CNN:
Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra was taken into police custody Thursday after arriving on Thai soil and ending 17 months of exile to face corruption charges, police said.
Thai authorities took the 58-year-old billionaire politician into custody after his arrival at Suvarnabhumi International Airport on a Thai Airways flight from Hong Kong, said police […]
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New York Times: “Former Premier’s Party Wins Thai Vote”
A party that backs former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra won a parliamentary election on Sunday, defeating a party backed by the generals who ousted him in a coup 15 months ago.
At a recent rally for the People Power Party, participants wore masks bearing the likeness of the […]
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Thai voters go to the polls on Sunday in what will be the first election since the military coup in September, 2006.
AFP: “Rallies to mark final phase of Thai election campaign”:
Thailand enters its final day of election campaigning Friday, with rallies planned in the capital as the kingdom gears up to vote in a new […]
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Reuters:
Ecuador’s leftist President Rafael Correa said Washington must let him open a military base in Miami if the United States wants to keep using an air base on Ecuador’s Pacific coast.
Correa has refused to renew Washington’s lease on the Manta air base, set to expire in 2009. U.S. officials say it is vital for […]
IHT:
Having spent his life as a stalwart in the corrupt political machine that ruled Mexico for decades, Roberto Madrazo has never suffered from a reputation for honesty.
So it provoked laughter here when Madrazo, a former presidential candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, was disqualified this week for cheating in the Berlin Marathon.
Madrazo, who […]
Evo Morales, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, appeared recently on The Daily Show. The clip is available on YouTube.
Bolivia expert Miguel Centellas has some commentary.
Reuters (”Myanmar junta threatens action against protesters“):
Fears of a repeat of 1988’s bloody crackdown by Myanmar’s ruling generals grew on Tuesday after the junta threatened action against monks at the centre of the biggest anti-government demonstrations in nearly 20 years.
The Burma Campaign UK said its sources in Yangon had reported soldiers being ordered to […]
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Here’re some recent accounts of the ongoing protests next door in Myanmar.
New York Times (”Monks’ Protest Is Challenging Burmese Junta“):
The largest street protests in two decades against Myanmar’s military rulers gained momentum Sunday as thousands of onlookers cheered huge columns of Buddhist monks and shouted support for the detained pro-democracy leader Daw Aung San Suu […]
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From Foreign Policy’s blog, Passport:
In a unique environmental scheme, Ecuador’s government is asking developed nations to pay $350 million for them NOT to drill for oil in a major field in the heart of the Amazon. The sum represents about half of the estimated revenue that Ecuador would receive from drilling in the Yasuni […]
The Economist:
A RECENT glance at the Low Countries revealed that, nearly three months after its latest general election, Belgium was still without a new government. It may have acquired one by now. But, if so, will anyone notice? And, if not, will anyone mind? Even the Belgians appear indifferent. And what they think of […]
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CNN/Reuters:
Thailand’s voters have approved an army-drafted constitution, but a hefty “No” vote suggests December’s general election will be messy, with ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra still a potent political force.
With 98 percent of votes counted on Monday in Thailand’s first referendum, the Election Commission said about 57 percent of people had accepted the charter, […]
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Time’s Hannah Beech:
The guy selling spears of chilled guava down the street sports a Chelsea football jersey. Everywhere in soccer-mad Bangkok, in fact, people wear garments proclaiming their affiliation with one or another English Premier League team. But one jersey you’re unlikely to spot? That of Manchester City. It’s not because City has struggled, unsuccessfully, […]
Richard Bernstein’s Letter from Thailand, in yesterday’s IHT, provides an overview of the current political situation in Thailand:
About a week ago, the Thai press reported on a 30-year-old man, apparently not a brilliant one, who, for unexplained reasons, was tormenting an elephant. He hit the animal, according to the newspapers, whereupon the usually placid beast […]
CNN:
How ill is Kim Jong Il? Talk of the reclusive North Korean leader’s health emerged anew this week when he made a rare public appearance Tuesday in a surprise meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi in Pyongyang. Chinese television footage showed Kim shaking hands with the guest and brandishing a big smile.
That image was […]
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Simon Romero had an excellent story in the New York Times yesterday about Evo Morales, the president of Bolivia, fighting to defeat the high-altitude soccer ban I mentioned recently. I particularly like the lede (as well as the delightful image, above):
Bolivia’s president, Evo Morales, donned a green jersey the other day, watched a llama sacrifice […]