Dust Storm in China

Yikes! Daily Mail has the details.

Like a scene from a Hollywood disaster movie, a towering cloud of sand dwarfs the rows of uniform houses as it descends on a small village in central China.
Residents hid inside their homes with their windows and doors locked shut as the dust storm swept through the region advancing 70ft a minute.

The region is near the edge of the Gobi desert. Day turned to night as tons of dust temporarily blocked out the sun and reduced visibility to around 600ft. But suddenly the storm calmed and the mile-high cloud settled back to Earth again, leaving villagers with a major clean-up operation.

Golmud is home to 200,000 people with 140,000 living in the city centre. The new industrial city is built on a flat expanse close to the borders of the Gobi desert, which is the largest desert in Asia. Although not an ideal place to live, tens of thousands of people have relocated there to work at the salt lakes in the region.

But the prospect of a good job and lots of living space comes at a price. Every spring strong winds blow across the Gobi creating huge columns of dust and sand, which are then dumped nearby. The dust can cause frequent power blackouts, transport delays and respiratory illness.

These buildings didn't need their camouflage paint as the sand quickly hid the village from view in mid May. The massive sand storm swept along at 70ft a minute
The Gobi sand even travels as far as Beijing, with nearly a million tons of desert blown into the city each year. In March this year China's capital turned orange during a particularly ferocious dust storm.

More than a quarter of China - around one million square miles - is covered in sand with the Gobi covering northern parts of the country. The bad news for the government is that the desert is growing despite their best efforts to contain it. The process of desertification has been worsened by over-grazing, deforestation, urban sprawl and an increasingly erratic climate.

The Chinese Academy of Sciences estimates that the number of sandstorms has jumped six-fold in the past 50 years to two dozen a year. Around 80 per cent of them occur between March and May.

Spectacular Truck Crash

Some idiot car driver changes lanes without bothering to look at the huge truck in the adjacent lane. All hell breaks loose.

Dennis Hopper The Later Years

Dennis Hopper The Early Years

Dennis Hopper RIP

I don't usually do remembrances here on this blog, but for such an icon as Dennis Hopper I will jump over the fence.

Dennis Hopper, seen here in 1982 at the time of a screening of his 1971 film The Last Movie at the ICA in London. He told the Observer's critic, Philip French, that this was his favourite image of himself. Photograph: Jane Bown for the Observer

Dennis Hopper, who has died aged 74, was one of Hollywood's great modern outlaws. His persona, on and off the screen, signified the lost idealism of the 1960s. There were stages in Hopper's career when he was deemed unemployable because of his reputation as a hell-raiser and his substance abuse. However, he made spectacular comebacks and managed to kick his dependence on alcohol and cocaine.

Born in Dodge City, Kansas, Hopper, whose father was a post-office manager and mother a lifeguard instructor, expressed an interest in painting and acting at a young age. While still in his teens, he appeared in repertory at Pasadena Playhouse, California, and studied acting with Dorothy McGuire and John Swope at the Old Globe theatre, San Diego.

The year of his 19th birthday, 1955, was extraordinary. Not only did Hopper have substantial parts in three television dramas, but he was cast in supporting roles in James Dean's last two films: Rebel Without a Cause, and Giant (released in 1956). The two actors became friends over the few months before Dean, whom Hopper idolised, was killed in a car accident aged 24.

In Rebel Without a Cause, Hopper is the youngest and slightest member of the juvenile delinquent gang that provokes Dean. In Giant, he gave a sensitive performance as the son of Texan oil millionaire Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor, who marries a Mexican girl and wants to "go north" to become a doctor – decisions against his father's wishes. Although Hopper appeared only briefly with Dean in both movies, the latter had a huge influence on him.

Hopper brought some moody Method mannerisms to bear on his following roles, mostly as callow, trigger-happy villains in westerns, such as Billy Clanton in Gunfight at the OK Corral (1956) – "I don't know why I get into gunfights. I guess sometimes I just get lonely" – and From Hell to Texas (1958), on which he got into a confrontation with director Henry Hathaway, refusing to take direction for several days. He was also a grumpy, childish Napoleon in the infamous, star-studded The Story of Mankind (1957) and the leader of a street gang, dubbed "Cowboy", in Key Witness (1960).

In the 1960s, Hopper, who alienated several veteran directors and producers, was pronounced difficult, argumentative and violently temperamental. However, he continued to get work, mostly in minor baddie roles, in major movies including Cool Hand Luke (1963), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and True Grit (1969). He also turned up in the weird space vampire film Queen of Blood (1966), in which he played a clean-cut astronaut who has the blood sucked out of him. The executive producer on the film was Roger Corman, who had just begun his cycle of dope and biker movies, and cast Hopper with Peter Fonda in the seminal acid flick The Trip (1967). The duo together conceived, wrote, with Terry Southern, raised the finance for, and starred in the alienated youth road movie Easy Rider (1969), with Hopper directing.

Made for $400,000, the film's combination of drugs, rock music, violence, a counter-culture stance and motorcycles as ultimate freedom machines caught the imagination of the young, made pop icons of Hopper and Fonda on their bikes and took over $16m at the box office. This rose to more than $60m worldwide in the next three years. It also brought Hopper, Fonda and Southern a best screenplay Oscar nomination. Easy Rider, which led to a stream of tacky, imitative pictures with equally loud rock soundtracks, retains legendary status in Hollywood lore, although these self-pitying "flower children" of the 60s now seem as dated as the "bright young things" of the 1920s.

Hopper, meanwhile, was out of control. His eight-year marriage to Brooke Hayward, the daughter of actor Margaret Sullavan, had ended in divorce. In 1970, he married Michelle Phillips, of the Mamas & the Papas, but it lasted eight days. ("The first seven days were pretty good," Hopper once commented.) In the same year, a raving, naked, drug-fuelled Hopper was arrested while running around Los Alamos, New Mexico.

In 1971, following the success of Easy Rider, Hopper was bankrolled by Universal with $850,000 and given total creative control to make whatever kind of movie he wished. He decamped to Peru with a cast and crew for a self-penned, directed and edited meta-monstrosity, The Last Movie (1971). Starring Hopper as a stuntman with a Christ complex on the set of a western being directed by Samuel Fuller, the film, made for the stoned by the stoned, was stoned by the critics.

Before the film's limited release, Hopper wrote and appeared in an autobiographical documentary, The American Dreamer (1971), which showed him editing The Last Movie at his home in Taos, New Mexico, spouting hippy philosophy, taking baths with women and shooting guns. This sealed his reputation as the most flipped-out man in the movies, and he spent the next 15 years in foreign films, personal projects, and low-budget arthouse or exploitation movies.

The quality of these veered wildly, but Hopper turned in one of his most memorable performances as Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley character, who has the enigmatic, homicidal title role in Wim Wenders's The American Friend (1977). High on drugs, he improvised much of his part of the photojournalist buzzing around Marlon Brando in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979).

In 1980, Hopper directed his third feature, Out of the Blue, an effective piece of post-hippy American gothic, about a family well outside the mainstream. It focuses on a 15-year-old punk girl (Linda Manz) trying to survive in a world of drunks (Hopper plays an alcoholic father), drug addicts and rapists. Made in Canada, the picture was well received when it was released three years later, assisting Hopper's reintegration into Hollywood.

In 1983, Hopper entered a drug rehabilitation programme. By then, according to Peter Biskind's book Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, his cocaine intake had reached three grams a day, complemented by an additional 30 beers, marijuana and Cuba Libres. After emerging relatively clean from the programme, he played another alcoholic father – this time to Matt Dillon – in Coppola's Rumble Fish (1983), now a commanding elder statesman amid the brat-pack cast.

Hopper's comeback was consecrated in 1986, with his astonishing portrayal of a psychopathic kidnapper in David Lynch's Blue Velvet. His performance, in which he inhales an unspecified gas and screams "Mommy" at Isabella Rossellini during bizarre sex scenes, became as much a conversation piece as the film itself. This role as a crazed, drug-dealing sadist was followed with an antithetically subdued and touching performance as an ashamed dad seeking redemption in Hoosiers in the same year. Hopper, who seemed to draw on his down-and-out years, was nominated for a best supporting actor Oscar.

Hopper appeared in three further films in 1986 – ranging from a leftwing media terrorist in Riders of the Storm to a mad ex-biker with his own strangely moral code in River's Edge, and the former Texas Ranger who wants revenge for the chainsaw death of his brother in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. He continued to be extremely busy in the following year, playing a Texan tycoon bumped off by his wife in Black Widow and Molly Ringwald's father in The Pick-up Artist.

In 1988, Hopper directed Robert Duvall and Sean Penn in a violently realistic cops-versus-street gangs drama, Colors, released to a debate as to whether the film reflected or exacerbated intense gang conflicts in Los Angeles. A worse fate met his next directorial effort, Catchfire (1989), in which he starred with Jodie Foster as, respectively, kidnapper and responsive victim. Released in an edited version of which he did not approve, the film, at Hopper's insistence, was attributed to Alan Smithee (the pseudonym for directors preferring to remain anonymous).

In Flashback (1990), as an erstwhile 60s radical activist gone underground, Hopper seems to be playing his own legend, drawing inspiration from his earlier characters. At one stage, he remarks, "It takes more than going down to your local video store and renting Easy Rider to become a rebel."

This led to similarly offbeat performances, many of them variations on the smiling, charming, cold-blooded killer with a screw loose. He stood out in supporting roles in True Romance (1993) and the box-office smash Speed (1994), and his blackly humorous edge almost redeemed some of the mediocre thrillers he appeared in throughout the 90s, though little saved Chasers (1994), a leaden naval comedy, the seventh and last of the features he directed.

In 2008, Hopper appeared in the TV series Crash, the spin-off from the Paul Haggis 2004 movie, as a verbose, eccentric, down-on-his-luck music producer. Hopper proudly stated that it was the craziest character he had ever played.

Despite his radical persona, Hopper was a paid-up Republican, though he voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 election. In that year, he appeared in An American Carol, a flabby liberal-bashing comedy with Jon Voight, Kelsey Grammer and James Woods as fellow rightwingers.

Hopper, who played an art dealer in the 1996 film Basquiat, was also an accomplished painter and sculptor, and a well-connected player on the American art scene. He was a skilled photographer whose subjects included Martin Luther King; fellow artists Ed Ruscha, Roy Lichtenstein and Robert Rauschenberg; and co-stars including Paul Newman and John Wayne. In 2007, he presented the Turner prize at Tate Liverpool.

He was married five times and is survived by four children: a daughter by Brooke Hayward; a daughter by Daria Halprin (the female lead in Antonioni's Zabriskie Point); a son by Katherine LaNasa; and a daughter by Victoria Duffy, his widow.

• Dennis Lee Hopper, actor, photographer and painter, born 17 May 1936; died 29 May 2010

The Last Moments of Fabio Polenghi

Prachathai posts a sad article that recalls the last moments of Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi.

SPIEGEL correspondent Thilo Thielke was in Bangkok the day the Thai Army cleared the Red Shirt camps. It was the last day he would work with his friend and colleague, Italian photojournalist Fabio Polenghi, who died from a gunshot wound.

When the helicopters started circling over the center of Bangkok last Wednesday at 6 a.m., I knew that the army would soon launch its attack. This was the moment that everyone had been fearfully expecting for weeks. I had always doubted that the government would actually allow things to go this far. There were many women and children in the district occupied by the protesters. Did the soldiers really want to risk a bloodbath?

A state of emergency had prevailed for the past six weeks in the Thai capital, with the royalist government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and the army on one side, and a broad coalition of anti-government protesters -- many originating from the poor provinces of northern Thailand -- on the other side. Approximately 70 people had died in street fighting and over 1,700 had been wounded. The pro-government Bangkok Post had called it "anarchy" and the opposition spoke of "civil war."

At 8 a.m. I arrived in the Red Zone, a three-square-kilometer (one-square-mile) area surrounding the Ratchaprasong business district, which the army had sealed off on all sides. On that day, as on previous occasions, it was relatively easy to slip into the encampment, which I had visited a number of times over the past few months. Behind barricades made of bamboo and car tires, the protesting Red Shirts had pitched their tents and built a stage. But the revolutionary party atmosphere that had always reigned here before had evaporated that morning.

People were stoically awaiting the soldiers. They knew that the military would attack from the south, via Silom Road, and the braver ones among them had ventured to as far as a kilometer (0.6 miles) from the front line. They stood there, but they weren't fighting. Some of them had slingshots, but nobody was firing.

A wall of fire made of burning tires separated the protesters from the army. Thick smoke choked the street, and as the soldiers slowly pressed forward, shots whipped through the streets. Snipers fired from high-rises and the advancing troops shot through the smoke. And we, a group of journalists, ducked for cover, pressing ourselves against a wall to avoid getting hit. Pick-ups with paramedics sped by to take away the wounded.

A Devastated Urban Landscape

It was 9:30 a.m. when Italian photographer Fabio Polenghi joined us. Fabio had spent a lot of time in Bangkok over the last two years, and we had become friends during this time. Fabio, a good-natured dreamer, 48, from Milan had been a fashion photographer in London, Paris and Rio de Janeiro before coming to Bangkok to work as a photojournalist. We had traveled together to do a feature on Burma, and since then he had often worked for SPIEGEL. Over the past few weeks, the two of us had almost always been on the go together.

Just the previous evening, we had walked through the city together until darkness fell. We met on Din Daeng Street near the Victory Monument, which symbolizes Thailand's pride in expanding its territory 69 years ago. Now we stood in the midst of a devastated urban landscape, which revealed the country's slide into chaos. Dark smoke hung in the air; only the outlines of the obelisk were visible. The streets had been transformed into a war zone. A few days earlier I had crouched here behind a small wall for half an hour, seeking protection from the army's hail of bullets -- they had suddenly opened fire because some show-off had strutted around with a slingshot.

Not far from the Red Shirts' encampment stands Pathum Wanaram Temple, which was intended to serve as a safe zone for women and children during an attack. That evening we met Adun Chantawan, 42, an insurgent from the village of Pasana in the northeastern region of Isaan -- the rice-growing area where the rebellion against the government began.

Adun told us that he harvests sugarcane and rice there as a day laborer -- for €4 ($5) a day. He had been here in Bangkok since the beginning of the occupation two months ago. Abhisit's government must resign, he said, because it has not been elected by the people and is only supported by the military, which staged a coup to oust the former prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra -- the hero of the poor. He wants Thaksin to return, said Adun, but more than anything else he wants a Thailand where the elite no longer have all the power and others also share in the wealth. Adun never thought that the government would so brutally crack down on its own people. He told us that he was prepared to fight to the death for his ideals.

Dreams of Living in a More Democratic Society

Adun Chantawan was a typical Red Shirt supporter, but far from all of them came from the poor northern provinces. There were also bankers from Bangkok among them, who joined the insurgents in the evenings after work, and young rowdies, too. For most of them, it was not primarily about Thaksin. They were mostly concerned with the social injustice in the country. Many of them dreamt of living in a more democratic society. I could never understand the government's claims that the Red Shirts had been bought by Thaksin. Nobody allows themselves to be shot for a handful of baht.

When we looked for Adun the next day, he was nowhere to be found. Chaos was everywhere. Fabio and I saw the smoke, and the soldiers behind it, advancing towards us -- and we heard an increasing number of shots. Snipers from a side street were targeting us.

The onslaught had begun. I didn't dare go any farther, but Fabio ran forward, across the street, where shots were regularly fired -- a distance of roughly 50 meters (160 ft.) -- and sought shelter in a deserted Red Cross tent. This marked the beginning of the no man's land between us and the advancing troops. I saw his light blue helmet marked "press" bob into view. He waved for me to come join him, but it was too dangerous for me up there.

Since the beginning of the conflict, I have experienced the Thai army as an amateurish force. If they had cleared the street protests at the outset, the conflict would have never escalated to this extent. Once the soldiers attempted to clear the demonstrators, they left a trail of casualties. They fired live ammunition at Red Shirts who were barely armed.

I observed absurd, unequal battles during those days. Young people crouched behind sand bags and fired on the soldiers with homemade fireworks and slingshots. The soldiers returned fire with pump guns, sniper rifles and M-16 assault rifles.

At their camp, the Red Shirts had displayed photos on a wall of corpses with shots to the head -- they wanted to prove that snipers in high-rises had purposely liquidated demonstrators. These included Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdipol, a renegade officer and one of the most radical leaders of the anti-government protesters, who had been shot in the head six days earlier, and died shortly thereafter.

The government maintains that it has nothing to do with liquidations, and that the demonstrators are shooting each other dead. That isn't true. Over the past two years, during which I reported on the Red Shirts, I have almost never seen a firearm -- with the exception of the occasional revolver in the hand of a bodyguard.

On that morning, the first soldiers broke through the wall of smoke. From where I was standing, it was barely possible to make them out, but you could hear bullets whistling through the air. They were fired by the snipers, who were working their way forward, from building to building. Some of them appeared to be directly above us. Fabrio was nowhere to be seen.

They Had Shot an Italian

I headed towards Pathum Wanaram Temple, a few hundred meters to the west, in the Red Zone. The occupying protesters had lost, that much was clear -- they hadn't even fought back. It was 11:46 a.m., and they were playing the national anthem. Women and children were fleeing to the temple courtyard to escape the approaching troops. One of the protesters' leaders, Sean Boonpracong, was still sitting in the main tent of the Red Shirts. He said that he intended to carry on with the resistance, even after the army's attack. Instead of allowing himself to be arrested, he planned to go into hiding.

At 11:53 a.m. I tried to reach Fabio by phone. His voicemail clicked in, which wasn't unusual. You could only occasionally get a signal. Across from the temple, in front of the police hospital, a number of journalists were waiting for the paramedics to arrive with the wounded. A nurse noted the admissions on a board. It was 12:07 p.m., and she had already written down 14 names. A foreign reporter stood next to me. He said that they had shot an Italian. Right in the heart. Over one and a half hours ago. He said that he had taken his picture. He even knew his name: Fabio Polenghi.

Columns of smoke billowed up over the city that afternoon. The retreating Red Shirts set fire to everything: the huge Central World shopping center, the stock exchange and an Imax movie theater. People looted supermarkets and ATMs. When I finally returned home, piles of tires were burning on the street.

On the evening of the day that the government set out to restore order, Bangkok was an apocalyptic place. And Fabio, my friend, was dead.

Giles Ji Ungpakorn on the Military Dictatorship in Thailand

Thai Political Prisoners posts the latest opinion from the political exile now living in England.

We have a full-blown military dictatorship in Thailand
Giles Ji Ungpakorn

Make no mistake. We have a full military junta in Thailand with Abhisit acting as a “democratic” mask. The repression and censorship is worse than even after the 6th October 1976. More people have been killed by the army than in any previous repression. It is worse than during the Sarit dictatorship era in the 1960s and the reason is that the regime is trying desperately to suppress the biggest mass movement for Democracy in Thai history. Hundreds are being rounded up. There is wide spread censorship. The regime is increasingly looking like China, Burma or North Korea.

The Thai military junta, headed by Abhisit Vejjajiva is now responsible for at least 88 deaths since 10th April. They have heavily censored all media and internet sites. They are afraid of the truth and free debate. All this is to avoid elections and to cling to power. Abhisit, the Military and his conservative royalist cronies are dragging Thailand back to the dark ages and the middle-class NGOs and most academics are supporting this cause. The National Human Rights Commission is helping to prosecute the UDD. NGO senator Rosana and her band of right wing friends were calling for the army to slaughter the Red Shirts.

Today the Thai junta blocked the independent internet newspaper Prachatai once again and banned all Red Shirt publications. Many people who are in jail are being threatened with the death sentence. While hundreds of Red Shirts are in custody for demanding Democracy, the fascist Yellow-shirted PAD who shut down the international airports in late 2008, have had any proceedings against them delayed … yet again.

And what about the King? Many people may remember the Buddhist monks who chanted for peace at the Victory Monument just before the army moved in to kill civilians at Rajprasong…. Compare that with the total silence of the King and the support for the junta shown by the Queen and the Crown Prince. What a useless and parasitic life these aristocrats live!!

The junta’s success in clinging to power by murdering the people is merely a success built on sand. They can kill hundreds and imprison thousands, but they will never win the hearts and minds on the people. Thailand will never be the same again.

See this photo album: http://redphanfa2day.wordpress.com/red-shirt-rally-at-phan-fa-bridge-photo-gallery/2/

WSJ on the Current Situation in Thailand

An important article from the Wall Street Journal.

The Wall Street Journal, MAY 24, 2010

The Spring of Thailand’s Ethnic Discontent

By DAVID STRECKFUSS

Khon Kaen, Thailand

As the leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (the “red shirts”) in central Bangkok ended their 79-day protest and surrendered themselves to authorities on May 19, Thailand literally went up in flames. For the rest of that day, roving bands of angry red-shirt protesters torched dozens of buildings in Bangkok. The governor of Bangkok proclaimed that May 19 would forever be remembered by its inhabitants.

Yet while much of the international focus has been on the situation in Bangkok—where indeed the protests have been largest and the violence most severe—it is now clear the disaffection has spread. In provinces through the North and Northeast, furious red-shirt mobs put to flame provincial halls and other offices and businesses perceived as sympathetic to the government. In this city of 200,000 situated 450 kilometers from Bangkok, red shirts pushed back police to set fire to the provincial hall and the government television station that they say distorted the news about their struggle, and broke windows of the bank they say funded the forces that have left more than 70 of them dead since April 10.

The pressing question for Thailand’s future now is whether the Bangkok elites who support the current government and oppose the red shirts will take the trouble to understand why disaffection is spreading.

The truth is that these protests have tapped into a long-simmering brew of ethnic and economic tensions bubbling below the surface of Thai society. It is often said there are two Thailands: Bangkok and the rest.

After a century of the capital’s political and military incursions into the hinterland, the red-shirt demonstration represented the most serious and sustained foray of the hinterland into Bangkok.

Bangkok truly isn’t like the rest of the country. A century ago saw the rather haphazard initial construction of a nationalist model based on smothering local languages, cultures and ethnic identity under a Western colonial-inspired centralized Thai state. In both the North and Northeast, rebellions against Thai state incursions were promptly suppressed. Ethnically, the people of the North and Northeast are Lao and originally spoke dialects of Lao. Yet under the new nationalism they were suddenly “Thai” and spoke a local “Thai dialect.” Even after a century of mixing with central Thai, it may not be too much of an exaggeration to say that a majority of people now living in Thailand speak a Lao dialect in their homes.

An emerging regionalism was crushed by military governments in the 1950s. In the early 1960s, the military dictatorship of Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat perfected the model of Thai-ness, defined by praise of hierarchy and the unified Thai race, the centrality of the monarchy and “Thai-style democracy.” A threat of greater democratization and political liberalization was cut short by a bloody coup in 1976.

It was only with the “People’s Constitution” of 1997 that sovereignty decisively shifted into the hands of the Thai people through a fully elected House of Representatives and Senate. The constitution recognized local community and cultural rights and promised greater decentralization. Now there was a mechanism for addressing regional inequalities. Poor people were suddenly enfranchised more than ever before in Thai history. A majority in the North and Northeast regions, supplemented by poorer classes in urban areas, could, if unfettered, play the deciding role in representative democracy.

This has set the stage for this year’s protests. Bangkok elites have laid the blame with the populist former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a billionaire whose government promoted essentially free health care, debt aid to farmers and rural economic development. But Mr. Thaksin didn’t create the forces that are now roiling Thailand. He was simply more adept than earlier politicians at understanding how to appeal to voters outside Bangkok. His political genius was to tap into the demand this enfranchisement created in rural areas for a greater voice in Thai government.

Rather than adjusting to the new political realities, Mr. Thaksin’s detractors fell back on complaints (some justified, some not) that he bought votes, undermined democratic institutions, committed massive human rights violations and used his office for personal gain. The forces of conservatism, as represented by the pro-monarchy, old-establishment People’s Alliance for Democracy, or “yellow shirts,” regrouped and supported the 2006 military coup that threw Mr. Thaksin out of power after months of demonstrations.

The ensuing 2007 military-inspired constitution limited popular sovereignty through a half-appointed Senate, new electoral rules and a greatly expanded role of the judiciary. From 2006 to 2008, Thai courts nullified one election that Mr. Thaksin’s Thai Rak Thai party won; dissolved Thaksin-backed parties twice and banned 220 0f their executive members from political office for five years; and removed one prime minister—Samak Sundaravej—for taking a small remuneration for hosting a television cooking show.

At the same time, a court order seemed to condone the yellow shirts’ months-long occupation of the Government House, and the justice system has yet to bring yellow-shirt leaders to trial on “terrorism” charges for seizing Bangkok’s international airport in late 2008. The suspects—including Thailand’s present Minister of Foreign Affairs—were given bail. In contrast, following the recent protests in Bangkok the red shirts as a whole are being portrayed as terrorists and enemies of the nation, and the red-shirt leaders have been denied bail.

To many people in the North and Northeast, it appears that the courts are frustrating the popular will and there is no equality before the law. This in part explains the growing rage of red-shirt protesters. Prior to the end of their protest Wednesday, red-shirt leaders in Bangkok warned that if security forces attacked them, Thailand would become divided. Malay Muslims in the South of Thailand already have been in revolt for years. Such, the red shirts said, may happen with the North and Northeast. On the national stage during the protest, speakers from the North and Northeast often spoke, sang and celebrated in their preferred tongue—not as some performance of rustic, minority Thai people, but as a purposeful expression of a frustrated political disenfranchisement.

As the protests heated up in April, some angry Bangkokians took to the streets, screaming, “Rural people, get out!” These people of Bangkok only saw what the red shirts had done to them. They did not see that much of the red rage is about what Bangkok has done to the “second class” rural people.

Whether Bangkok’s elites will recognize that fact ultimately will make the difference between a democratic Thailand with equality under the law, or the possibility of a forever-fractured Thailand.

Mr. Streckfuss is a writer based in Thailand.

Red Shirt Rebellion -- Video of the Year

An amazing video summary of the Red Shirt rebellion of May 2010. TURN UP THE VOLUME. Many thanks to Magnoy Samsara for finding this gem.

New Mandala has a commentary.

Criteria for terrorism charges are loose, restrictions on civil liberties tight. The violent immediacy of the Red Shirt protests has dulled in the aftermath of eighty-eight dead, but the country’s mood still hangs dark. Thailand’s democratic façade is chipping away to reveal an ugly autarchic underside.

To top off the recent weeks’ extrajudicial killings in Bangkok’s streets, the government heightened charges against an already-exiled former premier and dubiously detained a Chulalongkorn University lecturer this Tuesday. Two Red Shirt-affiliated foreigners were arrested Wednesday. These developments follow ongoing intimidating interrogations of “potential dissidents” (mostly students) by the Centre for the Resolution of Emergency Situations (CRES), and accusations against nine Red Shirt leaders of terrorism, not to mention an alleged 500 others among the rank-and-file.

The word of the hour is unsubstantiated: ill-founded investigations, unjustified detentions, unsound accusations of terrorism. But while the government still lacks public proof for terrorism charges leveled against its political opponents, it has certainly demonstrated its own reign of terror in the latest phase of the country’s unrest.

The use of the word “terrorist” is an effort to tap into a public fear that already exists. This has been done before. In the 1970s, the specter of communism afforded the military bureaucracy extra legroom from its citizens to dictate policy. Strategic allegations of “communism” and “anti-monarchism” at this time dehumanized leftist student protesters enough in the eyes of those pulling the triggers to allow the massacres of 1973 and 1976. These words have a single enabling purpose: to cast a political “other” worthy of violent repression.

Substituting “corruption” for “communism”, the military took the liberty to intercede again in 1992, this time faced with greater resistance. 2006 saw more of the same with Thaksin’s expulsion on corruption charges, which sparked the most recent cycle of protests as patience for political meddling ran out.
The civil and military elites’ most recent tactics to keep a stranglehold on Thailand’s nominal democracy are desperate. The attempted indictment of Red Shirts in an anti-monarchist plot in late April largely failed to get off the ground. Accordingly, “terrorist” is merely the latest trigger word: a catch-all for any elusive, influential enemy entity.

Decha Premrudeelert, a leading NGO advisor in the Northeast, reaffirmed the context for the government’s current tactic. “In the struggle for power, you have to create an identity for the opposition. In the Cold War, it was communists. Now it is terrorists.”

Calling the Red Shirt leaders “terrorists” and claiming there were 500 more within Ratchaprasong gave the military a blank check for violent intervention. The highly charged word was used to convince the public that the military wasn’t taking the lives of human beings when it shot indiscriminately into the crowd—it was simply fighting terrorism.

The government’s accusations are identical to charges against the Yellow Shirts for their 2008 occupation of the Government House and Suvarnabhumi Airport. But stagnated court cases over those allegations are still pending a year and a half later, whereas calling Red Shirts “terrorists” warranted immediate, brutal killings. Inadvertently, the aftermath of these charges has reaffirmed one of the Red Shirts’ core grievances: political double standards.

The Emergency Decree and the guise of fighting “terrorism” have allowed for grievous breaches of human rights. Impromptu detentions and interrogations without formal charges are stacking up, accompanied by the government’s promise to shoot “terrorists” on sight, as banks and government buildings burned earlier this week. As the situation has progressed, CRES’ recondite operations seem more and more fanatically illogical. Its undertakings have definitively failed to foster stability or reach a resolution – the sole initial goal of the organization.

Instead of spotlighting external actors guilty of inciting terror for political ends, recent accusations of terrorism have become part of the government’s own policy of fear.

Exiled Thaksin Shinawatra is a populist former premier and a businessman with highly suspect financial practices. He is not a terrorist. The added charge is an afterthought aimed at convincing the international community to aid in his fiercely sought extradition. The Yellow Shirts were charged with terrorism after the 2008 protests as an overstatement; an acquittal on those charges would absolve them altogether. The accusation against the Red Shirts was the most egregious: the charge was intended to dehumanize protesters, allowing soldiers to gun them down with impunity.

The United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship is not a terrorist organization. It is a fractured people’s movement for democracy, representing the disenfranchisement of the rural and urban poor. Its leaders are not terrorists; they espoused nonviolence even as the military swept them from the Ratchaprasong stage on 16 May 2010.

Cycles of corruption and intervention have pushed Thailand’s system of governance ever further from representative electoral democracy. Decades of coups, countercoups, protests, and reelections have stagnated democratic process, and terrorism charges against the two major political pressure groups only exacerbate this. This stagnation must end somewhere if Thailand is to move forward.

The question of the moment – whether this is a turning point in Thai politics – still lingers. But regardless of the pliability of Thailand’s political system, this is a new era: one that will not stand for age-old machinations. The Yellow Shirt and Red Shirt movements demonstrate hitherto unprecedented political awareness and agency of the people at large. Media and information availability prevent the continued concealment of military and bureaucratic interference in politics, even with ever-tightening censorship. The status quo is no longer an option.

Albeit disorganized and factionalized, the Red Shirts’ occupation of the capital embodies a new face of Thai politics that cannot be erased or rewritten: the socially and politically disenfranchised are seeking political voice and representation, now, and this ideal cannot be staunched with force. Deaths and dispersal will only intensify their cause.

Demands for democracy have been raw and vehement. Their physical manifestation in Bangkok has been dispelled for the time being, but the determination is no less powerful post-relocation. The use of political fear tactics – killing protesters, interrogations and detentions, charges of terrorism – will only further define the line beyond which the people will take no more. The current administration must reconcile with this truth.

Joe Luis Puppet Theater A wonderful look at the last pupppet theater in Thailand.

Bangkok's Joe Louis Puppet Theater, also known as “Nattayasala Hun Lakorn Lek,” is one of Bangkok's top but highly underrated attractions. It was founded by the late master of puppets Sakorn Yangkhieosod in 2002, whose English name was Joe Louis, and showcases the remarkable Thai traditional art of puppetry.

We headed to the venue, at the Suan Lum Night Bazaar, for a close look backstage at one of the skilled puppeteers' recent performances. Check out some of the highlights in the gallery below:

The Joe Louis Puppet Theater is located in the Suan Lum Night Bazaar, at the corner of Wireless and Rama IV Roads, across from the white water tower. Dinner is served outside the restaurant before the show. Tickets are available for 900 baht and are sold from 6pm onwards. The show lasts from 8pm to 9.15 pm. In July 2009, a Joe Louis Puppet Theater was opened in Pattaya. It's in the form of an open air restaurant with a stage.

Bangkok Post: Snipers at the Temple

Bangkok Post finally reports on the most controversial incident during the Red Shirt protests of May 2010.

The fatal shooting of six people at Wat Pathumwanaram during the dispersal of the red shirt rally last week looks set to dominate the agenda of next week's censure debate.

The charged issue is expected to be raised by the opposition in the censure debate on Monday and Tuesday.

The opposition says the government's decision to resort to the use of force to break up the red shirt protest at Ratchaprasong intersection was responsible for the six deaths, including that of a Red Cross volunteer nurse.

Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban told reporters yesterday to wait until the censure debate for him to explain all the facts.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said during yesterday's budget bill debate in parliament that the government would describe the military's operations in handling the anti-government protest in detail.

Autopsy results on the six bodies by the Institute of Forensic Medicine at the Police General Hospital would unravel the facts and that should answer the question of who killed them, he said.

The opposition Puea Thai Party said one red shirt protester, who himself was shot in the leg, had seen soldiers fire at a nurse working in the temple.

Mr Abhisit said the witness most probably had made a mistake in thinking he had seen a soldier shooting at people.

The premier said the protesters had been fed one-sided information and the soldiers had been vilified for weeks.

Many protesters were visibly afraid the soldiers might harm them and were reluctant at first to get aboard the vehicles provided by the government to take them home, Mr Abhisit said.

The protesters had the impression they would be taken to be killed by the soldiers, he said.

Mr Suthep also dismissed media reports that the government coalition partners were pressing for a cabinet reshuffle, saying no party had proposed a reshuffle so far.

Mr Abhisit said he had not talked to Korbsak Sabhavasu, his secretary-general, after he reportedly posted a message on Twitter about the possibility of there being a cabinet reshuffle.

The prime minister said he would wait until after the censure debate to discuss a reshuffle.

Deputy Interior Minister Boonjong Wongtrairat, who is also a deputy leader of the Bhumjaithai Party, dismissed the speculation about a cabinet shake-up.

Another heart breaking first person account in the Bangkok Post:

Slain nurse's mum heard gunshots minutes before her death
Kamonked Akkhahad only wanted to help others before she was fatally shot
Published: 28/05/2010 at 12:00 AM
Newspaper section: News

The heartbroken mother of slain nurse Kamonked Akkhahad spoke to her daughter on the phone just minutes before she was fatally shot.

Payao Akkhahad, 45, said she heard gunshots in the distance during the conversation sometime between 6pm and 7pm of May19.

Then, in a devastating phone call at 9pm, Ms Payao was told Kamonked had been shot to death.

Now she is looking for answers - and receiving none.

"She was a nice, kind-hearted girl who had always wanted to help others," Ms Payao said of her daughter, a 25-year-old Red Cross volunteer nurse.

Kamonked was killed at Wat Pathumwanaram during the military dispersal of red shirt protesters. Ms Payao said she urged her daughter to take cover and retreat to safety.

"But then around 9pm I was told by her friends she was dead," she said. The slain nurse's funeral was held on Wednesday at Wat Pak Bueng, a temple in the heart of a low-income community on Rom Klao Road in Bangkok's outer district of Lat Krabang.

It was a low-key ceremony attended by about 200 people made up of her family members, friends and supporters of the red shirt United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) including some executives of the Puea Thai Party.

Kamonked, the eldest child from a low-income family, was among six people killed at the temple which had been designated a safe haven for protesters. The temple is next to the UDD rally site at Bangkok's Ratchaprasong intersection.

Until the fatal incident, she had been the sole breadwinner of the family which is now struggling to survive financially and emotionally.

But what is more important for them now is the search for truth over the killing of Kamonked. The family has demanded a clear explanation from the government.

Similar to the cases of the other 87 people, including five others at the temple, killed in the clashes between protesters and government forces from March12 to May20, details over who is responsible for the killings have not been established in a concrete manner acceptable to all sides, especially the red shirts.

Of the total death toll, 77 were civilians and 11 were security officers.

The Democrat Party-led government has mostly pointed the finger at "the work of terrorists" who it says mingled among the protesters. The military has displayed weapons belonging to "terrorists" which it says it found at the temple. But this has failed to convince the relatives of the dead and the injured.

"I want the government to search for the truth - I mean the real truth behind the killing," said Natthapach Akkhahad, 21, Kamonked's brother who has adopted the role as the family's breadwinner.

"If the state says the death is the work of terrorists, then tell us who those terrorists are. Name them for us."

Details and debate over the killing of the nurse were openly shared among people attending the funeral. Like other cases, many believe she was shot by security forces.

Pictures taken on the day show there were gunmen in military uniform positioned above the temple on the skytrain's tracks. The government has denied soldiers were there at the time of the incident.

"She [Kamonked] told me on the phone she was in front of the temple trying to help a man who was shot," Ms Payao recalled of the phone conversation.

"I told her to go back inside the temple, but she insisted the man needed help."

Witnesses say the nurse was killed about 7pm while helping this man. Two of her colleagues were also shot dead.

Krongthong Phuengsang, 66, said she had worked with Kamonked since April12, providing medical assistance to protesters."On May 19, our supervisors told us to leave the rally site before dawn but Kamonked decided to stay," she said. "What I remember is she wore a Red Cross gown that day."

Like others attending the funeral, the nurse's family finds it hard to accept the government's claim of terrorism elements as the cause of the death.

"My daughter should be the last person to be killed as she was wearing her Red Cross gown and doing her job," Ms Payao said.

Time Magazine Video on the Red Shirt Riots

Time magazine video about the Red Shirt riots in Bangkok.

Driving in Dubai

Look Ma, it's an SUV driving on its 2 right tires, and some idiot in a smog belching truck.

Arak Kills on Bali

Arak is some pretty nasty stuff, but no matter your budget, avoid the stuff unless you want to take your life into your own hands.

Eight people are now dead and five are in hospital after drinking home-brewed arak believed to have been laced with methanol, Sanglah General Hospital spokesman Putra Wibawa said on Wednesday.

He said the first victim, who had been drinking arak in Kuta, died on May 16.

“Eight have died and five are still under treatment,” Wibawa said.

The victims came from all over Bali, including Ubud and Denpasar.

“The symptoms lead us to believe it is methanol poisoning,” Wibawa said.

Last year 25 people, including four foreign tourists, died in Bali and Lombok after drinking arak heavily laced with methanol to increase production.

Two men who produced arak at a small distillery near Denpasar were jailed for failing to apply health and safety regulations.

Dozens have also died in Java in the past two years.

Arak has become increasingly popular since the government raised taxes on imported alcohol, putting it out of reach for most Indonesians.

How to Ride a Jeepney in Manila

I hate riding jeepneys in Manila, but this comedy sketch is both funny and very informative.

Army Snipers at the Temple

Looks like we've finally got some photographic evidence that it was indeed army snipers who fired into the temple, declared a safe zone, and killed 6 innocent civilians. Will Abhisit investigate this outrage?

Jotman has some details. Visit the link for link connections.

UPDATES (2)
A paramedic's account of the night of May 19 points toward activity by armed personnel as depraved as anything that happened in Burma in September 2007.

Keng, a paramedic, had been working to save lives in a medical tent located on the grounds of Wat Pathumwanaram (Pathum Wanaram or วัดปทุมวนาราม). The website Pratachai interviewed Keng about what happened:

All paramedics wore red cross signs, but that did not save them from being shot. Bullets were fired right at the medical tent, Keng said.

The bullets came from a high angle. Despite a large sign put up that read ‘Sanctuary’ and everyone’s belief that inside the temple was the safest place, bullets came from the darkness.

Keng said it was likely that the gunshots were fired from the BTS skytrain track up above. On the morning of 20 May, at about 7-8 am, before police and the press came, when some of those inside the temple came out to look for food to share with the others, gunshots were fired from above. Soldiers were seen on the BTS track, carrying rifles.

Among the six dead inside the temple, three wore red cross signs.
The above photo shows two snipers on skytrain tracks overlooking a temple. If you click on the photo you will be able to see the snipers. They come to us via mediawar, who tweeted, "apparently these photos confirm Keng's words (about snipers on BTS)." The other photo is here. I don't know who took the photos [see update].

A UDD witness interviewed by the Bangkok Post/Spectrum echoes the medic's claim, "He said the gunmen were behind the concrete slabs on the second level of the elevated skytrain tracks. Everyone ran further inside the temple after the first man and the nurse were shot. 'From that position, the gunmen had a clear view of the temple,' he said." Another witness, an official at a foundation office located on the temple compound, was interviewed by the newspaper:

"We don't know who shot at us," said a foundation official. "But in my opinion, the shots must have been fired from a high position.

"Our temple is ringed by a high wall and the police headquarters are located just opposite us," he added. "So they must have been where they could not be seen by the police or passers-by."

Among the eyewitness accounts from May 19 compiled at Therelive.com are a number of reports from journalists who had been present at Wat Pathum temple.

Keng, A paramedic’s account of the 19 May slaughter - "Bullets were fired right at the medical tent, Keng said." (includes interview transcript, videos)
Andrew Buncombe, Eyewitness: Under fire in Thailand - "I cannot believe they are shooting in a temple."

Steve Tickner (via reporter), Australian reporter hides out in Buddhist temple

Mark MacKinnon, In a Bangkok Temple, the groans of the wounded shot seeking sanctuary - "... a place of death and terror as perhaps 1,500 civilians huddled inside."

Regarding the incident, at least two reports have appeared in the Thai media.

Nation Multimedia (Pongphon Sarnsamak) Gunfire made temple a scary place, reporter says

Bangkok Post, Unholly night in the temple compound

Andrew Buncombe, upon reading the Nation's account of his reporting, tweeted, "Interview with me in Nation is headlined: "Gunefire made temple a scary place, reporter says" is true, but that is not the story."

Wat Pathum Wanaram is located between two shopping malls Siam Paragon and CentralWorld, and across the street from Siam Square. Many red shirts had sought refuge on the temple grounds after the surrender of their leaders to Thai authorities.

Update 1:
Claudio, blogger and eyewitness to various recent events in Bangkok, points us to a video entitled "Sniper Fire and Dead in Wat Pathuwanaram, Bangkok, May 19th, 2010":

Update 2:
MediaWar has just written me to say, "looks like I've found source." The caption to a Getty photo at Daily Life reads: "Soldiers take position after gunshots were heard near a Buddhist temple in the heart of an anti-government protest zone, in downtown Bangkok on May 20, 2010.... soldiers were advancing on foot along an elevated train track, an AFP photographer saw." The caption to another photo reads, "A Thai soldier keeps guard in front of a temple which had been turned into a shelter within an anti-government protest site in downtown Bangkok on May 20, 2010. Thai police escorted thousands of protesters out of a Buddhist temple where they had cowered overnight after nine people were killed there in gunbattles." More Getty images of the temple here.

करन ने मनाया 38वां जन्मदिन, बधाई संदेशों से अभिभूत हुए

फिल्मकार करन जौहर जन्मदिन पर दोस्तों और सहकर्मियों से मिले प्यार को पाकर अभिभूत हैं। मंगलवार को उनका 38वां जन्मदिन था। करन इन दिनों न्यूयार्क में हैं।
उन्होंने टि्वटर के जरिए कहा है, ""आज (मंगलवार को) मुझे जितना भी प्यार मिला उसे पाकर मैं अभिभूत हूं.. टि्वटर के जरिए बधाई देने वालों का बहुत-बहुत शुक्रिया.. मैं आप सभी से हमेशा प्यार करता रहूंगा।"" मधुर भंडारकर से लेकर उदय चोप़डा और तरूण मनसुखानी से लेकर मनीष मल्होत्रा तक सभी ने करन को जन्मदिन की बधाई दी। करन ने "कुछ कुछ होता है", "कभी खुशी कभी गम" और "कल हो न हो" जैसी बेहतरीन फिल्में दी हैं।
भंडारकर ने अपने संदेश में करन को ढेरों बधाइयां दीं और उनकी सफलता की कामना की। अभिनेत्री जेनेलिया डीÞसूजा ने भी उन्हें शुभकामनाएं देते हुए इस साल उनकी सभी फिल्में सफल होने की दुआ दी। रितेश देशमुख, विशाल दादलानी, एना सिंह, पुनीत मल्होत्रा, एहसान नूरानी, मनीष मल्होत्रा, श्रेया घोषाल, शेखर राविजियानी, अमृता अरो़डा, तरूण मनसुखानी और सेलिना जेटली ने भी उन्हें बधाई संदेश भेजे।

भारत में विवाह नहीं कर रही हूं: कैटी

पॉप गायिका कैटी पेरी ने अपने मंगेतर रसेल ब्रांड के साथ भारत में विवाह करने की खबरों को नकार दिया है।
गायिका रिहाना ने कुछ दिन पहले ही कहा था कि कैटी और रसेल भारत में विवाह करेंगे लेकिन कैटी ने कहा है कि उनकी मित्र द्वारा कही गई यह बात गलत है। कैटी का कहना है, ""मैंने एक अफवाह सुनी थी कि किसी ने एक छोटे से रेडियो कार्यक्रम के दौरान मेरे विवाह स्थान के विषय में कहा था... मैंने उन्हें (रिहाना) नहीं बताया कि मैं कहां विवाह कर रही हूं। उन्हें लगा कि हम भारत में विवाह करने जा रहे हैं।"" पिछले साल भारत में छुियां बिताने के दौरान कैटी और रसेल की सगाई हुई थी। कैटी ने अपने विवाह की योजनाओं का खुलासा करने से इनकार कर दिया।

मोनिका ने बेटी को जन्म दिया

फ्रांसीसी अभिनेता विन्सेंट कैसल की पत्नी व अभिनेत्री मोनिका बेलुक्सी ने एक बेटी को जन्म दिया है। वेबसाइट "डेली स्टार डॉट को डॉट यूके" के मुताबिक इतालवी अभिनेत्री मोनिका ने शुक्रवार को रोम में बेटी लियोनी को जन्म दिया। मां और बेटी का स्वास्थ्य बेहतर बताया गया है। मोनिका और विन्सेंट का विवाह 1999 में हुआ था। दोनों की एक पांच वर्षीय बेटी डेवा भी है।

बॉस हो तो आमिर जैसा

बॉलीवुड के मिस्टर परफेक्शनिस्ट आमिर खान ने अपने एक साथी की शादी में हिस्सा लेने के लिए अपने सारे पर्सनल कमिटमेंट और शूट कैंसल कर दिए। सूत्रों के अनुसार, सचिन गौडा नामक एक शख्स आमिर के साथ पिछले दस साल से काम कर रहा है जो उनका काफी करीबी है। सचिन की शादी पिछले हफ्ते ही तय हुई है।
आमिर को जैसे ही इस बारे में पता चला, तो उन्होंने सचिन की शादी में बेंगलुरू जाने के लिए अपने सारे प्रोग्राम तभी कैंसल कर दिए। सूत्र ने बताया, इस हफ्ते आमिर काफी बिजी थे और उन्हें कई कमर्शल शूट करने थे, लेकिन सचिन की शादी की खबर सुनते ही उन्होंने सारे प्रोगा्रम कैंसल कर दिए। दरअसल, आमिर इस शादी को अटेंड करने के लिए बेहद उत्साहित थे, इसलिए उन्होंने एक फैमिली मेंबर की तरह शादी में मौजूद रहने का फैसला किया है। आमिर की साथ उनकी पत्नी किरण भी शादी में शामिल हुई।

टि्वटर पर सबसे लोकप्रिय हस्ती हैं स्पीयर्स

पॉप गायिका ब्रिटनी स्पीयर्स सामाजिक नेटवर्किग वेबसाइट टि्वटर पर सबसे लोकप्रिय हस्ती हैं। लोकप्रियता की इस दौ़ड में उन्होंने एश्टन कचर को पीछे छो़ड दिया है।
टि्वटर पर स्पीयर्स के 4,955,768 प्रशंसक हैं जबकि कचर के प्रशंसकों की संख्या 4,944,221 है। स्पीयर्स ने टि्वटर पर लिखा है, ""यह वास्तव में बहुत अद्भुत है! मैं आप सभी से प्यार करती हूं! मैं 4,947,608 धन्यवाद लिखने में बेहतर व्यस्त हो सकती हूं। आप लोगों ने मुझे बहुत खुशी दी है।"" अट्ठाईस वर्षीय स्पीयर्स 2008 से टि्वटर से जु़डी हैं और वह पहली ऎसी टि्वटर सदस्य हैं जिनके प्रशंसकों की संख्या 10 लाख से ज्यादा पहुंच गई है।

टि्वटर से नहीं जुडेंगे सैफ

बॉलीवुड अभिनेता सैफ अली खान को टि्वटर का कोई क्रेज नहीं है। यही वजह है कि सैफ न सिर्फ आज बल्कि आने वाले समय में भी टि्वटर या कोई और नेटवर्किग साइट ज्वाइन नहीं करना चाहते।
सैफ का मानना है कि स्टार्स का इस तरह सीधे तौर पर पब्लिक से बात करना ठीक नहीं है और उन्हें ऑडियंस से एक गैप बनाकर रखना चाहिए। सैफ ने कहा, मैंने टि्वटर या कोई और नेटवर्किग साइट ज्वॉइन नहीं की है। दरअसल, मुझे नहीं लगता कि मुझे इसकी जरूरत है। उनका यह भी कहना था कि वह नहीं जानते कि पब्लिक से क्या बात करनी चाहिए, इसलिए वह उससे दूरी बनाकर रखते है।

धूमधाम से मनाया गया कैम्पबेल का जन्मदिन

सुपरमॉडल नाओमी कैम्पबेल ने अपना 40वां जन्मदिन धूमधाम से मनाया। उनके रूसी अरबपति पुरूष मित्र व्लादिमीर डोरोनिन ने फ्रेंच रिवेरा पर उनके लिए सप्ताहभर चली पार्टी का आयोजन किया था।
वेबसाइट "डेली मेल डॉट को डॉट यूके" के मुताबिक जन्मदिन समारोह में गायिका-अभिनेत्री जेनिफर लोपेज अपने पति मार्क एंथनी के साथ शामिल हुई थीं। संगीतकार मैरी जे. ब्लिज, ग्रेस जोंस और मॉडल ईवा हरजिगोवा ने भी समारोह में शिरकत की थी। एक सूत्र ने बताया, ""जन्मदिन समारोह में नाओमी बहुत ऊर्जावान दिख रही थीं, उन्होंने पूरी रात नृत्य किया। ऎसा लग रहा था जैसे यह किसी के 20वें जन्मदिन की पार्टी हो।"" डोरोनिन ने इस अवसर पर कैम्पबेल को 40 सफेद गुलाबों का गुलदस्ता भेंट किया।

जब खो गई हंसिका की रिंग

बॉलीवुड में खास मुकाम न मिलने के बाद अभिनेत्री हंसिका मोटवानी ने साउथ का रूख कर लिया है। वैसे भी साउथ में तो सभी को काम मिल ही जाता है। ऎसे में हंसिका वहां इतनी व्यस्त हो गई है कि उन्हें अपनी चीजों का भी ध्यान नहीं रहता।
दरअसल हंसिका ने फिल्म के सेट पर अपनी डायमंड रिंग खो दी। जाहिर है हंसिका को यह भी समझ नहीं आया कि वह गिरी तो कहां गिरी। फिर क्या था तमाम यूनिट मेंबर उनकी रिंग ढूंढने में जुट गए, लेकिन छह घंटे की मेहनत के बाद भी वह नहीं मिली। ऎसे में हंसिका के शूट किए गए सारे शॉट्स देखे गए, तो पता लगा कि किस समय उन्होंने रिंग पहन रखी थीं। इसके बाद खोजबीन दोबारा शुरू हुई और इस बार रिंग मिल गई। इस बारे में हंसिका ने कहा, सेट पर मेरी रिंग गुम हो गई थीं और इसके वापस मिलने की मुझे बहुत खुशी है। दरअसल, यह मुझे मेरी मम्मी ने गिफ्ट की थीं, इसलिए यह मेरे लिए बेशकीमती है।

ऎश खा गई दीपिका से मात

फ्रांस के कान फिल्म समारोह बडे-बडे सितारे और फिल्मकार जमा होते है। इस समारोह में बेहतरीन फिल्म देने वाले लोगों को सम्मानित किया जाता है। इन सब बातों के अलावा यह समारोह फैशन का अड्डा भी बन गया है। लिहाजा दुनिया भर की नजर कान समारोह के रेड कार्पेट पर होती है, जहां अभिनेता और अभिनेत्रियां एक से बढकर एक खूबसूरत लिबास में चहलकदमी करते है।
इस समारोह में बॉलीवुड की दो अभिनेत्रियां दीपिका पादुकोण और ऎश्वर्या राय बच्चान पहुंची। ऎश पिछले आठ वर्षो से इस समारोह की शान बढा रही है, लेकिन दीपिका के लिए यह पहला मौका था। इस समारोह में दीपिका और ऎश के कपडों में जमीन आसमान का फर्क था। दीपिका ने साडी पहनकर भारतीय संस्कृति का प्रचार किया, वहीं ऎश ने पाश्चात्य संस्कृति का काले रंग का गाउन पहना, लेकिन अफसोस इस बार वह दीपिका से मात खा गई, क्योंकि दीपिका ऎश से कहीं ज्यादा खूबसूरत नजर आ रही थीं।

हिमेश भी सफेद रंग पर फिदा

फिल्म इंडस्ट्री के कई दिग्गज कलाकारों को सफेद रंग ने बेहद आकर्षित किया, जिसमें अमिताभ बच्चन, शाहरूख खान, अक्षय कुमार, सुनील शेट्टी के अलावा निर्देशक अब्बास मस्तान और मशहूर हुसैन बरमावाला जोकि एडीटर भी है शामिल है।
बॉलीवुड के सभी नामी-गिरामी लोगों को प्रकृति के सभी रंगों में से सिर्फ सफेद रंग ही बेहद सुहाता है और उनकी राय में यह उनकी कामयाबी का सूचक है। यकीनन यही वजह है कि गायक हिमेश रेशमिया भी इस रंग से प्रभावित हुए बगैर नहीं रह पाये और उनको सफेद रंग काफी भा गया। इसलिए कोई भी फिल्म का प्रमोशनल कार्य हो या फिर महत्वपूर्ण कार्य, हिमेश रेशमिया हर जगह सफेद रंग की कमीज को ही प्राथमिकता देते है। सफेद रंग हिमेश को फिल्माकाश की किन ऊंचाइयों पर पहुंचाता है, यह अभी देखना बाकी है।

Sniper Fire and the Dead at Wat Pathuwanaram, Bangkok, May 19 2010

Rare footage taken inside the temple where snipers killed 6 innocent Thais. Who did this? The military is suspected, but no proof yet of the responsibility.

The Most Unusual Hotel Promotions Video You will ever See

This clever video from the Penthouse Hotel in Pattaya has pole dancers, wedding girls, spa hookers, the kitchen chef who considers herself Lady Gaga, and even a brief look at a room. It's really brilliant, far superior to any hotel promotional video I've seen in the past.

American Boy, 13, Breaks Everest Record

Congratulations Jordan. An amazing achievement.

CNN -- A 13-year-old American became the youngest climber to ever summit Mount Everest on Saturday.

Jordan Romero's journey was tracked through GPS coordinates on his blog, logging his team's ascent up Everest, which is 29,028 feet (8,847 meters) above sea level.

"Their dreams have now come true," a statement on Jordan's blog said. "Everyone sounded unbelievably happy."

Before Saturday, the youngest climber to scale Everest was 16-year-old Temba Tsheri of Nepal.

"I know you would like to hear from the boy himself, but he is currently flat on his belly knocked out," a member of Jordan's climbing team said in a message posted Saturday on his blog. "The effort he put out this last more like 48 hours is -- you're not going to believe the story when you see it and read about it."

Romero left for the peak from the Chinese side of the mountain after Nepal denied him permission on age grounds, according to nepalnews.com.

Before starting out, Romero, of Big Bear, California, said he wanted to climb Everest to inspire more young people to get outdoors.

"Obese children are the future of America, the way things are going," he said on April 9 in Kathmandu. "I am hoping to change that by doing what I do: climbing and motivational speaking."

With a smile, he added: "I am doing this a little for myself, too, to do something big."

Jordan now has climbed six of the seven highest peaks on seven continents, known as the Seven Summits.

"This is not an isolated vacation," said Paul Romero, Jordan's father, before the two embarked up Everest in Nepal. "This is a lifestyle."

Romero's family started tackling the Seven Summits in summer 2005. He was just 9 when they climbed 19,341 feet (5,895 meters) to the peak of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.

There is a debate about whether the tallest mountain in Oceania is Kosciuszko in mainland Australia or Carstensz Pyramid in Indonesia, so Romero and his family climbed both.

The only peak left for him to climb after Everest is the Vinson Massif in Antarctica, which is 16,067 feet (4,897 meters). A trip there is planned for December.

Were the Journalists Targeted?

I didn't realize the large number of journalists and photographers who were injured during the Red Shirt riots of May 2010. But it's a shocking number and begs the question: were members of the media deliberately targeted by the army?

Media organizations mourned the deaths and injuries of their colleagues and called for immediate efforts to establish facts and bring to justice those responsibility for the losses of people’s lives.

The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) said in its statement today that it is deeply saddened by the death of Italian freelance photographer Fabio Polenghi on 19 May from gunshot wounds, and extends its condolences to his family and friends.

Mr Polenghi, who worked as freelance for NASA news agency at the time of his death, was the second media fatality during the current political unrest in Bangkok following the fatal shooting on April 10 of Reuter’s Japanese cameraman Hiroyaki Muramoto near Ratchadamnoen Avenue.

As many more civilians have also been killed, every effort should be made to correctly identify those responsible for each individual death so that similar tragedies would not be repeated, the FCCT said.

Two other foreign journalists, both Canadian, have been seriously wounded but are in stable condition.

Nelson Rand, for France 24 television network, sustained three bullet wounds in his arm, leg and abdomen, whilst Chandler Vandergrift suffered shrapnel wounds to the head.

Three Thai photographers and one reporter have also wounded, including a veteran Nation senior photographer Chaiwat Phumpuang.

Dutch journalist Michel Maas, working for Dutch television and newspapers, as well as Radio Netherlands Worldwide, was hospitalized after being shot in his shoulder British correspondent Andrew Buncombe for The Independent have also been injured.

A number of other journalists have been less seriously hurt, but there has been concern over intimidation that has led to assaults on reporters and the loss of reporting materials and images. Some Thai newspapers have closed their offices early due to such intimidation, and local TV station Channel 3 was the target of an arson attack which took it off air for two days.

The FCCT reiterated President Marwaan Macan-Markar's earlier statement that all parties concerned should respect the rights of the domestic and foreign media to report these complex and volatile events with impartiality and accuracy.

“These are important and difficult times for all the people of Thailand and the free flow of correct information is more important than ever," Mr Macan-Markar said.

Earlier on, three media organizations, one each from the Philippines, Malaysia and Thailand, issued separate statements calling on the Thai government to ensure protection and safety of journalists covering the aftermath of the dispersal of the Red Shirt protesters and the subsequent rioting that broke out in Bangkok.

Questions after the Riots

The Bangkok Post today has an interesting opinion article which brings up some disturbing and challening questions.

The street riots which culminated with the arson of Bangkok's central business district have been put down as inevitable. Both the ragtag red shirts' perpetrators of violence and the more organised armed "men in black" were no match for a uniformed army supported by armoured columns in the end.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva speaks at a news conference held at the 11th Infantry Regiment in Bangkok on Friday. Mr Abhisit said he was committed to national reconciliation but made no offer of fresh elections, two days after troops quelled the worst political violence in modern Thai history.

The 70-odd death toll so far from the Ratchaprasong-centred protests over the last two months exceeds each of the previous crises - the entwined Octobers of 1973 and 1976 and the straightforward pro-democracy uprising in May 1992.

On the other hand, the arson attacks have set back the Bangkok-concentrated capitalist boom by at least a decade. The symbolic damage could be more costly as the knock-on effects on tourism and investment come to the fore.

While all stakeholders assess the mounting costs, several troubling questions warrant clarity in the days during the immediate aftermath of the Ratchaprasong rage and rampage.

First, had the various peace overtures run their course? On the eve of the crackdown, a senate-sponsored peace deal appeared in the works. Leading senators were shown on state-run and army-owned television stations in discussion with the leaders of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship.

Perhaps the UDD hardliners hijacked and vetoed the negotiations. Perhaps convicted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra told the UDD hardliners loyal to him to pull the plug. Perhaps the rank-and-file protesters at Ratchaprasong were intransigent to any deal, having been indoctrinated day in and day out on the stage rhetoric of social injustice and al leged murders of their fellow demonstrators from the April 10 clash.

But it was clear that the UDD moderates were intent on standing down. Might more time allotted to them for persuasion of their crowds and bargaining with their opposing hardliners have helped bring a peaceful way out?

And the failures of earlier olive branches need to be explained.

What happened to the promising negotiations brokered by Bangkok Governor MR Sukhumbhand Paribatra? Was it scuttled by the Thaksin hardliners, rejected by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, or both? Mr Abhisit came up with a five-point peace proposal with a concrete election timetable for November polls just two weeks before street riots spiralled out of control. This proposal was accepted by the UDD with the additional condition that Deputy PM Suthep Thaugsuban turn himself in to police to own up to the civilian deaths on April 10.

Why did Mr Suthep surrender to the Department of Special Investigations instead of to the police when he was certain to be freed because no charges had been filed against him? Such gamesmanship and leveraging between the two sides have incurred sombre costs in the streets of Bangkok. And why did PM Abhisit withdraw his peace offer and election timetable if he was intent on finding a peaceful exit out of the brinkmanship? This reversal may have strengthened the hand of UDD hardliners and tipped the balance among the UDD leadership towards a more violent outcome.

Second, should the Abhisit government preside over what its finance minister calls a "healing process" when it has been party to the conflict and is culpable for the dead and injured?

Early government noises suggest more pacification policies and campaigns to placate the reds in the countryside. But we have been here before. After the Songkran riots in April 2009, Mr Abhisit pledged reconciliation and reform. The consequent recommendations for con stitutional amendments came to naught. Further antagonism and alienation of the reds have partly brought on the Ratchaprasong protests. He and his government had the entire year in 2009 to bridge the divide and bring the red shirts on side, but the result has been the opposite. What can the Abhisit government do this time that they did not do after the reds' rioted in April 2009?

Third, what now happens to the reds? Having been forcefully dispersed and roundly condemned for the burning of Bangkok, will the rank-and-file reds simp ly go home and sit quietly? For the reds, nothing has changed. They rioted then and now in April 2009 and May 2010. Their grievances remain unaddressed. What they see as injustice, including their systematic disenfranchisement through the judicial dissolutions of their poll-winning parties not once but twice, the banning of their politicians, and the street-based ouster of their elected governments in 2008, persists. Will these claims of injustice be accommodated by the pro-Abhisit coalition? If not, will the reds come to Bangkok in rage again? Or will they resort to underground activities, including an overtly armed insurgency, and establish their own Thailand away from Bangkok in enclaves of the North and Northeast?

Finally, will the arson and looting of the capital be condemned as vehemently in the North and Northeast as in Bangkok? Will the net effect from the protest and crackdown further divide or begin to reconcile Thai society? More questions will emerge while answers will be hard to come by. Picking up the pieces from the last two months will be arduous, and this is all just a beginning.

In the eyes of Bangkokians, the reds are disgraced yet again. But the reds may not care because they no longer accept the Thai state such as it is and the political system it upholds, because the system is seen as rigged and stacked against them.

The onus rests squarely now on the Abhisit government to bring the reds back into the fold beyond Thaksin. Lumping all the reds under Thaksin's long and manipulative tentacles has been a mistake all along. Accommodating the rank-and-file reds and working with their more moderate leaders, including some of the banned politicians from 2007, may offer a way to bypass Thaksin.

If Mr Abhisit is too compromised and tainted for this task, he should consider his position and make a personal sacrifice to enable others to be put in place for the healing to take place.

Is Abhisit Legitimate?

Amazing. A conversation and debate between spokesmen from the Red Shirts and the government. The UDD guy is cool, calm and very rational, while the government spokesman comes across as the Thai equivalent of Glen Beck...a raving lunatic.

Who Killed the 6 at the Bangkok Temple?

If you believe the explanation provided by the government spokesman in this video, then I've got a few bridges to sell you.

France 24 on Thai Political Crisis

France 24 has a excellent interview with a Thailand expert who quickly discusses the future challenges and why the King is no longer able to intervene in political crisis.