Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said yesterday that he planned to double government spending for a program that provides grants to rural villages as part of a stimulus package aimed at reviving the country’s ailing economy.
Abhisit, in a nationally televised address, also said he would step up the recruitment of college graduates for government jobs to offset rising unemployment and move ahead with plans to offer millions of low-income residents a one-time payment of 2,000 baht (US$57).
“The fire is burning fiercely in the house, so we cannot be too economical on the water we use for putting out the blaze,’’ he said.
Abhisit, who became prime minister last month, has made fixing the economy a priority. One of his first acts was to have his Cabinet approve a 115 billion baht economic stimulus package earlier this week.
He said a portion of the stimulus package would go toward reviving and expanding a village initiative launched by former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup.
The popular program offered government grants to villages, which used the money for infrastructure projects like repairing roads and digging irrigation canals.
But critics contended it was little more than an effort to buy the loyalty of rural voters who supported Thaksin.
Thailand’s export-driven economy has been hit by the global slowdown as well as months of political unrest last year that scared off foreign investors and tourists.
The cash handouts, which were announced on Tuesday, have been blasted by critics who said it was a waste of money and a bid to win over skeptical rural voters.
Abhisit said the handouts would boost the buying power of poor consumers, while the government employment scheme would ensure new graduates were not left idle.
“We will help new graduates to find jobs quickly,’’ he said.
Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) is to visit Russia next month for a summit of the BRICS bloc of developing economies, Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi (王毅) said on Thursday, a move that comes as Moscow and Beijing seek to counter the West’s global influence. Xi’s visit to Russia would be his second since the Kremlin sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022. China claims to take a neutral position in the conflict, but it has backed the Kremlin’s contentions that Russia’s action was provoked by the West, and it continues to supply key components needed by Moscow for
Japan scrambled fighter jets after Russian aircraft flew around the archipelago for the first time in five years, Tokyo said yesterday. From Thursday morning to afternoon, the Russian Tu-142 aircraft flew from the sea between Japan and South Korea toward the southern Okinawa region, the Japanese Ministry of Defense said in a statement. They then traveled north over the Pacific Ocean and finished their journey off the northern island of Hokkaido, it added. The planes did not enter Japanese airspace, but flew over an area subject to a territorial dispute between Japan and Russia, a ministry official said. “In response, we mobilized Air Self-Defense
CRITICISM: ‘One has to choose the lesser of two evils,’ Pope Francis said, as he criticized Trump’s anti-immigrant policies and Harris’ pro-choice position Pope Francis on Friday accused both former US president Donald Trump and US Vice President Kamala Harris of being “against life” as he returned to Rome from a 12-day tour of the Asia-Pacific region. The 87-year-old pontiff’s comments on the US presidential hopefuls came as he defied health concerns to connect with believers from the jungle of Papua New Guinea to the skyscrapers of Singapore. It was Francis’ longest trip in duration and distance since becoming head of the world’s nearly 1.4 billion Roman Catholics more than 11 years ago. Despite the marathon visit, he held a long and spirited
The pitch is a classic: A young celebrity with no climbing experience spends a year in hard training and scales Mount Everest, succeeding against some — if not all — odds. French YouTuber Ines Benazzouz, known as Inoxtag, brought the story to life with a two-hour-plus documentary about his year preparing for the ultimate challenge. The film, titled Kaizen, proved a smash hit on its release last weekend. Young fans queued around the block to get into a preview screening in Paris, with Inoxtag’s management on Monday saying the film had smashed the box office record for a special cinema