Thailand’s powerful military has indicated that it might stage a coup as tensions mounted over a controversial minister and anti-government groups planned a major street protest.
Rumors of a coup have circulated in the Thai capital in recent days as the army and opposition parties escalated their attacks on Jakrapob Penkair, a minister attached to the prime minister’s office accused of insulting King Bhumibol Adulyadej.
The military has strong loyalties to the palace and has in the past also used alleged attacks against the monarchy as a pretext to seize power in some of Thailand’s perennial coups.
Supreme Military Commander General Boonsang Niempradit told reporters yesterday that “no soldier wants to stage a coup to topple the government but I cannot guarantee that there will be no more coup.”
Just five months have passed since elections in Thailand brought an end to more than a year of military rule, but already anti-government rallies are filling the streets, raising fears of further political instability.
The People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) has so far gathered crowds of up to 8,000, but the group is attempting to mount protests similar to its campaign in early 2006, which eventually helped lead to the toppling of the government.
The protesters have since Sunday barricaded a section of a major avenue in the historic district, demanding that Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej stop trying to amend the country’s new Constitution.
The current charter was drafted by a panel named by royalist generals who staged the 2006 coup against former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Samak’s drive to amend the charter has proved deeply divisive among Thailand’s political elite. He had originally proposed amending only a few key clauses, notably the articles allowing courts to dissolve political parties over election fraud.
But his People Power Party (PPP) now says it would rewrite almost everything except the preamble.
The PAD is calling for a large rally tonight, but it is unclear whether it will lure enough protesters to achieve its stated aim of toppling the government.
“If it’s less than 10,000 then it has a nagging significance. If it’s a high five digits or six digits then you’re talking about a critical mass,” said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, head of international security studies at Chulalongkorn University.
Thousands gathered across New Zealand yesterday to celebrate the signing of the country’s founding document and some called for an end to government policies that critics say erode the rights promised to the indigenous Maori population. As the sun rose on the dawn service at Waitangi where the Treaty of Waitangi was first signed between the British Crown and Maori chiefs in 1840, some community leaders called on the government to honor promises made 185 years ago. The call was repeated at peaceful rallies that drew several hundred people later in the day. “This government is attacking tangata whenua [indigenous people] on all
The administration of US President Donald Trump has appointed to serve as the top public diplomacy official a former speech writer for Trump with a history of doubts over US foreign policy toward Taiwan and inflammatory comments on women and minorities, at one point saying that "competent white men must be in charge." Darren Beattie has been named the acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a senior US Department of State official said, a role that determines the tone of the US' public messaging in the world. Beattie requires US Senate confirmation to serve on a permanent basis. "Thanks to
UNDAUNTED: Panama would not renew an agreement to participate in Beijing’s Belt and Road project, its president said, proposing technical-level talks with the US US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday threatened action against Panama without immediate changes to reduce Chinese influence on the canal, but the country’s leader insisted he was not afraid of a US invasion and offered talks. On his first trip overseas as the top US diplomat, Rubio took a guided tour of the canal, accompanied by its Panamanian administrator as a South Korean-affiliated oil tanker and Marshall Islands-flagged cargo ship passed through the vital link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. However, Rubio was said to have had a firmer message in private, telling Panama that US President Donald Trump
‘IMPOSSIBLE’: The authors of the study, which was published in an environment journal, said that the findings appeared grim, but that honesty is necessary for change Holding long-term global warming to 2°C — the fallback target of the Paris climate accord — is now “impossible,” according to a new analysis published by leading scientists. Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth’s climate is more sensitive to rising greenhouse gas emissions than previously thought. Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming. An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN’s climate
RSS