Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama yesterday told the Constitution Court it was the previous Surayud Chulanont administration that had pushed to support Cambodia's registration of the Preah Vihear temple as a World Heritage Site, not himself.
FINANCE MINISTRY
Finance Minister Surapong Suebwonglee has ordered a review and restructuring of the current lottery ticket distribution system following a protest by hundreds of lottery retailers and vendors in front of the ministry.
Most TV programme producers will lose business opportunities with army-run Channel 5 soon as the broadcaster is moving toward compliance with the new Broadcasting Act.
SUVARNABHUMI
Serirat Prasutanond, the director of Suvarnabhumi Airport, was yesterday appointed acting Airports of Thailand Plc (AoT) president, following the resignation of Chana U-sathaporn. The AoT board has asked Mr Serirat to speed up the overdue payment of over six billion baht for extra construction work carried out by contractors at Suvarnabhumi airport that AM Chana and his predecessors were reluctant to approve, said an AoT source.
ENVIRONMENT
SONGKHLA : Greenpeace has sent a petition to the government, urging it to switch to renewable energy to save the country from an energy crisis in the future resulting from fossil fuel shortages. The petition was part of the group's latest energy campaign, which kicked off yesterday after Greenpeace's flagship, the SV Rainbow Warrior, sailed into Songkhla yesterday.
RAIL SERVICES
NONG KHAI : The first Thai train crossed the border to Laos yesterday on a trial run before the official opening of the line tentatively set for next month.
TRANSPORT
The Central Administrative Court yesterday ruled against a request by a consumer group seeking an injunction to delay express boat and ferry fare increases. The judges said the fair hikes, which will apply to express boats and ferries in the Chao Phraya river and passenger boats in the Saen Saep canal, are in line with increasing oil prices.
SOUTHERN UNREST
YALA : A local man was beheaded by insurgents yesterday, police said. Nails had been hammered through his hands. The body of Kan Sangtong, 55, whose clothes were also burned, was found on a local road in Bannang Sata district. His head was placed on a bridge about 60 metres away from his body.
NEWS THINK
All eyes in Thailand and Cambodia are on the meeting of the World Heritage Committee in Quebec tomorrow, when the Preah Vihear issue is on the table for 21 committee members to decide.
POLITICS
The Criminal Court will hand down its verdict on the tax evasion case against former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's wife Khunying Potjaman and two other defendants on July 31. Khunying Potjaman, her step-brother Bannapot Damapong and her secretary Karnchanapa Honghern were charged by the Office of the Attorney-General following an investigation by the Assets Scrutiny Committee (ASC).
ACADEMIC SEMINAR
Academics called for a review of journalism standards and objectivity in the media's role of presenting unbiased reporting amid the current political and social conflicts. Pairoj Polphet, the chairman of the Thai NGO Coordinating Committee on Development, said the media and public are unwittingly used by groups such as politicians in a battle of mudslinging through the internet, webboards, local radio and other channels.
POLITICS
Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej reportedly secured his return to Bangkok from Brunei yesterday by choosing his pilot himself. Mr Samak, however, told the media upon his arrival that there was no plot to arrest him at Suvarnabhumi airport and topple his government as he told them earlier.
POLITICS
Parliamentarians have agreed that a land plot owned by the Army's Ordnance Department in Nonthaburi's Pak Kret district is a possible suitable location for the new parliament building. In their joint meeting yesterday, MPs and senators considered narrowing down the more than 10 proposed sites to two _ the department's 265-rai land plot and the State Railway of Thailand's 165-rai tract in Klong Toey.
POLITICS
Members of the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) in the South have stepped up their protests against the government. Some 400 anti-government demonstrators from Prachuap Khiri Khan, Chumphon, Ranong and Surat Thani rallied in the car park of a shrine built in memory of the Prince of Chumphon, a son of King Rama V, near Phetkasem road in Chumphon's Tha Sae district.
HEALTH
Cha, 27, is employed at Bangjak hospital as a community health worker.
EDITORIAL
When all else failed, the Colombian army was forced to use stealth and guile. That was the happy news this week when one of the least violent military assaults in history rescued 15 hostages mistreated for years by the oldest surviving communist insurgency in the Western hemisphere.
COMMENTARY
On December 8, 2007, I reported on this page that "... in two weeks cabinet will officially approve the re-structuring of the National Film Archive from a section in the Department of Fine Arts to become a public organisation, or ongkarn mahachon, which means greater autonomy, liberation from the vice of red tape, and more generous funding."
BURMA
This is the true story of two lovers who decided to put their country's affairs ahead of their love affair. As a result, they find themselves in jail and in exile. But they are still deeply in love, along with many other men and women in the pro-democracy movement who fall in love, only to be tragically separated and sent off to jail or exile in these troubled times in Burma.
IN Print
Tackling existing problems by adding on new ones is rarely a good strategy. Sometimes, however, a new problem may help reduce conflicts inflicted by an existing one, said a Thai Rath writer. Such is the case in the Administrative Court's ruling to temporarily halt government support for the Cambodian government's unitary application to the Unesco World Heritage Committee (WHC) to list Preah Vihear as a World Heritage Site.
THE WEEK IN REVIEW
An appeal by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) against the Civil Court's ruling ordering the anti-government group to unblock traffic on Rama V and Phitsanulok roads and lower the volume of its loudspeakers during school hours was rejected on Wednesday.
@THAILAND
Remember the feeling when you saw a photo of His Majesty the King, wearing a pink jacket, as he waved and smiled to the crowd the day he was discharged from Siriraj Hospital?
@THAILAND
Farmers in Nan are fighting a losing battle in their attempts to break off from the vicious cycle of chemical use as they find the lure of higher farm yields and better crop prices irresistible.
@THAILAND
NAN : Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn has inspired residents in this northern province to raise organic vegetables in their backyards. The farmland in Thong Noi palace where the princess takes up residence during her visit to Nan once or twice a year spans 42 rai. It has become a model for organic farming.
PostBag
I am urged to express a different point of view from that posed by Professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak as quoted in "Thai Politics" (BP, July 3). He described Mr Thaksin's opponents (of whom I am one) as a group of "old money" who "stood to lose from Mr Thaksin's attempt at redistribution [of wealth] and... fought it." This is a grossly simplistic and quite frankly insulting categorisation of an entire group of people, many of whom are not moneyed - old or otherwise - and certainly do not object to the concept of wealth redistribution.
IN Brief
CONTEMPT :Somchai Wattanakarun, a Central Administrative Court judge, said the court would hand down a verdict on Public Health Minister Chaiya Sasomsab's alleged contempt of court on Monday.
