing, The Times reported in February.

The recommendations of her review “would have prevented the type of materials that were used on Grenfell tower from getting onto the building in the first place,” Hackitt said.

Families of those killed in the June 14 disaster as well as architects have urged Hackitt to introduce a total ban on the use of the cladding.

“People are not safe in their homes,” Shahin Sadafy, chair of survivors’ group Grenfell United told the BBC.

“Today we want her to look us in the eye and tell us that these dangerous materials will never be used again.”

On Wednesday, Prime Minister Theresa May announced the government will fund ฃ400 million of work to strip 158 social housing blocks of cladding matching the type used on Grenfell.

Police arriving in a dozen vehicles converged on the home of corruption-tainted Najib Razak in Kuala Lumpur beginning late Wednesday, drawing crowds of journalists and onlookers.

A lawyer for Najib said officers were searching the home and a separate apartment in a “money-laundering” probe. The search at Najib’s home continued into Thursday afternoon.

The new government headed by 92-year-old former premier Mahathir Mohamad, who secured a stunning election victory last week, has vowed to probe allegations that Najib oversaw the looting of a sovereign wealth fund.

But Najib’s lawyer Harpal Singh Grewal said his client, 64, viewed the search as “harassment”.

“The police just took some handbags and some clothes,” Harpal said.

His mention of handbags prompted snickering on Malaysian social media.

Najib’s wife Rosmah Mansor is ridiculed over her reported penchant for jet-set overseas shopping trips and vast collection of designer handbags, clothing and jewellery, all symbolic — critics say — of the ousted government’s lack of concern for economically struggling citizens.

Harpal said the house contained only personal belongings, though he added that police also were attempting to open a safe, the key for which had been “lost”.

“This is harassment. Whatever… is in the house is not commensurate with the allegations,” Harpal told AFP.

“(Najib) has told them: ‘Tell me what you want. We will give.'”

Harpal said the search left Najib “very tired and visibly upset”.

There was no indication that any arrests were planned.

Police officials confirmed the search to AFP but declined to give details.

The police action adds to a sense of rising legal peril for Najib, who was barred from leaving the country just days after the election over allegations that he, his family, and cronies looted billions from state investment fund 1MDB.

Last week’s poll ended the six-decade reign of the authoritarian Barisan Nasional coalition. Mahathir had led the coalition from 1981-2003.

The search began just hours after the pardon and release from prison of Anwar Ibrahim, a top figure in the now-victorious political alliance. Anwar, 70, had spent the last three years in jail under Najib.

‘Justice is coming’

Speaking to Australian media after his release, Anwar called also for a fresh look into another shocking scandal linked to Najib.

A young Mongolian woman, Altantuya Shaariibuu, was murdered and her body destroyed with explosives in Malaysia in 2006.

She had been the lover of a former close Najib associate who was accused of arranging kickbacks for the purchase of French submarines in 2002 at a time when Najib was defence minister.

A former Malaysian police officer Sirul Azhar Umar, who is now in Australian custody, has claimed that he was ordered by “important people” to carry out the killing who scapegoated him.

Anwar said Sirul, who later fled to Australia after being sentenced to hang over the murder, should be allowed to face a new trial back in Malaysia to get at the truth, The Australian newspaper said.

Najib has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing over the deal amid allegations that French submarine maker DCNS paid kickbacks of more than 114 million euros (US$142 million) for two Scorpene submarines.

Just before the police raid, Najib went to a nearby mosque for special prayers for the Islamic holy month Ramadan, which began Thursday in Malaysia.

Najib later tweeted a traditional prayer that calls for people to be forgiven of their sins.

As police searched Najib’s home, spectator Mimie Lai, 45, said she had travelled to the scene to “see what happens to the ex-prime minister and all the scandals… involving him and his wife”.

“I feel that finally justice is coming, somebody heard… what the people are praying for,” she said.

Anwar’s release Wednesday captivated the nation, with ecstatic supporters and journalists mobbing him amid shouts of “Reformasi” (Reform) — his rallying cry and Anwar declaring a “new dawn for Malaysia”.

Anwar’s old foe Mahathir is now an ally, and has has signalled his intention to eventually step aside so Anwar, his deputy prime minister in the 1990s, can take over.

Former Malaysian police officer Sirul Azhar Umar, who is now in Australian custody, has claimed he was ordered by “important people” to murder Altantuya Shaariibuu in 2006.

Altantuya was the lover of Abdul Razak Baginda — a former close associate of now deposed Malaysian premier Najib Razak — who was accused of arranging kickbacks for the purchase of French submarines in 2002.

Opponents of Najib’s government have long alleged that Sirul and accomplice Azilah Hadri, members of an elite unit that guards top Malaysian ministers, were scapegoats in the killing to hide the involvement of their masters at the highest levels of government.

Sirul has previously threatened to reveal who gave the order.

Reformist politician Anwar, who was released from prison Wednesday after his sodomy conviction was quashed by the king following Najib being toppled, suggested Sirul should be brought back to Malaysia for a fresh trial.

He told The Australian newspaper the original trial and the judges’ ruling was “compromised” and the reluctance of the judges to call relevant witnesses “made a mockery of the law”.

“The best way is to proffer a new charge and allow for a full hearing of the case,” he said.

Anwar is the presumptive successor to new Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad following a stunning election upset last week, with his one-time nemesis turned ally vowing to step down in a year or two to make way for him.

‘Don’t say anything’

Sirul was reportedly detained in Australia in 2015 and has been held in custody since, although Canberra has never officially confirmed this.

A report in the Guardian last week said his bid for a protection visa would be heard within months. Authorities refused to confirm this to AFP or comment on other details of the case.

According to the newspaper, Canberra has allowed Malaysian officials and their middlemen to meet with him regularly, including one from Najib’s United Malays National Organisation party’s youth wing a fortnight ago.

It cited a source as saying the Malaysian visitor delivered a message to his countryman: “Don’t say anything”.

The scandal is one of Malaysia’s most sensitive topics, with suspicions swirling for years that Altantuya was murdered to keep her quiet about shenanigans in the submarine deal.

Najib has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing over the deal amid allegations that French submarine maker DCNS paid “commissions” of more than 114 million euros (US$142 million) for two Scorpene submarines, which Malaysian critics allege were kickbacks.

Altantuya, 28, was shot dead and her body blown up with military-grade plastic explosives outside Kuala Lumpur.

Sirul and Azilah were convicted in 2009 and sentenced to hang. They were later released when an appeals court overturned the conviction in 2013 after raising questions about how their trial was conducted.

But Malaysia’s highest court upheld their death sentences in 2015. Sirul fled the country ahead of that ruling.

Specialists and Rohingya volunteers are racing against time to find women in the giant camp who are thought to be hiding their pregnancies out of shame, as fears grow that newborns could be abandoned and new mothers may die without care in coming weeks.

Tosminara, herself a Rohingya refugee, has spent months coaxing these women out of the shadows, promising discretion.

“We tell them a password they can use when they arrive at the hospital or health post. The guard then sends the woman directly to the right spot,” said Tosminara, who goes by one name.

“They often are shy. Sometimes they are afraid to come forward.”

The Myanmar army crackdown last August drove roughly 700,000 Rohingya into Bangladesh and the number of pregnancies resulting from rape is not known.

But UN Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights Andrew Gilmour said there would “inevitably” be a spike in births soon given the “frenzy of sexual violence in August and September last year”.

Marcella Kraay of Doctors Without Borders (MSF) also said “a fair number of pregnancies” were expected.

An estimated 48,000 women will give birth in the camps this year. Those who were raped will be delivering imminently, mostly in secret and without medical care on the floors of bamboo shacks overlooking the Bangladesh-Myanmar border.

Rohingya community leader Abdur Rahim said he knew two women personally who were raped by soldiers and due within the month. He had heard rumours of many others in a similar position, he added.

“The Myanmar military raped them. These babies are… evidence of their crimes,” he told AFP.

Traumatised and alone

Tosminara says she is trying her best to find these women in the heaving camps. But volunteers must contend with a deep-rooted stigma that keeps many from revealing their ordeal.

“Sometimes neighbours say ‘don’t do anything, it will humiliate you further’. So they don’t want to come,” said Nurjahan Mitu, a doctor who trains midwives through a UN Population Fund programme.

Many have sought clinical help to terminate pregnancies — legal in Bangladesh up to 12 weeks.

Others have resorted to underground options resulting in “complicated, incomplete abortions”, said MSF midwife Daniela Sofia.

The UN’s Gilmour, who toured the camps in March, said girls as young as 14 were self-inducing abortions.

Sofia, the midwife, assisted a 16-year-old with an abortion after the teenager arrived at her clinic in secret, terrified that her family would find out.

She said the girl was pregnant after being gang-raped by Myanmar soldiers, but had no one to support her through the trauma.

“Nobody knew about the rape. Her family were not aware of it,” Sofia told AFP.

More than half the Rohingya who have fled into Bangladesh are women and girls.

Children are seen everywhere but adolescent girls are largely invisible, many kept indoors by families concerned for their welfare, experts say.

Emu Roy, a Bangladeshi midwife, said a paucity of maternity professionals made it difficult to know how many women were suffering in silence in the camps.

“It’s not possible for us to go door-to-door,” she told AFP.

‘Tool of terror’

Experts are concerned that families could forcibly marry off teenage girls to cover up a pregnancy.

Others fear that newborns could be abandoned.

“Not only are you dealing with a woman who has been… traumatised, also there could be a child that is basically unwanted as well,” Kraay said.

MSF alone treated 311 rape victims — women and girls aged between nine and 50 — between August and March but Kraay said this was “the tip of the iceberg”.

The Myanmar army chief has denied allegations his forces used rape to terrorise the Muslim minority.

But the military last month was placed on a UN blacklist for armies and rebels known to use rape in war — joining Nigeria’s Boko Haram and the Islamic State group.

On top of the refugees’ accounts, UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict Pramila Patten said rape was used as a “calculated tool of terror” to force the Rohingya out of Myanmar.

As the nine-month milestone looms, aid workers are ready to assign abandoned children to women who can breastfeed them, until families are found in the Rohingya community.

“We really want all children — regardless of the conditions or the locations where they are born — to grow up in a happy environment,” Save the Children’s Beatriz Ochoa told AFP.