Life goes on as normal in Thailand’s capital of Bangkok the day after the Royal Thai Army declared it was taking power from the diminished, ineffectual “caretaker government” Thursday. Businesses and offices were open as usual on Friday with no discernible difference for Thais. TV programming is expected to be returned to normal today as well. The coup was carried out at the climax of half a year of massive and protracted street demonstrations against the proxy regime of billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra. Shinawatra was himself ousted in a coup in 2006 and has since fled the country, residing primarily in Dubai. With his formidable political machine left intact, however, he has been able to rule the country remotely through a series of nepotist-appointed proxies including his brother-in-law Somchai Wongsawat, and his own sister, Yingluck Shinawatra.
Tag: Thailand
Thailand: Anti-Regime Protesters Tell Their Side of the Story Statesman Kasit Piromya weighs in on the ongoing Thai political crisis – peels off Western label of “anti-democratic protesters.” In Part 1, protest spokesman Akanat Promphan enumerated…
Most discussion about prostitution in Southeast Asia of late has been focused upon the issues of human trafficking and sex tourism across the region. However, with the exception of those fraudulently lured into the sex…
Over the last nine months the insurgency in the Deep South of Thailand has escalated dramatically. Just within the last week two bombs went off in Narathiwat province, another bomb exploded within the Pattani commercial centre, and five people were…
If a frequent traveler to Thailand goes around the country today, a rapid rise in the prominence of Muslims will be noticed, stretching from Chiang Rai in the north of the country right down into the south of…
The establishment media has slipped into overdrive. It is determined to fan the flames of hysteria and set the stage for a devastating attack on Iran. On Thursday, CNN’s Erin Burnet interviewed New York’s Rep. Peter King who said Iran will unleash Hezbollah in America and the result will be worse than an attack with ballistic missiles. King and Burnet threw around a slew of lies and fabrications in order to fan the flames of hysteria – from the cartoonish plot by a failed Iranian used car salesman to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador cooked up by the DEA and the FBI to highly suspect and largely inept attacks on Israeli diplomats in India, Georgia and Thailand.