GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Dublin is under water and three people are dead, five missing in Liguria, in northwest Italy, as heavy rains led to floods Monday and Tuesday. Thailand’s continuing woes from rivers swollen by weeks of heavy rain resulted in the second airport in the capital, Bangkok, being closed Tuesday 25 October.
Dublin is almost back to normal Wednesday after several public transport services shut Tuesday, following torrential rains the previous day and night. Other parts of Ireland still have roads shut due to flooding. The rainfall in October has set a record for the country.
Italy’s popular tourist towns in Cinque Terre, along the Ligurian coast, have been hit by high winds and rain. Three people have died and five are missing according to Spezia police Wednesday morning. Authorities are asking residents of the area to stay home if possible and to not drive their cars.
Links to other sites: Bangkok Post, CBS, Irish Times, TSR (Fr)
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The massive flooding that has hit Thailand now threatens the capital, Bangkok, and its governor, Sukhumbhand Paribatra, has ordered the city to open its floodgates to let water run out to the sea through city canals. There are fears in some government quarters that the system may leak, causing flooding in the city itself, from the worst storms and flooding in 50 years. The Bangkok Post reports Thursday that the government has decided to “sacrifice” the eastern suburbs in its attempt to save the inner city and financial heart of Bangkok.
Links to other sites: Bangkok Post, CNN, TVNZ
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The governor of Bangkok offered what the Bangkok Post called “a testy response” Thursday 13 October after the minister for science and technology caused panic by issuing an evacuation order for northern Bangkok and nearby areas. The order was based on a misunderstanding and was corrected, but not before damage was done. The Bangkok Post reports that “Bangkok governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra said last night city residents should listen to him about when they should evacuate their homes. ‘Please listen to me and me alone. I will say when we should evacuate. Please believe me and only me. Don’t believe others.’”
The floods are the worst in 50 years, the result of typhoons and monsoon rains that have battered much of Asia. They have killed at least 280 people in Thailand since July, reports AP. The ancient city of Ayutthaya north of Bangkok has been badly hit and evacuations continue there.
“The three-month-old disaster has crippled manufacturing hubs in central provinces and destroyed more than 10 percent of rice farms in the world’s biggest shipper of the grain,” Bloomberg reports. But the country’s prime minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, says that Bangkok with its nearly 10 million people, will escape the flooding, with the army widening canals to drain more water outside the city.
Links to other sites: AP, Bangkok Post, Bloomberg, Thai Visa
A regular airport scan spotted animals in a man’s suitcases, but the sheer size and variety of the smuggled wildlife were a daunting haul by any standards. The live creatures the Indonesian was caught with at Thailand’s Suvarnabhumi International Airport as he was boarding an Air Asia flight home came from the local Bangkok market, he admitted.
“A man who went on a wildlife shopping spree in Bangkok’s Chatuchak Market was detained by authorities at the Suvarnabhumi International Airport yesterday as he tried to smuggle his haul—that included live snakes, tortoises, squirrels, spiders, lizards and even a parrot—out of the country inside three suitcases,” says the international wildlife group Traffic.
But the complete list is startling and included: 88 Indian Star Tortoises, 33 Elongated Tortoises, seven Radiated Tortoises, six Mata Mata Turtles, four Southeast Asian Narrow-headed Softshell Turtle, three Aldabra Tortoises, one Pig-nosed Turtle “and even one Ploughshare Tortoise—the worlds’ rarest tortoise”, according to Traffic’s press release on the confiscation.
“Alongside these, he packed 34 Ball Pythons, two Boa Constrictors, several Milk Snakes, Corn Snakes and King Snakes as well as a Hog-nosed Snake.”
The full list, according to Traffic, which has a photo showing the man’s “modified” suitcase:
Ploughshare tortoise 1
Ceratophrys ornate (Argentine horned frog) 6
Radiated tortoise 7
Indian Star Tortoise 88
Common squirrel 22
Mata Mata Turtle 6
Bearded Dragon 19
Aldabra Tortoise 3
Theraphosidae (baboon spider) 18
Pig-nosed Turtle 1
Elongated Tortoise 33
African Grey Parrot 1
Ball Python 34
Boa Constrictor 2
Milk Snake 1
Corn Snake 2
King Snake 2
Lampropeltis zonata (kingsnake) 1
Lampropeltis calligasta (kingsnake) 1
Hog nosed snake 1
Spiny-tailed Lizard (Uromastyx ) 4
Sudan Plated Lizard 2
Chitra 4
Government troops in Bangkok are reported to be shutting down pockets of resistance in the city after the surrender of Red-shirts leaders, but the violence that swept through the city Wednesday appears to have spread to cities in the north, including the tourist haven of Chiang Mai. The government announced that protesters set fire to some 30 buildings in the capital, and troops were given orders to shoot arsonists. Central World, the country’s largest shopping mall, has suffered badly from fire damage and one side of a high-rise in the centre is in danger of collapsing.
Links to other sites: The Age, Australia, New York Times
Reuters video of fires in Bangkok
©2010 Chappatte, distributed by Globe Cartoon. More cartoons on Chappatte’s web site. Geneva-based Patrick Chappatte works for the International Herald Tribune, for Geneva newspaper Le Temps, and for NZZ am Sonntag. All cartoons reproduced with permission.
The leaders of Thailand’s anti-government Red-shirt protest movement surrendered early Wednesday, telling their followers to go home, and initially, they did. The encampment where they have stayed in a standoff with troops for the past two weeks quietly emptied. And then the reaction set in and violence took over, with what the Wall Street Journal describes as “some of Bangkok’s priciest real estate” set on fire. Great plumes of smoke rose over the center of the city by Wednesday evening, with troops unable to control the crowds.
Bangkok and much of the country have been put under curfew.
Links to other sites: BBC, Sydney Morning Herald, Wall St Journal
Thai gov’t troops break through Red-shirts, protesters put up white flag
Update 10:00 Four people are reported dead as government troops in Thailand have broken through a barrier to the Red-shirts encampment in the centre of Bangkok Wednesday 19 May. Tanks have moved into the streets surrounding the area and troops are offering safe passage to those who want to leave the encampment, according to Bloomberg/Business Week and other reports. Leaders of the Red-shirt protesters say they are still hoping negotiations will go ahead, while the government says some of the movement’s leaders have escaped from the encampment, and they are asking citizens to be on the lookout for them.
Links to other sites: Bangkok Post, Reuters and Reuters live coverage
Eight dead, fourth journalist shot in two days and tourists under attack as crisis deepens
A gun battle is underway in the capital of Thailand, Bangkok, several media are reporting late Sunday Swiss time.
The red-shirt protests also appear to have spread beyond Bangkok as the government backed down from its threat to call a curfew but declared a two-day holiday in the face of a deepening crisis, reports the Bangkok Post Sunday evening (Swiss time). Eight people are now known to be dead, and a fourth journalist was shot and wounded Saturday as the government attempts to seal off the protesters. The luxury Dusit Thani Hotel, where a number of foreigners including journalists are staying, came under attack with gunfire in the early hours of the morning, Bangkok Time.
Protest leaders have called for UN-moderated talks, which the government promptly rejected.
Links to other sites: AFP, Bangkok Post, CNN, Reuters
Cleanup in Bangkok underway, gunshot injuries reported
The Thai government is moving to close the red-shirts protesters encampment but appears to be having mixed success and is reported to be shooting at some intersections in the heart of commercial Bangkok, with several injuries reported Friday. At least one person was killed Thursday, but details remain murky and journalists in the city report that it is difficult to obtain numbers of people injured, from hospitals. The crisis in Thailand is now having a stronger impact on the economy, which relies heavily on tourism. Reuters reports that “the cost of insuring Thai debt jumped the most in 15 months and Thai bond yields fell to a nine-month low on Friday as the wave of violence prompted investors to rush to the relative safety of government debt. Five-year credit default swaps, used to hedge against debt default but also to speculate on country risk, jumped by more than 30 basis points to 142 basis points.”
Links to other sites: Bangkok Post, BBC, Reuters
Police in Bangkok, Thailand shot rubber bullets into a convoy of red-shirt protestors Wednesday. A crowd fought back with stones , with the melee reportedly killing one soldier, who was shot in the head, although it is unclear exactly what happened. A number of people were injured, according to the Bangkok Post, which says the confrontation took place near the National Memorial, close to Don Muaeng airport, on Vibhavadi Rangsit Road.
Links to other sites: Al-jazeera, Reuters
[Reuters video] Bangkok’s elevated train system was briefly brought to a halt by red-shirt protestors, and the government has vowed to step up measures to fight the seven-week old crisis that has killed 26 people and led to serious disruptions, including hitting the country’s vital tourism industry hard. The protestors are now starting to wear shirts of other colours to better blend into crowds to avoid arrest.
Protestors tell Reuters they are changing tactics
Thailand’s prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, has told the nation on television 15 March that he will not give in to demands by tens of thousands of red shirt protestors that he resign today, insisting that changes must be the result of elections where voices of people other than the protestors have a chance to be heard. The protestors gathered outside the army barracks Monday where Vejjajiva had gone when a rally with an estimated (BBC numbers) 100,000 took place Sunday, but he left in a helicopter shortly after his TV appearance.
The red shirts back former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who has remained abroad following a two-year prison sentence for abuse of power, which he and his supporters say was politically motivated.
Opposition group UDD leader Natthawut Saikua responded by saying 1,000 litres of blood will be taken from donors Tuesday and spread outside Government House to force government workers to walk across a bloody trail.
Links to other sites: Bangkok Post, BBC,
Tensions are rising sharply between Cambodia and Thailand, with Cambodia refusing Wednesday 11 Novmber a demand for extradition from Thailand for Thai former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thailand is now reviewing its cooperation agreements with Cambodia. Thaksin was to stand trial on corruption charges in Thailand when he fled the country in 2008, saying the trial was politically motivated. Cambodia has said that it does not consider the charges valid because they are politically motivated, but it limited its response to the extradition request to a simple refusal without explanation, according to local media. The BBC’s reporter in Bangkok reports that Thaksin and Cambodia’s Hun Sen are golf partners and close friends.
Links to other sites: Bangkok Post, BBC, Independent, UK,
A Bangkok Airways plane with about 70 people aboard skidded off the runway in heavy rain on landing at the resort Samui Island south of Bangkok, Thailand and hit a control tower. One person, reportedly the pilot, was killed, and several people were injured and taken to hospital. The plane was en route from Krabi, another resort in the south. BBC, Reuters, Romandie News (Fre)
David Carradine, US actor who starred in more than 100 films as well as television and theatre, was found dead in a hotel room in Bangkok, Thailand, hanged by a nylon rope which may have been from the hotel room curtains. Police say there was no sign of forced entry and his death is being investigated. Carradine’s most famous recent role may have been as Bill in the “Kill Bill” movies by Quentin Tarantino. In the 1970s he became famous for playing a monk in the television series “Kung Fu.” CNN
Bloody riots that killed two protestors Monday night in Bangkok and elsewhere in Thailand are breaking up, with people going home at the urging of protest organizers as a police cordon began to tighten around them, reports the BBC. The protestors, who have occupied the land around the Government House for three weeks, have been demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, who refuses to step down.
Protestors in Thailand have blocked access in Pattaya, a seaside resort, to a meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian States, which includes with China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, India and New Zealand. The meeting was moved from Bangkok to the resort after recent demonstrations flared in the capital city. An estimated 100,000 people marching in the city to support deposed former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra caused traffic chaos in Bangkok 9 April.
Protestors in Bangkok fought each other in the centre of the city and a group fought police and then broke into the passenger terminal at the city’s new international airport, forcing its closure Tuesday night. Outbound flights were cancelled but inbound flights were allowed to land. Times, UK
