Enter the orange shirts
In A city of clogged streets, motorbike taxis are the essential lubricant. They weave through rush-hour traffic, mount pavements and roar down the labyrinthine alleys known as soi. They lurk in gangs on street corners, waiting to carry people or goods, or run errands. Some 200,000 drivers sporting orange jackets are reckoned to ply their trade in Bangkok.
The motorbike drivers are mad about politics, which in Thailand is colour-coded. The drivers are overwhelmingly “red” and loyal to a former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra. Most hail from the pro-Thaksin north-east, and were in the thick of the action during last year’s rowdy red-shirt rallies. Motorbikes were the red-shirt cavalry, keeping tabs on the movements of state troops, who ended the protests with the loss of 91 lives.
This is an election year, and every vote counts. So the prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, no red shirt he, has singled out motorbike taxis for attention under a new, pro-poor programme called the People’s Agenda. Along with millions of other informal workers, motorbike drivers will be eligible for social security, loans from state banks and other benefits. To drive the point home, Mr Abhisit posed with an orange-clad motorbike driver at the launch of the programme, which he described as a “New Year’s gift” to Thai people.
Category: Thailand
A few more items to pass along:
- NY Times: Pause in Fighting Over Temple Between Thailand and Cambodia
- Analysis from Pavin Chachavalpongpun in today’s WSJ: Thailand’s Rising Nationalism
- NBC News World Blog: High farce at the Thai-Cambodian border
- BBC News: Emotional fall-out of Thailand-Cambodia clashes
(Image: BBC News.)
That’s the title of an op-ed in today’s Bangkok Post by Thitinan Pongsudhirak. Thailand watchers won’t want to miss it.
AP: Thai, Cambodian clashes resume at disputed border
Economist blog post with background info and political implications: Shells fly around the temple
BBC: Cambodia nationalism fired by temple row with Thailand
MCOT: Fresh fighting on Thai-Cambodian border; 15,000 evacuated
(Image: Reuters/BBC.)
Yesterday’s NYT: “Cambodia Asks U.N. to Act Amid Clashes With Thailand.”
Also see this Reuters Q&A from Feb. 4: “Preah Vihear temple and Thai-Cambodian tensions.”
Today’s Bangkok Post: Yellow shirts target key city locations:
The People’s Alliance for Democracy is threatening to occupy key city sites on Friday to increase pressure on the government over the Cambodia issue.
The nationalist movement is refusing to say where it will go, although police are promising tough anti-riot action if the group attempts to take key government installations such as parliament or Government House.
Fighting on Cambodian border
Two or three Thai soldiers were wounded in an exchange of fire with Cambodian troops on Friday afternoon on the Thai-Cambodian border, and artillery rounds landed on Thai soil well inside the frontier, an informed military source said.
The clash started about 3.20pm near the disputed 4.6 square kilometre area around the Preah Vihear temple.
Fighting was continuing, the source said. Heavy weapon rounds had landed on the Thai side of the border,
Lt-Gen Tawatchai Samutsakhon, 2nd Army commander, said it was Cambodian troops who started the fire.
Many artillery shells landed at Huay Thip village in tambon Rung of Si Sa Ket’s Kanthararak district, north of the Preah Vihear temple and about 1km from Phu Makhua mountain, which is part of the disputed area.
Two or three Thai soldiers were reported wounded. Casualties on the Cambodian side were not known.
Previous posts with more info:
Fighting on Thai-Cambodia border (April 2009)
Conflict on Thailand-Cambodia Border (Oct. 2008)
AFP: Thailand invites Obama to patch up:
As the United States steps up its focus on Southeast Asia, its oldest regional ally Thailand is inviting President Barack Obama to visit as it tries to shed images of last year’s political violence.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva sent a special envoy to Washington this week to convince US policymakers that the kingdom is returning to stability and is committed to shift its fractious politics from the street to the ballot box.
“Our mission is to tell them that we’re back in business,” envoy Panitan Wattanayagorn, who also serves as the Thai government’s acting spokesman, told AFP on Wednesday.
And:
Obama has promised to attend the next East Asian Summit, tentatively slated for October on Indonesia’s resort island of Bali. A month later, Obama will welcome Asia-Pacific leaders to his native Hawaii for an annual summit.
Panitan said that Thailand welcomed the warming US relationship with Indonesia, which the Obama administration sees as an ideal partner in light of its vast, moderate Muslim population and its rapid shift to democracy.
But Panitan said that Thailand also sought a stop by Obama.
“We are working hard for that,” he said. “A visit would be very good. By that time, we should have a new government in office.”
(Emphasis mine.)
Image: AFP.
Categories
Thais arrive home from Egypt
In this MCOT story today…
68 Thais stranded in Egypt arrive Thailand safely via Jordan:
Sixty-eight Thai nationals earlier stranded at Cairo airport because of violent protests there arrived in Thailand safely early Wednesday via Amman, Jordan after spending three difficult days at Cairo airport because of a shortage of food.
Thai International Airways (THAI) charted flight TG8851 from Amman landed at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi airport at 4am with the 68 Thai citizens who were stranded in Egypt. Their families had waited at the airport since 2am.
…I couldn’t help but notice this:
Phnom Muekhunthod, a member of a team of four Thai ice and snow sculptors who won laurels in the International Ice & Snow Sculpture Competition in France last week said the team spent three nights at the airport without bathing, but received food boxes every eight hours.
(Emphasis mine.)
No time to look this up now, but Thailand — a tropical country with famously hot and humid weather — is home to ice and snow sculptors? Where and how do they practice?
Image: MCOT.
Categories
Reuters on erosion in Pattaya
Thailand’s famed Pattaya beach in danger of vanishing
The days of R&R on Thailand’s famous Pattaya beach could be numbered.
The eastern city, a magnet for foreign tourists seeking sun, sea, watersports and racy nightlife, is under siege by both man and the forces of nature. One of Asia’s most popular beaches is being eaten away at a rate of nearly two meters (yards) a year.
Thai scientists say sea currents and impacts of the city’s booming development have intensified coastal erosion and a beach packed with deck chairs, umbrellas and bikini-clad holidaymakers could disappear in less than five years.