The war against Afghanistan's Taliban is likely to fail without additional forces and a new strategy,the top US and Nato commander said as President Barack Obama faces resistance at home to sending more troops.
Army General Stanley McChrystal, in a confidential assessment, said failure to gain the initiative and reverse "insurgent momentum" in the near term risked an outcome where "defeating the insurgency is no longer possible".
A copy of his 66-page assessment was obtained by the Washington Post and published on its website with some parts removed at the request of the government for security reasons.
Gen McChrystal is expected to ask for a troop increase in the coming weeks to stem gains by a resurgent Taliban.
The assessment stresses the need to engage with the Afghan people using a "new strategy" that requires a "dramatically" different approach to the war.
"Inadequate resources will likely result in failure. However, without a new strategy, the mission should not be resourced," Gen McChrystal is quoted as saying in the report.
Gen McChrystal has already drawn up his request for more troops, which some officials expect will include roughly 30,000 new combat troops and trainers,but he has yet to submit it to Washington for consideration. The Pentagon says it is discussing how he will submit it.
A request for more troops faces resistance from the Democratic Party,which controls Congress, and opinion polls show Americans are turning against the nearly eight-year-old war.
Mr Obama has said that he wanted to wait to determine the proper strategy for US forces in Afghanistan before considering whether more troops should be sent there.
"I just want to make sure that everybody understands that you don't make decisions about resources before you have the strategy ready," he said.
In his assessment, Gen McChrystal painted a grim picture of the war, saying "the overall situation is deteriorating".
He called for a "revolutionary" shift in strategy which puts as much emphasis on gaining the support of Afghans as it does on killing insurgents.
"The objective is the will of the people,our conventional warfare culture is part of the problem, the Afghans must ultimately defeat the insurgency," he wrote.
The war in Afghanistan is now at its deadliest. Gen McChrystal's assessment said militants had control over entire sections of the country, although it was difficult to say how much because of the limited presence of Nato troops.
He also strongly criticised the Afghan government as having lost the faith of the country's people.
"The weakness of state institutions,malign actions of power-brokers, widespread corruption and abuse of power by various officials, and Isaf's own errors,have given Afghans little reason to support their government," Gen McChrystal said, referring to the International Security Assistance Force (Isaf).
Spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Tadd Sholtis said that while the assessment made clear that Gen McChrystal does not believe he can defeat Afghanistan's insurgency without additional troops,he could carry out a mission with different goals if ordered to by Mr Obama.
"The assessment is based on his understanding of the mission ... If there's a change in strategy, then the resources piece changes."
The number of US troops in Afghanistan has almost doubled this year from 32,000 to 62,000 and is expected to grow by another 6,000 by the year's end. There are also 40,000 troops from other nations,mainly Nato allies.
Fifty-eight percent of Americans now oppose the Afghan war while 39% support it, according to a recent CNN/Opinion Research poll.
Mr Obama's critics in Congress,including his 2008 Republican presidential opponent Senator John McCain, have urged the administration to approve the deployment of more troops immediately,saying any delay puts the lives of troops already in Afghanistan at greater risk.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said on Sunday his party would support a troop increase if needed,adding he was troubled by the delay in the decision-making.
"We think the time for decision is now," Mr McConnell said.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Scenario precarious for women migrants
As clandestine migrant labour is an enormous issue in Thailand, a key challenge is how to address the issue effectively and humanely.
Globalisation implies a greater integration of the international system from the angle of faster communications and information, and greater liberalisation of trade in goods, services, capital and investment flows.
However, a recurrent question is to what extent globalisation enables migration to take place in an orderly and balanced manner, with due regard to the rights of migrant workers, especially women who now constitute a large part of the work force?
Currently, the answer is somewhat ambiguous in that today's global system seems more ready to liberalise the flows of goods, services, capital and investment,rather than migration itself which is often seen as a challenge to national sovereignty and ethnic sensibility. The rules and agreements which have been evolved under the World Trade Organisation (WTO), an organisation closely linked with globalisation, have confirmed that trend.
In this context, it is necessary to see the migration issue from three angles:white collar workers (skilled labour), blue collar workers (unskilled labour) and "no collar workers," namely those who cross borders clandestinely and who often land up in exploitative situations.
White collar workers can cross borders to work in other countries quite easily,and under the WTO, this often takes place under the umbrella of opening up markets to services, thus enabling women executives and skilled workers to provide services in other countries.
With regard to blue collar workers,there are large numbers working outside their country of origin, such as maids.The arrangements are at times bilateral,at times regional. Multilaterally, while a comprehensive agreement is lacking on the liberalisation of migration flows, there are some international standards in the form of treaties which offer protection to those on the move by safeguarding their rights; these have been propelled particularly by the United Nations, in particular through the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as a specialised agency.
Yet the scenario facing women migrants is precarious for a number of reasons. First, increasingly it is evident there is a feminisation of thelabour flows,with women landing up in many jobs which exemplify the 3 D's of work dirty, dangerous and degrading. The Progress of the World's Women Report 2008-09 observes that over the last decade, more than 200 million women have joined the global labour force, and they often land up in labour-intensive and low-paying activities such as subsistence agriculture, domestic work and the clothing industry. Employers see women workers as free from the "fixed costs" of an organised labour force, such as basic minimum wages - particularly equal pay for equal work and social security guarantees. Women are thus more susceptible to discrimination and exploitation.
Second, many countries have shied away from becoming parties to international treaties for the protection of migrant labour, thus preferring to retain their discretion in dealing with migration issues without international scrutiny.In particular, there have been few accessions to the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and their families. This treaty guarantees the basic rights of all migrant workers whether they are documented or undocumented.While documented workers are guaranteed more rights than undocumented workers, the latter still enjoy key rights under the treaty such as the right to life and humane treatment and their right to seek redress, such as payment for their work even if they are part of the illegal migrant labour. The lack of accessions to this treaty testifies to the lack of political will globally to liberalise migration flows with safeguards for migrant welfare, even though many countries are short of workers and have to import foreign labour.
Third, in the debate concerning whether to open up to migration, the environment behind the migration should not be overlooked. Often it is the lack of choice in their homesteads lack of opportunities, lack of income,lack of access to jobs and other productive activities which push people to leave and to seek opportunities elsewhere.This is particularly poignant for women who, more often than not, trail behind men in the availability of choices and accessibility to livelihood.
Fourth, regionally many Free Trade Areas (FTAs) have come into existence,opening up markets to trade in goods,services and capital. While white collar workers have benefited from this, blue collar and no collar workers are in a more tenuous situation.
Several export processing zones (EPZ)have grown which offer the benefits of easier trade, but without concurrent guarantees of labour rights. This has meant the lowering of labour standards on minimum wages for work and respect for worker rights, particularly women. More-over, there has been little assessment of how FTAs impact on women in the localities in general and women migrant workers in particular. In one Caribbean country noted by the Progress of the World's Women Report, it has been shown that job losses outweighed the benefits from the FTA, with women losing out in the process.
Fifth, Thailand has faced the migration issue particularly by opting for the registration of foreign migrant labour and concluding bilateral a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with all of its immediate neighbours. These MOUs are based on the premise that migrants can enter Thailand to work if there is a labour shortage in relation to relevant sectors and there is an official channel for them to come into the country through official channels in neighbouring countries. If they enter legally and pay the relevant contributions, they have access to medical and other benefits as part of the social security programme offered by the destination country. However, as clandestine migrant labour is an enormous issue in the country, a key challenge is how to address the issue effectively and humanely.
In addition to the prescription of registration of migrant labour introduced by Thailand several years ago, there is now a new law on the employment of alien workers. In 2008, this new law came into effect, with the innovation that unlike previous national laws which listed various types of work in which foreign labour could not be engaged, the new law will list the types of activities open to foreign labour. Employers and foreign employees must also make contributions into a fund which will be used to assist foreign migrant workers to return to their country of origin. However, one anomaly is that law enforcers will be able to arrest foreign migrant workers without a court warrant.
On another front, it should be noted that the Labour Protection Act which was updated also in 2008, does not discriminate between Thais and foreigners in terms of labour rights protection. They all have a right to equal wages. Women and adolescent workers are protected from various types of harmful work. The minimum age of employment is set at 15, while there is protection of those under 18 years of age from certain kinds of dangerous work.
To counter the exploitation and abuse which may affect workers, there are also special laws and policies, such as the law against human trafficking which came into force last year, and the antiprostitution law. The country's new National Health Act also opens the door to covering migrant workers in relation to healthcare access. Yet, in spite of these legislative changes, implementation often leaves much to be desired and there is a considerable gap between law and practice, legislation and enforcement.
For the future, various orientations deserve to be highlighted with particular emphasis on the protection of women migrant workers. At the multilateral level,the WTO should be encouraged to promote a sense of responsiveness to labour standards. This can be done, in part, by requesting states which send in their reports under the Trade Policy Review mechanism to include information on labour rights.
Countries should also sign up to the 1990 Migrant Workers' Convention as well as ILO Conventions, while ensuring that EPZs do not lower labour standards.Various anti-crime treaties such as the Palermo Protocol against human trafficking also voice the need for more global cooperation against transnational crimes.
At the regional level, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) itself should underline more effectively the need to protect migrant labour. On a welcome front, recently Asean adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Migrant Workers. Next month, the Asean Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission will also be set up as the overarching body on human rights in Asean. A related issue is to ensure that the Asean FTA is assessed from the angle of its impact on the situation of local and migrant labourers, with relevant remedies.
Likewise, bilateral agreements on migrant labour in Asean need to abide by international labour standards. Various practices such as the caning of labourers and the expulsion of women migrant labourers who wish to marry the residents of the destination country, are unacceptable practices.
With regard to Thailand, the country should accede to the 1990 Migrant Workers' Convention and relevant ILO treaties and implement them well.Undocumented migrant labourers should be assisted to access the remuneration to which they are entitled as part of access to justice.
The new law on the employment of alien workers should also be applied to uphold human rights standards, such as the general principle that arrests should only by undertaken with court warrants. Legal and other measures in the anti-crime field, such as those against human trafficking, should abide by the need for gender sensibility and the protection of victims and witnesses from intimidation.
In effect, a key message from the phenomenon of women migrant workers is that "Justice based on Women's Rights"should be increasingly resonant both locally and globally.
Vitit Muntarbhorn is a Professor of Law at Chulalongkorn University. He has helped the UN in a variety of capacities, including as an expert, consultant and Special Rapporteur. This article is derived from his speech at the National Platform for Women,Bangkok, Sept 17,2009.
Globalisation implies a greater integration of the international system from the angle of faster communications and information, and greater liberalisation of trade in goods, services, capital and investment flows.
However, a recurrent question is to what extent globalisation enables migration to take place in an orderly and balanced manner, with due regard to the rights of migrant workers, especially women who now constitute a large part of the work force?
Currently, the answer is somewhat ambiguous in that today's global system seems more ready to liberalise the flows of goods, services, capital and investment,rather than migration itself which is often seen as a challenge to national sovereignty and ethnic sensibility. The rules and agreements which have been evolved under the World Trade Organisation (WTO), an organisation closely linked with globalisation, have confirmed that trend.
In this context, it is necessary to see the migration issue from three angles:white collar workers (skilled labour), blue collar workers (unskilled labour) and "no collar workers," namely those who cross borders clandestinely and who often land up in exploitative situations.
White collar workers can cross borders to work in other countries quite easily,and under the WTO, this often takes place under the umbrella of opening up markets to services, thus enabling women executives and skilled workers to provide services in other countries.
With regard to blue collar workers,there are large numbers working outside their country of origin, such as maids.The arrangements are at times bilateral,at times regional. Multilaterally, while a comprehensive agreement is lacking on the liberalisation of migration flows, there are some international standards in the form of treaties which offer protection to those on the move by safeguarding their rights; these have been propelled particularly by the United Nations, in particular through the International Labour Organisation (ILO) as a specialised agency.
Yet the scenario facing women migrants is precarious for a number of reasons. First, increasingly it is evident there is a feminisation of thelabour flows,with women landing up in many jobs which exemplify the 3 D's of work dirty, dangerous and degrading. The Progress of the World's Women Report 2008-09 observes that over the last decade, more than 200 million women have joined the global labour force, and they often land up in labour-intensive and low-paying activities such as subsistence agriculture, domestic work and the clothing industry. Employers see women workers as free from the "fixed costs" of an organised labour force, such as basic minimum wages - particularly equal pay for equal work and social security guarantees. Women are thus more susceptible to discrimination and exploitation.
Second, many countries have shied away from becoming parties to international treaties for the protection of migrant labour, thus preferring to retain their discretion in dealing with migration issues without international scrutiny.In particular, there have been few accessions to the 1990 UN Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers and their families. This treaty guarantees the basic rights of all migrant workers whether they are documented or undocumented.While documented workers are guaranteed more rights than undocumented workers, the latter still enjoy key rights under the treaty such as the right to life and humane treatment and their right to seek redress, such as payment for their work even if they are part of the illegal migrant labour. The lack of accessions to this treaty testifies to the lack of political will globally to liberalise migration flows with safeguards for migrant welfare, even though many countries are short of workers and have to import foreign labour.
Third, in the debate concerning whether to open up to migration, the environment behind the migration should not be overlooked. Often it is the lack of choice in their homesteads lack of opportunities, lack of income,lack of access to jobs and other productive activities which push people to leave and to seek opportunities elsewhere.This is particularly poignant for women who, more often than not, trail behind men in the availability of choices and accessibility to livelihood.
Fourth, regionally many Free Trade Areas (FTAs) have come into existence,opening up markets to trade in goods,services and capital. While white collar workers have benefited from this, blue collar and no collar workers are in a more tenuous situation.
Several export processing zones (EPZ)have grown which offer the benefits of easier trade, but without concurrent guarantees of labour rights. This has meant the lowering of labour standards on minimum wages for work and respect for worker rights, particularly women. More-over, there has been little assessment of how FTAs impact on women in the localities in general and women migrant workers in particular. In one Caribbean country noted by the Progress of the World's Women Report, it has been shown that job losses outweighed the benefits from the FTA, with women losing out in the process.
Fifth, Thailand has faced the migration issue particularly by opting for the registration of foreign migrant labour and concluding bilateral a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with all of its immediate neighbours. These MOUs are based on the premise that migrants can enter Thailand to work if there is a labour shortage in relation to relevant sectors and there is an official channel for them to come into the country through official channels in neighbouring countries. If they enter legally and pay the relevant contributions, they have access to medical and other benefits as part of the social security programme offered by the destination country. However, as clandestine migrant labour is an enormous issue in the country, a key challenge is how to address the issue effectively and humanely.
In addition to the prescription of registration of migrant labour introduced by Thailand several years ago, there is now a new law on the employment of alien workers. In 2008, this new law came into effect, with the innovation that unlike previous national laws which listed various types of work in which foreign labour could not be engaged, the new law will list the types of activities open to foreign labour. Employers and foreign employees must also make contributions into a fund which will be used to assist foreign migrant workers to return to their country of origin. However, one anomaly is that law enforcers will be able to arrest foreign migrant workers without a court warrant.
On another front, it should be noted that the Labour Protection Act which was updated also in 2008, does not discriminate between Thais and foreigners in terms of labour rights protection. They all have a right to equal wages. Women and adolescent workers are protected from various types of harmful work. The minimum age of employment is set at 15, while there is protection of those under 18 years of age from certain kinds of dangerous work.
To counter the exploitation and abuse which may affect workers, there are also special laws and policies, such as the law against human trafficking which came into force last year, and the antiprostitution law. The country's new National Health Act also opens the door to covering migrant workers in relation to healthcare access. Yet, in spite of these legislative changes, implementation often leaves much to be desired and there is a considerable gap between law and practice, legislation and enforcement.
For the future, various orientations deserve to be highlighted with particular emphasis on the protection of women migrant workers. At the multilateral level,the WTO should be encouraged to promote a sense of responsiveness to labour standards. This can be done, in part, by requesting states which send in their reports under the Trade Policy Review mechanism to include information on labour rights.
Countries should also sign up to the 1990 Migrant Workers' Convention as well as ILO Conventions, while ensuring that EPZs do not lower labour standards.Various anti-crime treaties such as the Palermo Protocol against human trafficking also voice the need for more global cooperation against transnational crimes.
At the regional level, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) itself should underline more effectively the need to protect migrant labour. On a welcome front, recently Asean adopted the Declaration on the Rights of Migrant Workers. Next month, the Asean Intergovernmental Human Rights Commission will also be set up as the overarching body on human rights in Asean. A related issue is to ensure that the Asean FTA is assessed from the angle of its impact on the situation of local and migrant labourers, with relevant remedies.
Likewise, bilateral agreements on migrant labour in Asean need to abide by international labour standards. Various practices such as the caning of labourers and the expulsion of women migrant labourers who wish to marry the residents of the destination country, are unacceptable practices.
With regard to Thailand, the country should accede to the 1990 Migrant Workers' Convention and relevant ILO treaties and implement them well.Undocumented migrant labourers should be assisted to access the remuneration to which they are entitled as part of access to justice.
The new law on the employment of alien workers should also be applied to uphold human rights standards, such as the general principle that arrests should only by undertaken with court warrants. Legal and other measures in the anti-crime field, such as those against human trafficking, should abide by the need for gender sensibility and the protection of victims and witnesses from intimidation.
In effect, a key message from the phenomenon of women migrant workers is that "Justice based on Women's Rights"should be increasingly resonant both locally and globally.
Vitit Muntarbhorn is a Professor of Law at Chulalongkorn University. He has helped the UN in a variety of capacities, including as an expert, consultant and Special Rapporteur. This article is derived from his speech at the National Platform for Women,Bangkok, Sept 17,2009.
Edge back from the abyss - it's time to deliver
...the draft text contains some 250 pages: a feast of alternative options, a forest of square brackets.If we don't sort this out, it risks becoming the longest and most global suicide note in history.
Climate change is happening faster than we believed only two years ago. Continuing with business as usual almost certainly means dangerous, perhaps catastrophic, climate change during the course of this century. This is the most important challenge for this generation of politicians.
I am now very concerned about the prospects for Copenhagen. The negotiations are dangerously close to deadlock at the moment - and such a deadlock may go far beyond a simple negotiating stand-off that we can fix next year. It risks being an acrimonious collapse, perhaps on the basis of a deep split between the developed and developing countries. The world right now cannot afford such a disastrous outcome.
So I hope that as world leaders peer over the edge of the abyss in New York and Pittsburgh this week, we will collectively conclude that we have to play an active part in driving the negotiations forward.
Now is not the time for poker playing.Now is the time for putting offers on the table, offers at the outer limits of our political constraints. That is exactly what Europe has done, and will continue to do.
Part of the answer lies in identifying the heart of the potential bargain that might yet bring us to a successful result, and here I think that the world leaders gathering in New York can make a real difference.
The first part of the bargain is that all developed countries need to clarify their plans on mid-term emissions reductions,and show the necessary leadership, not least in line with our responsibilities for past emissions. If we want to achieve at least an 80% reduction by 2050, developed countries must strive to achieve the necessary collective 25-40% reductions by 2020. The EU is ready to go from 20% to 30% if others make comparable efforts.
Second, developed countries must now explicitly recognise that we will all have to play a significant part in helping to finance mitigation and adaptation action by developing countries.
Our estimate is that by 2020, developing countries will need roughly an additional 100 billion euros (US$150 billion) a year to tackle climate change. Part of it will be financed from economically advanced developing countries themselves. The biggest share should come from the carbon market,if we have the courage to set up an ambitious global scheme.
But some will need to come in flows of public finance from developed to developing countries, perhaps from 22 billion to 50 billion euros ($30- $70 billion) a year by 2020. Almost half of this amount will be required to support adaptation action giving priority to the most vulnerable and poor developing countries.
Depending on the outcome of internation-al burden-sharing discussions, the EU's share of that could be anything from 10% to 30%,i.e. up to 15 billion euros ($22 billion) a year.
We will need to be ready, in other words,to make a significant contribution in the medium term, and also to look at shortterm "start up funding" for developing countries in the next year or so. I look forward to discussing this with EU leaders when we meet at the end of October.
So we need to signal our readiness to talk finance this week. The counterpart is that developing countries, at least the economically advanced amongst them, have to be much clearer on what they are ready to do to mitigate carbon emissions as part of an international agreement.
They are already putting in place domestic measures to limit carbon emissions but they clearly need to step up such efforts - particularly the most advanced developing countries. They understandably stress that the availability of carbon finance from the rich world is a pre-requisite to mitigation action on their part, as indeed agreed in Bali.
But the developed world will have nothing to finance if there is no commitment to such action.
We have less than 80 calendar days to go till Copenhagen. As of the Bonn meeting last month, the draft text contains some 250 pages: a feast of alternative options, a forest of square brackets. If we don't sort this out,it risks becoming the longest and most global suicide note in history.
This week in New York and Pittsburgh promises to be a pivotal one, if only as it will reveal how much global leaders are ready to invest in these negotiations, to push for a successful outcome. The choice is simple:no money, no deal. But no actions, no money!
Copenhagen is a critical occasion to shift,collectively, onto an emissions trajectory that keeps global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3,6 Fahrenheit]. So the fight-back has to begin this week in New York and continue in Bangkok on Sept 28,2009.
Jose Manuel Barroso is President of the European Commission.
Climate change is happening faster than we believed only two years ago. Continuing with business as usual almost certainly means dangerous, perhaps catastrophic, climate change during the course of this century. This is the most important challenge for this generation of politicians.
I am now very concerned about the prospects for Copenhagen. The negotiations are dangerously close to deadlock at the moment - and such a deadlock may go far beyond a simple negotiating stand-off that we can fix next year. It risks being an acrimonious collapse, perhaps on the basis of a deep split between the developed and developing countries. The world right now cannot afford such a disastrous outcome.
So I hope that as world leaders peer over the edge of the abyss in New York and Pittsburgh this week, we will collectively conclude that we have to play an active part in driving the negotiations forward.
Now is not the time for poker playing.Now is the time for putting offers on the table, offers at the outer limits of our political constraints. That is exactly what Europe has done, and will continue to do.
Part of the answer lies in identifying the heart of the potential bargain that might yet bring us to a successful result, and here I think that the world leaders gathering in New York can make a real difference.
The first part of the bargain is that all developed countries need to clarify their plans on mid-term emissions reductions,and show the necessary leadership, not least in line with our responsibilities for past emissions. If we want to achieve at least an 80% reduction by 2050, developed countries must strive to achieve the necessary collective 25-40% reductions by 2020. The EU is ready to go from 20% to 30% if others make comparable efforts.
Second, developed countries must now explicitly recognise that we will all have to play a significant part in helping to finance mitigation and adaptation action by developing countries.
Our estimate is that by 2020, developing countries will need roughly an additional 100 billion euros (US$150 billion) a year to tackle climate change. Part of it will be financed from economically advanced developing countries themselves. The biggest share should come from the carbon market,if we have the courage to set up an ambitious global scheme.
But some will need to come in flows of public finance from developed to developing countries, perhaps from 22 billion to 50 billion euros ($30- $70 billion) a year by 2020. Almost half of this amount will be required to support adaptation action giving priority to the most vulnerable and poor developing countries.
Depending on the outcome of internation-al burden-sharing discussions, the EU's share of that could be anything from 10% to 30%,i.e. up to 15 billion euros ($22 billion) a year.
We will need to be ready, in other words,to make a significant contribution in the medium term, and also to look at shortterm "start up funding" for developing countries in the next year or so. I look forward to discussing this with EU leaders when we meet at the end of October.
So we need to signal our readiness to talk finance this week. The counterpart is that developing countries, at least the economically advanced amongst them, have to be much clearer on what they are ready to do to mitigate carbon emissions as part of an international agreement.
They are already putting in place domestic measures to limit carbon emissions but they clearly need to step up such efforts - particularly the most advanced developing countries. They understandably stress that the availability of carbon finance from the rich world is a pre-requisite to mitigation action on their part, as indeed agreed in Bali.
But the developed world will have nothing to finance if there is no commitment to such action.
We have less than 80 calendar days to go till Copenhagen. As of the Bonn meeting last month, the draft text contains some 250 pages: a feast of alternative options, a forest of square brackets. If we don't sort this out,it risks becoming the longest and most global suicide note in history.
This week in New York and Pittsburgh promises to be a pivotal one, if only as it will reveal how much global leaders are ready to invest in these negotiations, to push for a successful outcome. The choice is simple:no money, no deal. But no actions, no money!
Copenhagen is a critical occasion to shift,collectively, onto an emissions trajectory that keeps global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3,6 Fahrenheit]. So the fight-back has to begin this week in New York and continue in Bangkok on Sept 28,2009.
Jose Manuel Barroso is President of the European Commission.
Ferrero-Waldner bows out of Unesco race
The European Commissioner for External Relations, Benita FerreroWaldner,61, on Sunday pulled out of the race to lead the UN culture and education organisation Unesco.
A former Austrian foreign minister,Mrs Ferrero-Waldner was seen as a strong challenger to Egyptian Culture Minister Faruq Hosni whose candidacy has been clouded by charges of anti-Semitism.
"Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner decided to withdraw in the interest of the organisation and European unity,"said an Austrian embassy statement.
Unesco's 58-nation executive council started voting on Thursday for a successor to Japan's Koichiro Matsuura as directorgeneral, with Mr Hosni seen as the favourite. Mrs Ferrero-Waldner won 11 votes in a third ballot on Saturday.
A former Austrian foreign minister,Mrs Ferrero-Waldner was seen as a strong challenger to Egyptian Culture Minister Faruq Hosni whose candidacy has been clouded by charges of anti-Semitism.
"Commissioner Ferrero-Waldner decided to withdraw in the interest of the organisation and European unity,"said an Austrian embassy statement.
Unesco's 58-nation executive council started voting on Thursday for a successor to Japan's Koichiro Matsuura as directorgeneral, with Mr Hosni seen as the favourite. Mrs Ferrero-Waldner won 11 votes in a third ballot on Saturday.
PAD TEMPLE PROTEST WAS BLATANT PROVOCATION
The government must stop its ally from causing any more trouble at disputed border site The People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) should have learnt a lesson after its clash with local residents over the weekend near the disputed temple of Preah Vihear on the Cambodian border. The PAD's protest at the site was wrong. It was no way to protect Thailand's national sovereignty.
Blood should not be spilled over this stupid demand to have sovereignty over the disputed territory. It remains unclear to which country the temple actually belongs. It is embarrassing to see Thai people fighting each other in this area, even though Thailand and Cambodia are at odds over the historical site.
The nationalist elements of the PAD made a silly and unnecessarily provocative move to protest at the Pha Mor Ee Daeng site on Saturday and Sunday, demanding the removal of a Cambodian community from the disputed area of 4.6 square kilometres.
The area adjacent to the Preah Vihear temple is claimed by both Thailand and Cambodia. But the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding in 2000 to leave the site free from occupation until the boundary demarcation is finished and agreed upon.
It is true that Cambodia has built up a settlement, temple and military outpost in the disputed area since 2004. But the PAD should be well aware that the Thai Foreign Ministry has lodged a series of diplomatic protests over the Cambodian construction.
The Cambodian action might be regarded as a violation of the 2000 memorandum of understanding, but it is wrong for Thai people to try to remove the settlers from the area by force. We must be civilised in solving the problem by negotiation through the proper diplomatic channels.
Instead of helping to solve the problem, the PAD action has simply made the issue more complicated. The protest degenerated into clashes with local residents in Si Sa Ket's Kanthalalak district, who have lived there for generations.
Local residents in many sub-districts in the area around Preah Vihear and the Phra Viharn National Park view the PAD protesters as troublemakers. The PAD caused the closure of the temple.
Many Thai people in the area rely on the Preah Vihear temple for a number of reasons. Some are traders who rely on tourists who visit the World Heritage site; some need to travel through the area to get to their farms; some gather food and other items from the forests; others are relatives of people in the Cambodian community in the disputed area. Sovereignty over the boundary is meaningless for local people. They are able to get on with their daily lives even with the blurred boundary line.
The clash over the weekend between the local villagers and the PAD protesters, who mostly came from elsewhere, was not the first time that such trouble has flared, but the second. The history of conflict between the two groups began last year when the PAD protested to Cambodia over the World Heritage inscription proposal. The PAD protest forced the authorities in Cambodia to shut Preah Vihear to tourism. The military on both sides have set up security outposts throughout the area, blocking local residents from travelling freely.
It is understandable that local people blame the PAD for creating trouble. An angry mob attacked PAD protesters in July last year when the PAD rallied at the site shortly after the World Heritage Committee announced Preah Vihear's inscription as a heritage site. Many people were injured in the clashes and ugly pictures were televised as Thais used flagpoles to beat each other.
Unfortunately, the PAD has not learned a lesson from the bloodshed last year, and has simply repeated the same mistake this year. The thousands of PAD marchers clashed with the same group of villagers in almost exactly same place, Ban Phumsarol. At least five people on both sides were injured this time. The most serious case was an injury to a protester's right eye, and some villagers were reportedly shot at by unknown gunmen.
Nobody is taking responsibility for the incident, as leaders of both sides have filed lawsuits for criminal damage against each other. Such actions will consequently create more conflict between the two groups of Thais.
The PAD leader of the demonstration, Veera Somkwamkid, says he will not give up national sovereignty over the disputed territory and will stay the course in the fight. The local residents are unlikely to throw the towel in either. The rift will go on.
The government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has underestimated the level of conflict between the PAD and the villagers. It made no serious effort to prevent either the protest or the clashes. Minor injuries in Si Sa Ket might mean nothing to those in power who once agreed with this nationalist agenda - especially as a tactic against their political rivals - but people should not be scarified in this unnecessary conflict. Nobody will gain anything from such thoughtlessness.
Thailand will not benefit from this PAD protest over the boundary demarcation with Cambodia. The government must step in to stop any further provocation by its closest ally before the dispute degenerates into worse bloodshed.
Blood should not be spilled over this stupid demand to have sovereignty over the disputed territory. It remains unclear to which country the temple actually belongs. It is embarrassing to see Thai people fighting each other in this area, even though Thailand and Cambodia are at odds over the historical site.
The nationalist elements of the PAD made a silly and unnecessarily provocative move to protest at the Pha Mor Ee Daeng site on Saturday and Sunday, demanding the removal of a Cambodian community from the disputed area of 4.6 square kilometres.
The area adjacent to the Preah Vihear temple is claimed by both Thailand and Cambodia. But the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding in 2000 to leave the site free from occupation until the boundary demarcation is finished and agreed upon.
It is true that Cambodia has built up a settlement, temple and military outpost in the disputed area since 2004. But the PAD should be well aware that the Thai Foreign Ministry has lodged a series of diplomatic protests over the Cambodian construction.
The Cambodian action might be regarded as a violation of the 2000 memorandum of understanding, but it is wrong for Thai people to try to remove the settlers from the area by force. We must be civilised in solving the problem by negotiation through the proper diplomatic channels.
Instead of helping to solve the problem, the PAD action has simply made the issue more complicated. The protest degenerated into clashes with local residents in Si Sa Ket's Kanthalalak district, who have lived there for generations.
Local residents in many sub-districts in the area around Preah Vihear and the Phra Viharn National Park view the PAD protesters as troublemakers. The PAD caused the closure of the temple.
Many Thai people in the area rely on the Preah Vihear temple for a number of reasons. Some are traders who rely on tourists who visit the World Heritage site; some need to travel through the area to get to their farms; some gather food and other items from the forests; others are relatives of people in the Cambodian community in the disputed area. Sovereignty over the boundary is meaningless for local people. They are able to get on with their daily lives even with the blurred boundary line.
The clash over the weekend between the local villagers and the PAD protesters, who mostly came from elsewhere, was not the first time that such trouble has flared, but the second. The history of conflict between the two groups began last year when the PAD protested to Cambodia over the World Heritage inscription proposal. The PAD protest forced the authorities in Cambodia to shut Preah Vihear to tourism. The military on both sides have set up security outposts throughout the area, blocking local residents from travelling freely.
It is understandable that local people blame the PAD for creating trouble. An angry mob attacked PAD protesters in July last year when the PAD rallied at the site shortly after the World Heritage Committee announced Preah Vihear's inscription as a heritage site. Many people were injured in the clashes and ugly pictures were televised as Thais used flagpoles to beat each other.
Unfortunately, the PAD has not learned a lesson from the bloodshed last year, and has simply repeated the same mistake this year. The thousands of PAD marchers clashed with the same group of villagers in almost exactly same place, Ban Phumsarol. At least five people on both sides were injured this time. The most serious case was an injury to a protester's right eye, and some villagers were reportedly shot at by unknown gunmen.
Nobody is taking responsibility for the incident, as leaders of both sides have filed lawsuits for criminal damage against each other. Such actions will consequently create more conflict between the two groups of Thais.
The PAD leader of the demonstration, Veera Somkwamkid, says he will not give up national sovereignty over the disputed territory and will stay the course in the fight. The local residents are unlikely to throw the towel in either. The rift will go on.
The government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has underestimated the level of conflict between the PAD and the villagers. It made no serious effort to prevent either the protest or the clashes. Minor injuries in Si Sa Ket might mean nothing to those in power who once agreed with this nationalist agenda - especially as a tactic against their political rivals - but people should not be scarified in this unnecessary conflict. Nobody will gain anything from such thoughtlessness.
Thailand will not benefit from this PAD protest over the boundary demarcation with Cambodia. The government must step in to stop any further provocation by its closest ally before the dispute degenerates into worse bloodshed.
Netanyahu "won't halt" Jewish settlements
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will defend expanding Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank when he meets US President Barack Obama and the Palestinian leader, his spokesman said.
"You have never heard the prime minister say he would freeze settlement building. The opposite is true," Nir Hefetz said yesterday when asked about today's three-way summit during the UN General Assembly in New York, where differences over settlement building have limited expectations of a result.
"There are some politicians ... who see halting building or ceding national territory or harming the settlements [in the West Bank] as an asset, something that can help Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu cannot be counted among those people."
About 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and in Arab East Jerusalem,captured in a 1967 war, alongside three million Palestinians. The World Court calls the settlements illegal.
The US-backed peace plan that Israel signed in 2003, known as the "road map",required a halt to building in the Jewish settlements that Palestinians say are diminishing the chance of a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Mr Netanyahu, despite pressure from the Obama administration, insists settlers should be allowed to continue building as their families grow and rules out any discussion on sharing Jerusalem with the Palestinians.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Mr Obama's personal intervention was welcome. A settlement freeze was an Israeli obligation, he said, not a Palestinian precondition.
"For the last eight months, the clear message from the international community has been that both sides need to meet their obligations" in order for talks to resume, Mr Erekat said.
"You have never heard the prime minister say he would freeze settlement building. The opposite is true," Nir Hefetz said yesterday when asked about today's three-way summit during the UN General Assembly in New York, where differences over settlement building have limited expectations of a result.
"There are some politicians ... who see halting building or ceding national territory or harming the settlements [in the West Bank] as an asset, something that can help Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu cannot be counted among those people."
About 500,000 Israelis live in the West Bank and in Arab East Jerusalem,captured in a 1967 war, alongside three million Palestinians. The World Court calls the settlements illegal.
The US-backed peace plan that Israel signed in 2003, known as the "road map",required a halt to building in the Jewish settlements that Palestinians say are diminishing the chance of a future Palestinian state in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Mr Netanyahu, despite pressure from the Obama administration, insists settlers should be allowed to continue building as their families grow and rules out any discussion on sharing Jerusalem with the Palestinians.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Mr Obama's personal intervention was welcome. A settlement freeze was an Israeli obligation, he said, not a Palestinian precondition.
"For the last eight months, the clear message from the international community has been that both sides need to meet their obligations" in order for talks to resume, Mr Erekat said.
State funeral for 6 soldiers slain in Kabul
Italy mourned six soldiers killed in Afghanistan as teary-eyed relatives,officials and thousands of citizens saluted their flag-draped coffins at a state funeral yesterday.
The government called a national day of mourning, with flags at half-staff and a minute of silence at public offices.
The attack on Thursday in Kabul marked Italy's deadliest day yet in the Afghan conflict. At home, it rekindled a debate over Italian participation in the mission and the prospects for an end to the eight-year war.
In a traditional sign of respect, the crowd applauded as the six coffins were carried inside the Basilica of St Paul's Outside the Walls by fellow soldiers. An honour guard saluted the coffins and many standing in the rain outside the basilica waved the red-white-and-green Italian flag. The bodies of the Italians were returned home on Sunday.
In one of the most poignant moments of the ceremony, the seven-year-old son of one of the victims approached his father's coffin and gently touched it. A photo portrait of each man, along with his beret, was placed on each coffin.
Pope Benedict XVI sent a telegram of condolences that was read during the ceremony, saying he was praying that God would "support those who are engaged daily in building solidarity,reconciliation and peace in the world".
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi shook hands with relatives of the dead as he sought to comfort them, and President Giorgio Napolitano bowed his head before the coffins.
Some private businesses shut down their doors for a few minutes during the ceremony, reports said. The funeral was broadcast live on state-run TV and other national broadcasters.
The government called a national day of mourning, with flags at half-staff and a minute of silence at public offices.
The attack on Thursday in Kabul marked Italy's deadliest day yet in the Afghan conflict. At home, it rekindled a debate over Italian participation in the mission and the prospects for an end to the eight-year war.
In a traditional sign of respect, the crowd applauded as the six coffins were carried inside the Basilica of St Paul's Outside the Walls by fellow soldiers. An honour guard saluted the coffins and many standing in the rain outside the basilica waved the red-white-and-green Italian flag. The bodies of the Italians were returned home on Sunday.
In one of the most poignant moments of the ceremony, the seven-year-old son of one of the victims approached his father's coffin and gently touched it. A photo portrait of each man, along with his beret, was placed on each coffin.
Pope Benedict XVI sent a telegram of condolences that was read during the ceremony, saying he was praying that God would "support those who are engaged daily in building solidarity,reconciliation and peace in the world".
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi shook hands with relatives of the dead as he sought to comfort them, and President Giorgio Napolitano bowed his head before the coffins.
Some private businesses shut down their doors for a few minutes during the ceremony, reports said. The funeral was broadcast live on state-run TV and other national broadcasters.
Asean summit will be guarded by a 20,000-strong contingent
The Defence Ministry plans to deploy more than 20,000 soldiers to ensure maximum security during the summit of Southeast Asian leaders next month, a ministry source says.
The Asean meeting will be held from Oct 21 to 25 in Phetchaburi's Cha-am district and Hua Hin district in Prachuap Khiri Khan.
All 10 Asean leaders and six dialogue partners have confirmed their attendance, director-general of the Asean Affairs Department Vitavas Srivihok said yesterday. The dialogue partners are China,Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India.
The armed forces will implement a security plan codenamed "Cha-am-Hua Hin 521" using soldiers from three infantry regiments in the 1st Army and special warfare units from the army and navy as well as a commando unit from the air force, the source said.
Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon said the government would propose invoking the Internal Security Act during the summit because the two areas were considered "at risk" from antigovernment rallies.
The act aims to better control rallies by allowing soldiers to act in parallel with police.
The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship has announced it will stage a demonstration in October,but has not set the exact date.
In April, its rally coincided with the Asean summit held in Pattaya. The government was criticised for failing to prevent angry demonstrators from breaking into the meeting venue, an act that immediately saw Asean leaders returning home in chaos.
Gen Prawit asked red shirt protesters not to disturb the event because it was a significant international meeting and had nothing to do with the existing internal conflicts between the UDD and the Abhisit Vejjajiva government.
He said officers would ask local people in the two districts for cooperation to help keep order.
Mr Vitavas said at least 20 documents would be signed by the leaders, including a memorandum of understanding on establishing the Asean-China Centre to promote trade, services and tourism.
The agenda includes food security,energy security, disaster management and climate change. Thailand would push for negotiations on education in order to promote and raise awareness among Asean citizens, the official said.
"The highlight is the meeting of Asean leaders and civil society, youth and parliamentary representatives as well as the official establishment of the InterCommission on Human Rights on Oct 23," Mr Vitavas said.
The Asean meeting will be held from Oct 21 to 25 in Phetchaburi's Cha-am district and Hua Hin district in Prachuap Khiri Khan.
All 10 Asean leaders and six dialogue partners have confirmed their attendance, director-general of the Asean Affairs Department Vitavas Srivihok said yesterday. The dialogue partners are China,Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India.
The armed forces will implement a security plan codenamed "Cha-am-Hua Hin 521" using soldiers from three infantry regiments in the 1st Army and special warfare units from the army and navy as well as a commando unit from the air force, the source said.
Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon said the government would propose invoking the Internal Security Act during the summit because the two areas were considered "at risk" from antigovernment rallies.
The act aims to better control rallies by allowing soldiers to act in parallel with police.
The United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship has announced it will stage a demonstration in October,but has not set the exact date.
In April, its rally coincided with the Asean summit held in Pattaya. The government was criticised for failing to prevent angry demonstrators from breaking into the meeting venue, an act that immediately saw Asean leaders returning home in chaos.
Gen Prawit asked red shirt protesters not to disturb the event because it was a significant international meeting and had nothing to do with the existing internal conflicts between the UDD and the Abhisit Vejjajiva government.
He said officers would ask local people in the two districts for cooperation to help keep order.
Mr Vitavas said at least 20 documents would be signed by the leaders, including a memorandum of understanding on establishing the Asean-China Centre to promote trade, services and tourism.
The agenda includes food security,energy security, disaster management and climate change. Thailand would push for negotiations on education in order to promote and raise awareness among Asean citizens, the official said.
"The highlight is the meeting of Asean leaders and civil society, youth and parliamentary representatives as well as the official establishment of the InterCommission on Human Rights on Oct 23," Mr Vitavas said.
Noppadon faces temple charge
The national anti-graft agency has accused former foreign minister Noppadon Pattama of negligence of duty over his signing of a joint communique with Cambodia concerning the Preah Vihear temple, a source at the agency says.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission ruling will be announced today based on a 130-page report.
The investigation of the signing covered 35 other people including four cabinet members in the present government and government officials, including some from the Foreign Ministry.
The ministers involved are Deputy Prime Minister Sanan Kachornprasart,Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti, Information and Communications Minister Ranongruk Suwunchwee and Deputy Finance Minister Pradit Phataraprasit. The four served in the Samak administration.
Only Mr Noppadon is to be indicted,the source said.
The investigators did not find enough grounds to take action against the others as they were not aware of what the then foreign minister was doing, the source said. Their cases could be rejected if the NACC submitted them to the court.
The anti-graft agency found Mr Noppadon was negligent in his duties under Article 157 of the Criminal Code, the source said.
Mr Noppadon signed the joint communique with Cambodian Deputy Prime
Minister Sok An on June 18 last year to support Cambodia's application to declare the temple a World Heritage site. Mr Noppadon's mandate was endorsed by Noppadon: Backed the government a heritage listing day earlier.
But Thailand backed off from its position after the Constitution Court ruled it unconstitutional as it had bypassed parliamentary approval as required under the constitution. Mr Noppadon later resigned.
NACC member Somluck Jadkrabuanpol, chairman of the investigating panel,denied the NACC had been pressured to rule against the Samak government.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban has asked police to take action against those who instigated the unrest that led to Saturday's fierce clash between the People's Alliance for Democracy and Si Sa Ket residents near the border with Cambodia.
The PAD supporters staged a protest on Saturday near the border in Kantharalak district in Si Sa Ket to call for the authorities to force Cambodians from the disputed area near Preah Vihear.They confronted a group of local residents who blocked the protest. The clash between PAD protesters and the villagers left scores of people on both sides injured.
Mr Suthep said those who violated the law must face legal action.
Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon expressed regret over Saturday's clash between the two groups of Thai citizens.
Gen Prawit said he had instructed 2nd Army chief Wiboonsak Neepal to closely coordinate with local police and the provincial governor to prevent a recurrence.
He insisted Cambodia understood the situation as Thai and Cambodian commanders remained in contact.
Both PAD and Si Sa Ket residents yesterday filed complaints against each other with local police over Saturday's clash.
Pol Maj Gen Sompong Thongveeraprasert, chief of the Si Sa Ket police,said more than 30 complaints were filed by the two groups.
Interior Minister Chavarat Charnvirakul dismissed reports a group of men dressed in blue shirts had stirred up local residents to confront the PAD demonstrators. The blue shirts are supporters of Newin Chidchob, the power broker behind Mr Chavarat's Bhumjaithai Party.
The National Anti-Corruption Commission ruling will be announced today based on a 130-page report.
The investigation of the signing covered 35 other people including four cabinet members in the present government and government officials, including some from the Foreign Ministry.
The ministers involved are Deputy Prime Minister Sanan Kachornprasart,Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti, Information and Communications Minister Ranongruk Suwunchwee and Deputy Finance Minister Pradit Phataraprasit. The four served in the Samak administration.
Only Mr Noppadon is to be indicted,the source said.
The investigators did not find enough grounds to take action against the others as they were not aware of what the then foreign minister was doing, the source said. Their cases could be rejected if the NACC submitted them to the court.
The anti-graft agency found Mr Noppadon was negligent in his duties under Article 157 of the Criminal Code, the source said.
Mr Noppadon signed the joint communique with Cambodian Deputy Prime
Minister Sok An on June 18 last year to support Cambodia's application to declare the temple a World Heritage site. Mr Noppadon's mandate was endorsed by Noppadon: Backed the government a heritage listing day earlier.
But Thailand backed off from its position after the Constitution Court ruled it unconstitutional as it had bypassed parliamentary approval as required under the constitution. Mr Noppadon later resigned.
NACC member Somluck Jadkrabuanpol, chairman of the investigating panel,denied the NACC had been pressured to rule against the Samak government.
Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban has asked police to take action against those who instigated the unrest that led to Saturday's fierce clash between the People's Alliance for Democracy and Si Sa Ket residents near the border with Cambodia.
The PAD supporters staged a protest on Saturday near the border in Kantharalak district in Si Sa Ket to call for the authorities to force Cambodians from the disputed area near Preah Vihear.They confronted a group of local residents who blocked the protest. The clash between PAD protesters and the villagers left scores of people on both sides injured.
Mr Suthep said those who violated the law must face legal action.
Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwon expressed regret over Saturday's clash between the two groups of Thai citizens.
Gen Prawit said he had instructed 2nd Army chief Wiboonsak Neepal to closely coordinate with local police and the provincial governor to prevent a recurrence.
He insisted Cambodia understood the situation as Thai and Cambodian commanders remained in contact.
Both PAD and Si Sa Ket residents yesterday filed complaints against each other with local police over Saturday's clash.
Pol Maj Gen Sompong Thongveeraprasert, chief of the Si Sa Ket police,said more than 30 complaints were filed by the two groups.
Interior Minister Chavarat Charnvirakul dismissed reports a group of men dressed in blue shirts had stirred up local residents to confront the PAD demonstrators. The blue shirts are supporters of Newin Chidchob, the power broker behind Mr Chavarat's Bhumjaithai Party.
N KOREA'S KIM IN CONTROL, SAYS OBAMA
US President Barack Obama said on Sunday he was hoping for progress in the nuclear stand-off with Pyongyang as North Korean leader Kim Mong-il reassetts himself at the helm of the reclusive nation.
Obama said he had been told by former president Bill Clinton who visited the country in August that Kim, 67, who suffered a stroke last year, was " pretty healthy and in control.
"That's important to know, because we don't have a lot of interaction with the North Koreans," Obama told CNN, adding that in his talks with Kim, Clinton had "had a chance to see him close up and have conversations.
"I won't go into any more details than that, but there's no doubt that this is somebody who I think for a while people thought was slipping away. He's reasserted himself."
Fears over Kim's health after he had a stroke around August 2008 triggered concern among the diplomatic communist nation could be destabilised, tiggering speculation about an eventual succession.
For months afterwards Pyongyang made a series of bellicose moves, including missiel launces and a nuclear test. But in an unexpected turn of events, North Korea has made recent peace overtures to both Washington and Seoul.
Obama said he believed the Pyongyang regime may be changing its tactics.
"I think that North Korea is saying to itself, 'We can't just bang our spoon on the table and somehow think that the world's going to react positively. We've got to start behaving responsibly'.
"So hopefully we'll start seeing some progress on that front," Obama said.
He also praised the six-nation pact spearheading efforts to persuade North Korea to come clean about its nuclear ambitions for standing together.
"This is a success story so far...that we have been able to hold together a coalition that includes the Chinese and The Russians to really apply some of the toughest sanctions we've seen, and it's having an impact," Obama said.
Washington has said it is prepared to talk directly with Pyongyang in order to bring it back to the six-nation talks, which are hosted by china.
Kim told a Chinese envoy that he was willing to engage in bilateral and multilateral talks on his country's controversial nuclear programme.
Obama said he had been told by former president Bill Clinton who visited the country in August that Kim, 67, who suffered a stroke last year, was " pretty healthy and in control.
"That's important to know, because we don't have a lot of interaction with the North Koreans," Obama told CNN, adding that in his talks with Kim, Clinton had "had a chance to see him close up and have conversations.
"I won't go into any more details than that, but there's no doubt that this is somebody who I think for a while people thought was slipping away. He's reasserted himself."
Fears over Kim's health after he had a stroke around August 2008 triggered concern among the diplomatic communist nation could be destabilised, tiggering speculation about an eventual succession.
For months afterwards Pyongyang made a series of bellicose moves, including missiel launces and a nuclear test. But in an unexpected turn of events, North Korea has made recent peace overtures to both Washington and Seoul.
Obama said he believed the Pyongyang regime may be changing its tactics.
"I think that North Korea is saying to itself, 'We can't just bang our spoon on the table and somehow think that the world's going to react positively. We've got to start behaving responsibly'.
"So hopefully we'll start seeing some progress on that front," Obama said.
He also praised the six-nation pact spearheading efforts to persuade North Korea to come clean about its nuclear ambitions for standing together.
"This is a success story so far...that we have been able to hold together a coalition that includes the Chinese and The Russians to really apply some of the toughest sanctions we've seen, and it's having an impact," Obama said.
Washington has said it is prepared to talk directly with Pyongyang in order to bring it back to the six-nation talks, which are hosted by china.
Kim told a Chinese envoy that he was willing to engage in bilateral and multilateral talks on his country's controversial nuclear programme.
RUSSIA SAYS ISRAEL NOT PLANNING A STRIKE ON IRAN
President Dmitry Medvedev said Israel had given Russia assurances it plans no strike on Iran and reserved Moscow's right to sell Tehran arms, in an interveiw released by the Kremlin on Sunday.
Medvedev described an Israeli attack as "the worst thing that could be imagined" but said President Shimon Peres had ruled out such fears when the two leaders met in the Russian resort of Sochi in August.
"When Israeli President Peres was visiting me in Sochi recently, he said something very important for all of us: 'Israel does not plan any strikes on Iran, we are a peaceful country and we will not do this," he said.
In the interview with CNN, Medvedev sidestepped questions on Russia's possible response in the case of Israeli air strikes although he hinted Moscow could take sides under such a scenario.
"What will happen after that? Humanitarian disaster, vast numbers of refugees, Iran's wish to take revenge not only on Israel but upon other countries as well," he said.
Though Russia has no alliances with Iran, "It does not mean that we would like to be or will be indifferent to such a development," Medvedev said.
"But my Israeli colleagues told me that they were not planning to act in this way," he reiterated.
Iran is due to hold talks withy six world powers on October 1, the outcome of which could determine whether the United States and its allies impose more penalties on Tehran over suspicions it is working on an atomic bomb.
The United States is pressuring Russia to shift its current stance and back tougher sanctions, reportedly banking on its warming ties with Moscow since President Barck Obama shelved a controversial missile shield plans in cental Europe.
While Tehran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful, Washington and Jerusalem have also never ruled out the option of air strikes to destroy the Islamic state's nuclear facilities.
Ahead of the Iran talks, Medvedev confirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a secret visit to Moscow this month to meet with him.
Medvedev described an Israeli attack as "the worst thing that could be imagined" but said President Shimon Peres had ruled out such fears when the two leaders met in the Russian resort of Sochi in August.
"When Israeli President Peres was visiting me in Sochi recently, he said something very important for all of us: 'Israel does not plan any strikes on Iran, we are a peaceful country and we will not do this," he said.
In the interview with CNN, Medvedev sidestepped questions on Russia's possible response in the case of Israeli air strikes although he hinted Moscow could take sides under such a scenario.
"What will happen after that? Humanitarian disaster, vast numbers of refugees, Iran's wish to take revenge not only on Israel but upon other countries as well," he said.
Though Russia has no alliances with Iran, "It does not mean that we would like to be or will be indifferent to such a development," Medvedev said.
"But my Israeli colleagues told me that they were not planning to act in this way," he reiterated.
Iran is due to hold talks withy six world powers on October 1, the outcome of which could determine whether the United States and its allies impose more penalties on Tehran over suspicions it is working on an atomic bomb.
The United States is pressuring Russia to shift its current stance and back tougher sanctions, reportedly banking on its warming ties with Moscow since President Barck Obama shelved a controversial missile shield plans in cental Europe.
While Tehran insists its nuclear programme is peaceful, Washington and Jerusalem have also never ruled out the option of air strikes to destroy the Islamic state's nuclear facilities.
Ahead of the Iran talks, Medvedev confirmed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made a secret visit to Moscow this month to meet with him.
ASEAN LEADERS PLAY IT SAFE
It appears as if Asean leaders are not comfortable with the idea of meeting dissidents or activists during the late October summit in Cha Am/Hua Hin because they have asked for a list of civic groups prior to the meeting.
The leading are scheduled to meet with representatives of Parliament, youth and civil society from Asean countries on October 23-the first day of the summit, according to Vitavas Srivihok, director of the Foreign Ministry Asean Affairs Department.
Names of people waiting to meet the leaders need to be submitted through the Foreign Ministry of each country long before the meeting kicks off, he said.
Thailand, as the host country, wants to set up a meeting between civic representatives and Asean leaders to make the grouping look like a people-participating organisation.
However, the move to turn Asean into a people-centred organisation failed at the earlier summit in February because prime ministers from Burma and Cambodia refused to meet two civil representatives.
The Burmese and Cambodian nationals, who worked for non-government organisations, were denied audience because they were not recognised by the authorities. Instead, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya met the two outside the meeting venue to control damage.
In a move to make sure the upcoming 15th Asean summit goes smoothly, groups have been told to submit a list of names for advance consideration, Vitavas said.
"The leaders want to find out about the representatives from their respective countries before meeting them," he said. "Previously the names had arrived at short notice and some leaders were too surprised to see them. In some cases, it is understandable that the leaders might be reluctant to sit in the same room as dissidents."
At the summit, taking place from October 23 to 25, Asean leaders will also be meeting their counterparts from six Asia-Pacific countries. All leaders have confirmed their participation and the government will invoke the Internal Security Law again to ensure everyone's safety, Vitavas said.
The leading are scheduled to meet with representatives of Parliament, youth and civil society from Asean countries on October 23-the first day of the summit, according to Vitavas Srivihok, director of the Foreign Ministry Asean Affairs Department.
Names of people waiting to meet the leaders need to be submitted through the Foreign Ministry of each country long before the meeting kicks off, he said.
Thailand, as the host country, wants to set up a meeting between civic representatives and Asean leaders to make the grouping look like a people-participating organisation.
However, the move to turn Asean into a people-centred organisation failed at the earlier summit in February because prime ministers from Burma and Cambodia refused to meet two civil representatives.
The Burmese and Cambodian nationals, who worked for non-government organisations, were denied audience because they were not recognised by the authorities. Instead, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya met the two outside the meeting venue to control damage.
In a move to make sure the upcoming 15th Asean summit goes smoothly, groups have been told to submit a list of names for advance consideration, Vitavas said.
"The leaders want to find out about the representatives from their respective countries before meeting them," he said. "Previously the names had arrived at short notice and some leaders were too surprised to see them. In some cases, it is understandable that the leaders might be reluctant to sit in the same room as dissidents."
At the summit, taking place from October 23 to 25, Asean leaders will also be meeting their counterparts from six Asia-Pacific countries. All leaders have confirmed their participation and the government will invoke the Internal Security Law again to ensure everyone's safety, Vitavas said.
Monday, September 21, 2009
HOW THE COLD WAR WAS WON...BY THE FRENCH
When a KGB colonel decided to pass on secrets that would devastate the Soviet Union he turned to Paris, a new film reveals By John Lichfield
James Bond and George Smiley can eat their hearts out. Who really won the Cold War for the democratic world? The French,naturellement . This rather startling claim is made in the publicity for a new brooding, brilliant, French spy movie.Although somewhat far-fetched, the boast that French intelligence "changed the world"does have some basis in fact.
The story of L'Affaire Farewell , how a French mole in the KGB leaked information so devastating that it hastened the implosion of the Soviet Union, is comparatively little known in the UK or even in France.
Due credit is given to the French, the once-reviled "surrender monkeys", by, of all sources, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The CIA's official website still carries a compelling essay, written soon after the affair was declassified in 1996, by Gus Weiss,the American official who ran the Washington end of the case. He concludes:"[The] Farewell dossier ... led to the collapse of a crucial [KGB spying] programme at just the time the Soviet military needed it. Along with the US defence build-up and an already floundering Soviet economy, the USSR could no longer compete."
The official version of events shows that the French taupe , or mole, was Colonel Vladimir Vetrov of Directorate T, the industrial spying arm of the KGB. In 1981-82, he gave French intelligence more than 3,000 pages of documents and the names of more than 400 Soviet agents posted abroad. The information, shared by Paris with its Nato allies,was deeply alarming but also hugely encouraging.
Col Vetrov, codenamed "Farewell" by the French, laid bare the successful Soviet strategies for acquiring, legally and illegally,advanced technology from the West. He also exposed the abject failure of the Communist system to match rapid Western advances in electronic micro-technology.
The case directly influenced President Ronald Reagan's decision to launch the "Star Wars" programme in 1983- a high-tech bluff that would drag the USSR into an unaffordable, and calamitous, attempt to keep up with the democratic world.
Raymond Nart, the French intelligence officer who handled the case from Paris,reported that Col Vetrov approached the French because he had once been stationed in Paris and loved the French language. His original contact was a French businessman in Moscow and then a French military attache and his wife. He passed on secrets by exchanging shopping baskets with the wife in a Moscow market.
The Russian never asked for money or for a new life in the West. He was an "uncontrollable man, who oscillated between euphoria and over-excitement", said Mr Nart.He appears to have been motivated by frustration with the Soviet system and, maybe, a personal grudge. He was eventually caught,and executed, after stabbing his mistress and killing a policeman in a Moscow park in February, 1982. The case remains deeply sensitive, and mysterious, in Russia and France. The democratic Russia of Vladimir Putin (ex-KGB) and Dimitry Medvedev brought pressure on a celebrated Russian actor, Sergei Makovetsky, to withdraw from the French film L'Affaire Farewell , which premiered last week at the Toronto film festival. A request to film in Russia was refused.
Former French intelligence officers came forward to try to sidetrack the film's director,Christian Carion (who made the Oscarnominated Joyeux Noel about fraternisation in the trenches in December,1914). The exagents told him that the Farewell case was not what it seemed. The whole affair, they said, had been concocted by the CIA to test the loyalty to the West of the Socialist president Francois Mitterrand after he was elected in May,1981. Even Mitterrand came to believe this version of events, and fired a senior French intelligence chief in 1985. These allegations, officially denied in Washington and Paris, are almost certainly driven by jealousy among competing French spy services. Farewell was "run"- at the mole's own insistence - by a relatively small, French counter-espionage agency, the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST), which was not supposed to operate abroad.
The former French foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, a diplomatic adviser to President Mitterrand at the time, is in no doubt that Farewell existed."It was one of the most important spy cases of the 20th century," he said."At no other time since 1945 was the Soviet system exposed to the light of day so completely."
Mr Vedrine rejects the implication - in the publicity surrounding the film rather than the film itself - that the Farewell case caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. But he, like the senior US official Weiss, argues that the information provided by the KGB mole was one of the catalysts for the demise of the USSR, nine years later. By making it harder for the Soviets to compete with the West, the affair magnified tensions within the Communist hierarchy and assisted the rise, but also undermined the work, of the would-be reformer Mikhail Gorbachev.
The film L'Affaire Farewell , made in Russian,French and English, stars the Bosnian actor Emir Kusturica as the KGB mole and Willem Dafoe as the head of the CIA. To allow the researcher-scriptwriter, Eric Raynaud, cinematic licence with the story, Col Vetrov has been renamed Serguei Grigoriev. The French agents are telescoped into one man, a reluctant businessman-turned-spy called Pierre Froment, played by Guillaume Canet.
The film, which has received glowing advance reviews, is far from being a James Bond car-chase thriller. It is more like a Gallic John Le Carre - part historical essay, part psycho-drama about the relationship between professional Russian spy and amateur French agent. The director, Mr Carion, admits he has guillotined parts of the story. He left out the professional French agent and his wife and he left out Farewell's attempt to stab his mistress as "too confusing". The effect is to downplay Col Vetrov's murky side and make the story one of anguished heroism, on both sides.
Russia's refusal to co-operate in the making of the movie is easily explained, Mr Carion says. In 1983,47 Soviet diplomats and journalists, identified as spies by Farewell, were expelled from Paris. Among them was a young diplomat called Alexander Avdeev.
When the film was being planned, Mr Avdeev was back in Paris as the Russian ambassador. He has since returned to Moscow as Minister of Culture.
How significant was the Farewell affair?In the essay on the CIA website, Weiss, a member of Ronald Reagan's National Security Council in 1981, gives a lengthy account of its importance to the US. Weiss, who was put in charge of the US response to the Farewell leaks, was an intelligence officer for almost half a century. His words need to be treated with caution, but he suggests that Farewell played a pivotal role in the winning of the Cold War.
"Reading the material caused my worst nightmares to come true," he said. The Soviet Union, under the cover of detente, had extracted so many technical secrets from the West, openly and illegally, that in the 1970s "our science was supporting their national defence".
At the same time, the Farewell file revealed that the USSR was much further behind the West in computer technology than the CIA had believed possible. The US used the information to turn the tables, Weiss said,"and conduct economic warfare of our own".
Sabotaged pieces of technology were leaked to Moscow "designed so that they would appear genuine but would later fail";"contrived [unreliable] computer chips found their way into Soviet military equipment, flawed turbines were installed on a gas pipeline [which later exploded] and defective plans disrupted the output of chemical plants and a tractor factory".
The former French foreign minister, Mr Vedrine, believes that the Soviet empire was already close to collapse in the early 1980s.Its economic model was no longer working.
The Afghan war and military expenditure had crippled state finances. The value of oil exports had plummeted.
Farewell, he says, did not cause the end of the USSR, but it did "hasten the system towards its end".
Weiss reaches the same conclusion. Unlike Mr Vedrine, he will never see the cinematic version of events. He died in November,2003, in mysterious circumstances, officially classified as suicide. Weiss, who had split with the Bush administration over Iraq, fell from the windows of his apartment in Washington. The apartment was in the Watergate building.
James Bond and George Smiley can eat their hearts out. Who really won the Cold War for the democratic world? The French,naturellement . This rather startling claim is made in the publicity for a new brooding, brilliant, French spy movie.Although somewhat far-fetched, the boast that French intelligence "changed the world"does have some basis in fact.
The story of L'Affaire Farewell , how a French mole in the KGB leaked information so devastating that it hastened the implosion of the Soviet Union, is comparatively little known in the UK or even in France.
Due credit is given to the French, the once-reviled "surrender monkeys", by, of all sources, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The CIA's official website still carries a compelling essay, written soon after the affair was declassified in 1996, by Gus Weiss,the American official who ran the Washington end of the case. He concludes:"[The] Farewell dossier ... led to the collapse of a crucial [KGB spying] programme at just the time the Soviet military needed it. Along with the US defence build-up and an already floundering Soviet economy, the USSR could no longer compete."
The official version of events shows that the French taupe , or mole, was Colonel Vladimir Vetrov of Directorate T, the industrial spying arm of the KGB. In 1981-82, he gave French intelligence more than 3,000 pages of documents and the names of more than 400 Soviet agents posted abroad. The information, shared by Paris with its Nato allies,was deeply alarming but also hugely encouraging.
Col Vetrov, codenamed "Farewell" by the French, laid bare the successful Soviet strategies for acquiring, legally and illegally,advanced technology from the West. He also exposed the abject failure of the Communist system to match rapid Western advances in electronic micro-technology.
The case directly influenced President Ronald Reagan's decision to launch the "Star Wars" programme in 1983- a high-tech bluff that would drag the USSR into an unaffordable, and calamitous, attempt to keep up with the democratic world.
Raymond Nart, the French intelligence officer who handled the case from Paris,reported that Col Vetrov approached the French because he had once been stationed in Paris and loved the French language. His original contact was a French businessman in Moscow and then a French military attache and his wife. He passed on secrets by exchanging shopping baskets with the wife in a Moscow market.
The Russian never asked for money or for a new life in the West. He was an "uncontrollable man, who oscillated between euphoria and over-excitement", said Mr Nart.He appears to have been motivated by frustration with the Soviet system and, maybe, a personal grudge. He was eventually caught,and executed, after stabbing his mistress and killing a policeman in a Moscow park in February, 1982. The case remains deeply sensitive, and mysterious, in Russia and France. The democratic Russia of Vladimir Putin (ex-KGB) and Dimitry Medvedev brought pressure on a celebrated Russian actor, Sergei Makovetsky, to withdraw from the French film L'Affaire Farewell , which premiered last week at the Toronto film festival. A request to film in Russia was refused.
Former French intelligence officers came forward to try to sidetrack the film's director,Christian Carion (who made the Oscarnominated Joyeux Noel about fraternisation in the trenches in December,1914). The exagents told him that the Farewell case was not what it seemed. The whole affair, they said, had been concocted by the CIA to test the loyalty to the West of the Socialist president Francois Mitterrand after he was elected in May,1981. Even Mitterrand came to believe this version of events, and fired a senior French intelligence chief in 1985. These allegations, officially denied in Washington and Paris, are almost certainly driven by jealousy among competing French spy services. Farewell was "run"- at the mole's own insistence - by a relatively small, French counter-espionage agency, the Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire (DST), which was not supposed to operate abroad.
The former French foreign minister, Hubert Vedrine, a diplomatic adviser to President Mitterrand at the time, is in no doubt that Farewell existed."It was one of the most important spy cases of the 20th century," he said."At no other time since 1945 was the Soviet system exposed to the light of day so completely."
Mr Vedrine rejects the implication - in the publicity surrounding the film rather than the film itself - that the Farewell case caused the collapse of the Soviet Union. But he, like the senior US official Weiss, argues that the information provided by the KGB mole was one of the catalysts for the demise of the USSR, nine years later. By making it harder for the Soviets to compete with the West, the affair magnified tensions within the Communist hierarchy and assisted the rise, but also undermined the work, of the would-be reformer Mikhail Gorbachev.
The film L'Affaire Farewell , made in Russian,French and English, stars the Bosnian actor Emir Kusturica as the KGB mole and Willem Dafoe as the head of the CIA. To allow the researcher-scriptwriter, Eric Raynaud, cinematic licence with the story, Col Vetrov has been renamed Serguei Grigoriev. The French agents are telescoped into one man, a reluctant businessman-turned-spy called Pierre Froment, played by Guillaume Canet.
The film, which has received glowing advance reviews, is far from being a James Bond car-chase thriller. It is more like a Gallic John Le Carre - part historical essay, part psycho-drama about the relationship between professional Russian spy and amateur French agent. The director, Mr Carion, admits he has guillotined parts of the story. He left out the professional French agent and his wife and he left out Farewell's attempt to stab his mistress as "too confusing". The effect is to downplay Col Vetrov's murky side and make the story one of anguished heroism, on both sides.
Russia's refusal to co-operate in the making of the movie is easily explained, Mr Carion says. In 1983,47 Soviet diplomats and journalists, identified as spies by Farewell, were expelled from Paris. Among them was a young diplomat called Alexander Avdeev.
When the film was being planned, Mr Avdeev was back in Paris as the Russian ambassador. He has since returned to Moscow as Minister of Culture.
How significant was the Farewell affair?In the essay on the CIA website, Weiss, a member of Ronald Reagan's National Security Council in 1981, gives a lengthy account of its importance to the US. Weiss, who was put in charge of the US response to the Farewell leaks, was an intelligence officer for almost half a century. His words need to be treated with caution, but he suggests that Farewell played a pivotal role in the winning of the Cold War.
"Reading the material caused my worst nightmares to come true," he said. The Soviet Union, under the cover of detente, had extracted so many technical secrets from the West, openly and illegally, that in the 1970s "our science was supporting their national defence".
At the same time, the Farewell file revealed that the USSR was much further behind the West in computer technology than the CIA had believed possible. The US used the information to turn the tables, Weiss said,"and conduct economic warfare of our own".
Sabotaged pieces of technology were leaked to Moscow "designed so that they would appear genuine but would later fail";"contrived [unreliable] computer chips found their way into Soviet military equipment, flawed turbines were installed on a gas pipeline [which later exploded] and defective plans disrupted the output of chemical plants and a tractor factory".
The former French foreign minister, Mr Vedrine, believes that the Soviet empire was already close to collapse in the early 1980s.Its economic model was no longer working.
The Afghan war and military expenditure had crippled state finances. The value of oil exports had plummeted.
Farewell, he says, did not cause the end of the USSR, but it did "hasten the system towards its end".
Weiss reaches the same conclusion. Unlike Mr Vedrine, he will never see the cinematic version of events. He died in November,2003, in mysterious circumstances, officially classified as suicide. Weiss, who had split with the Bush administration over Iraq, fell from the windows of his apartment in Washington. The apartment was in the Watergate building.
DOES THAILAND NEED USAID?
The US government agency has grandplans to speed the country's democratisation process, but many question whether such change can come from the outside By Achara Ashayagachat
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva will be in the United States this week to attend the United Nations General Assembly. While there he will meet with US President Barack Obama, and it's a safe bet that a chief topic will be Thailand's ongoing democratisation process, which under Mr Obama has seen a renewed US interest, largely through the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Despite the delayed vetting process for its top administrator back home in Washington, USAID in Thailand has been moving forward at a steady pace to implement the Obama administration's policy of "soft and smart" power engagement in the region through strengthening the country's constitutionally mandated independent agencies, as well as civil society organisations nationwide, particularly in the deep South .
USAID's revived role in Thailand which has seen a shift of emphasis from the conventional economic and social development issues to the advocacy of democratisation - should in principle be welcomed, given that Thailand has experienced a derailing of the democratic process in recent years.
However, the heightened US presence through the non-military aid agency is causing concern, even worry, in some quarters, especially in regard to the sensitive South.
From a security point of view, any imagined involvement or linkage of other sovereign states or even international organisations like the United Nations is officially regarded as not conducive to stabilisation of the turbulent region. Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban's recent denial of the UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) plan to set up an office to monitor the southern situation is clear evidence of this. The UNDSS reportedly deployed its officials to talk to the southern army chief, governors of the three southern border provinces and academics in the deep South to determine the status of the conflict situation.
The southern problem is strongly deemed as as internal affair, and help from outside must be by invitation only.This has been the baseline of the Thai government all along.
Yet, an exception seems to have been made for the US and USAID. In fact,USAID has no formal agreement with the Thai government at all.
Since moving its regional office from Phnom Penh to Bangkok in 2003, USAID has reshaped itself, especially in light of the Sept 19,2006 coup, to direct support to citizen engagement and peace building in Thailand.
Prior to this, in recent years the agency had been more associated with its sponsorship of bilateral and regional projects on HIV/Aids - including educational support of sex workers - refugee advocacy and humanitarian support along the Thai-Burma border, and flu and malaria monitoring along the ThaiCambodia border.
Now it seems USAID is more occupied with planting a firm foot in Thailand's socio-political foundations.According to its mission director, Olivier Carduner, USAID, through consultations with Thai academics, has found its targets. These are; independent agen-cies created by the 1997 constitution but which have somehow been crippled;civil society organisations (CSOs) which have been flourishing since the 1992 "Black May" incident; and community and grass-roots media, which are considered a key factor in maintaining a functioning check and balance system for Thai democracy.
Mr Carduner said USAID is calling for proposal bids involving these three sectors by American firms. He said contractors could sub-contract their projects to other entities, but American citizens must be involved in the subcontracting as well. With an annual budget of US$15.5 million (523 million baht) and a timeline of three to five years, by the end of this year USAID should identify the contractors and subcontractors, and by early next year work could begin.
So what exactly does this work entail?Contractors are required to "create networks between independent agencies such as the National Human Rights Commission, Election Commission, and National Anti-Corruption Commission;civil society leaders, academics and other civic leaders advancing democratic policy reform and conflict mitigation in the deep South".
Sunai Phasuk, a representative for Human Rights Watch, said the USAID grand presence has caused a stir among NGOs.
Mr Sunai is among a small group of activists who are sensing a "gold rush"phenomenon in the months, if not weeks, to come as businesses and corporations enter the scene in the name of development and democracy.
"Given the sensitivity of the issues and the areas of work in the southern Muslim-dominated provinces, if it is not well-managed it will compromise the already fragile stability in the region," said Mr Sunai.
He also said if the screening process of the contractors is not done thoroughly, there might be redundancy with existing works under the responsibility of other NGOs, instead of complimenting or fostering the on-the-ground players.
Some activists are concerned about possible dictation and conditionality that contractors might impose upon sub-contractors, which might not fit into the Thai context.
A European diplomat shared a similar concern:"We are happy that the US has given both concrete attention and a budget toward a southern solution,but we do not think the way they are doing it is encouraging."
He implied that a US presence in the South could attract an international militant Islamic presence that is not currently operating there.
"Outsiders such as the US, the EU or UN should not be a focus and divert attention from real solutions such as fixing justice and impunity problems,"he said.
Others have expressed concerns about support in the form of grants to the three independent agencies, and also wonder if government authorities would be sidelined as the US engages more with the CSOs.
Michael Montesano, a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore,posed a more theoretical and intellectual question.
"How, in 2009, can Bangkok tolerate USAID involvement in Thai domestic affairs that recalls the activities of the former US Operations Mission during the height of the Cold War?" wrote Mr Montesano in a recent article for Singapore's Straits Times newspaper.He reflected that the answer may perhaps be that it is in the interests of certain elite groups, such as those backing the current government, who have long preferred the CSOs that USAID hopes to foster to the less predictable politics of the masses, with their red and yellow movements.
Especially, Mr Montesano continued,if they are under the leadership or patronage of elite-oriented figures, CSOs would pose no systemic challenge to the status quo.
His comments are supported by the fact that USAID is collaborating with the Political Development Council,created out of the 2007 Constitution and chaired by Suchit Bunbongkarn.
Yet, USAID's plans for Thailand appear to be justified by a national survey released by the Asia Foundation this month that revealed the Thai people do not seem to think that CSOs and the media have a significant role in Thailand, and that the political efficacy of the Thai voters is inadequate given their significant interest and participation in the process of democratisation.
So it seems we need all the help USAID is willing to give, doesn't it? On the other hand, will USAID's plans to change Thailand's politics work? These questions remain open.
According to Mr Carduner, USAID is interested in mounting a democratisation effort in Thailand that mirrors its successful undertakings elsewhere in recent years, such as in Indonesia and the southern Philippines. USAID also believes it should lay some groundwork in the South before the rehabilitation and reconstruction in the postconflict phase arrives.
Mr Carduner concluded confidently that there is an adequate degree of trust for the US agency among the Thai senior leadership in many quarters."After all, we are not imposing any master plan or instant solution. It will be an incremental process based on opportunities and options proposed and involved in by the folks down there," the USAID mission director said.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva will be in the United States this week to attend the United Nations General Assembly. While there he will meet with US President Barack Obama, and it's a safe bet that a chief topic will be Thailand's ongoing democratisation process, which under Mr Obama has seen a renewed US interest, largely through the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
Despite the delayed vetting process for its top administrator back home in Washington, USAID in Thailand has been moving forward at a steady pace to implement the Obama administration's policy of "soft and smart" power engagement in the region through strengthening the country's constitutionally mandated independent agencies, as well as civil society organisations nationwide, particularly in the deep South .
USAID's revived role in Thailand which has seen a shift of emphasis from the conventional economic and social development issues to the advocacy of democratisation - should in principle be welcomed, given that Thailand has experienced a derailing of the democratic process in recent years.
However, the heightened US presence through the non-military aid agency is causing concern, even worry, in some quarters, especially in regard to the sensitive South.
From a security point of view, any imagined involvement or linkage of other sovereign states or even international organisations like the United Nations is officially regarded as not conducive to stabilisation of the turbulent region. Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban's recent denial of the UN Department of Safety and Security (UNDSS) plan to set up an office to monitor the southern situation is clear evidence of this. The UNDSS reportedly deployed its officials to talk to the southern army chief, governors of the three southern border provinces and academics in the deep South to determine the status of the conflict situation.
The southern problem is strongly deemed as as internal affair, and help from outside must be by invitation only.This has been the baseline of the Thai government all along.
Yet, an exception seems to have been made for the US and USAID. In fact,USAID has no formal agreement with the Thai government at all.
Since moving its regional office from Phnom Penh to Bangkok in 2003, USAID has reshaped itself, especially in light of the Sept 19,2006 coup, to direct support to citizen engagement and peace building in Thailand.
Prior to this, in recent years the agency had been more associated with its sponsorship of bilateral and regional projects on HIV/Aids - including educational support of sex workers - refugee advocacy and humanitarian support along the Thai-Burma border, and flu and malaria monitoring along the ThaiCambodia border.
Now it seems USAID is more occupied with planting a firm foot in Thailand's socio-political foundations.According to its mission director, Olivier Carduner, USAID, through consultations with Thai academics, has found its targets. These are; independent agen-cies created by the 1997 constitution but which have somehow been crippled;civil society organisations (CSOs) which have been flourishing since the 1992 "Black May" incident; and community and grass-roots media, which are considered a key factor in maintaining a functioning check and balance system for Thai democracy.
Mr Carduner said USAID is calling for proposal bids involving these three sectors by American firms. He said contractors could sub-contract their projects to other entities, but American citizens must be involved in the subcontracting as well. With an annual budget of US$15.5 million (523 million baht) and a timeline of three to five years, by the end of this year USAID should identify the contractors and subcontractors, and by early next year work could begin.
So what exactly does this work entail?Contractors are required to "create networks between independent agencies such as the National Human Rights Commission, Election Commission, and National Anti-Corruption Commission;civil society leaders, academics and other civic leaders advancing democratic policy reform and conflict mitigation in the deep South".
Sunai Phasuk, a representative for Human Rights Watch, said the USAID grand presence has caused a stir among NGOs.
Mr Sunai is among a small group of activists who are sensing a "gold rush"phenomenon in the months, if not weeks, to come as businesses and corporations enter the scene in the name of development and democracy.
"Given the sensitivity of the issues and the areas of work in the southern Muslim-dominated provinces, if it is not well-managed it will compromise the already fragile stability in the region," said Mr Sunai.
He also said if the screening process of the contractors is not done thoroughly, there might be redundancy with existing works under the responsibility of other NGOs, instead of complimenting or fostering the on-the-ground players.
Some activists are concerned about possible dictation and conditionality that contractors might impose upon sub-contractors, which might not fit into the Thai context.
A European diplomat shared a similar concern:"We are happy that the US has given both concrete attention and a budget toward a southern solution,but we do not think the way they are doing it is encouraging."
He implied that a US presence in the South could attract an international militant Islamic presence that is not currently operating there.
"Outsiders such as the US, the EU or UN should not be a focus and divert attention from real solutions such as fixing justice and impunity problems,"he said.
Others have expressed concerns about support in the form of grants to the three independent agencies, and also wonder if government authorities would be sidelined as the US engages more with the CSOs.
Michael Montesano, a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore,posed a more theoretical and intellectual question.
"How, in 2009, can Bangkok tolerate USAID involvement in Thai domestic affairs that recalls the activities of the former US Operations Mission during the height of the Cold War?" wrote Mr Montesano in a recent article for Singapore's Straits Times newspaper.He reflected that the answer may perhaps be that it is in the interests of certain elite groups, such as those backing the current government, who have long preferred the CSOs that USAID hopes to foster to the less predictable politics of the masses, with their red and yellow movements.
Especially, Mr Montesano continued,if they are under the leadership or patronage of elite-oriented figures, CSOs would pose no systemic challenge to the status quo.
His comments are supported by the fact that USAID is collaborating with the Political Development Council,created out of the 2007 Constitution and chaired by Suchit Bunbongkarn.
Yet, USAID's plans for Thailand appear to be justified by a national survey released by the Asia Foundation this month that revealed the Thai people do not seem to think that CSOs and the media have a significant role in Thailand, and that the political efficacy of the Thai voters is inadequate given their significant interest and participation in the process of democratisation.
So it seems we need all the help USAID is willing to give, doesn't it? On the other hand, will USAID's plans to change Thailand's politics work? These questions remain open.
According to Mr Carduner, USAID is interested in mounting a democratisation effort in Thailand that mirrors its successful undertakings elsewhere in recent years, such as in Indonesia and the southern Philippines. USAID also believes it should lay some groundwork in the South before the rehabilitation and reconstruction in the postconflict phase arrives.
Mr Carduner concluded confidently that there is an adequate degree of trust for the US agency among the Thai senior leadership in many quarters."After all, we are not imposing any master plan or instant solution. It will be an incremental process based on opportunities and options proposed and involved in by the folks down there," the USAID mission director said.
US missile shield will not be missed
The decision announced by the White House on Thursday to scrap controversial components of a missile defence shield for Europe is long overdue and marks a victory for rationality in the global political scene.Some have characterised US President Barack Obama's move as appeasement toward the Russians, but in reality Mr Obama took advantage of an opportunity to give a little and gain a lot.
The Russians had made it very clear that they regarded the deployment of missile defence facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic as an act of aggression and also claimed it altered the balance of nuclear power between the US and Russia. While it is hard to see how the planned anti-missile radar facility in the Czech Republic and a few interceptor missiles in Poland ever constituted a genuine threat to Russia's security, the issue of the balance of nuclear power is not to be taken lightly. The threat of assured mutual destruction, as scary as that may be, probably went a long way toward discouraging any direct confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers during the Cold War. Any change in the balance of power, which logically includes missile defence systems, will provoke an opposite reaction. For example, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's threat last November to put missiles in Kaliningrad on the border of the European Union, in a speech given the same day that Mr Obama won the US presidential election.
A few months later Mr Medvedev announced a "large-scale" rearmament and renewal of Russia's nuclear arsenal, as well as the development of a wide range of new weapons systems.
With Mr Obama's announcement that the missile defence components the Russians object to so strenuously in the Czech Republic and Poland have been taken off the table, already on Friday Russia reciprocated with an announcement that the plan to position missiles in Kaliningrad had been shelved.
A Russian military source said:"Undoubtedly, Washington's cancellation of its missile defence facilities will not remain unnoticed.
"The array of measures which were planned in response to the deployment of the missile defence sites in Europe will be frozen, and will possibly be completely cancelled."
It also bodes well for a replacement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), which has been successful in significantly reducing the nuclear stockpiles of the two countries and which will expire in December.
This is good news for the entire world, and again, the US really had nothing to lose in dropping the facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Even some of the US' staunchest North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) allies have been harshly critical of the shield in the past.
"Deployment of a missile defence system would bring nothing to security,it would complicate things, and would make them move backward," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy at a news conference last November in which Mr Medvedev was present.
Around the same time, the British parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee also voiced doubts about the missile defence plan, saying in a report that because of opposition from Russia it could be "highly detrimental to Nato's overall security interests".
The committee recommended that if a ballistic missile defence system in Europe were to be developed at all, it should be as a joint system between the US, Nato and Russia.
This is apparently what is now being proposed by the Obama administration.Arguably, the best option might be to scrap the plans for a missile defence shield altogether and use the money for something more useful. There remain serious questions about the technological feasibility of such a shield,partly because some defence systems analysts have suggested that it could be neutralised, or tricked, rather easily.
In any case, Mr Obama's decision has already had some effect in lowering tensions which have been building for some time between the US and Russia. The chief cause of these tensions has not gone away, however - the tug of war between Russia and the West over the Caucasus. This may well be a greater threat to world peace than the Iranian nuclear programme,which is the major justification for the missile shield.
The decision bodes well for a replacement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start),which has been successful in significantly reducing the nuclear stockpiles of the two countries and which will expire in December
The Russians had made it very clear that they regarded the deployment of missile defence facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic as an act of aggression and also claimed it altered the balance of nuclear power between the US and Russia. While it is hard to see how the planned anti-missile radar facility in the Czech Republic and a few interceptor missiles in Poland ever constituted a genuine threat to Russia's security, the issue of the balance of nuclear power is not to be taken lightly. The threat of assured mutual destruction, as scary as that may be, probably went a long way toward discouraging any direct confrontation between the two nuclear superpowers during the Cold War. Any change in the balance of power, which logically includes missile defence systems, will provoke an opposite reaction. For example, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev's threat last November to put missiles in Kaliningrad on the border of the European Union, in a speech given the same day that Mr Obama won the US presidential election.
A few months later Mr Medvedev announced a "large-scale" rearmament and renewal of Russia's nuclear arsenal, as well as the development of a wide range of new weapons systems.
With Mr Obama's announcement that the missile defence components the Russians object to so strenuously in the Czech Republic and Poland have been taken off the table, already on Friday Russia reciprocated with an announcement that the plan to position missiles in Kaliningrad had been shelved.
A Russian military source said:"Undoubtedly, Washington's cancellation of its missile defence facilities will not remain unnoticed.
"The array of measures which were planned in response to the deployment of the missile defence sites in Europe will be frozen, and will possibly be completely cancelled."
It also bodes well for a replacement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start), which has been successful in significantly reducing the nuclear stockpiles of the two countries and which will expire in December.
This is good news for the entire world, and again, the US really had nothing to lose in dropping the facilities in Poland and the Czech Republic.
Even some of the US' staunchest North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) allies have been harshly critical of the shield in the past.
"Deployment of a missile defence system would bring nothing to security,it would complicate things, and would make them move backward," said French President Nicolas Sarkozy at a news conference last November in which Mr Medvedev was present.
Around the same time, the British parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee also voiced doubts about the missile defence plan, saying in a report that because of opposition from Russia it could be "highly detrimental to Nato's overall security interests".
The committee recommended that if a ballistic missile defence system in Europe were to be developed at all, it should be as a joint system between the US, Nato and Russia.
This is apparently what is now being proposed by the Obama administration.Arguably, the best option might be to scrap the plans for a missile defence shield altogether and use the money for something more useful. There remain serious questions about the technological feasibility of such a shield,partly because some defence systems analysts have suggested that it could be neutralised, or tricked, rather easily.
In any case, Mr Obama's decision has already had some effect in lowering tensions which have been building for some time between the US and Russia. The chief cause of these tensions has not gone away, however - the tug of war between Russia and the West over the Caucasus. This may well be a greater threat to world peace than the Iranian nuclear programme,which is the major justification for the missile shield.
The decision bodes well for a replacement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (Start),which has been successful in significantly reducing the nuclear stockpiles of the two countries and which will expire in December
UN urges Sri Lanka to investigate war crimes
A top UN official issued a strong call for "truth-seeking" into alleged excesses by security forces when they wiped out Tamil rebels earlier this year.
"We feel that ideally the Sri Lankans should carry out a national process of truth-seeking and accountability," the UN's political chief Lynn Pascoe said in a statement issued after his departure from Colombo on Friday.
Mr Pascoe, undersecretary-general for political affairs, asked Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse to set up a "serious, independent and impartial"process to investigate alleged war crimes.
Sri Lanka has consistently resisted US- and European-led calls for war crimes investigations, saying that no civilians were killed by its security forces.
Before leaving the island, Mr Pascoe expressed "strong concerns" over Tamil war refugees, and said the government had been slow to resettle tens of thousands of displaced civilians.
"We feel that ideally the Sri Lankans should carry out a national process of truth-seeking and accountability," the UN's political chief Lynn Pascoe said in a statement issued after his departure from Colombo on Friday.
Mr Pascoe, undersecretary-general for political affairs, asked Sri Lanka's President Mahinda Rajapakse to set up a "serious, independent and impartial"process to investigate alleged war crimes.
Sri Lanka has consistently resisted US- and European-led calls for war crimes investigations, saying that no civilians were killed by its security forces.
Before leaving the island, Mr Pascoe expressed "strong concerns" over Tamil war refugees, and said the government had been slow to resettle tens of thousands of displaced civilians.
Italy voicing Afghanistan doubts
Italy has become the latest nation to question its role in Afghanistan following a deadly bombing that highlighted the pressure facing dozens of militaries confronting a protracted war -and an Afghan government illequipped to handle its problems alone.
The bombing that killed 10 Afghans and six Italian soldiers on one of Kabul's main roadways on Thursday prompted Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to call for a "transition strategy" to allow the Afghan government to do more for its own security and decrease international troop levels.
The Italian deaths were the country's greatest single loss in the war. Another Italian official called for troops to be out by Christmas.
Final election results from last month's presidential vote are weeks away at best and violence is on the rise. This is already the deadliest year for Nato troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion that ousted the Taliban, with over 300 deaths.
The summer has been particularly bloody as thousands of US troops poured into insurgent strongholds in the south and Taliban mounted campaigns of violence around last month's election.
In Afghanistan, Nato's Italian chief of staff said many governments are discussing force reductions, but only within the scope of normal planning. Major General Marco Bertolini said the Italian deaths do not diminish his country's commitment, insisting the government and military "share together the strong will to accomplish our mission" and that no Nato forces are threatening to withdraw.
"We are having discussions in Italy. I know that also in the other countries there is the same. But until now, at our level, I must be sincere, we haven't received any decrease in terms of commitment by anyone," said Gen Bertolini."There are contingents that probably could be reduced or withdrawn in the future, but I must recognise that everybody continues to be fully committed."
Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai,reiterated that his government is far from ready to take on insurgents alone.
The Afghan army is "still not ready to the extent that it would take on the whole responsibility", Mr Karzai said on Thursday."That's why the international community is here, to engage and struggle against terrorism and also to build the Afghan forces."
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wright said the US values Italy as a partner in the Afghanistan war, where Italian troops play an important role in the country's west. He said Italy's contribution "has been extremely valuable and we hope to continue working with them".
But the Afghan partnership with international forces has been full of tension.At a press conference on Thursday, Mr Karzai found himself alternately chastising German forces for making a major mistake in calling an airstrike that killed civilians and insisting that Germany is a "good friend" to Afghanistan.
The president also upbraided the top US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan for bringing up the possibility of a runoff vote in a private meeting ahead of the election.
Italy has already planned to bring home between 400 and 500 extra soldiers it had sent to beef up the contingent for last month's elections, but with results of the fraud-tainted vote still uncertain,it is unclear how soon they can leave.
Preliminary results of the Aug 20 election show Mr Karzai winning a second term with 54.6% of the vote, but monitors have said suspect votes could send him below the 50% threshold needed to avoid a run-off. Winter snows that make much of Afghanistan inaccessible until spring could push a second round back months.
Gen Bertolini said the extra troops will stay until the election process is finished. Italy currently has about 2,800 troops in Afghanistan.
Few Italian officials appeared to be calling for a direct withdrawal, but a poll taken last week - before the attacks - already showed that a majority of Italians wanted the soldiers back.
Government and military officials agreed that Italy must have some sort of long-term commitment, but it was unclear if that meant military forces or a transition to a civilian approach.
The bombing that killed 10 Afghans and six Italian soldiers on one of Kabul's main roadways on Thursday prompted Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to call for a "transition strategy" to allow the Afghan government to do more for its own security and decrease international troop levels.
The Italian deaths were the country's greatest single loss in the war. Another Italian official called for troops to be out by Christmas.
Final election results from last month's presidential vote are weeks away at best and violence is on the rise. This is already the deadliest year for Nato troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 invasion that ousted the Taliban, with over 300 deaths.
The summer has been particularly bloody as thousands of US troops poured into insurgent strongholds in the south and Taliban mounted campaigns of violence around last month's election.
In Afghanistan, Nato's Italian chief of staff said many governments are discussing force reductions, but only within the scope of normal planning. Major General Marco Bertolini said the Italian deaths do not diminish his country's commitment, insisting the government and military "share together the strong will to accomplish our mission" and that no Nato forces are threatening to withdraw.
"We are having discussions in Italy. I know that also in the other countries there is the same. But until now, at our level, I must be sincere, we haven't received any decrease in terms of commitment by anyone," said Gen Bertolini."There are contingents that probably could be reduced or withdrawn in the future, but I must recognise that everybody continues to be fully committed."
Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai,reiterated that his government is far from ready to take on insurgents alone.
The Afghan army is "still not ready to the extent that it would take on the whole responsibility", Mr Karzai said on Thursday."That's why the international community is here, to engage and struggle against terrorism and also to build the Afghan forces."
In Washington, Pentagon spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Mark Wright said the US values Italy as a partner in the Afghanistan war, where Italian troops play an important role in the country's west. He said Italy's contribution "has been extremely valuable and we hope to continue working with them".
But the Afghan partnership with international forces has been full of tension.At a press conference on Thursday, Mr Karzai found himself alternately chastising German forces for making a major mistake in calling an airstrike that killed civilians and insisting that Germany is a "good friend" to Afghanistan.
The president also upbraided the top US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan for bringing up the possibility of a runoff vote in a private meeting ahead of the election.
Italy has already planned to bring home between 400 and 500 extra soldiers it had sent to beef up the contingent for last month's elections, but with results of the fraud-tainted vote still uncertain,it is unclear how soon they can leave.
Preliminary results of the Aug 20 election show Mr Karzai winning a second term with 54.6% of the vote, but monitors have said suspect votes could send him below the 50% threshold needed to avoid a run-off. Winter snows that make much of Afghanistan inaccessible until spring could push a second round back months.
Gen Bertolini said the extra troops will stay until the election process is finished. Italy currently has about 2,800 troops in Afghanistan.
Few Italian officials appeared to be calling for a direct withdrawal, but a poll taken last week - before the attacks - already showed that a majority of Italians wanted the soldiers back.
Government and military officials agreed that Italy must have some sort of long-term commitment, but it was unclear if that meant military forces or a transition to a civilian approach.
PAKISTANI POLICE STAGE ARMS RAID ON US-CONTRACTED SECURITY COMPANY
Pakistani police raided a local security firm that helps protect the US embassy yesterday, seizing dozens of allegedly unlicenced weapons at a time when unusually intense media scrutiny of America's use of private contractors has deepened anti-US sentiment.
Two employees of the Inter-Risk company were arrested during the raids in Islamabad, police official Rana Akram said. Reporters were shown the disputed weapons -61 assault rifles and nine pistols. Mr Akram said police were seeking the firm's owner.
US embassy spokesman Rick Snelsire said the US contract with Inter-Risk took effect at the start of 2009. It is believed to be the first contract the firm has signed with the US, said Mr Snelsire.
"Our understanding is they obtained licences with whatever they brought into the country to meet the contractual needs," he said."We told the government that we had a contract with Inter-Risk,that Inter-Risk would be providing security at the embassy and our consulates."
Mr Akram said he had no idea about any US links to Inter-Risk, but the company was recently mentioned in local media reports that have been trying to establish the types of private security firms American diplomats use in Pakistan.
In particular, Pakistani reporters, antiUS bloggers and others have suggested the US is using the American firm formerly known as Blackwater - a claim that chills many Pakistanis because of the company's alleged involvement in killings of Iraqi civilians.
The US embassy denies it uses Blackwater - now known as Xe Services - in Pakistan.
Scandals involving US contractors have occurred elsewhere in the region.
In Washington on Friday, the Commission on Wartime Contracting heard testimony about another contractor ArmorGroup North America - involving alleged illegal and immoral conduct by its guards at the US embassy in Afghanistan.
The Iraqi government refused to grant Xe Services an operating licence earlier this year amid continued outrage over a 2007 lethal firefight involving some of its employees in Baghdad, although the State Department has temporarily extended a contract with an Xe subsidiary to protect US diplomats in Iraq.
Many of the reports in Pakistan have been fuelled by US plans to expand its embassy space and staff. Among the other rumours the US denies: that 1,000 US marines will land in the capital, and that Americans will set up a Guantanamostyle prison.
The US says it needs to add hundreds more staff to allow it to disburse billions of dollars in additional aid to Pakistan.
Legislation making its way through Congress will triple non-military aid to Pakistan - one version would provide $1.5 billion (50.5 billion baht) a year over five years in humanitarian and economic aid. The goal is to improve education and other areas, lessening the allure of extremism.
The US considers stability in Pakistan critical to helping the faltering war effort in neighbouring Afghanistan, and has pressed Pakistan to crack down on extremism on its soil.
Two employees of the Inter-Risk company were arrested during the raids in Islamabad, police official Rana Akram said. Reporters were shown the disputed weapons -61 assault rifles and nine pistols. Mr Akram said police were seeking the firm's owner.
US embassy spokesman Rick Snelsire said the US contract with Inter-Risk took effect at the start of 2009. It is believed to be the first contract the firm has signed with the US, said Mr Snelsire.
"Our understanding is they obtained licences with whatever they brought into the country to meet the contractual needs," he said."We told the government that we had a contract with Inter-Risk,that Inter-Risk would be providing security at the embassy and our consulates."
Mr Akram said he had no idea about any US links to Inter-Risk, but the company was recently mentioned in local media reports that have been trying to establish the types of private security firms American diplomats use in Pakistan.
In particular, Pakistani reporters, antiUS bloggers and others have suggested the US is using the American firm formerly known as Blackwater - a claim that chills many Pakistanis because of the company's alleged involvement in killings of Iraqi civilians.
The US embassy denies it uses Blackwater - now known as Xe Services - in Pakistan.
Scandals involving US contractors have occurred elsewhere in the region.
In Washington on Friday, the Commission on Wartime Contracting heard testimony about another contractor ArmorGroup North America - involving alleged illegal and immoral conduct by its guards at the US embassy in Afghanistan.
The Iraqi government refused to grant Xe Services an operating licence earlier this year amid continued outrage over a 2007 lethal firefight involving some of its employees in Baghdad, although the State Department has temporarily extended a contract with an Xe subsidiary to protect US diplomats in Iraq.
Many of the reports in Pakistan have been fuelled by US plans to expand its embassy space and staff. Among the other rumours the US denies: that 1,000 US marines will land in the capital, and that Americans will set up a Guantanamostyle prison.
The US says it needs to add hundreds more staff to allow it to disburse billions of dollars in additional aid to Pakistan.
Legislation making its way through Congress will triple non-military aid to Pakistan - one version would provide $1.5 billion (50.5 billion baht) a year over five years in humanitarian and economic aid. The goal is to improve education and other areas, lessening the allure of extremism.
The US considers stability in Pakistan critical to helping the faltering war effort in neighbouring Afghanistan, and has pressed Pakistan to crack down on extremism on its soil.
"Targeted attacks" a big blow to al-Qaeda
Recent targeted attacks that killed militants in Somalia, Indonesia and Pakistan have chipped away at alQaeda's power base, sapping the terror network of key leaders and experienced operatives who train new recruits and carry out attacks.
Intelligence officials said on Friday that the military strikes have reduced al-Qaeda's core leadership to only a handful of men and diminished its ability to train fighters. This, they said, has forced al-Qaeda to turn to its global affiliates for survival.
The killings of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in Somalia, Noordin Mohammed Top in Indonesia and Baitullah Mehsud in Pakistan, all in recent weeks, have been the latest blow.
A US counterterrorism official said the deaths deal "a major near-term blow to their respective militant groups".
Since the start of the year, US forces have stepped up strikes against militants in terrorist hubs, including Pakistan and Somalia. US National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said this week that such strikes have been possible because of a greater understanding of al-Qaeda.
British intelligence agents have joined the US in stepping up counterterrorism measures and adding agents, leading to fewer fully developed terrorist plots being uncovered in Britain.
Still, al-Qaeda's top leaders - Osama bin Laden and his No.2, Ayman alZawahri - remain free, and terrorist bombers continue to strike around the world, as al-Qaeda and the Taliban establish links with satellite groups.
This week, suicide bombers in Somalia killed 21 people, including 17 peace-keepers, in twin attacks at an African Union base in Mogadishu.
The attacks were said to be in retaliation for a US commando raid last week in southern Somalia that killed Nabhan,the leader of the powerful Islamist group al-Shabab, which was using foreign fighters to help al-Qaeda expand deeper into the Horn of Africa.
Nabhan was one of the founders of al-Shabab, a group that didn't exist a decade ago.
Nabhan, a Kenyan with Yemeni roots with years of strategic and weapons training, was a key alliance-builder. He was also key in procuring weapons and funds,and training recruits, according to Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside Al Qaeda:Global Network of Terror .Mehsud's death in Pakistan last month represented a similar blow. Mehsud was the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan.
Strikes against militant leaders in Pakistan have been particularly important for Britain. About 75% of the terrorist plots against the UK have roots in Pakistan. A plot to down at least seven transatlantic airliners in 2006 was thwarted partially because counterterrorism officials intercepted coded emails between a British terror cell and their handlers in Pakistan, prosecutors said. Mehsud, who underwent extensive training in Afghanistan before Sept 11,2001, acted as a unifying force among Taliban factions.
Ilyas Kashmiri, an al-Qaeda operations chief in northwest Pakistan, was also believed to have been killed in North Waziristan by missiles fired by US drones.Kashmiri was accused of playing a role in the failed assassination attempts against former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf.
A Pakistani intelligence official said it appeared many factions were starting to fight among themselves for leadership,and ranks are turning on each other because they are suspicious and finances are drying up.
Before the Sept 11 terror attacks in 2001, al-Qaeda provided fighters with extensive four-month training sessions at camps in Afghanistan. Now, training has been driven underground and recruits lack real battle experience, counterterrorism experts said.
In Indonesia, there is no clear successor for Noordin, who was killed last week during a gunfight with police seeking suspects in the July bombings of two Jakarta hotels.
Noordin was identified by authorities as the leader of al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia. He had been implicated in every major attack in Indonesia since 2002.
Intelligence officials said on Friday that the military strikes have reduced al-Qaeda's core leadership to only a handful of men and diminished its ability to train fighters. This, they said, has forced al-Qaeda to turn to its global affiliates for survival.
The killings of Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan in Somalia, Noordin Mohammed Top in Indonesia and Baitullah Mehsud in Pakistan, all in recent weeks, have been the latest blow.
A US counterterrorism official said the deaths deal "a major near-term blow to their respective militant groups".
Since the start of the year, US forces have stepped up strikes against militants in terrorist hubs, including Pakistan and Somalia. US National Intelligence Director Dennis Blair said this week that such strikes have been possible because of a greater understanding of al-Qaeda.
British intelligence agents have joined the US in stepping up counterterrorism measures and adding agents, leading to fewer fully developed terrorist plots being uncovered in Britain.
Still, al-Qaeda's top leaders - Osama bin Laden and his No.2, Ayman alZawahri - remain free, and terrorist bombers continue to strike around the world, as al-Qaeda and the Taliban establish links with satellite groups.
This week, suicide bombers in Somalia killed 21 people, including 17 peace-keepers, in twin attacks at an African Union base in Mogadishu.
The attacks were said to be in retaliation for a US commando raid last week in southern Somalia that killed Nabhan,the leader of the powerful Islamist group al-Shabab, which was using foreign fighters to help al-Qaeda expand deeper into the Horn of Africa.
Nabhan was one of the founders of al-Shabab, a group that didn't exist a decade ago.
Nabhan, a Kenyan with Yemeni roots with years of strategic and weapons training, was a key alliance-builder. He was also key in procuring weapons and funds,and training recruits, according to Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside Al Qaeda:Global Network of Terror .Mehsud's death in Pakistan last month represented a similar blow. Mehsud was the leader of the Taliban in Pakistan.
Strikes against militant leaders in Pakistan have been particularly important for Britain. About 75% of the terrorist plots against the UK have roots in Pakistan. A plot to down at least seven transatlantic airliners in 2006 was thwarted partially because counterterrorism officials intercepted coded emails between a British terror cell and their handlers in Pakistan, prosecutors said. Mehsud, who underwent extensive training in Afghanistan before Sept 11,2001, acted as a unifying force among Taliban factions.
Ilyas Kashmiri, an al-Qaeda operations chief in northwest Pakistan, was also believed to have been killed in North Waziristan by missiles fired by US drones.Kashmiri was accused of playing a role in the failed assassination attempts against former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf.
A Pakistani intelligence official said it appeared many factions were starting to fight among themselves for leadership,and ranks are turning on each other because they are suspicious and finances are drying up.
Before the Sept 11 terror attacks in 2001, al-Qaeda provided fighters with extensive four-month training sessions at camps in Afghanistan. Now, training has been driven underground and recruits lack real battle experience, counterterrorism experts said.
In Indonesia, there is no clear successor for Noordin, who was killed last week during a gunfight with police seeking suspects in the July bombings of two Jakarta hotels.
Noordin was identified by authorities as the leader of al-Qaeda in Southeast Asia. He had been implicated in every major attack in Indonesia since 2002.
Former general cleared of plan to oust Lao govt
A federal grand jury in California investigating an alleged plot to overthrow the government of Laos has dropped charges against a leading figure in the Southeast Asian nation's Hmong community, the US attorney's office in Sacramento said on Friday.
The grand jury's decision absolves 79-year-old Vang Pao, a former majorgeneral in the Lao army who is revered by the Hmong refugees he helped resettle in the US. He has been hailed as a hero by Vietnam War veterans.
Charges remain against 10 others, including a retired US army lieutenantcolonel, and were added against two new defendants.
While Gen Pao expressed relief that charges against him were dropped, his attorney said he's frustrated that his former co-defendants remain under indictment on charges the defence insists were exaggerated.
"We're glad the government has finally paid attention and recognised that General Vang Pao is innocent," said his attorney, John Keker.
"We're disappointed that the case, a very unfair sting operation, is continuing against some good people," he added.
US Attorney Lawrence G. Brown declined to comment other than in a written statement.
"Today's charging decisions are the culmination of a comprehensive investigation of the charged plot and review of all evidence that has been gathered,"Mr Brown's statement said.
Hundreds of supporters have rallied outside the federal courthouse in Sacramento during each of Gen Pao's court appearances since charges were brought in 2007.
The defendants have argued that they were entrapped and believed they were being recruited by the US government to fight communists, as they had been during the Vietnam War.
"Oh, thank God the charges were dropped," said the Reverend Sharon Stanley of Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries, who works with the Hmong community."I feel strongly that given the long history of the United States and our CIA's recruitment of General Pao and the Hmong communities, that his decision is an appropriate one."
Former CIA chief William Colby once called Gen Pao "the biggest hero of the Vietnam War", for the 15 years he spent leading a CIA-sponsored guerrilla army.
Charges against Gen Pao were dropped, Mr Brown's statement said,after investigators completed the timeconsuming process of translating more than 30,000 pages of documents.
The government arrested the defendants before understanding all of the evidence because they felt a threat was imminent, he said.
"General Pao was shocked that the United States, which he reveres and has fought and bled for, would treat him this way," said Mr Keker, a high-profile San Francisco attorney who handled the case for free.
All those being charged live in California's Central Valley, stretching from the Sacramento area to Fresno,where a large Hmong population settled after the war.
The indictment says the 12 defendants plotted to buy nearly $10 million in weapons from an undercover agent from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,Firearms and Explosives. These included automatic weapons, grenades, shoulderfired missiles, anti-tank rockets, antiaircraft missiles, night vision goggles,medical kits and other arms to equip a mercenary force intent on overthrowing the communist government of Laos.
All are charged with violating the Neutrality Act, which prohibits Americans from interfering with foreign governments. They also are charged with conspiring to export the machineguns and other weapons without a licence from the US State Department, and conspiring to kill and maim people and damage property in a foreign country.
The highest profile defendant remaining in the case is former US army colonel Harrison Jack. He is charged with acting as a middleman between the Hmong and the federal agent.
The grand jury's decision absolves 79-year-old Vang Pao, a former majorgeneral in the Lao army who is revered by the Hmong refugees he helped resettle in the US. He has been hailed as a hero by Vietnam War veterans.
Charges remain against 10 others, including a retired US army lieutenantcolonel, and were added against two new defendants.
While Gen Pao expressed relief that charges against him were dropped, his attorney said he's frustrated that his former co-defendants remain under indictment on charges the defence insists were exaggerated.
"We're glad the government has finally paid attention and recognised that General Vang Pao is innocent," said his attorney, John Keker.
"We're disappointed that the case, a very unfair sting operation, is continuing against some good people," he added.
US Attorney Lawrence G. Brown declined to comment other than in a written statement.
"Today's charging decisions are the culmination of a comprehensive investigation of the charged plot and review of all evidence that has been gathered,"Mr Brown's statement said.
Hundreds of supporters have rallied outside the federal courthouse in Sacramento during each of Gen Pao's court appearances since charges were brought in 2007.
The defendants have argued that they were entrapped and believed they were being recruited by the US government to fight communists, as they had been during the Vietnam War.
"Oh, thank God the charges were dropped," said the Reverend Sharon Stanley of Fresno Interdenominational Refugee Ministries, who works with the Hmong community."I feel strongly that given the long history of the United States and our CIA's recruitment of General Pao and the Hmong communities, that his decision is an appropriate one."
Former CIA chief William Colby once called Gen Pao "the biggest hero of the Vietnam War", for the 15 years he spent leading a CIA-sponsored guerrilla army.
Charges against Gen Pao were dropped, Mr Brown's statement said,after investigators completed the timeconsuming process of translating more than 30,000 pages of documents.
The government arrested the defendants before understanding all of the evidence because they felt a threat was imminent, he said.
"General Pao was shocked that the United States, which he reveres and has fought and bled for, would treat him this way," said Mr Keker, a high-profile San Francisco attorney who handled the case for free.
All those being charged live in California's Central Valley, stretching from the Sacramento area to Fresno,where a large Hmong population settled after the war.
The indictment says the 12 defendants plotted to buy nearly $10 million in weapons from an undercover agent from the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,Firearms and Explosives. These included automatic weapons, grenades, shoulderfired missiles, anti-tank rockets, antiaircraft missiles, night vision goggles,medical kits and other arms to equip a mercenary force intent on overthrowing the communist government of Laos.
All are charged with violating the Neutrality Act, which prohibits Americans from interfering with foreign governments. They also are charged with conspiring to export the machineguns and other weapons without a licence from the US State Department, and conspiring to kill and maim people and damage property in a foreign country.
The highest profile defendant remaining in the case is former US army colonel Harrison Jack. He is charged with acting as a middleman between the Hmong and the federal agent.
CHINESE GUARDS BEAT JAPANESE JOURNALISTS
Chinese authorities assaulted three journalists from a Japanese news agency in their Beijing hotel room, the agency said yesterday, kicking them and destroying two computers.
The three journalists from Kyodo News were in the Chinese capital covering a National Day rehearsal when authorities stormed into the room of their hotel on Friday night, the news agency said. Kyodo alleged a reporter and two cameramen were kicked "and hit their heads to make them kneel down...", without specifying who the "authorities" were.
They threw the two computers out of the room and into the corridor of the hotel, which is near Tiananmen Square, the venue of the National Day celebrations scheduled for October 1.
Yasushi Kato, bureau chief of the Kyodo News Beijing office, said several men stormed into the hotel room after one of the journalists opened the door, but they did ntot identify themselves.
Kyodo reported they destroyed two computers by throwing them into the corridor. Kato said a reporter and a cameraman were Japanese and the third was a Chinese assistant.
China's Foreign Ministry had ordered news organisations not to take photos when the country conducted a rehearsal September 6, but the ministry has not issued such an order since then, according to Kyodo.
Security forces have swarmed over central Beijing in the lead-up to a parade that will mark 60 years since the founding of Communist China.
Businesses, schools, and traffic shut down as columns of tanks and assorted other military vehicles bearing missiles and an array of other hardware rumbled down the city's deserted mainest-west thoroughtfare, the Avenue of Heavenly Peace, and towards Tiananmen Square.
Security forces had earlier swarmed over cental Beijing, shooing citizens away from what will be the parade's route through the heart of the city.
Earlier this week, hundreds of journalists protects in Hong Kong, in southern China, ahainst alleged police brutality towards three of their colleagues covering syringe attacks in China's restive Xinjiang region.
Around 700 demonstrators, wearing black and holding placards, held a march to call on the Xinjiang govekrnment to apologise to the reporters and demanded Beijing move to stop media repression.
The three journalists from Kyodo News were in the Chinese capital covering a National Day rehearsal when authorities stormed into the room of their hotel on Friday night, the news agency said. Kyodo alleged a reporter and two cameramen were kicked "and hit their heads to make them kneel down...", without specifying who the "authorities" were.
They threw the two computers out of the room and into the corridor of the hotel, which is near Tiananmen Square, the venue of the National Day celebrations scheduled for October 1.
Yasushi Kato, bureau chief of the Kyodo News Beijing office, said several men stormed into the hotel room after one of the journalists opened the door, but they did ntot identify themselves.
Kyodo reported they destroyed two computers by throwing them into the corridor. Kato said a reporter and a cameraman were Japanese and the third was a Chinese assistant.
China's Foreign Ministry had ordered news organisations not to take photos when the country conducted a rehearsal September 6, but the ministry has not issued such an order since then, according to Kyodo.
Security forces have swarmed over central Beijing in the lead-up to a parade that will mark 60 years since the founding of Communist China.
Businesses, schools, and traffic shut down as columns of tanks and assorted other military vehicles bearing missiles and an array of other hardware rumbled down the city's deserted mainest-west thoroughtfare, the Avenue of Heavenly Peace, and towards Tiananmen Square.
Security forces had earlier swarmed over cental Beijing, shooing citizens away from what will be the parade's route through the heart of the city.
Earlier this week, hundreds of journalists protects in Hong Kong, in southern China, ahainst alleged police brutality towards three of their colleagues covering syringe attacks in China's restive Xinjiang region.
Around 700 demonstrators, wearing black and holding placards, held a march to call on the Xinjiang govekrnment to apologise to the reporters and demanded Beijing move to stop media repression.
PAD protest ends in bloodshed
Dozens of protesters, police and villagers were injured in fiery clashes near the border with Cambodia yesterday as a protest by the People's Alliance for Democracy spun out of control.
The government declared martial law as PAD supporters, in a protest over sovereignty, met unexpected resistance from hundreds of Si Sa Ket villagers who blocked their path.
The PAD was trying to march to a disputed border area close to Preah Vihear temple. Stick-wielding protesters clashed repeatedly with riot police and villagers who were trying to keep them out.
Nearby, soldiers set up barricades to stop the PAD reaching the border area disputed with Cambodia.
They reinforced the Khao Phra Viharn national park office in Kantharalak district of Si Sa Ket.
But the government was forced to declare martial law after protesters were able to break through barricades to reach the military-controlled area.
The clashes between PAD protesters and villagers left scores of people on both sides injured, including two people in a critical condition.
Sert Piewkhao, 26, a local villager, was shot in the neck while PAD supporter Promsak Ritkraikul, 44, was hit in the eye by slingshots.
To ease the crisis, the government agreed to let 76 PAD representatives read aloud a prepared statement today at Pha Mor E Daeng, which is close to the disputed area.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said giving the PAD its say could help restore peace. Anyone who broke the law at the gathering would be punished, he said.
The government's concession capped a day of drama which started when PAD member Veera Somkwamkid and Charoen Muphankhachorn led about 2,000 supporters on a protest to assert Thai sovereignty over disputed territory near Preah Vihear temple.
They planned to march to the temple entrance to protest against Cambodia's decision to build new houses in a nearby 4.6 square kilometre area not settled by the two countries. The World Court awarded the temple to Cambodia in 1962.
Accompanied by so-called PAD guards, the demonstrators arrived in the province in cars, buses and vans. They were stopped by hundreds of villagers at Ban Phumsarol in Kantharalak district.
The residents blockaded the road to the park near the temple. Crowd control riot police in full gear were on standby.
Residents opposed the PAD protest, fearing it would aggravate the border situation and harm their livelihood.
"They [PAD protesters] are here for just a couple of days. But we and the Cambodian people are here for life so we do not want any complications.
"The temple dispute has been going for years. Why protest now?" said Boonreum Khobutr, a village head.
Si Sa Ket governor Rapi Pongbuppakij and Si Sa Ket deputy police chief Amnuay Mahapol asked both sides to back off, but to no avail.
After hours of trading insults, clashes broke out about 1.20pm. Slingshots, wooden stakes, rocks and blades were used as weapons.
The PAD guards broke through the barricades, taking protesters to a forest fire control station where they were prepared to spend the night.
Mr Veera and Suranaree Task Force commander Maj-Gen Chavalit Choonhasarn held talks for two hours after which the protesters retreated to the Sisa Asoke Buddhist community, which is a branch of Santi Asoke with close affiliations to the PAD.
Speaking while the negotiations were underway, Second Army Region commander Lt Gen Wibulsak Neepal said the army could not guarantee the safety of protesters.
He had proposed to army commander Anupong Paojinda that a group of 20 PAD representatives be allowed to enter the restricted area to make a declaration.
"The army chief has agreed. The PAD demonstrators have to leave the area as soon as they finish reading their statement," he said.
PAD leader Chamlong Srimuang yesterday distanced all five PAD leaders from the Preah Vihear campaign.
"Mr Veera is leading the campaign so any talks should be conducted with him," he said after the clashes.
Earlier, Gen Anupong said he doubted the PAD's campaign to enter the restricted area would do any good to themselves or the country.
"They will put themselves in danger if they sneak into areas which are not yet clear of landmines. And if they are arrested, Cambodia will accuse us of encroachment," he said.
The government declared martial law as PAD supporters, in a protest over sovereignty, met unexpected resistance from hundreds of Si Sa Ket villagers who blocked their path.
The PAD was trying to march to a disputed border area close to Preah Vihear temple. Stick-wielding protesters clashed repeatedly with riot police and villagers who were trying to keep them out.
Nearby, soldiers set up barricades to stop the PAD reaching the border area disputed with Cambodia.
They reinforced the Khao Phra Viharn national park office in Kantharalak district of Si Sa Ket.
But the government was forced to declare martial law after protesters were able to break through barricades to reach the military-controlled area.
The clashes between PAD protesters and villagers left scores of people on both sides injured, including two people in a critical condition.
Sert Piewkhao, 26, a local villager, was shot in the neck while PAD supporter Promsak Ritkraikul, 44, was hit in the eye by slingshots.
To ease the crisis, the government agreed to let 76 PAD representatives read aloud a prepared statement today at Pha Mor E Daeng, which is close to the disputed area.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said giving the PAD its say could help restore peace. Anyone who broke the law at the gathering would be punished, he said.
The government's concession capped a day of drama which started when PAD member Veera Somkwamkid and Charoen Muphankhachorn led about 2,000 supporters on a protest to assert Thai sovereignty over disputed territory near Preah Vihear temple.
They planned to march to the temple entrance to protest against Cambodia's decision to build new houses in a nearby 4.6 square kilometre area not settled by the two countries. The World Court awarded the temple to Cambodia in 1962.
Accompanied by so-called PAD guards, the demonstrators arrived in the province in cars, buses and vans. They were stopped by hundreds of villagers at Ban Phumsarol in Kantharalak district.
The residents blockaded the road to the park near the temple. Crowd control riot police in full gear were on standby.
Residents opposed the PAD protest, fearing it would aggravate the border situation and harm their livelihood.
"They [PAD protesters] are here for just a couple of days. But we and the Cambodian people are here for life so we do not want any complications.
"The temple dispute has been going for years. Why protest now?" said Boonreum Khobutr, a village head.
Si Sa Ket governor Rapi Pongbuppakij and Si Sa Ket deputy police chief Amnuay Mahapol asked both sides to back off, but to no avail.
After hours of trading insults, clashes broke out about 1.20pm. Slingshots, wooden stakes, rocks and blades were used as weapons.
The PAD guards broke through the barricades, taking protesters to a forest fire control station where they were prepared to spend the night.
Mr Veera and Suranaree Task Force commander Maj-Gen Chavalit Choonhasarn held talks for two hours after which the protesters retreated to the Sisa Asoke Buddhist community, which is a branch of Santi Asoke with close affiliations to the PAD.
Speaking while the negotiations were underway, Second Army Region commander Lt Gen Wibulsak Neepal said the army could not guarantee the safety of protesters.
He had proposed to army commander Anupong Paojinda that a group of 20 PAD representatives be allowed to enter the restricted area to make a declaration.
"The army chief has agreed. The PAD demonstrators have to leave the area as soon as they finish reading their statement," he said.
PAD leader Chamlong Srimuang yesterday distanced all five PAD leaders from the Preah Vihear campaign.
"Mr Veera is leading the campaign so any talks should be conducted with him," he said after the clashes.
Earlier, Gen Anupong said he doubted the PAD's campaign to enter the restricted area would do any good to themselves or the country.
"They will put themselves in danger if they sneak into areas which are not yet clear of landmines. And if they are arrested, Cambodia will accuse us of encroachment," he said.
IRAN OPPOSITION LEADERS ATTACKED AT RALLY
Hardliners attacked senior proreform leaders in the streets as tens of thousands marched in competing mass demonstrations by the opposition and government supporters. Opposition protesters, chanting "death to the dictator", hurled stones and bricks in clashes with security forces.
The opposition held its first major street protests since mid-July, bringing out thousands in demonstrations in several parts of the capital. In some cases only several blocks away, tens of thousands marched in government-sponsored rallies marking an annual anti-Israel commemoration.
The commemoration, known as Quds Day, is a major political occasion for the government - a day for it to show its anti-Israeli credentials and its support for the Palestinians.
During a speech for the rallies, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad railed against Israel and the West, questioning whether the Holocaust occurred and calling it a pretext for occupying Arab land. Quds is the Arabic word for Jerusalem.
But the opposition was determined to turn the day into a show of its survival and continued strength despite a fierce three-month-old crackdown against it since the disputed June 12 presidential election.
The four opposition leaders joined the protests, in direct defiance of commands by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who barred anti-government rallies on Quds Day.
Tens of thousands joined the government-organised marches, starting in various parts of the capital and proceeding to Tehran University.
Police and security forces, along with pro-government Basij militiamen, fanned out along main sqares and avenues and in many cases tried to keep nearby opposition protesters away from the Quds Day rallies to prevent clashes, witnesses said.
At one of the several opposition rallies around the city, a group of hardliners pushed through the crowd and attacked former president Mohamad Khatami, a cleric who is one of the most prominent to a reformist Web site.
The report cited witnesses as saying the opposition activists rescued Khatami and quickly repelled the assailants.
Another reformist Webs site said Khatami's turban was disheveled and he was forced to leave the march.
Hardliners tried to attack the main opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, when he joined another protest elsewhere in the city, a witness said. Supporters rushed Mousavi into his car when the hardliners approached, and the vehicle sped away as his supporters pushed the hardliners back.
In one of the main Tehran squares, Haft-e Tir, baton-toting security forces tried to break up one of the opposition marched, and were met with protesters throwing stones and bricks, witnesses said.
The opposition held its first major street protests since mid-July, bringing out thousands in demonstrations in several parts of the capital. In some cases only several blocks away, tens of thousands marched in government-sponsored rallies marking an annual anti-Israel commemoration.
The commemoration, known as Quds Day, is a major political occasion for the government - a day for it to show its anti-Israeli credentials and its support for the Palestinians.
During a speech for the rallies, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad railed against Israel and the West, questioning whether the Holocaust occurred and calling it a pretext for occupying Arab land. Quds is the Arabic word for Jerusalem.
But the opposition was determined to turn the day into a show of its survival and continued strength despite a fierce three-month-old crackdown against it since the disputed June 12 presidential election.
The four opposition leaders joined the protests, in direct defiance of commands by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who barred anti-government rallies on Quds Day.
Tens of thousands joined the government-organised marches, starting in various parts of the capital and proceeding to Tehran University.
Police and security forces, along with pro-government Basij militiamen, fanned out along main sqares and avenues and in many cases tried to keep nearby opposition protesters away from the Quds Day rallies to prevent clashes, witnesses said.
At one of the several opposition rallies around the city, a group of hardliners pushed through the crowd and attacked former president Mohamad Khatami, a cleric who is one of the most prominent to a reformist Web site.
The report cited witnesses as saying the opposition activists rescued Khatami and quickly repelled the assailants.
Another reformist Webs site said Khatami's turban was disheveled and he was forced to leave the march.
Hardliners tried to attack the main opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, when he joined another protest elsewhere in the city, a witness said. Supporters rushed Mousavi into his car when the hardliners approached, and the vehicle sped away as his supporters pushed the hardliners back.
In one of the main Tehran squares, Haft-e Tir, baton-toting security forces tried to break up one of the opposition marched, and were met with protesters throwing stones and bricks, witnesses said.
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