Hundreds of protesters trapped Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva inside a beach hotel for several hours yesterday, raising tensions ahead of a key Asian summit being held here later this week.
About 400 red-clad supporters of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra surrounded the hotel in the resort town of Pattaya, where Abhisit was holding a Cabinet meeting amid tight security.
The Newcastle, England-born Abhisit had moved yesterday’s Cabinet meeting to Pattaya because Thaksin loyalists have blockaded the main government offices in Bangkok for nearly two weeks to press for fresh elections.
LONG-RUNNING FEUD
The protesters dispersed and allowed Abhisit to leave after about three hours, but the incident further upped the ante in a long-running feud between Thaksin loyalists and Abhisit’s nearly four-month-old government.
Thai Defense Minister General Prawit Wongsuwon had earlier managed to evade the protesters by escaping from a side entrance used by suppliers to the luxury hotel.
The resort is set to host leaders of the ASEAN and regional partners including China and Japan at a summit starting on Friday.
The summit — already postponed from December because of ongoing political unrest — would go ahead as planned, said Vitawas Srivihok, the senior ASEAN department official at Thailand’s foreign ministry.
“The ‘Red Shirts’ protest will not affect foreign leaders attending the summit,” Vitawas said.
The incident came a day before a mass rally planned by Thaksin’s supporters in Bangkok that organizers say hundreds of thousands of people are expected to attend.
CRIPPLED BY TURMOIL
Thailand, a key tourism destination, has been crippled by political turmoil since billionaire tycoon Thaksin was ousted in a military coup in September 2006.
He is living in exile to avoid a two-year jail term imposed last year over corruption allegations that he says are politically motivated.
In their bid to force Abhisit from office, the “Red Shirts” have taken a leaf from the playbook of rival demonstrators who drove Thaksin’s allies from government with a huge street campaign last year.
In the sweltering streets of Jakarta, buskers carry towering, hollow puppets and pass around a bucket for donations. Now, they fear becoming outlaws. City authorities said they would crack down on use of the sacred ondel-ondel puppets, which can stand as tall as a truck, and they are drafting legislation to remove what they view as a street nuisance. Performances featuring the puppets — originally used by Jakarta’s Betawi people to ward off evil spirits — would be allowed only at set events. The ban could leave many ondel-ondel buskers in Jakarta jobless. “I am confused and anxious. I fear getting raided or even
Eleven people, including a former minister, were arrested in Serbia on Friday over a train station disaster in which 16 people died. The concrete canopy of the newly renovated station in the northern city of Novi Sad collapsed on Nov. 1, 2024 in a disaster widely blamed on corruption and poor oversight. It sparked a wave of student-led protests and led to the resignation of then-Serbian prime minister Milos Vucevic and the fall of his government. The public prosecutor’s office in Novi Sad opened an investigation into the accident and deaths. In February, the public prosecutor’s office for organized crime opened another probe into
RISING RACISM: A Japanese group called on China to assure safety in the country, while the Chinese embassy in Tokyo urged action against a ‘surge in xenophobia’ A Japanese woman living in China was attacked and injured by a man in a subway station in Suzhou, China, Japanese media said, hours after two Chinese men were seriously injured in violence in Tokyo. The attacks on Thursday raised concern about xenophobic sentiment in China and Japan that have been blamed for assaults in both countries. It was the third attack involving Japanese living in China since last year. In the two previous cases in China, Chinese authorities have insisted they were isolated incidents. Japanese broadcaster NHK did not identify the woman injured in Suzhou by name, but, citing the Japanese
RESTRUCTURE: Myanmar’s military has ended emergency rule and announced plans for elections in December, but critics said the move aims to entrench junta control Myanmar’s military government announced on Thursday that it was ending the state of emergency declared after it seized power in 2021 and would restructure administrative bodies to prepare for the new election at the end of the year. However, the polls planned for an unspecified date in December face serious obstacles, including a civil war raging over most of the country and pledges by opponents of the military rule to derail the election because they believe it can be neither free nor fair. Under the restructuring, Myanmar’s junta chief Min Aung Hlaing is giving up two posts, but would stay at the
RSS