Meet the new Thai Prime Minister

Monday, December 15, 2008
Al Jazeera

Abhisit Vejjajiva, the leader of Thailand’s Democrat party, has been chosen by parliament to become the country’s new prime minister.

The 44-year-old career politician was born in Britain to medical professor parents.

Educated at Eton College and Oxford University, he graduated with first class honours in politics, philosophy and economics.

Though popular with the foreign business community, Abhisit has found little support with rural northeastern Thais who make up the country’s majority and are the backbone of support for Thaksin Shinawatra, the prime minister ousted in a 2006 coup who has remained the focus of anti-government protests since.

In nearly three years as opposition leader, Abhisit’s excursions outside Bangkok or the Democrat heartlands of the south were rare and almost always met with hostility, sometimes even in the form of flying rotten vegetables.

Criticism

Abhisit says he wants clean government and he denounced the 2006 coup against Thaksin, but critics say he is an opportunist who has received help from the military and the anti-Thaksin People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD).

He failed to condemn the PAD, even when the demonstrators occupied Bangkok’s two airports late last month, and it was his party’s decision to boycott a snap election in 2006 that precipitated the constitutional crisis that eventually led to the coup against Thaksin.

His policies borrow heavily from Thaksin, in particular the commitment to continue the universal public healthcare scheme and cheap rural loans introduced during Thaksin’s five years in office.

Abhisit has also vowed to push for more overseas free trade deals but at the same time reverse Thaksin’s partial privatisation of some state firms.

Two flying shoes thrown at Bush during his farewell visit in Iraq

Dec. 14 (Bloomberg) — President George W. Bush ducked two shoes thrown at him by a man during a press conference in the Iraqi prime minister’s office to mark the signing of a security agreement.

Bush wasn’t hit by the shoes, which both sailed over his head after they were thrown one after the other. The president shrugged and said “I’m OK” after the incident in Baghdad today. “All I can report is it is a size 10,” Bush said afterwards.

In Arab culture, throwing shoes is a grave show of disrespect. “This is the farewell kiss, you dog,” the man shouted in Arabic.

After U.S. troops pulled down a statue of former dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, Iraqi bystanders tossed shoes at it, according to news reports at the time. Bush said today’s incident was an example of free speech in a democracy.

The man threw the shoes from about 25 feet away as Bush, standing with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, made formal remarks before the signing of the Iraqi-U.S. agreement. Maliki tried to block the second thrown shoe as it flew toward Bush, according to video of the incident shown on television.

Wrestled to Ground

The shoe-thrower, who was in a group of journalists, was wrestled to the ground and taken away. “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq,” shouted the man, later identified by the Associated Press as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi- owned station based in Cairo, Egypt.

At the signing ceremony, Bush said a free and democratic Iraq will now become “a force for freedom” and a “source of stability in a volatile region.”

“There is still more work to be done,” Bush said. “The war is not over.” The president said that with the agreement, “and the courage of the Iraqi people, and the Iraqi troops, and American troops and civilian personnel, it is decisively on its way to being won.”

Bush arrived today in Baghdad on a surprise visit — his last to Iraq as commander-in-chief — to celebrate the agreement, thank U.S. troops and meet with Iraqi leaders.

It was Bush’s fourth visit to a nation transformed by the U.S.-led war he started in 2003. It follows three weeks after Iraq’s parliament approved an accord with the U.S. that provides for the withdrawal of American troops by the end of 2011.

Obama’s Plan

President-elect Barack Obama has said one of his first acts as commander-in-chief would be to direct his military commanders to begin withdrawing troops “as quickly as we can” while maintaining stability in Iraq, ensuring the safety of U.S. troops and preventing a resurgence of terrorism.

The president has made three previous unannounced trips to Iraq — on Thanksgiving 2003, June 13, 2006, and Sept. 3, 2007.

While those earlier trips were intended largely to bolster troop morale and shore up domestic support for the unpopular war, Bush’s latest Iraq visit amounted to a valedictory appearance. He leaves office on Jan. 20.

Bush ended his visit to Baghdad by addressing more than 1,000 troops at Camp Victory, the staging area in Baghdad for U.S. forces. He was greeted by cheers and whoops inside the late Saddam Hussein’s Al Faw palace, where he stood beneath an American flag that reached nearly to the rotunda of the palace.

The surge of additional U.S. troops sent to Iraq early last year to quell sectarian violence has been “one of the greatest successes in the history of the United States military,” Bush said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Edwin Chen in Baghdad at echen32@bloomberg.net

Thailand in deep political turmoil; may lead to civil war.

Tuesday December 2, 2008
By NIRMAL GHOSH
ANN/ The Straits Times (Singapore)

BANGKOK: Thailand’s Constitutional Court on Tuesday disbanded the ruling People’s Power Party (PPP) leading to the dissolution of Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat’s government.

The court also banned PPP’s executive board members, including Somchai, from politics for five years.

It further ruled to dissolve Chart Thai Party, imposing the same ban on its executive board members for five years.

On Monday, Thai police had asked the military to help step up security in the capital, fearing that pro-government supporters would react violently should the PPP be declared illegal for electoral fraud in last year’s polls.

Already, anti-government protesters in Bangkok have come under attack in recent days. Pro-government “red-shirts” are said to be prepared to head for the capital from the provinces in their thousands once the signal is given.

The court verdict may prove a turning point in a country roiled by months of political turmoil.

The conflict pits the yellow-shirted members of the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) against Somchai and his government, seen by them as corrupt proxies of ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra.

In their campaign to bring down the government, the PAD’s supporters seized the Prime Minister’s official compound in Bangkok in August and, last week, took over both Suvarnabhumi and Don Muang airports.

The airport seizures have stranded over 350,000 travellers in Thailand. Various airlines and governments were scrambling Monday to deploy more flights to Phuket, Chiang Mai and U-Tapao to get them out.

Meanwhile, in a switch of tactics, the PAD moved most of its supporters at Government House to the airports on Monday.

“We are not abandoning the site,” PAD spokesman Suriyasai Katasila insisted. By evening, hundreds were still ensconced in the compound.

As all sides braced themselves for the court decision, senior members of the PPP were said to be urgently considering alternatives should the party be thrown out of power.

Already its members are describing a dissolution of the party as a “judicial coup.” The judgment could come within days, if not Tuesday itself.

One option is for the PPP itself to dissolve Parliament before the judgment is out, and to call an election — which it is sure to win.

In this scenario, its MPs would merely switch to another party, Puea Thai, and fight the election.

Another option is for the PPP to set up a “government in exile” and create a resistance movement nationwide, should there be a military coup.

The mechanics for this are being worked on right now, but the idea is not new: It was considered but not implemented in September 2006 when the army toppled the Thaksin government.

It is not clear where such a “government in exile” would be based, but Thaksin is said to be in Cambodia while also working on setting up a base in Dubai.

Somchai, who was asked by reporters Monday when he would return to Bangkok, remarked that he could run the country from anywhere.

“The place is not an issue as long as I can work and get cooperation from all parties,” he added, insisting that he was not stepping down.

For the moment, Chiang Mai is his base as the northern city is home ground for him — and Thaksin — making it harder for the army to detain him in the event of a coup.

The political upheaval has also disrupted plans for Asean meetings from December 13 to 17.

“I will propose at the Cabinet meeting tomorrow (Wednesday) to postpone the summit to March as we can’t open our airport for leaders’ planes to land yet,” foreign minister Sompong Amornwiwat said.

Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono proposed his country as an alternative venue.

Indonesia and Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan were offering to hold the meeting of its foreign ministers and East Asian dialogue partners in the Asean Secretariat offices in Jakarta, while the finance ministers could meet in Bali, he said.