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Obama hits a rough spot Published: 25/11/2009 at 12:00 AM Newspaper section: News President Barack Obama of the United States has hit the one-year political wall hard, and it especially showed during his recent trip to Asia. In the year since Mr Obama was elected, both the excitement of the polls and the expectations have worn off. As with all democratic leaders, election hullabaloo has been replaced by reality. Not all promises can be achieved quickly, or in the way they were presented in a free-wheeling election. In some ways, Mr Obama has been brought down to Earth, and his...

Today, November 24, it is exactly 150 years since Charles Darwin published his On the Origin of Species. The world has been gearing up for this “second echelon” of celebrations for this international “Year of Darwin”, following on from the 200th anniversary of his birth this last February. Atheists and humanist groups in particular have seemed to be relishing the thought of giving further prominence to the ideas of their patron saint. Their adulation is heightened by their knowledge that...

MOBILE, Ala. -- Two men who admitted taking trips to Thailand for sex with young boys face 6½-year prison terms, but could trim the time by testifying against the alleged organizer of the encounters. Burgess Lee Burgess of Mobile and Mitchell Kent Jackson of Pensacola pleaded guilty in November 2008 to traveling to have sex with a minor and conspiracy to do so. The two men once lived together in Mobile.

SNIPPET: "SUSPECTED Islamic insurgents shot and killed two people and wounded three others in a bomb blast in Thailand's troubled Muslim-majority south, police said. Gunmen broke into a house in Yala province and shot dead a 16-year-old Buddhist girl, also wounding her 29-year-old husband, they said.... More than 3900 people have died in shootings, bomb blasts, beheadings and crucifixions since a separatist insurgency erupted in Thailand's southern provinces bordering Malaysia in January 2004."

A Toronto man who contracted HIV from his former stripper wife is hoping he's alive to see her get deported to Thailand. Whiteman and his lawyer appeared before a Federal Court of Canada last Thursday in an ongoing battle with immigration officials to get Iamkhong deported due to her criminal record. He has launched a $30-million lawsuit against the Canada Border Services Agency and Zanzibar Strip Club in Toronto in connection with the case. He claims Iamkhong, 40, a former stripper at the Zanzibar, was allowed into the country with HIV and that led to his life being placed in...

Why does my computer not let me log on to Facebook? This drives me insance. I have it as a trusted site, it still blocks it and re-directs me. Any clues?

Museum officials in Thailand have covered a billboard depicting Adolf Hitler saluting after complaints from the German and Israeli embassies. The advertisement, which reads in Thai, "Hitler is not dead," was set up on a main road out of Bangkok two weeks ago. The billboard was covered up after the museum received "a lot" of complaints, director Somporn Naksuetrong said. The series of highway advertisements featuring famous dead people promote Louis Tussaud's Waxworks in Pattaya. "We weren't showing his image to celebrate him," Mr Naksuetrong told AFP. "We think he is an important historical figure, but in a horrible way....

Just had a sudden sharp quake here

Frédéric Mitterrand, France’s culture minister, was under pressure to resign after it emerged that he had admitted to paying “young boys” for sexual acts while on holiday in Thailand. The revelations in his 2005 autobiography “The Bad Life” have come back to haunt Mr Mitterrand after he emerged as one of the most vociferous defenders of Roman Polanski, the film director currently detained in Switzerland in connection with an outstanding conviction for unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old girl in the US in 1977. In his book, Mr Mitterrand, the nephew of the late Socialist president François Mitterrand, wrote: “I...

A British daredevil's vacation bungee jump went horribly wrong when his cord came loose and he hit the water at 80 miles an hour — but miraculously, he survived. Rishi Baveja, 21, told "FOX & Friends" Wednesday that he didn't even know the rope around his ankles had slipped off during his videotaped 165-foot leap in Thailand until the very end. "I didn't know anything was wrong until I hit the water," he said by phone from his home in the U.K.

BANGKOK, Oct 5 (Reuters) - Hundreds of striking workers forced U.S. auto maker General Motors Co [GM.UL] to shut its Thai assembly plant on Monday, company and union officials said, raising the stakes in a pay dispute with management. About 200 of 800 unionized workers at the plant in southeast Rayong province joined the strike, a GM spokeswoman said. The rest were asked to take paid holidays pending negotiations with union leaders, she added. But GM union leader Suriya Pochairuak put the number of striking workers at about 700. The GM plant, which has about 1,700 employees on its payroll,...

A boy with no official nationality who lives in Thailand captured third place in a Japanese paper aeroplane contest on Sunday after his tearful pleas to be allowed to attend prompted authorities to grant him a rare temporary passport for the event. Mong Thongdee prepares to let fly during the individual indoor flight competition Mong Thongdee, 12, won a national paper aeroplane championship in Thailand in August 2008 after he threw a plane that flew for 12 seconds, and was later chosen to attend the Japanese contest in Chiba, near Tokyo. But Mong, who lives in Chiang Mai in northern...

I have been spending some time in Thailand and it is amazing to me what I see there, America in the 60's. I see things there that were in America in the 40s, 50s, and 60s, but no longer. Makes me remember when I was going up we had: - pick up games of Baseball and football with the neighborhood kids. I do not see this today. - Dogs without leashes - riding in the back of a pickup - go carts - and this list goes on. Stuff that pisses me off: - Riding lawnmowers that cannot reverse without...

SNIPPET: "Though car bombs are infrequently used in southern Thailand, where smaller motorcycle bombs and IEDs of roughly 5 kg are more common, there has been a trend this month towards large bombs, in the 20 kg range. For example, 20 KG IEDs were used on 19th, 20th and twice on the 21st while on 8 August a 20 kg IED hidden by the road was recovered by government forces. While insurgents routinely employ time-delayed bombs to target security forces responding to attacks, there has been one other new trend in IEDs. On 8 August, a military bomb disposal unit...

Phuket 'Scene of FBI, North Korean Arms Dealings' By Alan Morison Monday, August 24, 2009 SOME remarkable meetings take place on Phuket, and we are not talking Asean summits, even though it was good for the island to have US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton drop by in July. This particular meeting, reported for the first time today, is a different kind of gathering, more reminiscent of the one involving a Vietnamese lawyer who now stands accused of plotting to overthrow his country's leaders after meeting other alleged ''conspirators'' on Phuket. Let's call it the Uncle Sam Sham Scam. This...

<p>A Thai court on Tuesday rejected the extradition of a man dubbed the "Merchant of Death", whom the U.S. government accuses of selling millions of dollars in weapons to Colombian rebels.</p> <p>In rejecting the extradition request, the court said the case of Viktor Bout was politically motivated. U.S. authorities have 72 hours to decide whether to appeal. In the absence of an appeal, Bout will walk out of jail a free man.</p>

On the lighter side, here is video from the "Screaming Contest," held in Pattaya, Thailand. The winner was chosen based on the loudest scream as measured on a decibel meter. Notice from the windup of contestants, there is a real art to screaming! . . . . . (Watch Video)

Artemisinin-based medicines fail a growing number of patients in Cambodia. The malaria parasite, carried by mosquitoes, is growing resistant to artemisinin-based drugs.James Gathany / CDC Malaria parasites in Cambodia are becoming increasingly resistant to the drug hailed as the world's best chance to eradicate the disease.Artemisinin-based drugs are currently the best weapon against malaria, a disease which kills around a million people every year and is spread by mosquitoes carrying malaria parasites such as Plasmodium falciparum. These parasites have already developed resistance to drugs such as chloroquine and sulfadoxine-pyrimethamine, once the front line against the disease, so hopes have been...

Bangkok's showcase new international airport is no stranger to controversy. Built between 2002 and 2006, under the governments of then-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the opening date was repeatedly delayed. It has been dogged by allegations of corruption, as well as criticism of the design and poor quality of construction. Then, at the end of last year, the airport was shut down for a week after being occupied by anti-government protesters. Now new allegations have been made that a number of passengers are being detained every month in the duty free area on suspicion of shoplifting, and then held by the...

Geert Wilders’ Speech in CopenhagenGates of Vienna, 15 June 2009...The problem is that the injunctions in the Koran are not restricted to time or place. Rather, they apply to all Muslims, in any period. Another problem is that Muslims also regard the Koran as the word of Allah. Which means that the Koran is immune from criticism.Apart from the Koran, there is also the life of Muhammad, who fought in dozens of wars and was in the habit of decapitating Jews with his own sword. The problem here is that, to Muslims, Muhammad is ‘the perfect man’, whose life is...

By: BangkokPost.com Published: 28/06/2009 at 12:02 PM A latest survey reveals that many Thai people would accept a crooked government if it can make the country prosper and raise their standard of living. The Abac Poll Research Centre conducted a survey on people's well-being, involving 1,228 households in 17 provinces nationwide. 84.5 per cent viewed that corruption in businesses would not be unusual and 51.2 per cent said they would tolerate a corrupted government if it can improve the country and their well-being. 73.9 per cent agreed that living self-sufficiently can help ease the economic crisis. On the continuing border...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) -- Al-Qaida conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui testified Monday that he and would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid were supposed to hijack a fifth airplane on Sept. 11, 2001, and fly it into the White House. Moussaoui's testimony on his own behalf stunned the courtroom as he disclosed details he had never revealed before. It was in stark contrast to Moussaoui's previous statements in which he said the White House attack was to come later if the United States refused to release a radical Egyptian sheik imprisoned on earlier terrorist convictions. Moussaoui testified Monday he lied to investigators when arrested...

US President Barack Obama removed Laos and Cambodia from a trade blacklist, opening the way for US loans to companies doing business in the former US adversaries. The United States has been boosting ties with both Southeast Asian nations. But the decision on Laos was sharply criticized by campaigners for the country's Hmong minority, which says it faces persecution. In brief declarations, Obama said Cambodia and Laos had each "ceased to be a Marxist-Leninist country," a designation that prevented financial support by the US Export-Import Bank for businesses operating in the two nations. The move, which still must go through...

BANGKOK — Insurgents in southern Thailand are using a network of Islamic schools to recruit fighters, but their movement does not appear to be linked to Al Qaeda or other foreign Islamist groups, according to a study due to be released Monday. Since an increase in violence five years ago, analysts have sought to pinpoint the primary motivations of an insurgency that has left more than 3,400 people dead in towns and villages only several hours away from Thailand’s most popular beach resorts. The 20-page study, by the International Crisis Group, describes a homegrown movement of Malay Muslim fighters seeking...

Thai police are investigating the twin theories that the death was either suicide or a sex game gone wrong. Carradine, 72, was found hanging in a wardrobe with a rope around his neck and other parts of his body. The actor was in Thailand to shoot a film and checked into the luxury Nai Lert Park Hotel, situated next to the British Embassy, on May 31. He failed to join crew members for dinner on Wednesday night but they did not raise the alarm, believing him to be resting in his suite. A maid discovered his body at 11.30am on...

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A pathologist hired by the family of one of two women whose mysterious deaths in Thailand drew worldwide attention says her "lungs were 100 percent congested," Jill St. Onge's fiancee and brother said. Jill St. Onge died while vacationing with her fiance at a Thailand resort. "He said her lung tissue was gone," said her brother, Robert St. Onge. The pathologist has not determined what caused her lungs to fail, he said, and a final report on her May 2 death may still be weeks away. But members of St. Onge's family said they feel the pathologist's findings, though preliminary,...

In Thailand, transgender males, also called lady-boys, are a common sight in cities and tourist areas. While many transgenders work in traditionally female professions such as in cabaret shows or Thailand's notorious sex industry, most are looking for better integration in Thai society. But, despite their high visibility, transgenders still face challenges in seeking acceptance. At a popular beauty contest this month in southern Thailand, 30 attractive, feminine figures glide onto the stage. Dressed in sparkling evening gowns and perfect hair and make-up, the contestants smile widely at the audience as the cameras broadcast the pageant live across the nation....

ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT, May 13, 2009 – With piracy generating big news in the Gulf of Aden, a far-less-recognized multilateral partnership has brought pirates’ swashbuckling days to a virtual halt in the strategic Strait of Malacca. Navy Adm. Timothy J. Keating, commander of U.S. Pacific Command, praised a partnership among Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and, increasingly, Thailand and the Philippines, that has boosted maritime security dramatically. An estimated 40 percent of the world’s trade -- about 50,000 vessels each year -- transit the narrow passageway that links the Indian and Pacific oceans. Until three years ago, pirates trolling the strait...

MANILA, Philippines, May 12, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A group of Catholic medical professionals based in the Philippines has stated that condom promotion has failed to curb the spread of AIDS.  The group said that it agreed with a widely-criticized recent statement by Pope Benedict XVI in which he endorsed a renewed respect for sexuality in facing the AIDS epidemic, rather than condom use. "Condoms are highly dangerous," said Yolly Eileen Gamutam, head of Asia's Catholic Association of Doctors, Nurses and Health Professionals (ACIM-Asia), in an article on the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines website. "If we are promoting truthful public information...

Residents Say They're Terrorized By Pit Bulls Posted: 6:16 pm EDT May 1, 2009Updated: 6:33 pm EDT May 1, 2009 SANFORD, Fla. -- Some Sanford homeowners say they're being terrorized by their neighbor's pit bulls. One of the dogs has already attacked a neighbor near Lily Court in Sanford. Eyewitness News has learned the dogs' owners are not keeping their fence secure. Some of the breaks in the fence are big enough for an adult to easily climb through. After many calls to animal control, neighbors say they want the fence fixed once and for all. "Chasing children, attacking children....

Sondhi Limthongkul, the founder of the political movement which overran Bangkok’s airport last year, is in hospital after a gunman wielding an AK-47 ambushed his car at a petrol station and sprayed it with bullets early this morning. Sondhi Limthongkul The unknown number of gunmen shot out the tyres of the car owned by Mr Sondhi, the head of the People’s Alliance for Democracy ‘yellow shirt’ movement, and riddled the vehicle with bullets. Stray bullets also hit a nearby public bus. The tycoon’s media network reported that more than 100 bullets were fired, and 57 AKA and M16 shells were...

Like many former residents of Bangkok, I have been watching the country's slide into virtual civil war with a mixture of incredulity and tetchy disillusion. It is hard for us to think of one of the world's only truly Buddhist states descending into a chaotic thuggery that would, alas, be less remarkable elsewhere. But why? Is it because of misperceptions we have about Buddhism? Buddhist violence--or violence committed by Buddhists, more properly speaking--is a strained concept for us, to put it mildly. I can easily imagine being assaulted by an infuriated Christian or by a hysterically outraged jihadist, by a...

Thailand’s political crisis descended into chaos on Monday as anti-government protesters and the military fought dramatic battles on the streets of Bangkok that left at least two dead and almost 100 injured. The government on Monday night claimed to have regained control of the Thai capital’s streets. But some 4,000 protesters remained around the prime minister’s office in central Bangkok, surrounded by security forces. Abhisit Vejjajiva, the prime minister, who declared a state of emergency in Bangkok and surrounding areas on Sunday, said in a nationally televised address that the military had been using as little force as possible. “All...

BANGKOK – Thailand's prime minister narrowly escaped a savage attack and rioting erupted in Bangkok as protesters commandeered public buses and swarmed triumphantly over military vehicles in unchecked defiance after the government declared a state of emergency. Bands of red-shirted anti-government protesters roamed areas of the Thai capital, with some smashing a car carrying Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and others beating up motorists who hurled insults at them. At least 10 intersections were occupied by the protesters, who used buses to barricade several major roads, spawning massive traffic jams.

PATTAYA -- Helicopters began evacuating foreign leaders Saturday after anti-government protests forced the postponement of a major Asian summit in Thailand, Agence France-Ptesse reporters and officials said. Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo boarded a civilian helicopter which landed on the roof of the luxury beach resort in the coastal town of Pattaya where the meeting was being held, an AFP correspondent said. Police separately said that Myanmar Prime Minister Thein Sein had been airlifted by chopper to a nearby military airfield.

The summit of Asean leaders with dialogue partners has been cancelled and state of emergency declared in Pattaya after a clash of red-shirted and blue-shirted people outside the meeting venue and a subsequent invasion of the hotel. -snip- Hundreds of protesters broke through a glass and poured into a Royal Cliff Beach Resort Hotel building where reporters stayed. The section is about 100 metres apart from a hotel section where summit leaders are supposed to meet.

PATTAYA, Thailand (AFP) — Anti-government protesters trapped Thai premier Abhisit Vejjajiva inside a beach hotel and attacked his motorcade as the kingdom's political turmoil boiled over into violence. The clash was the most serious since supporters of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra surrounded Abhisit's offices in Bangkok on March 26, and came amid mounting speculation about a possible military coup.

A China-based cyber spy network has hacked into government and private systems in 103 countries, including those of many Indian embassies and the Dalai Lama, an Internet research group said here Saturday. The Information Warfare Monitor (IWM), which carried out an extensive 10-month research on cyber spy activities emanating from China, said the hacked systems include the computers of Indian embassies and offices of the Dalai Lama.

A British man sailing with his wife off the coast of southern Thailand was allegedly beaten to death and thrown overboard by men trying to steal their dinghy, Thai police said on Tuesday.

A Thai fireman turned superhero when he dressed up as comic-book character Spider-Man to coax a frightened eight-year-old from a balcony, police said Tuesday. Teachers at a special needs school in Bangkok alerted authorities on Monday when an autistic pupil, scared of attending his first day at school, sat out on the third-floor ledge and refused to come inside, a police sergeant told AFP.

Why US Taxpayers Will Bail Out Foreign Auto Suppliers But as a result of this interconnectedness, really bad things can happen to nearly everyone. Ripples in one country can wind up being tsunamis in another located half a world away. When news broke last week that the U.S. Treasury Department would provide US$5 billion in financing to cash-strapped automotive suppliers, the overall message was clear: The government is trying to prevent the collapse of the domestic auto industry and the Big Three automakers (GM, Ford and Chrysler) by ensuring that their top (or Tier 1) suppliers will receive the billions...

Link only, per rule: Health Buzz: Fried Insects Bad for Asthma

The air-breathing fish, which can survive out of water for 'extended periods' as it searches for water, was found in the Thames Estuary at Woolwich by angler Birol Koca. The walking catfish, or Clarias batrachus, is a species of freshwater airbreathing catfish found primarily in Southeast Asia. The fish, which could be a 'significant risk' to the environment, used its pectoral fins to 'wiggle' on land as it searches out a new home. Catfish can pose a threat to the environment if they escape into the wild by competing with native fish for food and habitats and spreading disease or...

MOSCOW (AFP)--Russia's foreign ministry Thursday condemned media "attacks" on arms dealer Viktor Bout, saying the case was straining U.S.-Russian ties. Bout, who is fighting extradition from Thailand to the U.S. on charges he trafficked weapons to conflict zones, has been prejudged by a series of articles in the Thai and foreign media, said a ministry spokesman, Andrei Nesterenko. "In these articles our countryman, whose guilt hasn't been established in court, has already been proclaimed a criminal," Nesterenko told reporters. "We consider such attacks clearly provocative and leading to the goal of moving Bout's case from the legal to the political...

March 8, 2009 PATTANI, Thailand, March 7 (Reuters) - S SNIPPET: "Pattani and the neighbouring provinces of Narathiwat and Yala, abutting Malaysia, were a Muslim sultanate until annexed a century ago by predominantly Buddhist Thailand. Around 80 percent of people there are Muslim and speak a Malay dialect. The violence has ranged from drive-by shootings to bombings and beheadings and often targets Buddhists and Muslims associated with the Thai state, such as police, soldiers, government officials and teachers."

Indonesia Update In a South Jakarta courtroom this week, a Singaporean terror suspect admitted that he was part of a plot to hijack an Aeroflot aircraft from Bangkok and crash it into Singapore’s Changi International Airport. Mohammad Hasan bin Sayanudin, alias Fajar Taslim, was testifying against two other terrorist suspects. All three are charged with killing a Christian high school teacher in South Sumatra province during 2007. They are also charged with plotting to kill two Catholic priests in 2005 and to carry out a bombing of a café in West Sumatra. According to Sayanudin, those who were part of...

February 26, 2009 Thailand: Jihadists behead three people this week, bringing their total to 47 "Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks..." Qur'an 47:4 They just want Sharia -- as always. "Thailand: More beheadings in troubled Muslim south," from AKI, February 26 (thanks to C. Cantoni): Narathiwat, 26 Feb. (AKI) - Suspected Islamist rebels have decapitated three people in Thailand's Muslim dominated south in the past week, police said on Thursday. Three people were killed late on Wednesday in the southern Thai province of Narathiwat , and one of the victims was decapitated, police said....

A British angler – with a dozen helpers – has landed what could be the biggest freshwater fish ever caught with a rod and line, it emerged today. The giant freshwater stingray, weighing as much as 350kg (772lbs, or about 55 stone), was the size of a garden shed and so cumbersome that Ian Welch had to enlist the aid of 12 other people to get it out of the water. Welch, a professional fisherman, biologist and columnist for the magazine Angler's Mail, was visiting Thailand to help with a stingray tagging programme when he landed the monster in the...

Couple beheaded in Yala By: BangkokPost.com Published: 22/02/2009 at 10:19 AM A group of insurgents gunned down and beheaded a couple of local rubber farmers in the southern border province of Yala on Sunday morning. The two victims, indentified as Kongphet Janyarerk and his wife Yenjai, were brutally killed by the gunmen while they were travelling to work at a rubber plantation in Yala's Raman district. The gunmen decapitated them and took their heads away before escaping from the area. Police and soldiers were inspecting the crime scene before tracking down the culprits. In other developments in the restive South,...