The leader of Thailand’s “Yellow Shirt” protesters, an arch-rival of fugitive former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was voted leader of the movement’s new political party yesterday, the group said.
Sondhi Limthongkul, who led a blockade of Bangkok’s airports last year to drive Thaksin’s allies from government, was elected unopposed to lead the New Politics Party at its first general meeting, a spokesman announced.
“Here meet our new leader Sondhi,” Somsak Kosaisuk told the gathering in the Thai capital, broadcast live on ASTV — the television channel owned by Sondhi.
The election came a few days after the media mogul, who faces a raft of libel cases by people he has criticized, was handed a jail term.
In his latest trial, he was handed a six-month jail sentence on Friday for defaming former Thai foreign minister and Thaksin ally Noppadon Pattama, but was granted bail while he appeals against the verdict.
His ardent royalist party, formerly known as the People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD), has said its aim is to promote a “clean politics” free from corruption, symbolized by adding green to the yellow of its group logo.
“We will make the New Politics Party change politics for our next generations,” Sondhi told party members following his election.
The Yellow Shirts helped topple Thaksin with mass rallies in 2006 and reformed with tens of thousands of yellow-clad supporters last year to protest against his allies in the government.
Last year’s demonstrations peaked in the seizure of Bangkok’s two main airports in late November and early December, leaving more than 300,000 travelers stranded in Thailand for more than a week and causing crippling economic damage.
As the PAD, the group had the support of Bangkok’s elite and circles in the palace, military and bureaucracy, who loathed Thaksin.
Thaksin, supported by the rival “Red Shirts” in Thailand’s color-coded politics, fled the kingdom in August last year to avoid a two-year jail term for corruption.
Sondhi survived an assassination attempt in April that he blamed on elements in the country’s security forces.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not