Government riot police in Bangkok confronted red-shirt protestors Friday morning on the main Rama Iv road before stepping back, following a grenade attack late Thursday that killed one commuter and sent 75 to hospital with injuries. The government has blamed unnamed terrorists for the attacks.
Tensions have been running high as the red-shirt protestors have stepped up resistance to the government, and several foreign governments, including Australia, Britain and the US are recommending that travelers avoid Thailand. A number of business along Silom Road, the Wall Street of Bangkok, were closed Friday in the wake of the violence.
Links to other sites: AP, BBC, Bangkok Post, Xinhua
[TCS video] Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – European countries have been adopting new European Union norms on children’s car seats for some months, and Switzerland’s turn comes Thursday 1 April. The new rules have created a furor in the French-speaking part of the country, less so in German-speaking areas, Le Temps has reported. Most of the debate has been over the rule that requires children under 150 cm and up to age 12 to use car seats, a stricter application than in some other European countries.
Parliamentary debates have had some impact, with the Federal Council saying that it will study possible exceptions, in particular third parties such as sports clubs or carpool drivers carrying several children. Taxis in cities have been exempted.
Families, however, will be obliged to respect the new rules, which go beyond simply extending the booster seat obligation from age 7 today to age 12 starting Thursday. Seats for older children cost CHF20-40. Three types of seats, for babies, boosters, and special cushions, must be used correctly for a child’s weight and height:
Iraq’s former prime minister, Ayad Allawi, appears to have won the presidential election in Iraq by just two votes but Prime Minister Nuri Al-Maliki says he will not accept the election results. Allawi has offered to form a government with Al-Maliki, but there is some confusion over how this fits in with Iraq’s constitution.
Links to other sites: Al Jazeera, Business Week, NPR
Doris Leuthard, Switzerland's president, is serving a one-year term
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The seven-member ruling council of the Swiss government, the Federal Council, has proposed that the presidency, which rotates among them, become a two-year rather than one-year post. The rationale is to give the president the opportunity to complete projects and to take better advantage of experience gained. The impetus to reform the system did not come from the Federal Council itself but from Parliament, which asked it in 2004 to propose reforms.
President Doris Leuthard, who met with journalists Thursday before the council announced its news, was asked if it is sometimes difficult to manage with a seven-person cabinet that shares power. She laughed and remarked that group decisions are never easy.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The Swiss government says it is instructing the Federal Finance Department to come up with solutions to “prevent new, undeclared funds from coming to Switzerland.” The governing Federal Council stated after a special session Wednesday 24 February that focused on the Switzerland’s role as a financial centre that it is “against attracting undeclared funds from overseas” and that it will continue to work on the “regularization” of existing funds that have not been declared to their home governments.
The statements are the strongest sign yet that Switzerland intends to curb banking activity that involves undeclared money, but the council emphasized that any solutions must “at the same time ensur[e] that privacy is safeguarded.”
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The UNHCR in Geneva reports that Pakistan is scheduling for Monday 13 July the start of repatriation of displaced persons the Buner and Swat districts, giving the first opportunity to go home to people living in camps. The Swat Valley and nearby areas were the scene of heavy fighting between government forces and militants in the
North West Frontier Province’s districts of Swat, Buner and Lower Dir, at the start of May.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss government Wednesday 8 July issued a terse statement saying it replied to a US federal court in Miami, Florida that UBS, Switzerland’s largest bank, cannot under Swiss privacy laws share client data. The statement adds that “the government of Switzerland also points out that the necessary measures to implement Swiss law have been prepared”, without providing details.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The federal government will provide CH 1.148 billion to the pension fund of the Swiss national railway company, CFF, by the end of 2009, it announced 24 June.
Bern and Zurich, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – The Swiss federal government’s CHF6 billion loan, in the form of mandatory convertible notes, will not be exchanging the securities for stock in the company immediately, Bern announced Tuesday morning 9 June, the first day when it is able to do so.
Almost 400 civilian are said to have been killed by government artillery fire Saturday and early Sunday, according to Tamil Tiger reports that quote medical workers in the NE Sri Lanka conflict zone. The government has denied shelling the designated safe area. Independent confirmation is impossible because Western news agencies are not allowed access.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Fuel consumption by cars on Swiss roads fell by 3.9 percent in 2008 compared to 2007, to 7.14liters/100km on average, but the it was still short of the consumption target of 6.4l/100km by the end of 2008. A voluntary agreement between the Federal Department of the Environment, Transport, Energy and Communication (Detec), signed with car importers in 2002, set the target. Detec released the figures Thursday 7 May.
Russian government officials revoked the diplomatic accreditation of two Canadian diplomats working in Nato’s Moscow office. This action was in response to the dismissal of two Russian envoys working in Nato’s headquarters in Brussels. The diplomatic quarrel stems from Nato’s military exercises in Georgia that the Russians see as a provocation, according to a BBC report.
Social networks such as Facebook could face government requirements to keep data on users, although not conversations, but the proposal is being booed by civil liberties groups who call it snooping. The government argues it need the information to fight crime and terrorism. BBC
A UN body has ruled that the detention of Myanmar democracy activist Aung San Suu Kyi is illegal under Burmese domestic law. Suu Kyi has spent more than 13 years confined by house arrest under orders from the government.
The decision Monday 23 March marks the fifth time that Suu Kyi’s confinement has been declared arbitrary and illegal under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The ruling stated that Suu Kyi be released immediately and without condition from her continued house arrest. Reuters, BBC
Madagascar army troops took over presidential offices in Antananarivo, the capital, at 18:00 local time 16 March, under orders from the country’s opposition leader Andry Rajoelina. President Marc Ravalomanana offered to test support for the government through a referendum, but he was refused. The president was not in the palace at the time of the attack. According to the UK’s Guardian, he is reported to be in another palace on the island. CNN, AllAfrica
Royal Bank of Scotland has posted a 2008 loss of £8.13bn, a record for a UK bank, and says the government has agreed to give it a capital injection of £25.5bn. The government now owns 70% of the bank, says the Financial Times.
