Thailand Readies Itself To Host The 14th ASEAN Summit

[Virin]

they VOTED FOR Abhisit and a new coalition.

That is why I said Abhisit is so proud to get the PM chair, not by election but by votes from people changing their mind with the help from someone in the dark that the whole world know who they are.

We voted for PPP/PTP. We didn't vote for Democrat Party.

Democrat'd become the government as they gained the support from the majority of the Parliament (I think this is called Democracy, isn't it?), those members of Parliament have their rights to vote to anyone, same as the time they voted for Thaksin. What went wrong when they voted for Abhisit this time? .

When people voted for PPP, did they know they would have Samak or Somchai or Abhisit as their PM?

Please enlighten me 'who' is someone in the dark that the whole world know who they are.

You haven't answered my questions, please do.

You declared yourself as a red-shirt, Thaksin supporter, and condemn your current PM 'He himself did not win an election', how did Thaksin become PM? didn't he gain the majority of members of Parliament? any difference when Abhisit'd become PM?

Hope you will learn some from several posts that try to explain to you how Parliament system works.

[Koo82]

Could you get back to us please when you have a photo of her waving a red foot clapper? Thank you.

She might not wave but I did

Thank you for viewing my photos.

[Koo82]

Democrat'd become the government as they gained the support from the majority of the Parliament (I think this is called Democracy, isn't it?), those members of Parliament have their rights to vote to anyone, same as the time they voted for Thaksin. What went wrong when they voted for Abhisit this time? .

The difference is Abhisit is in the party not having the most votes. Democrat 165 / Peua Thai 180 or something. Forgive my bad memory.

[Koo82]

Does her color of vest say something?

[sriracha john]

Does her color of vest say something?

She's just like the Red Shirts of Thailand, it says...

"Due to my inferiority, I will try and stand out from the crowd. I know everyone else is taller and bigger than me (metaphorically-speaking, in Thailand), but I'm going to over-compensate by being louder (again, metaphorically-speaking, in Thailand) for my own short-comings (not metaphorically-speaking, in Thailand).

[animatic]

Democrat'd become the government as they gained the support from the majority of the Parliament (I think this is called Democracy, isn't it?), those members of Parliament have their rights to vote to anyone, same as the time they voted for Thaksin. What went wrong when they voted for Abhisit this time? .

The difference is Abhisit is in the party not having the most votes. Democrat 165 / Peua Thai 180 or something. Forgive my bad memory.

BUT and a very BIG butt;

It takes 220 votes to form a government.

Puea Thai was NOT ABLE to reach that number.

The Democrats were able to.

Peua Thai lost that coalition forming election.

~The Democrats formed the government of Thailand for 2009.

~The whole of ASEAN is in agreement with that.

No amount of whining will change that FACT.

[Virin]

Koo82

When Thaksin became PM 'he himself did not win election' same as Abhisit, they gained the majority of MPs to become PM. Get over it.

How about other questions????? You haven't answered 'who' is someone in the dark that the whole world know who they are.

The last day of ASEAN Summit, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi told the press that he praised Thai PM Abhisit for the success of this ASEAN Summit and as the role of ASEAN Chairman in conducting the summit very well even though he's become PM less than 3 months, he personally admired PM Abhisit.

Is it a good news for Thailand? no?

[Koo82]

We discuss about those in the dark everyday here in Thailand. Everybody knows. Why do you ask? People around the world all know. We are now in the @ century. Email, phone, fax, message, chat, face to face. Everybody knows. No one can block us from knowing the truth.

[animatic]

Only yourself can block accepting the truth.

[Journalist]

It doesn't seem to matter what the topic is titled.

Cocktails to Conferences.

By page four every news topic migrates 110% to the subject of the Great Serpent.

[animatic]

It doesn't seem to matter what the topic is titled.

Cocktails to Conferences.

By page four every news topic migrates 110% to the subject of the Great Serpent.

Almost becoming an monotheism.

[samgrowth]

Koo82

When Thaksin became PM 'he himself did not win election' same as Abhisit, they gained the majority of MPs to become PM. Get over it.

How about other questions????? You haven't answered 'who' is someone in the dark that the whole world know who they are.

The last day of ASEAN Summit, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi told the press that he praised Thai PM Abhisit for the success of this ASEAN Summit and as the role of ASEAN Chairman in conducting the summit very well even though he's become PM less than 3 months, he personally admired PM Abhisit.

Is it a good news for Thailand? no?

In case you do not know, Abdullah Badawi is the most unpopular Prime Minister in Malaysian history.

[Journalist]

Does her color of vest say something?

She was wearing this jacket when I saw her recently in Hong Kong. Its quite smart and suits her. She was sitting next to Bill Clinton, her former university classmate. He made the point that today she looks a lot better than he does, and he was right.

[Virin]

Koo82

When Thaksin became PM 'he himself did not win election' same as Abhisit, they gained the majority of MPs to become PM. Get over it.

How about other questions????? You haven't answered 'who' is someone in the dark that the whole world know who they are.

The last day of ASEAN Summit, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi told the press that he praised Thai PM Abhisit for the success of this ASEAN Summit and as the role of ASEAN Chairman in conducting the summit very well even though he's become PM less than 3 months, he personally admired PM Abhisit.

Is it a good news for Thailand? no?

In case you do not know, Abdullah Badawi is the most unpopular Prime Minister in Malaysian history.

What is the logic of your statement? everything he says is unbelievable?

[Virin]

We discuss about those in the dark everyday here in Thailand. Everybody knows. Why do you ask? People around the world all know. We are now in the @ century. Email, phone, fax, message, chat, face to face. Everybody knows. No one can block us from knowing the truth.

There are truths and lies but some people have closed their minds and chosen to know only what they want to hear, propaganda and for serving their intentions .

[animatic]

Some go groping in the dark for validation of their preconceived ideas,

and eventually find kindred spirits, and cleave to each other whole heartedly

in their syncronized myopia. That doesn't make their points of view correct

or even partly truthful.

It just means they are supporting each others narrowed misconceptions.

[BigSnake]

Hopefully with all the Planning and a little LUCK things will run as SMOOTH as Silk.

[ballpoint]

Koo82

When Thaksin became PM 'he himself did not win election' same as Abhisit, they gained the majority of MPs to become PM. Get over it.

How about other questions????? You haven't answered 'who' is someone in the dark that the whole world know who they are.

The last day of ASEAN Summit, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi told the press that he praised Thai PM Abhisit for the success of this ASEAN Summit and as the role of ASEAN Chairman in conducting the summit very well even though he's become PM less than 3 months, he personally admired PM Abhisit.

Is it a good news for Thailand? no?

In case you do not know, Abdullah Badawi is the most unpopular Prime Minister in Malaysian history.

What is the logic of your statement? everything he says is unbelievable?

Yeah, I'm sure he's unpopular in Malaysia because he admires Abhisit. Considering they've only ever had 5 PM's the odds against being the most unpopular aren't too high. Not that it has anything at all to do with this though.

[Farma]

ASEAN to be held at luxury beach resort

From correspondents in Bangkok

March 12, 2009 02:50pm

THAILAND has again switched the venue of a long-delayed meeting of Southeast Asian leaders and key regional counterparts, saying it would now be held in the beach resort of Pattaya.

The change comes just a week after the southern tourist isle of Phuket was named to host the April 10-12 summit of Association of Southeast Asian Nations leaders plus China, South Korea, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and India.

Con't http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0...5003402,00.html

[hammered]

Koo82

When Thaksin became PM 'he himself did not win election' same as Abhisit, they gained the majority of MPs to become PM. Get over it.

How about other questions????? You haven't answered 'who' is someone in the dark that the whole world know who they are.

The last day of ASEAN Summit, Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi told the press that he praised Thai PM Abhisit for the success of this ASEAN Summit and as the role of ASEAN Chairman in conducting the summit very well even though he's become PM less than 3 months, he personally admired PM Abhisit.

Is it a good news for Thailand? no?

In case you do not know, Abdullah Badawi is the most unpopular Prime Minister in Malaysian history.

What is the logic of your statement? everything he says is unbelievable?

Yeah, I'm sure he's unpopular in Malaysia because he admires Abhisit. Considering they've only ever had 5 PM's the odds against being the most unpopular aren't too high. Not that it has anything at all to do with this though.

And didnt Thaksin want Bush to pat him on the head and say nice things about him when Bush was the most hated man in the universe. It really isnt about how popular the leader who says nice things about you is. It is about the leader of a country has said nice things about you.

[Koo82]

They came home after protesting in front of Government House for 3 days. If the yellows were there, no way they would stop and the ASEAN Summit would have been postponed again.

Edited March 13, 2009 by Koo82

[animatic]

Checks in the mail,

gotta go home to see if it's there.

[Jai Dee]

Special Report: Road Map for ASEAN Community

At the 14th ASEAN Summit, ASEAN Heads of State and Government signed Cha-am Hua Hin Declaration on the Roadmap for an ASEAN Community (2009-2015). The declaration consists of three pillars namely Political-Security Community, Economic Community and Socio-Cultural Community. The three communities support and related closely with each other in order to create peace, stability and prosperity in the region.

Moreover, the Summit has delegated ASEAN Ministers and Secretary-General to seek ways and long-term strategies to drive resources from state members, dialogue partners, sectoral dialogue partners, ASEAN development partners to other countries outside ASEAN. Therefore, the declaration will be effective, timely and sustainable.

Direction towards ASEAN Community

One of the ways to strengthen ties between ASEAN nations is to create the ASEAN Community. A notable example is seen in Europe, which nowadays has become less nationalistic but more regionalized, or so-called the European Union (EU). However, prior to the present existence, EU member countries had been through many impeding situations leading to disputes and even wars, including the First and the Second World War. These conflicts were the results of various factors such as alienation, suspicion, nationalism, etc. and they were not different at all for many regions in the world.

Yet, after the Cold War, European countries had a measure to build trustworthiness in each other and therefore were able to overcome the obstacles. Eventually, they could form a union, which has strong economy, security and society while welfare of member countries’ citizen is good in every aspect.

Advantages of being a Community

Being an ASEAN Community is advantageous since it can lead to international collaborations in mitigating and preventing problems as follows.

Terrorism:

In the present days, ASEAN member countries cannot deny that the region is not a target for terrorism. After the ‘9/11 Incident’ at the World Trade Centre of the US on 11 September 2004, what followed were the Bali bomb blast and another explosion at Marriott Hotel in Jakarta of Indonesia. If another incident is about to happen in this region again, how can ASEAN members handle it?

Migrant workers:

There are some problems related to migrant workers such as the illegal Rohingya migrants which have tarnished Thailand’s image regarding the human rights issue. This problem should be the problem of all ASEAN member countries in order to cooperate and solve the migration as stated in the ASEAN law.

Transnational Crime:

This is another inevitable problem of ASEAN since crimes committed in the present days are transnational with networks over countries like ‘Luk Mu - Piglets Gang’ from China, ‘Luk Phae - Goat Kids Gang' from South Asia, for example.

Energy Problem within ASEAN:

Fortunately, the fuel price had fallen down in the end of last year (2008); however, it does not mean that the price of gasoline will always remain low. This issue is unpredictable and requires thorough planning among ASEAN nations to prevent any possible long-term effects too.

Clashes among ASEAN nations:

There are certain conflicts among ASEAN member nations such as Preah Vihear disputes and Timor-Leste (East Timor) issue. These troubles still have no clear solutions and are fragile to the nationalism feelings. Therefore, what will ASEAN do to alleviate such tribulations?

These are new problems and new challenges for ASEAN member countries to consider and overcome the uncertainty to seek for trustworthiness. How can we create new perspectives for ASEAN nations to have serious cooperation, make a step over nationalism and become a Community? These are the lessons that must be learned if ASEAN still want to build a Community like the European Union in the present day!

Source: National News Bureau of Thailand - 23 March 2009

[Jai Dee]

Special Report: Disaster Management

The increase in the frequency and severity of disaster is one of the points of discussion raised at the 14th ASEAN Summit since the problem has become more and more pressing each day. Therefore, the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response was originated, demanding schedules of annual disaster emergency response exercise, and ASEAN nations have been joining hands in responding to disasters at a certain level.

Previously, the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, the Interior Ministry of Thailand has been delegated to host the 4th ASEAN Regional Disaster Emergency Simulation Exercise (ARDEX) during 23-29 August 2008.

The exercise was the collaboration among disaster prevention agencies from all ASEAN member countries, namely Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and other agencies under the United Nations (UN) and international organizations. The aim of the exercise is to integrate collaborations among ASEAN member countries from evaluation, revision, disaster mitigation preparation to mechanism development in disaster management and counter actions against emergencies in ASEAN region.

However, the exercise this time was different from others. The exercise was evaluated and lessons were summarized for countries in the ASEAN region to study and share experiences in managing and countering emergencies. This could help ASEAN nations in formulating solutions effectively by using the problems and impediments from the exercise.

The summary of the 14th ASEAN Summit’s outcome by the National News Bureau of Thailand on disaster management is as follows.

ASEAN member countries lauded the success of the mechanism that ASEAN had in leading the aid for Cyclone Nargis victims as well as the promise to help supporting Myanmar in the rehabilitation of the disaster area, especially with the launch of rehabilitation and preparation plans after the Cyclone Nargis. ASEAN members also appreciated the agreement of the ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ meeting to extend the period of operation of the Tripartite Core Group (TCG) until July 2010 in order to enhance the disaster mitigation capability as well as to develop the integrated mechanism in the handling of other disasters in the future. In addition, ASEAN member countries also acknowledged Thailand’s proposal to organise trainings and enhance the disaster management capability by Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre (ADPC).

ASEAN nations also agreed on delegating the Secretary General of ASEAN to cooperate with ASEAN humanity issues immediately upon the request of any ASEAN nations facing disasters either natural calamity or epidemics.

At the same time, requests from citizen sector, according to the seminar/workshop on disaster management organized by the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University on 21 February 2009, have shown very interesting viewpoints. It was reflected that when disaster problems arise, governmental agencies, regardless of countries in the region, would solve problems from the rear end instead of preparing measures ahead. Also, these agencies are found to ignore the importance of disaster management and suggestions from personnel or countries with real experiences in facing with the problems on how to deal and manage disasters. The seminar/workshop viewed that the authority to mandate the issue was still centralized with the Government or governmental agencies only, which was considered very dangerous for the people since public safety could not be guaranteed.

However, from experiences in disaster management in the ASEAN region from the Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar, Tsunami in Thailand or even the coastal subsidence and storm surge in Vietnam, ASEAN has played roles as the leader to hand out aid at a very satisfactory level. This is a positive sign to prove with all sectors that ASEAN is not just a paper tiger in the handling of crises that are lined up on the attack of the region in the future!

Source: National News Bureau of Thailand - 23 March 2009

[Jai Dee]

Special Reports: Food and Energy Security

The agenda of Food and Energy Security is one of the main topics included in Cha Um- Hua Hin Declaration on the Roadmap for ASEAN Community for 2009-2015. Although the food and energy issues are not one of the major problems facing the ASEAN region since most of ASEAN countries are agriculture-based and can produce sufficient amounts of food to feed their populations as well as to contribute the rest to other parts of the world. But if ASEAN community is not prepared and does not have any measures for the possible food and energy crisis, this can inevitably impact ASEAN countries in the future.

In the past, ASEAN countries have not been very cooperative in food productions and distributions, thereby, this has hugely impacted price stability since buyers tend to have more bargaining power and the pricing system has been dominated by buyers rather than producers in the world market. As a result, it is essential that ASEAN countries need to be cooperative in jointly developing agricultural production process to achieve internationally-accepted standards. Such improvement in the production standards will certainly increase the bargaining power of ASEAN countries as food producers.

Realizing the importance of measures needed to prepare and deal with such issues, ASEAN countries have jointly assigned the food security integration policy plan and the food security strategy plan for ASEAN in order to achieve the following goals; to increase food product outputs, to reduce the post-harvest production loss, to promote channeling of agricultural products and production inputs to the right markets, to create confidence of food stability, and to have effective food management in case of emergency. Following the 14th ASEAN Summit held in Thailand this year (2009) the following topics were mentioned and included in the ASEAN Charter:

1) Measures designed to deal with and tackle the unpredictable climate change problem with a close cooperation between ASEAN countries and other partnering countries so that the climate change meeting held in Copenhagen would yield substantial results.

2) Solutions to Food and Energy Security problem in all aspects including production and distribution sectors by providing sufficient natural resources and technology to help increase food product outputs. The solutions have to employ appropriate market mechanism in order to avoid market distortion and to build confidence of the food security during any crises. In response to these, the ASEAN Summit has decided to set up a Rice Emergency Reserve Schemes for ASEAN countries + 3 as a temporary mechanism for the regions to deal with food and energy crises in the future.

3) More cooperation in energy matter in ASEAN will be emphasized. Due to the variety of natural resources, the development and conservation of such resources will be achieved through the efficient uses of resources and to widely apply environment-friendly technology throughout the region.

4) The essentiality of firm cooperation in alternative energy and renewable energy as well as bio fuel development will be more focused among ASEAN countries. The use of renewable energy together with other alternative sources of energy will be more promoted by requesting ASEAN Energy Ministers to jointly determine the quantity target of alternative energy together with other forms of energy within the next 5 years. Furthermore, the ASEAN region will be developed into a research and development center for alternative energy.

The agendas of food and energy are two of other concerns that the whole world has been currently paying the most attention to. Therefore, if ASEAN countries are successful in the preparation and with strong cooperation in tackling these two matters, such success will become one of ASEAN community’s strengths. Following the success, more plans can be appropriately laid out to be in accordance with the consumption demand of the world populations.

Source: National News Bureau of Thailand - 23 March 2009