Thailand floods leave 57 dead

Heavy downpours that caused rivers to burst around Thailand have killed 57 people in nearly two weeks of flooding that officials are calling the worst in several decades, authorities said Wednesday.
The fatalities have occurred in central, eastern and northeastern provinces and have affected more than 3 million people in 36 of Thailand’s 76 provinces, government medical and disaster agencies said. The floods have eased in a third of those provinces.
More than 4 million sandbags were used to erect walls this week in Bangkok along stretches of the Chao Praya River, which has swelled with runoffs from upper provinces that officials feared could inundate the capital.
So far, flooding in Bangkok has been minimal but riverside residents were warned to be on alert through Friday, after which current high-tide levels were expected to subside.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva warned that new risks loomed next month.
We have to keep an eye on the situation closely, Abhisit said Wednesday, adding that tidal levels were expected to rise again early next month. The worrying period will return in the beginning of next month. The supervision must continue.
Last week, Abhisit said the flooding was the country’s worst in 40 or 50 years.

Special Relationship focuses Clinton-Blair years

LOS ANGELES: Dennis Quaid and Hope Davis, starring as Bill and Hillary Clinton in a new HBO film, have a civilized difference of opinion about a Monica Lewinsky-driven quarrel that was edited out.

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Special Relationship focuses Clinton-Blair years

Thai PM says difficult to hold polls this year

BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Saturday that it would be difficult to hold elections this year, which is likely to infuriate anti-government protesters involved in deadly riots last week.

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Thai PM says difficult to hold polls this year

Suicide attacker blows himself up in Kabul

KABUL: A suicide attacker with explosives strapped to his body blew himself up Saturday outside a military caterer in Kabul but caused no casualties, Afghanistan”s interior ministry said.

The explosion took place east of the capital, close to a warehouse and supermarket run by Supreme Food Services, supplier of food to the foreign military, ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary said.

“It was suicide attack and the suicide attacker detonated explosives strapped to his body,” he said.

It was not immediately clear what the target of the attack had been, he said, adding the attacker, who was on foot, may have detonated prematurely.

The blast took place at the Kabul end of the road to Bagram air base, a huge NATO installation and until recently the biggest in the country, which is about 45 kilometres (30 miles) further north.

Thai PM lifts curfew but says polls this year ”difficult”

BANGKOK: Thailand”s premier said Saturday it would be hard to hold elections this year as he lifted a curfew imposed across about one third of the country in the wake of deadly anti-government protests.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said however that there was no plan yet to revoke emergency rule following two months of mass rallies by the “Red Shirts” that left almost 90 people dead in a series of clashes with troops.

The protesters were campaigning for snap elections to oust the government and Abhisit had proposed November polls in a bid to end rally, but he shelved the plan because demonstrators refused to disperse.

“Obviously it”s a lot more difficult now to have elections before the end of the year because the November date was set with the (idea of) protesters joining the plan right from the start,” Abhisit told a press conference.

But he added that he was not ruling out early elections, hours after he lifted the curfew imposed 10 days earlier across parts of the country, including Bangkok, to quell violent civil unrest.

The British-born, Oxford-educated head of the establishment Democrat Party does not have to go to the polls until the end of next year.

He said Saturday that if all parties involved, including the Reds, joined the peace process and over the next few months the government and parliament functioned smoothly “then that would be the right time” to hold polls.

The Reds” street rallies, which were broken up by the army after two months on May 19, paralysed central Bangkok and sparked several outbreaks of violence that left 88 people dead, mostly civilians, and nearly 1,900 injured.

Protest leaders surrendered after armoured vehicles backed by troops firing live rounds smashed through towering barricades around their sprawling base, angering militant demonstrators who set dozens of buildings ablaze.

Abhisit defended the security operation.

“It has always been our policy to seek a peaceful resolution to the problems, to exercise utmost restraint,” he said. “Our decisions at every single point had in mind a way that would restore order with minimum losses.”

After the unrest on May 19, which also spread to several cities in the Red Shirts” stronghold in Thailand”s impoverished northeast, a curfew was imposed in Bangkok and 23 provinces, out of a total of 76.

While Bangkok has tried to get back to business this week, authorities on Tuesday extended a midnight-to-4am curfew for four more nights as the government sought to restore order.

Anyone violating the curfew had faced up to two years in jail, and the measures had made life hard for people who usually work during the night and put a damper on the capital”s normally lively nightlife.

The Red Shirts, many of whose leaders have been arrested and are in police custody, were campaigning for elections because they consider Abhisit”s government elitist and undemocratic.

Abhisit blamed fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra for the breakdown in talks aimed at finding a peaceful resolution to the standoff, saying protest leaders had been prevented from accepting the reconciliation plan and dispersing the rally.

“We have good reason to believe that they weren”t allowed to do so by the former prime minister,” Abhisit said.

Abhisit”s government has accused Thaksin, who was ousted in a 2006 coup, of inciting unrest and bankrolling the mass rallies by the Red Shirts, many of whom seek the return of the former telecoms tycoon.

A Thai court on Tuesday approved an arrest warrant for Thaksin on terrorism charges.

Thailand to impose curfew after 25 die in clashes

BANGKOK: Thailand will impose a curfew and send Red Cross workers to evacuate women, children and the elderly from Bangkok”s deadly protest zone where 25 people have been killed in three days of rolling street battles between anti-government activists and soldiers.

A towering column of black smoke rose over the city Sunday as protesters facing off with troops set fire to tires serving as a barricade. Elsewhere, they doused a police traffic post with gasoline and torched it.

The spiraling violence has raised concerns of sustained, widespread chaos in Thailand — a key U.S. ally and Southeast Asia”s most popular tourist destination that promotes its easygoing culture as the “Land of Smiles.”

Speaking on his weekly television program, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva insisted the military operation to quell protests was the answer in ending the country”s two-month-long crisis.

“Overall, I insist the best way to prevent losses is to stop the protest. The protest creates conditions for violence to occur. We do realize at the moment that the role of armed groups is increasing each day,” he said.

The Red Shirt protesters have occupied a 1-square-mile (3-square-kilometer) zone, barricaded by tires and bamboo spikes, in one of the capital”s ritziest areas, Rajprasong, for about two months to push their demands for Abhisit to resign immediately, dissolve Parliament and call new elections.

Army spokesman Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd announced on national television the government will send the Red Cross and voluntary organizations into the protest zone to “invite or persuade people, especially women, children and older people to leave the area.”

About 5,000 people are believed camped in the protest zone, down from about 10,000 before fighting started Thursday after a sniper shot and seriously wounded a Red Shirt leader.

It quickly spread to nearby areas, which became a no-man”s land after the army set up barriers in a wider perimeter around Rajprasong. The area already resembled a curfew zone with no public transport or private vehicles. Most shops, hotels and businesses in the area are also shut. The government has shut off power and water supplies to the core protest zone. Schools were ordered shut Monday in all of Bangkok.

At least 54 people have been killed and more than 1,600 wounded since the protests began mid-March, according to the government. The dead include 25 killed since Thursday.

Sansern said the government has decided to impose a curfew in the violence-hit areas. The timing and the exact locations will be announced later, he said.

On Saturday, soldiers blocked major roads and pinned up notices of a “Live Firing Zone” in one area of Bangkok.

Protesters launched a steady stream of rudimentary missiles at troops who fired back with live ammunition in several areas around a key commercial district of Bangkok.

Army snipers were perched with high-powered rifles atop tall buildings, viewing the action below through telescopic sights. Thick black smoke billowed from tires set ablaze by demonstrators as gunfire rang out.

Demonstrators dragged away the bodies of three people from sidewalks — shot by army snipers, they claimed.

The clashes are the most prolonged and deadliest bout of political violence that Thailand has faced in decades despite having a history of coups — 18 since it became a constitutional monarchy in 1932.

The crisis appeared to be near a resolution last week when Abhisit offered to hold elections in November, a year early. But the hopes were dashed after Red Shirt leaders made more demands.

The political uncertainty has spooked foreign investors and damaged the vital tourism industry, which accounts for 6 percent of the economy, Southeast Asia”s second largest.

The Red Shirts, drawn mostly from the rural and urban poor, say Abhisit”s coalition government came to power through manipulation of the courts and the backing of the powerful military, and that it symbolizes a national elite indifferent to the poor.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch on Saturday called on the Thai government to revoke the fire zones and negotiate an end to the fighting.

“By setting out these ”live fire zones” the Thai authorities are on a slippery slope toward serious abuses. It”s a small step for soldiers to think `live fire zone” means `free fire zone,” especially as violence escalates,” the rights watchdog said in a statement.

The Red Shirts especially despise the military, which forced Thaksin Shinawatra, the populist premier favored by the Red Shirts, from office in a 2006 coup. Two subsequent pro-Thaksin governments were disbanded by court rulings before Abhisit became prime minister.

Thai PM vows no retreat in battle against protests

BANGKOK: Thai Prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Saturday security forces would not retreat but would press forward with plans to halt an increasingly violent protest in Bangkok.

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Thai PM vows no retreat in battle against protests

Thousands left homeless after fire in Philippines slum

MANILA: More than 600 houses were destroyed leaving thousands of people homeless after a huge fire razed a slum area in a suburb of the Philippine capital on Sunday, civil defence officials said.

There were no immediately confirmed fatalities but officials said the smoke was too thick to thoroughly search the scene, where witnesses said they saw at least one firefighter injured as he battled the blaze.

The inferno broke out in the early afternoon and raged into the night, forcing city authorities to close down a major highway as it was clogged with fire trucks.

The cause of the fire is still unknown, Metro Manila officials said.

Slum areas in the Philippine capital are vulnerable to fires because the houses, often made from salvaged wood, are built close together, sometimes even piled on top of one another.

Thai "red shirts" stand firm, no crackdown yet

BANGKOK: Anti-government protesters in Thailand fortified their encampment in central Bangkok after the government rejected their compromise offer on early elections but a rumoured crackdown by troops overnight failed to materialise.

There was no violence in the shopping area where at least 8,000 people were still singing and listening to speeches at dawn on Monday, but an explosion near the home of a senior member of one of the ruling coalition parties injured eight people.

Jatuporn Prompan, a “red shirt” protest leader, said an appeal for supporters to turn out in force probably thwarted any crackdown.

“We had stepped up security with more guards patrolling throughout the night and many people were awake with us to make sure the army couldn”t crack down. We received intelligence it would be done this morning, but thankfully we prevented that.”

“We will continue to fight until our victory is achieved,” he added. “We don”t want to talk to the government because there is nothing to talk about. We cannot agree and the only way is for Abhisit to dissolve the house now.”

The stalemate has rekindled fears of more unrest and a heavier toll on Southeast Asia”s second-biggest economy as more retailers shut their doors and tourist numbers dwindle. At least 26 people have been killed and hundreds injured in the violence.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said he would scale back the government”s projection of 4.5 percent economic growth this year.

Protest leaders called on their supporters in the countryside to confront the army and police and their backers responded by blockading police convoys in at least three areas.

Hundreds of protesters in Pathum Thani province north of Bangkok dispersed peacefully after they succeeded in stopping a convoy of hundreds of policemen from entering the capital to reinforce the security forces there.

Similar action to prevent police movements was reported by Thai media in northeastern Udon Thani and Ubon Ratchathani.

Coming after red shirts stopped a troop train in the north last week, the blockade raises questions over whether Abhisit can exert full control over rebellious parts of Thailand as the deadly protests enter a seventh week.

Abhisit, speaking on Sunday, , flatly rejected a red shirt offer to call elections in 30 days and hold a vote 60 days later.

“There must not be a precedent that allows intimidation to bring about political change,” Abhisit said in his weekly television broadcast alongside army chief Anupong Paochinda in a show of solidarity with the military.

“Thirty days is out of question. I don”t think this problem can be solved within 30 days.”

Some members of his coalition government have suggested that parliament be dissolved in six months rather than the nine offered by Abhisit, but so far they are sticking with him.

An explosive was detonated late on Sunday at a police post near the home of Banharn Silapa-Archa, chief adviser to the Chart Thai Pattana Party, wounding at least eight people, a police official said. It was not clear what the explosive was.

Banharn is a former prime minister and a politician who has switched allegiance regularly throughout his career. Protesters have called for his party and other governing coalition partners to abandon Abhisit”s Democrats to force fresh elections.

The army has had to deal with a rogue military element that supports the protesters and is allied with former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in 2006 coup and sentenced to prison for corruption after fleeing the country.

Anupong acknowledged for the first time some retired and active officers had joined the protest movement, but played down signs of a split in the armed forces. “Some of those involved in the deadly attacks are still in the military,” he said. “But on the division, any big organisation could have that.”

The army warned on Saturday it would forcibly disperse thousands of red shirts in their encampment stretching 3 square-km (1.2 sq. miles) in Bangkok”s main shopping district, but it wants to first separate militants from women and children.

Residents of the capital, weary of the red-shirt tactics, have formed a “multi-coloured” protest group that has drawn thousands to its rallies in the capital.

“This hardening of the battle lines between the two sides does not bode well for Bangkok”s security situation and a risk of another, and this time maybe even more violent, crackdown is immediate,” risk consultancy IHS Global Insight said in a note.

Abhisit”s six-party coalition is under pressure from royalist and upper-class Thais to rebuff demands from the mostly poor red shirts.

The government is stepping up accusations the red shirts want to overthrow the monarchy, which the protesters deny. The 82-year-old king is deeply revered but has appeared rarely in public since entering hospital on Sept. 19.

The red shirts say British-born and Oxford-educated Abhisit came to power illegitimately in December 2008, heading a coalition the military cobbled together after courts dissolved a pro-Thaksin party that led the previous government.

Thai PM rejects anti-government protesters” compromise

BANGKOK: Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Saturday rejected a compromise offer from anti-government “Red Shirts”, who had said they would end weeks of protests if polls were called in 30 days.

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