Clinton, Ban Ki-Moon To Check On Bangkok Floods

[Lite Beer]

Clinton, Ban Ki-Moon to check on Bangkok floods

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will visit Bangkok next week to assess the flood crisis, Thailand's prime minister said Saturday.

Yingluck Shinawatra said the diplomats would visit November 16-17 to discuss the crisis and the government’s rehabilitation plans.

The premier cancelled her appearance at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit this week in Hawaii to handle the ongoing disaster that still threatens parts of Bangkok.

This year’s unusually heavy monsoon rains caused dam reservoirs and rivers to overflow, triggering the worst floods in the central plains in decades, claiming 533 lives and causing billions of dollars in damage over the past three months.

Yingluck, a 44-year-old political novice who won the July 3 election on the popularity of her brother - fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra - has been criticised for her government’s management of the disaster, misinformation and inadequate relief.

Opposition leader Abhisit Vejjajiva on Saturday used a no-confidence debate in parliament to call for caution in the government’s grand rehabilitation schemes, which promise to cost billions of dollars and be prone to corruption.

"The government shouldn’t be dreaming about the future," he said. "The priority should be to help people who are still suffering now."

But he refused to join critics calling for Yingluck to step down.

"This is not the time for discussing the prime minister’s resignation. This is the time for everyone to help the country move forward," said Abhisit, who leads the Democrat Party.

Bangkok authorities were still fighting the floods on Saturday, with reports that the Chao Phraya River, which is at peak high tide, had spilled into sections of the main port.

Inner Bangkok has stayed largely dry throughout the crisis, but an estimated 4 billion cubic metres of water still needs to make its way to the sea, 30 kilometres south of the city, in the coming weeks.

Flooding has reportedly begun to recede in the capital’s 11 northern districts.

Outlying districts in the western and eastern suburbs, where the government has diverted the runoff to keep it from the inner city, are expected to suffer flooding for up to six weeks.

Flood waters being diverted to western Bangkok en route to the sea will soon inundate the Rama II highway, the main logistics link to the southern provinces, Royal Irrigation Department spokesman Manas Kamnerdmanee told Thai TV.

City officials said 32 of the capital’s 50 districts have suffered some level of flooding over the past month, with 12 districts still reporting water 80 centimetres deep at the weekend

-- The Nation 2011-11-13

[bendejo]

Bill: I'm coming with you to Bangkok.

Hillary: Absolutely not!

[MEL1]

Bill: I'm coming with you to Bangkok.

Hillary: Absolutely not!

Bill: Hillary, have you found any 'bent' holes in PM Yingluck yet?

Hillary: You're not using that bent contact to make any more stains!

[Jingthing]

Bill's a vegan now and has also quit cigars.

[bendejo]

From the book "Game Change" by Heilemann and Halperin:

Since his departure from the White House, Bill Clinton had not

exactly erred on the side of caution when it came to his personal

comportment. Within days of settling into the Clintons’ new house

in Chappaqua in 2001, he could be found at Lange’s deli, chatting

up the stay-at-home mothers who trundled in after yoga, startling

his aides that he already knew all the women by name. He

gallivanted around the world with his business partner Ron Burkle,

the supermarket magnate and notorious playboy, whose custom-

converted Boeing 757 was referred to by Burkle’s young aides as

“Air <deleted> One.”