wrecker

so... this means they're going to close the entire city????

Not even PAD could do that!!!

In the real world... ya... right.... special committee...

Yes not only closing the entire city, but we are also helped by the fact that ALL Bangkok Policemen and all people responsible in the fire department and all city councillors as well as most judges who have given temporary permits will be prosecuted and end up behind bars. Unless.... This is just another political ploy to please voters and mislead them and foreigners reporting about it.

The chap who came up with this plan must have really using too much prozac.

Well he looks every inch a capable man does "Mark"

Lets hope that this is the begining of a great new political dawn in LOS.

I wish him good luck.....he is sure to need it

He does, but unfortunately he is an elitist who have never even bothered to have a look in a rice paddy. A man also who was undermined by Sanan two years ago and now depends on the very same kingmaker to survive as PM. On to of that the biggest political crooks Newin and Suthep bothe corrupted till the bone will influence him. If he is lucky he will stay in power for 6 months.

The pressure should be very public. Name and shame the lawmakers who change sides. It is very easy a democracy means that money will shift from the haves to the voters, that is happening all around the world. The bizar idea that unity must be preserved i order to satisfy a clique of people who have taken for hundred and fifty years and never given anything is ridiculous. Of course the elite should be worried. People who do not need to worry about healthcare, whose children can get to school and get an college education and who get a decent minimum wage will come out to vote. They will no longer take the shit from the clique anymore. That is a good thing and that is the way Western countries went 60 years ago. Thailand is just a little behind and the elite is just a little bit too spoiled here. ONE MAN ONE VOTE! That is the way to go.

Thai courts and Thai laws are useless. IF Israel meets out a collective punishment (The judge said even though many of the executives had no knowledge we have to punish them) the world was too small. If the elite appoints there kangaroo judges it is fine. The Thai courts should at least be so smart to act just as quickly without wanting to hear evidence of the accused against the PAD. Unfortunately the courts have many many months to make arrests even while they are in contempt of court. I suppose there is no other option for the reds than to march on the airport and even if it costs many lives to disperse the thugs over there. Napoleon's army is unable to act or unwilling, after all they have more generals than soldiers and the soldiers who used to shoot come from Izan and other rural areas that poses a problem because they too are angry.

PLEASE DOUBLE CHECK YOUR STORIES!!!!! DO NOT SET UP PEOPLE AGAINST EACH OTHER!

Obviously a ply as the protestleader on TV did not knew about anything. It is called MISINFORMATION and brought into the world to ask supporters to come and help them out.

The nations says this:

A protester leader dismissed a report by manager online that police fired at protesters.

deleted

This should do it ... if the military prevents this clash between the PPP/Government/Thaksin forces and the PAD (with many middle aged women and some kids) camped out at the airport then THIS gov't can never function here.

If the PPP/Government/Thaksin forces are allowed to attack the people camped out at the airports and ANY deaths occur I don't see the coalition government holding together and poof .... new elections with blood on the hands of the PPP.

Then there is the chance that the military just says "Time to go folks, we'll take care of running the country until we can have new elections again"

There seems to be nigh onto 0% chance that the PPP/Thaksin gov't can survive this.

Yeah right, irresponsible people taking children to a demonstration Saddam Hussein would have done the same! Bring on the snipers. These criminals have caused damage enough. We have to make an omelette right now, and we have to break a few eggs. starting with the leaders of the PAD

They should immediately cancel the pension of this chap. HE is co responsible for what is going on, he is a PAD supporter, Both he and Prem should be brought to trial. If Thaksin gets a prison term, Chamlong and Sondhi and the mountain goat impersonator should be given the bullet. Especially given the fact that they demand sympathy from everybody and cause sorrow for hundreds of thousands of people. Sick, dying, children, elderly travellers. And if this work, the UDD should apply the very sam tactic to any new government that is formed. Unfortunately in this backward country, the leaders are all in their late 70's and 80's. They live a life from back in the 70's. People who are over 70 should resign and ask younger people to rule. We need an kind of Obama here, a young guy who lives now and not in the past. What the PAD is doing is nothing less than trying to keep the clock from going forward. they have had a cozy live in which they could misuse the boys as virtual slaves in their factories, the girls as entertainers from the worst kind, and they held the elderly hostage by denying them healthcare and schooling for their children and grandchildren. Take all the money that these people hold, and confiscate it, they have caused considerable more damage to Thailand than Thaksin could do in 7 lives.

Where is the police how cme the generals are not purged? Where are the sharpshooters who take out all armed civilians disobeying orders to disperse? Where are the courts that jumped over Thaksin and his cronies whenever they could and that are held in contempt by the PAD over and over. Thaksin has a case, the system is rotten, the elite is rotten, the generals are rotten. If anyone give the PAD what they want you better emigrate to Zimbabwe Mugabe is more decent than Sondhi and Chamlong.

Interesting that the PM (& Defence minister) seems unable to call for military flights to move himself & the cabinet around

This is interesting: the Bangkokpost is now directly attacking the powerful people (we all know who) in an editorial:

By physically shutting down Suvarnabhumi airport, the People's Alliance for Democracy has upped the stakes in Thailand's ongoing political polarisation. It has demonstrated the extent to which it will resort to mob violence to achieve its aims. ANALYSIS By Thitinan Pongsudhirak

The PAD is bent on creating the conditions of ungovernability and then to demand the ouster of Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat on grounds that Thailand is ungovernable.

Its tactics have warped into a blatant street campaign of intimidation and fear, of coercion and force.

That the PAD has come this far in its thuggish ways is attributable to its powerful backing, without which its relative impunity in the face of flagrant violations of the law can hardly be explained.

see full article: www.bangkokpost.com/topstories/topstories.php?id=132325

I understand your frustrations, but is this outbreak of civil disobedience, a good or a bad thing for Thailand, most importantly, has the immenent arrival of ex PM Thaksin in Thailand prompted this escalation of violence......????

great point, without emperor taksin no problems. He is the cause of all this shit.

Koos de Boer has very little knowledge about the background, it is not Thaksin, it is a handful of people who refuses to form a political party knowing that they will get no support from the majority. You must be enormous frustrated to see that your friends of the PAD simply want to push their agenda. It is in a matter of fact all to blame on Sondhi the man who has billions in baht in unpaid debt and in assets frozen by asset management companies. He asked his than friend Thaksin to help him get his assets back (screw the taxpayer) when Thaksin refused he became personal. Let Sondhi pay his debt, sue him for the remainder of the money that he has left for causing the country enormous damage. Luckily mister de Boer is a minority. Look at the comments in the Bangkokpost. Just one out of every 50 posts is supportive of the PAD nowadays.

No one is operating international flight, not FEDEX not anyone. We are besieged by national terrorists, a group of people who wipe their asses with court orders. One law for you and me and one for the PAD. If there are still dummies left who believe that the PAD has something to offer to Thailand they are just as brain dead as the PAD itself. There offer of negotiations when the government has stepped down is deceptive. As soon as they smell that one of their demands is met, they will stay on till the entire electoral system has ben changed. And than the masses have to march on Bangkok in the millions and need to mount a revolution. It is that simple. We are talking terrorists overhere.

The owner os the company (the father) might be one of the four men! So they drugged the tourists, but the police is refusing to figure that out because it would be a even greater embarrassment to Thailand, they get compensated for half, which her father will do and the money transfer will never arrive.

part of comment deleted - mig16

There is nothing wrong with hurdling a bomb into a crowd in Thailand. The PAD does it all the time, they even have armed guards who are allowed to shoot policemen who are refused helpo by Chulalongkorn hospital aftwerwards for doing their duty. Most marketplaces are led by outright criminals murder, bombings and extortion are rather common. Both here as over the border. The problem is that most standup guys in unifrom are criminals. That is why they can drive a 7 million baht Benz with a petrol bill which is higher than their monthly salary. The problem is that criminality by the elite is tolerated in Thailand, even admired. Only the poor get locked up.

Sadly enough we will have to face much larger scale bombings later. Probably again carried out by the PAD to discredit Thaksin around New Year.

I have tried them all and I live upcountry:

Leaseline TOT (guaranteed speed! My ass) 2 MB/2MB line, price 35,000 baht a month:

actual speed 1.8MB down, just 300KB up!

I have also an IPSTAR line from TOT down 2MB up 2MB price 8900 Bht a month, actual speed: in Thailand 2MB down, but just 10% of the 2MB upstream. My old IPSTAR from CSLOX was giving me really almost 100%.

I have also two ADSL: 1 2Mb/512KB which gives me on average 1.4MB /200KB except on Sunday evenings than you can drink coffee make a dinner and than you will figure out that it still hasn't downloaded anything.

and

1 SME ADSL from TOT 4mb/512Kb price 7600 Bht. Same problem.

And last but not least:

2 CDMA, and the CDMA is momentarily the fastest. Never a problem 3.1 down/2Mb up and it gives 75%

As I am sick and tired of TOT, I have asked CAT for a leasline, so I van throw out at least the IPstar and the leaseline from the TOT.

THe CAT makes a deal with you they go for a 2MB lease up and down as low as 15,000 Baht.

Best of all they deliver straight to your home fiber optic instead of the copperline (also with lease) from the TOT.

I depend heavily on the net with my people and thus it must simply work regardless of price. It seems that TOT has a huge problem with the international gateway.

I haven't figured out what went wrong with my IPSTAR though. I am using it for 7 years first on thaicom 1 and 2 and later on the dedicated satellite. Both from Shin and TOT. Till a month it go even TOT worked fine, than an Einstein like technician came in, cut off my cables in the middle of my office, realizing that they were fitted in the cement, and than replaced them with thicker cables. Since than I have nothing but trouble. Inside Thailand it is so so, outside it is disaster.

Actually guards form the Plebs Against democracy were arrested with bombs. I suppose PAD have shown that they do not care about democracy and people and they will do anything to get the army involvced. It is a public secret that the PAD wqas also behind the new year bombings a while ago. I suppose it is tough for grown ups in yellow to admit that they have no right to exist. They should form a political party so they can be elected. But I suppose Chamlonmg knows how it feels to get wiped off the map with a party in bangkok and nationwide..

And yes they were about to disrupt the funeral, that is why the former Commander in Chief threatened them last week. (just in case you missed it)

Looking at the main export products of Thailand, they would have been quite immune to the downturn. Thailand exports mostly food and food related products. However due to the Protestors Against Democracy, a significant number of tourist will stay away on top of the people who would like to come but who are bitten by the crisis. Foreign Companies have scaled down, will withdraw or will amend plans to invest in Thailand. They would have done so anyhow because of the credit crisis but because of the erratic behavior of Bangkok's finest protestors and their backers they probably go for the neighboring countries. Add the boys and girls from the rural parts who were kept in school by the ten thousand baht a year program from Thaksin ( Chamlong claims that using lottery proceedings for education are immoral but has no problem with the fact that the stand-up backers in brown take care of the lottery money nowadays) and you need to find new jobs already for close to 300,000 more people. THAT is what really hurts.

Unfortunately it is a taboo to talk about PAD here....

There is NOTHING to configure. Just go to "system preferences", go to Network, chose CMOTECH Techonlogies (you will see it as soon as your modem has been plugged in once). Than add the telephone number #777, account name: [email protected] password:

cdmacat

and click apply.

Than you click on the "advanced tap" and you chose for "Franklin" enable the error correction compression in modem and chose Ignore dial tone.

Click apply and you are done for the CDU 550.

For the 680 you simply download the modemdriver for MAC OS X from the CAT site. That is all.

For your convenience hit the box "show modem status in menu bar"

From your menu bar you can dial your modem. Disable the airport, otherwise it will interfere with the CMOTECH modem and it will keep on disconnecting.

No need to do anything more, it works like a breeze on both modems. The 680 is of course nicer as it has a 3.1 download and a 2.2 upload speed. In practice it is around 2 MB down and 1.2 MB up. the 550 gives you around 1.2-1.4 down and 800 KBS up. Do not believe the advertised speeds. But it is still much better than EDGE or the fake 3G from AIS in CM.

One problem, CAT and Hutch are incompetent when it comes to roaming. You can't use the CAT modem in bangkok or at the Eastern Seaboard. It all ends in Ayyuthaya, but works fine in the North, and the North East.

Cheaper than ADSL and much more reliable than IP star (if you buy it from TOT).

Let me guess: The British are too uneducated too, so PAD wants to blackmail them and their voters too. Maybe the PAD should take over the British embassy take hostages and demand an overhaul of the one man one vote system.

It is about time that the full force of the government came down on PAD.

I like some comments on IPSTAR from those people who have it here in Thailand.

It apparently works fine for a VERY few customers. As for myself, I don't even like to think about it. I suffered with that pathetic rip off service for four years. When I found out I had EDGE in my area I canceled the Shitstar.

EDGE through my cell phone is not that great but it is better than Shitstar EVER was.

What a bullocks. IP STAR works fine, the problems are caused by TOT engineers who do not know a shit. If you get it from SHIN it is more expensive but works without a glitch. If you are lucky enough to have a good TOT engineer it works fine too. Edge from AIS is rubbish, from DTAC acceptable but is soooooooo slow. Than you better use CDMA from CAT or so. Never mind it is obviously you do not have a clue.

Interesting story, while the PAD is melting down Thailand to such an extent that no freedom and no wealth is left (Except for their Chinese friends of course).

Thailand's economy will be virtually wiped out if 2% of the population will continue (with support of the highest people) to hold the country randsom. Therefore the comments are misplaced and thus absurd, Thailand will not escape a meltdown, the new tourist figures will speak for itself. The new investment figures will tell all of the story. Banks cannot even find customers for their credit nowadays that is even worse.

The only surprise is that PAD must be very worried. If you get convicted with a 5 to 4 margin, it means that the highest people in this country were not be able to intimidate 4 very import judges. Given the fact that the plot of land is not seized that he was not convicted for misuse of power, there is hope that he will be able to keep a substantial part of his money. And with money dear people he would be able to retake what is rightfully his. Power.

Astonishing statement. I would imagine it will steel his resolve even further and no doubt inflame the ire of the PAD.

Let's get serious. Neither the PAD nor the army or even anyone else, even though they show bias towards PAD should not be feared. It is the PEOPLE who decide. they went to a polling booth. What is the sense of having a democracy when a handful of anti democratic elements united in PAD will dictate what must happen.

Arnand is right of course, but in order for Thaksin to do something he probably wants to have something in return. let;s say the same thing as the people who placed a bomb under a car, or the people who shot on policemen seem to get. Immunity from prosecution. In any society there are double standards, but in Thailand they are so obvious and shameless that there is not one reason for government supporters not to take on the PAD far harsher than they did before. It is for me shocking that an army general thinks that an elected government should go. In any non banana republic, the army general would have found himself without work after such an interview. But we can make an estimated guess when this turmoil might be over. Most PAD leaders are in their 70's, so within ten years the problem has solved itself. In the meantime every day more Izan boys and girls learn to realize that the elite has robbed them and their parents from a decent live over the last 100 years, and thus the voice of the rural poor will grow stronger and stronger till they will really take over the country, just as it happened in Europe and the Americas, and just as it will going to happen in South East Asia and the Middle East. Bob Dylan knew already that the times are changing. Now it is time for the men in uniform, being it the army or the police or the doormen in white uniform to come to terms with the new reality. The PAD is just the last spastic moves that a dead dead system is making.

Luckily it is the people who decide. Not the top brass, not the PAD (noticed the lovely report of Human rights watch about the PAD) and it is also not Prem who decide. Any government will be damned by a handful of people. This is a country in which bomb makers and people who shoot cops are protected and an PM must go for making 6500 baht as a guest cook. Maybe it is time to check the tax statements of Sonthi cs.

But never mind, nothing will change in this country till the old power base have literally died out. Thailand is the Congo on the Chaya Praya

But it seems to be false alarm:

The Thai military have withdrawn.

Thailand 'pulls back' from border

Cambodia's military says that Thai troops have pulled back from a disputed border zone after its prime minister issued an ultimatum.

There was no immediate Thai confirmation of the reports which came shortly before the Cambodian deadline was due to expire.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen had warned of a potential "battle zone".

Earlier, Thai Foreign Minister Sompong Amornvivat reportedly said that troops would not leave the area.

Singapore's foreign ministry has reportedly called for both countries to show restraint and "resolve the issue through negotiations without resorting to force".

Tension has been high since July, when hundreds of soldiers on both sides faced off only metres apart.

Temple tensions

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen had given Thailand until noon (0500 GMT) to pull out its troops but did not say what would be the consequences of failing to do so.

Cambodian army commander Brig Gen Yim Pin later said that all Thai troops had retreated and were about 1km (half a mile) from the contested territory.

He told the Associated Press that the "tense situation [had] now eased".

Thailand's foreign minister was quoted by Reuters news agency on Tuesday as telling a reporter in Bangkok: "We are in our homeland - how can they expect us to leave our home?"

The stand-off between the two countries centres on 4.6 sq km (1.8 square miles) of scrub near the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple, which sits on a jungle-clad escarpment dividing the countries.

An international court awarded the temple to Cambodia in 1962, but land surrounding it remains the subject of rival territorial claims.

The decision by the UN in June to list Preah Vihear as a Unesco World Heritage Site reignited lingering nationalist tensions over the issue.

In early July Cambodian troops detained three Thai protesters who had entered the site illegally, sparking the military stand-off.

The two sides have already held several rounds of talks on the issue, but failed to reach agreement.

-- BBC 2008-10-14

If war, however small scale would break out, the burden and responsibility should be solely placed on the PAD. They managed (again) to screw up the livelihood of Sisaket villagers. The International court has spoken a long time ago that the land and temple belongs to Kampuchea. It must worry Chavalit. Chamlong and Prem a lot that the Thai army who is already afraid for a bunch of protestors who prevent the people's representatives from doing their work (something that would qualify in most civilized countries for a very very long prison sentence), will face battle hardened Cambodian soldiers. Even with better weapons Thailand stand to lose a lot. But it all fits perfectly in the jigsaw puzzle. luckily for the Thai people, there are numerous examples worldwide of an elite that is overrun by the masses.