Free Republic

The latest edition of UK-based current affairs magazine the Economist has been banned in Thailand, amid local anger over its coverage of the royal family.

PATTAYA, Thailand (Reuters Life!) - Thailand’s “Scorpion Queen” set a new world record on Saturday after living with thousands of deadly scorpions in a glass room for 33 days, beating her previous record by one day...

A high-ranking human rights worker with ties to the United Nations was nabbed at Kennedy Airport Tuesday with kiddie porn in his suitcase, officials said. Clarence Dias, 65, president of the International Center for Law in Development, whose offices are located at the UN, had the smut in his carry-on bag as he passed through security on his way to a flight bound for Bangkok, Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said. Transportation Security Administration officials doing a random bag check around 8:20a.m. allegedly found a DVD whose cover featured an apparently underage nude boy and an adult male in

The Thai military has taken into custody another group of asylum-seekers from Burma's Rohingya minority. It comes amid accusations - denied by the military - that units set hundreds of refugees adrift at sea last month. A boat carrying 46 Rohingyas was intercepted this morning off an island in southern Thailand, police confirm. Survivors who drifted to Indonesia and the Andaman Islands accuse the Thai military of towing them out to sea in boats with no engines and no food.

Honda launches Wave 110i motorcycle The company claims that new Honda Wave 110i is powered by a four-stroke 110cc engine with built-in air cooling. It features PGM-FI technology, which creates a new standard for the family category. According to the company, the Wave 110i motorcycle will be sold at a starting price of THB34,000 (USD $982.17). Honda is targeting sales of 400,000 units per year for the Wave 110i. Zenjiro Sakurai, president of AP Honda, said: "In 2009, consumers are expected to be more discerning when they make major purchases, ensuring they get the greatest benefits. With its unique values...

At least 54 people were tonight killed in a fire in a nightclub in Bangkok. More than 100 others were injured in the blaze, which broke out during an event for New Year's Eve at the Santika club - a venue popular with both locals and foreigners. “We were all dancing and suddenly there was a big flame that came out of the front of the stage and everybody was running away,” said one woman who had been in the club. A witness, Andrew Jones, said survivors leaving the club told him the fire broke out on the stage after...

More than 300 illegal migrants were feared to have drowned off India's Andaman and Nicobar Islands in the Bay of Bengal, police and officials said Monday. The migrants, Bangladeshi and Burmese nationals, went missing after they jumped from boats and tried to swim ashore. At least 99 people were rescued by the Indian Coast Guard and three men were able to swim ashore. Coast Guard officials, citing survivors, said the migrants had left some 45 days earlier for Thailand and Malaysia from Bangladesh, where they planned to work. According to survivors, there were a total of 412 people, mostly Bangladeshis...

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – Southeast Asia's top budget carrier AirAsia said Tuesday it would offer 100,000 free tickets to Thailand under a regional marketing campaign to support its tourism industry battered by recent political unrest. AirAsia said it would collaborate with Tourism Authority of Thailand to bring back tourists and businessmen by "reinstating the core message that it is now safe to travel back to the Land of Smiles." Under its campaign themed "Get Your Baht To Thailand" — a play on the Thai currency — AirAsia will give away 100,00 free tickets to Bangkok from Vietnam, Cambodia, Myammar, Indonesia,...

BANGKOK, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The Bank of Thailand surprised markets by cutting interest rates by a full point on Wednesday, saying the economic damage wrought by political unrest and the global downturn triggered its first easing since mid-2007. A rapid retreat in inflation in recent months made it easier for the central bank to slash rates by the biggest margin in over eight years to help the economy, hit by anti-government protests that culminated in an eight-day siege of Bangkok's main airports. "The political problem is having quite a severe impact on the economy," BoT Assistant Governor Duangmanee Vongpradhip...

BANGKOK, Thailand – Thailand's prime minister was ousted Tuesday after weeks of protests closed the capital's airports, stranding 300,000 travelers. Protesters promised to lift their siege, and international flights were expected to resume Friday. The government of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat was doomed when the nation's Constitutional Court dissolved Thailand's top three ruling parties for electoral fraud in the 2007 vote that brought them to power. Somchai was banned from politics for five years.

Thai court disbands ruling party By Nopporn Wong-Anan Nopporn Wong-anan 7 mins ago BANGKOK (Reuters) – Thai Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat was banned from politics for five years and his party disbanded on Tuesday, plunging the country deeper into chaos and raising fears of a violent backlash by government supporters. Party members vowed to "move on" and form another government early next month. "We will all move to a new party, Puea Thai, and seek a vote for a new prime minister on December 8," Jatuporn Prompan, a PPP member of parliament, told Reuters. The Constitutional Court also disbanded two...

The siege of Bangkok's airports that is into its sixth day is being accompanied by increasing lawlessness. On Saturday a convoy of armed occupiers attacked a police checkpoint, causing the officers to flee, smashing vehicles and making off with shields and other equipment. One policeman has been taken hostage. Armed thugs set upon a local photographer for a major daily who was taking shots of them assaulting another person. Overnight a grenade was fired into Government House, where demonstrators have been encamped since August. As investigators have no access to the compound, it is unlikely that there will be any...

In 2006, Thailand announced it was blocking access to YouTube for anyone with a Thai I.P address, and then identified 20 offensive videos for Google to remove as a condition of unblocking the site. ‘If your whole game is to increase market share,’ says Lawrence Lessig, speaking of Google, ‘it’s hard to . . . gather data in ways that don’t raise privacy concerns or in ways that might help repressive governments to block controversial content.’ In March of last year, Nicole Wong, the deputy general counsel of Google, was notified that there had been a precipitous drop in activity...

BANGKOK, Thailand — Riot police fled a checkpoint near Bangkok's international airport Saturday after coming under attack by several hundred anti-government protesters who have been occupying the main terminal. About 150 police at the checkpoint jumped into their vehicles and sped off when they saw a convoy of protesters — many armed with metal rods and some carrying guns — speeding toward them. Video footage of the attack appeared to show a protester firing a handgun toward a police van filled with officers. It was not immediately clear if there were any injuries. The attack effectively broke a massive police...

Protesters occupying Bangkok's two airports braced for a raid night after Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat declared a limited state of emergency authorizing police to take back the terminals. Mr Wongsawat's elected government is struggling for survival amid mounting rumours of a military coup. The city's second airport, Don Muang, which carries mostly domestic traffic, was closed on Thursday morning after being overrun by anti-government protesters, severing the last air-link between the city of 8 million people and the outside world. Suvarnabhumi international airport, a major regional hub, has been closed since explosions occurred and protesters overran the control tower on...

Military coup looms as civil unrest paralyses Thailand Published Date: 27 November 2008 By Nopporn Wong-Anan in Bangkok PRESSURE is building on Thailand's military to intervene in a political crisis threatening to descend into widespread civil unrest after prime minister Somchai Wongsawat last night rejected calls to quit. Speaking on national television, Somchai said his government was democratically elected and would continue to work for the "good of the country" despite claims by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) he is a puppet of ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Somchai's refusal to call a snap election, as army chief Anupong...

Thai anti-government protesters have shut down Bangkok's second airport, effectively isolating the city from the rest of the world. A day after they forced the closure of the main international airport, stranding thousands of passengers including British holidaymakers, supporters of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) surrounded the Don Mueang airport, from where many of the country's domestic flights depart. PAD leaders said the move was to prevent government ministers from flying to Chiang Mai to meet Somchai Wongsawat, the Prime Minister. But it means all air links into and out of Bangkok are now shut off. Saerat Prasutanond, the...

BANGKOK, Thailand — Thailand's army commander urged protesters Wednesday to leave Bangkok airport and called for elections to end the country's political crisis after a day of chaos in which thousands of travelers were stranded. All flights were canceled and frustrated passengers bused to hotels, as protesters shut down Suvarnabhumi Airport in a major escalation of their four-month campaign to oust the prime minister.

Suspected militants shot dead a Muslim and two Buddhists in two separate incidents in Thailand's far south, police said on Tuesday, the latest violence in a five-year separatist rebellion. The 24-year-old Muslim was shot dead and his mother was injured as they rode a motorcycle to a rubber plantation in Pattani, one of three southern provinces roiled by violence that has killed 3,200 people since 2004. In a nearby district, two Buddhist truck drivers were shot dead and mutilated by four unknown gunmen at a rubber factory, police said. The killers sped away on two motorcycles with one of the...

AMSTERDAM, 08/11/08 - Crime reporter Peter R. De Vries has again caught Joran van der Sloot, in many eyes the murderer of American teenager Natalee Holloway, in an undercover operation trap. De Vries now claims to have collected evidence that the young Dutchman is involved in women-trafficking in Thailand. This Sunday (9 November), De Vries will show in his TV programme, he claims, that Van der Sloot offers women for sale in the Thai capital Bangkok for the Dutch prostitution market. On hidden camera he explains how he supplies girls for 10,000 euros each, who work for 300 dollars a...

Melamine has been found in milk chocolate smuggled from China for sale at a border market. The Thai Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found Orphic milk chocolate, manufactured by Tianjin Heijingang Foodstuff Co, was contaminated with 34.37 milligrammes of melamine per kilogramme, well above the official safe limit of 2.5 mg/kg. The product lot manufactured on Aug 5 was randomly picked from a border market in Mukdahan for tests, said FDA secretary-general Pipat Yingseree. He accepted it was difficult to track down the importers since the product had been smuggled. The agency therefore urged consumers not to buy any imported...

he crime of insulting a monarch, a throwback to a bygone era of absolute sovereign power, is making an unlikely comeback in Thailand. Thais deeply revere their 80-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej. Some see him as almost divine and carry his image in talismans or on car dashboards to bring good luck. Thailand's strict law against offending the monarchy, therefore, seems almost superfluous. King Bhumibol himself has said he doesn't need it, and he has lodged no charges. But politicians keep the 100-year-old law alive to score points against their enemies as they jostle for power in a period of political...

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Tensions between Thailand and Cambodia over a border area near a historic temple erupted in a deadly gunbattle, prompting officials on both sides to quickly call for resolving the conflict through talks, not bullets. Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong said military officials from both sides would meet Thursday in Thailand to discuss the previous day's clash, which killed at least two Cambodian soldiers and wounded a total of eight from both sides. Thailand's Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat pledged to "use peaceful means." "If there is violence, we have to negotiate," Somchai said. Wednesday's clash was the first...

FBI Warns of Potential Terror Attacks The FBI and Department of Homeland Security today issued an analytical "note" to U.S. law-enforcement officials cautioning that al-Qaida terrorists have in the past expressed interest in attacking public buildings using a dozen suicide bombers each carrying 20 kilograms of explosives. Authors with the U.S. Office of Intelligence and Analysis added that they have "no credible or specific information that terrorists are planning operations against public buildings in the United States." The FBI and DHS analysts said they were releasing the note because "it is important for local authorities and building owners and...

Thai Police Used Chinese-Made "Explosive" Tear Gas (RTTNews) - Thai investigators have concluded that Chinese-made tear gas canisters used by the police during an anti-government protest rally last week contained a powerful explosive, possibly RDX - a substance that is used as a major component in many military explosives, media reports said. Evidence collected by the forensic team led by Porntip Rojanasunan, Justice Ministry'sCentral Institute of Forensic Science director, revealed that tear gas canisters imported from China contained explosive components as wounds found on the body of a dead victim matched with the size of the tear gas canisters. The...

How The West Was Won The rapid and unexpected decline of the Sunni insurgency in Iraq was officially recognized this week, when Maj. Gen. John Kelly, commanding the Marine Expeditionary Force, turned operational control of Anbar Province over to the Iraqi army and police. Anbar, a vast expanse of desert the size of North Carolina, had been the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency. For years, foreign fighters loyal to al-Qaida had sneaked across Iraq's northwestern border with Syria, into Anbar and down a "rat line" of safe houses in Haditha, Ramadi and Hit. From Fallujah, the arch terrorist Zarqawi...

BANGKOK, Thailand - Thailand's prime minister was forced out of office Tuesday along with his Cabinet after a court ruled that he had broken a conflict-of-interest law by hosting TV cooking shows. snip Samak, 73, a self-proclaimed foodie, hosted a popular television cooking show — "Tasting and Complaining" — for seven years before becoming prime minister. But he also made several appearances after taking office, breaking a constitutional prohibition on private employment while in office.

YALA, Thailand: Separatist militants shot dead and beheaded a Buddhist state official in Thailand's Muslim south on Tuesday, police said, the latest death in 57 months of insurgency in which more than 3,100 people have died. Police found 29 spent M-16 bullets around the pickup truck of the victim, identified as 26-year-old Attapong Gonlom, after at least two gunmen opened fire on him at a school in Pattani, one of four southern provinces hit by the violence. "After the attack, the gunmen dragged his body out of the truck and chopped his head off, to the horror of students and...

Thai PM must quit, court rules BANGKOK, Sept 9 (Reuters) - A Thai court said on Tuesday Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej must step down because he violated the constitution by hosting TV cooking shows while in office.

BANGKOK, Thailand - Thailand's prime minister declared a state of emergency in the capital Bangkok on Tuesday after a week of political tension exploded into violent street clashes between supporters and opponents of the government that left one person dead. Under sweeping powers that give the military the right to restore order, authorities can suspend certain civil liberties, ban all public gatherings of more than five people and bar the media from reporting news that "causes panic." The military, which has staged 18 coups since the country became a constitutional monarchy in 1932, said the army did not want to...

Suspected insurgents shot dead three villagers as the Ramadan fast began in the restive southern border provinces of Yala and Pattani on Monday. A 61-year-old Thai-Muslim village headman was killed by the gunmen while he was driving... a 51-year-old female rubber farmer ...

In another frustrating foul-up on the path towards converting Soviet-era military missiles into cash-paying satellite launchers, a military-industrial team in Moscow has announced the 'indefinite suspension' of plans to launch an earth resources survey satellite for Thailand. The reasons: at the last moment, for the second time, overflight permission has been revoked by a country downrange of the launch site. First Uzbekistan, and now Kazakhstan, denied permission for dropping the booster's spent first stage onto their territories. "We never thought we'd see a repeat of the Uzbekistan case," lamented Thongchai Charuppat, director of Thailand's "GeoInformatics and Space Technology Development Agency...

Being a beggar will not be so easy anymore if draft legislation approved by the cabinet yesterday becomes law. The bill proposed by the Human Security and Social Development Ministry sets conditions for people who want to be beggars. They must provide proof they are underprivileged, disabled, homeless or elderly without children to care for them. And this will be a reserved occupation, exclusively for Thais who must carry ID cards. Would-be professional beggars will have to report to local administration organisations for approval and work permits. Local agencies will be responsible for controlling beggars in their jurisdictions, while the...

RAYONG, Thailand (AFP) - General Motors will invest 445 million dollars to build a new diesel engine plant and to upgrade an existing assembly plant in Thailand, chief executive Rick Wagoner said Wednesday. The new plant in the industrial coastal town of Rayong will start production in 2010, with a capacity to produce more than 100,000 engines per year, he said. About 90 percent of the engines will be used in GM's nearby assembly plant, which will be upgraded to produce the new model Chevrolet Colorado small pickup truck, he added.

On his second day in South Korea, President Bush met with President Lee Myung-Bak (Transcript). The two leaders later participated in a joint press conference at Blue House, the presidential residence in Seoul. (Transcript) President Lee: Once again, along with the Korean people, let me extend to you, Mr. President, and to your family our warmest welcome from the bottom of our hearts. Also, I look forward to you and Mrs. Bush to come and visit Korea freely when you have more time, Mr. President. I will always be ready to welcome my real friend whenever you come by....

IN A LITTLE-NOTICED DECISION in a New York courtroom on September 25, 2003, a man described as Osama bin Laden's "best friend" got some good news. U.S. District Court Judge Deborah Batts ruled that Mahmdouh Mahmud Salim could not be sentenced to life in prison. Salim--who was present at the founding of al Qaeda in 1989 and who was for years one of bin Laden's most trusted confidants--had been captured in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States for prosecution related to his role in the grand conspiracy that resulted in the 1998 bombings at U.S. embassies in...

Al-Qaeda Draws New Recruits Via Internet Al-Qaeda is using the Internet to recruit vulnerable young people to its terrorist network, according to a programme aired on Saudi Arabian TV late on Tuesday. Umm Osama, the founder of al-Qaeda's first women-only website, al-Khansa, joined several others on the programme to discuss how they renounced jihadist ideology. Among those who sought a response to this question was an imam from the Medina mosque, Saleh Ibn Awad al-Mudamsi, and the father of a young al-Qaeda suspect held in an Iraqi prison. Read More Qaeda Targets U.S. Oil Interests in North Africa U.S....

A school in north-east Thailand has introduced toilets for transvestites after a survey showed that more than 200 students saw themselves as transgender, a director said today. Sitisak Sumontha said he believed the 2,600-student Kampang school, in north-eastern Thailand, was the first secondary to introduce unisex toilets. "These students want to be able to go to the restroom in peace without fear of being watched, laughed at or groped," he added. The toilets are designated by a sign depicting a human figure split in half - part man in blue and part woman in red.

U.S. Wary Of Small Boat Terrorism As boating season approaches, the Bush administration wants to enlist America's 80 million recreational boaters to help reduce the chances that a small boat could deliver a nuclear or radiological bomb somewhere along the 95,000 miles of U.S. coastline and inland waterways. According to an April 23 intelligence assessment obtained by The Associated Press, "The use of a small boat as a weapon is likely to remain al Qaeda's weapon of choice in the maritime environment, given its ease in arming and deploying, low cost, and record of success." While the United States...

Excerpt - Fire broke out early Monday and seriously damaged the top floor of the Burmese embassy on Sathorn Road, but there were no injuries, police officials said. They said the fire, which occurred after sunrise, was brought under control within 30 minutes but that there was a significant amount of smoke. The roof of the building collpased during the blaze, prompting officials at the embassy to move their cars out of the area. "The blaze broke out on the top floor, in a room full of documents and filing cabinets," firefighter Niwat Jootawong told a reporter of the AFP...

NEWARK, N.J. - A rare international alert seeking a man shown in dozens of raw child porn images quickly led to the arrest of a small-time actor, who painted faces at children's parties and performed as "the best Santa Claus anyone has ever seen." Wayne Nelson Corliss told authorities he had sex with three boys in Thailand six years ago, an experience he described as "euphoria," a prosecutor said Thursday at Corliss' first court appearance. The arrest of the bespectacled, gray-haired 58-year-old at his Union City apartment late Wednesday capped a two-day global manhunt, just the second time Interpol has...

BANGKOK, Thailand (CNN) -- Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej piqued global interest this week when he suggested the formation of a rice cartel with other producers, a government spokesman said. Rice prices have tripled this year, reaching $1,000 a ton for 100 percent Grade B white rice. The idea came as his deputy and commerce minister proposed a rice producer summit that would include Thailand, Vietnam, India and China. Only India has so far voiced support; it is second to Thailand as the world's largest rice producer.The notion of a rice cartel comes amid skyrocketing food prices that have been...

North Korean Refugees End Hunger Strike April 18, 2008 SEOUL, South Korea -- A group of North Korean refugees being held in Thailand has ended a weeklong hunger strike after the U.S. Embassy promised to speak with them about their request for asylum in the United States, a leader of the group said Friday. But the prospect of the promised interview, set for Wednesday, was thrown into doubt later when the refugee leader said Thai authorities were moving him and 15 other North Koreans from a Bangkok detention center to another facility north of the capital. The leader, who requested...

A luxury hotel treated its top clientele to a tour of a poverty-stricken Thai village on Saturday before dazzling them with a lavish feast. The event, which featured a $300,000, 10-course meal, had been called a tasteless publicity stunt by critics and prompted a boycott by elite chefs. Organizers called it a novel approach to helping the needy. Bangkok’s Lebua hotel, which organized the dinner, is no stranger to publicity. Last year, it put on a spread billed as the meal of a lifetime for $25,000 a head. Early Saturday, the hotel jetted its guests — 35 bankers and corporate...

BANGKOK, Thailand — Female tourists visiting the Thai island of Phuket are going to be given whistles to sound in case of an emergency. The Thai Tourism Ministry announced the move Monday, two days after the murder of a Swedish woman in broad daylight. The whistles are part of a campaign to increase security on Phuket, one of Thailand's most popular tourist destinations. The Swedish woman, 27-year-old Hanna Charlotta Backlund, was stabbed to death Saturday while taking a walk on Mai Khao beach, on the northern tip of Phuket. Her attacker remains at large. Phuket police Maj. Sathabhorn Sangaunsuk...

A gunman in Thailand shot-dead eight neighbours, including his brother-in-law, after tiring of their karaoke versions of popular songs, including John Denver’s Country Roads. Weenus Chumkamnerd, 52, put his gun to the head of a respected female doctor and seven of her guests as they partied at her home in Songkhla Province, South Thailand. "When I began shooting nobody pleaded for his life because they were all drunk," he said after his arrest. He said he was so furious with their awful singing that he did not notice he had murdered his own brother-in-law. ... Country Roads is a hugely...

BANGKOK, Thailand - The U.S. is seeking the extradition of a suspected Russian arms dealer dubbed the "Merchant of Death," but for now he will remain in Thailand, where authorities are investigating if he used the country as a base to negotiate a weapons deal with terrorists, officials said Friday. Viktor Bout, a 41-year-old whose dealings reportedly inspired a 2005 movie about the illicit arms trade, is accused of running weapons to al-Qaida, the Taliban and parties involved in bloody conflicts across Africa. He was arrested at a Bangkok hotel after a four-month sting operation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement...

Petraeus: Al Qaida Trying to 'Come Back In' U.S. military officials said there will be no significant reduction in coalition troops in the Baghdad area as part of an effort to stop the Al Qaida offensive in northern Iraq. They said Al Qaida was trying to reenter Baghdad and reverse its losses in 2007. "Al Qaida is trying to come back in," U.S. military commander Gen. David Petraeus said. "We can feel it and see it, and what we're trying to do is rip out any roots before they can get deeply into the ground." Read More Militants Assert...

CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- Crickets, caterpillars and grubs are high in protein and minerals and could be an important food source during droughts and other emergencies, according to scientists. "I definitely think they can assist," said German biologist V.B. Meyer-Rochow, who regularly eats insects and wore a T-shirt with a Harlequin longhorn beetle to a U.N.-sponsored conference this month on promoting bugs as a food source. Three dozen scientists from 15 countries gathered in this northern Thailand city, home to several dozen restaurants serving insects and other bugs. Some of their proposals were more down to earth than others. A...

Earthquake