Ministers draw up plans to boost sector into world's third largest by 2012

Thom Shanker / New York Times:
Campaign Promises on Ending the War in Iraq Now Muted by Reality  —  WASHINGTON — On the campaign trail, Senator Barack Obama offered a pledge that electrified and motivated his liberal base, vowing to “end the war” in Iraq.  —  But as he moves closer to the White House …

As the two-year anniversary of Fiji's military takeover approaches, another international governing body has called the Pacific island nation to hold elections in 2009 as once promised.

This time a European Union delegation, led by German legislator Gabrielle Zimmer, met with leaders in Fiji and urged, “that parliamentary elections take place before the end of 2009 based on a political dialogue process involving all stakeholders and conducted without delay.”

Problems between the island nation and regional partners began when self-appointed Prime Minister Commodore Frank Bainimarama promised in 2007 that elections would be held in March 2009, a pledge he later back away from. Government officials have long claimed the country isn't ready for elections until it undergoes major changes in its race-based electoral laws.

The EU statement follows the Pacific Forum indication in August it would suspend Fiji from the organization if the government failed to schedule elections and return the country to Parliamentary democracy. Yet Bainimarama has held firm. In its most recent budget, the government allocated no extra monies for organizing an election, although funds were set aside for buying electronic equipment for voter registration.

Unlike the Pacific Forum's threats, the EU's statement could be especially damning to Fiji’s economy because the organization may withhold sugar subsidies for another year. ($50 million in subsidies were suspended for 2008 due to overthrowing the government of Laisenia Qarase.)

A discussion has broken out in the blogosphere over how exactly to initiate political change in Fiji. A commenter named Peace Pipe to a post in the

Barack Obama is on the way to making good his pledge to have a Cabinet and White House staff that are among most diverse ever, although some supporters are asking him to go even further.div class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=tyYco"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=tyYco" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=e8aNO"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=e8aNO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=kkPAo"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=kkPAo" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=6WQto"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=6WQto" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=pFRKO"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=pFRKO" border="0"/img/a a href="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?a=hyhJO"img src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~f/CBSNewsMain?i=hyhJO" border="0"/img/a /divimg src="http://feeds.cbsnews.com/~r/CBSNewsMain/~4/474189610" height="1" width="1"/

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/40836?ns=guardianpageName=World+news%3A+A+toxic+legacych=World+newsc3=The+Guardianc4=Guantanamo+Bay+%28News%29%2CObama+White+House+%28News%29%2CBarack+Obama+%28News%29%2CUS+foreign+policy%2CUS+news%2CHuman+rights+%28News%29%2CWorld+newsc5=Not+commercially+useful%2CUS+Electionsc6=Julian+Borgerc7=2008_12_04c8=1128354c9=articlec10=GUc11=World+newsc12=Guant%C3%A1namo+Bayc13=c14=h2=GU%2FWorld+news%2FGuant%C3%A1namo+Bay" width="1" height="1" //divpEver since January 11 2002, when the first 20 prisoners were flown in from Afghanistan in orange jumpsuits and shackles, the Guantaacute;namo Bay detention camp has been a hefty burden around the Bush administration's neck. /ppThe defence secretary at the time, Donald Rumsfeld, picked the Cuban enclave as the "least worst place" to hold captives accused of terrorism. But the effort to run a camp outside the reach of US or international law, so that "enemy combatants" could be held indefinitely without charge, steadily corroded America's standing in the world. The images of the inmates languishing in small metal cages in Camp X-Ray, the rudimentary first phase of the complex, and the steady stream of reports of human rights abuses, have taken a daily toll. The camp's existence has angered and embarrassed Washington's closest allies, and become a recruitment tool for its enemies. /ppNearly six years on, there is no debate over whether "Gitmo" should be closed - only how. As it approaches the end of its term, the Bush administration is anxiously attempting to dispose of its own toxic legacy. John Bellinger, the state department's top lawyer, has been trying to persuade other governments to accept detainees cleared for release. More than 500 have already been sent back to their homelands or to third countries, but there are still 250 prisoners left who cannot go home for fear of persecution and who no one else will accept. They are now Barack Obama's problem./ppThe president-elect has frequently stated his intention to close Guantaacute;namo. In an interview since the election, he repeated that pledge, saying it was "part and parcel of an effort to regain America's moral stature in the world". But the question of what to do with the remaining inmates still divides his ideologically diverse national security and justice teams./ppObama's inaugural speech on January 20 will be closely scrutinised around the world for signs of how bold or cautious he decides to be. His policy on Guantaacute;namo will be widely seen as a benchmark for his intentions as president. /ppA report by a non-partisan panel of US security and human rights experts, entitled Closing Guantaacute;namo: From Bumper Sticker to Blueprint, estimates that the camp could be emptied within a year if the Obama administration decided on a clean break from Bush policies and devoted enough resources to the job. The report advocates the establishment of an independent commission to review the cases of all the detainees, to assess the evidence against them and order the immediate release of the innocent./ppThe first task will be to complete the Bush administration's effort to find homes for the 150-200 prisoners who, according to lawyers familiar with their stories, have no case to answer but who cannot be sent back to their native countries for fear they would be victimised, tortured or killed. /ppThe clearest example of inmates stuck in this limbo are the 17 Uighurs, separatists from a Muslim minority in China who were seized in Pakistan during the Afghan war. They have all been cleared for release by the US authorities, most as long ago as 2003, but have so far not been accepted by any third countries. Albania agreed to take in five other Uighur detainees in 2006, but has refused to take any more. /ppBellinger's efforts to find any other government to receive the Uighurs have been undermined by the adamant refusal of the US authorities to allow them to live in America because of the presumed threat they pose to the US, in part because of presumed animosity caused by six years of detention without charge. Obama's envoys may find they have better luck than Bellinger./pp"I don't think anyone is inclined to do this administration any favours, but Obama will find he has a lot of goodwill to draw on," a European diplomat says. But that goodwill will be greatly enhanced if the new administration stops fighting the resettlement of inmates in the US./ppA second category of prisoners will be referred for prosecution outside Guantaacute;namo, but that raises the question of whether that prosecution should be conducted by military courts martial in the US or the civilian legal system. That will be a decision that goes to the philosophical heart of the issue - should the US approach terrorism as a military threat or as a criminal enterprise, or some hybrid of the two? Obama has refrained from using the phrase "war on terror", but he is said to be under pressure from the more conservative national security experts on his team to leave his options open and not bind himself with the procedural constraints of the civilian judiciary./ppOn the other side of the debate is a "rule of law" camp within the embryonic administration which argues that anything short of a complete return to constitutional normality would rob Obama of the international goodwill he might otherwise gain by scrapping Guantaacute;namo./ppThat debate underlies the toughest dilemma the new administration is likely to face on closing the offshore camp: whether there should be a third category of prisoners, deemed too dangerous to release but too difficult to prosecute. The evidence against them may be in the form of intelligence material that cannot be disclosed in court, or that falls short of legal proof. Confessions would also be ineligible if they were obtained under torture, as in the case of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks who was "waterboarded" (subjected to simulated drowning) by the CIA. And few if any of the inmates of Guantaacute;namo were reminded of their right not to incriminate themselves, which is standard police practice./ppThe Bush administration has been seeking international agreement for a new form of preventative detention that would allow inmates in this third category to be held in the US and abroad. "The problem is you've got 200-plus very dangerous people, and the question is what do you do with them. And these are people who say regularly: 'If I'm let out of here, I will go immediately and start killing Americans again,'" Condoleezza Rice, the outgoing secretary of state, said during a visit to London this week. She argued that "even though you know that this person is a future threat, we don't really have a legal framework for that, which is why it's been done within a war framework. But if you don't hold a person who you know is a future threat, then you risk the deaths of thousands of innocents. So I do think that this is something for the international community to take up."/ppThere is little sign, however, that the international community has any appetite for such a departure from established human rights law. The decision on preventative detention will be Obama's alone. Several of his advisers and allies, liberals included, think that terrorism is such a pernicious threat, and the security risks of releasing suspects are so great, that new legislation allowing for preventative detention is unavoidable. The political risk of a released inmate carrying out an attack are also enormous. Such an event could prove crippling to a new administration. /ppOn the other hand, any new system of preventative detention would be seen around the world as Guantaacute;namo redux, human rights lawyers say. It would be every bit as effective as an al-Qaida recruiting tool, and would perpetuate the extremists' self-image as warriors rather than mere criminals. Within the internal debate under way in the transition team, liberal activists want foreign governments to lobby Obama against creating a new legal limbo. /ppIt is one of the toughest decisions the new president has in his in-tray. What Obama decides will say a lot about his presidency. Sarah Mendelson, a senior fellow of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies and author of the Closing Guantaacute;namo report, says it is uncertain which way Obama would lean. But she adds: "My sense is the president-elect has taught courses in the constitution in one of the most reputable law schools in country. He ran on opting back into the international system. The idea of going for a new legal regime that will result in more years in litigation is not going to appeal. It will not be the clean break he needs to make."/ph2A history of the prison camp/h2p· January 11 2002: First prisoners arrive/pp· February 27 2002: First hunger strike begins/pp· April 29 2002: The first prison, Camp X-Ray, closes, replaced by a more solid concrete construction, Camp Delta/pp· November 10 2003: US Supreme Court agrees to hear appeals from inmates that they are being held illegally/pp· February 13 2004: Bush administration agrees to establish review panels to establish whether inmates still pose a threat/pp· March 19 2004: Five British detainees freed/pp· February 16 2006: The UN calls for the closing of Camp Delta, arguing that the treatment of some inmates amounts to torture/pp· June 10 2006: Three inmates hang themselves/pp· June 21 2006: President Bush first expresses the wish to close the camp/pp· September 6 2006: Fourteen "high-value" detainees are transferred from secret CIA prisons around the world to Guantaacute;namo, including Khaled Sheikh Mohamed, Abu Zubaydah and Ramzi Binalshibh, three alleged planners of the 9/11 attacks/pp· June 12 2008: US Supreme Court rules that inmates have the right to challenge their incarceration in the US courts/pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/guantanamo"Guantánamo Bay/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/obama-white-house"Obama White House/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barackobama"Barack Obama/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usforeignpolicy"US foreign policy/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/usa"United States/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/humanrights"Human rights/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/DnF9th1tAua-YMzXf_qz88giof4/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/DnF9th1tAua-YMzXf_qz88giof4/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Aircraft group will not put forward own executive should Ranque leave in wake of stake sale

Many sites pledge to pay you for mailed-in used consumer electronics. But just how much do they give you, and are they even worthwhile?

Many sites pledge to pay you for mailed-in used consumer electronics. But just how much do they give you, and are they even worthwhile?

The company reported fourth-quarter results far below expectations and for the first time backed away from pledges to find a solution for its memory chip unit.

Many Web sites pledge to pay you for mailing in used electronics. Which ones look the most lucrative?

Many Web sites pledge to pay you for mailing in used electronics. Which ones look the most lucrative?

In a December 3 Washington Times online article headlined "Obama hijacks GOP language on key issues," reporter Stephen Dinan asserted that President-elect Barack Obama was "borrowing a line from the Republican-revolution playbook" when he told the National Governors Association in Philadelphia that, in Dinan's words, states should be "laboratories for solutions to the nation's big problems." However, later in the article, Dinan rebutted his own assertion, as well as the Times' headline, by noting that Obama "trac[ed] the concept back to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who in a dissent in a 1932 court case said states could 'serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.' " Brandeis was appointed to the Supreme Court by Democratic President Woodrow Wilson in 1916.

In December 2 remarks to the National Governors Association, Obama stated:

It was Justice Brandeis who said, during a period of far greater turmoil in our markets, that one of the blessings of our democracy was that - and I quote - "a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory," experimenting with innovative solutions to its economic problems. That is the spirit of courage and ingenuity that so many of you embody. And that is the spirit I want to reclaim in this country - one where our states are testing new ideas, where Washington is investing in what works, and where you and I are working in partnership to move this country forward.

In a dissenting opinion in the 1932 Supreme Court case New State Ice Co. v. Liebmann, Brandeis stated: "Denial of the right to experiment may be fraught with serious consequences to the nation. It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."

From the December 3 Washington Times online article:

Borrowing a line from the Republican-revolution playbook of the 1990s, President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday told the nation's governors that he wants them to reassert states as the laboratories for solutions to the nation's big problems.

"That's the spirit that I want to reclaim for the country as a whole," Mr. Obama told the National Governors Association, gathered in Philadelphia. "One where states are testing ideas, where Washington is investing in what works, and where you and I are working together in partnership on behalf of the great citizens of this nation."

Showing fealty to the Founding Fathers' concept of federalism and states' roles in a divided government is the latest statement of humility and outreach from Mr. Obama during his transition. It's one olive branch Republicans said they hope to grab as Mr. Obama seeks to make good on his campaign pledge of change.

"Time will tell. I'm certainly hopeful he will indeed push for states to be the laboratories for change, because they can be," said Gov. Mark Sanford, South Carolina Republican. "If one really believes in change, states are going to be front and center."

State experimentation was the rage in the 1990s, when a high-profile set of Republican governors led a movement to reform welfare and education. Meanwhile, the governors' allies in Congress sparred with President Clinton over enshrining the welfare reforms in federal law, finally reaching an agreement he could sign in 1996.

Now, with a looming budget crisis facing the federal government, both governors and federalism observers said Mr. Obama should turn to the states to lead the way on some of the items on the president-elect's own to-do list of reforms, including Medicaid and expanded access to health care.

"That's how we ought to do health care reform," said David Osborne, a former senior adviser to then-Vice President Al Gore who studied federalism and is now with Public Strategies Group, a consulting firm that advises governments on how to improve their performance. "The federal government should create funding and incentives for the states to try their own models to expand access to health insurance and control costs and improve quality."

Mr. Osborne said he doesn't expect Congress to allow states that role -- "it's not the way senators and congressmen think" -- but praised Mr. Obama for raising those sorts of prospects.

"I find it reassuring," he said. "Obama seems by instinct to understand that not everything important in this country happens in Washington. Anybody who's been a community organizer kind of gets that most government is at the state and local level."

In encouraging the states to experiment, Mr. Obama didn't refer to Republicans, instead tracing the concept back to Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, who in a dissent in a 1932 court case said states could "serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country."

divimg alt="" src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/89165?ns=guardianpageName=Money%3A+Tracker+warning+ahead+of+rate+decisionch=Moneyc3=guardian.co.ukc4=Mortgages+%28Money%29%2CProperty%2CBorrowing+and+debt%2CBanks+and+building+societies%2CMoney%2CHousing+market+%28Business%29%2CBusiness%2CUK+news%2CInterest+rates+%28Money%29%2CInterest+rates+%28Business%29c5=Personal+Finance%2CInvestments%2CCredit+Crunch%2CNot+commercially+useful%2CBusiness+Markets%2CProperty+Mortgages+and+Interest+Ratesc6=Staff+and+agenciesc7=2008_12_03c8=1128025c9=articlec10=GUc11=Moneyc12=Mortgagesc13=c14=h2=GU%2FMoney%2FMortgages" width="1" height="1" //divpAt least half a million tracker a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/mortgages"mortgage/a customers may not see their repayments fall in line with this week's expected a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/interestrates"interest rate/a cut, it was predicted today./ppThat figure could more than double if the UK's largest lender, Halifax, implements a clause in its home loans allowing it to change borrowers' rates./ppThe Bank of England's monetary policy committee (MPC) is widely expected to reduce the base rate by between 0.5% and 1% when it announces the result of its two-day meeting tomorrow. But clauses in some tracker mortgages will mean lenders no longer have to pass on the cut to their customers, while those on standard variable rate (SVR) deals are also unlikely to benefit from the full reduction./ppDespite the fact that tracker deals automatically move up and down in line with the base rate, some have so-called floors or collars which state that lenders will stop passing on rate cuts once the base rate falls below a certain level./ppOn Nationwide deals a collar kicks in when a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/nov/01/mortgages-property"official interest rates fall below 2.75%/a, while on a Skipton or Yorkshire building society tracker the cut off point is 3%./ppRay Boulger, senior technical manager at mortgage broker John Charcol, said up to 1.2 million people - a sizeable proportion of the estimated 3.9 million who have tracker deals - may not see the full reduction passed on to them./ppHe said up to 600,000 people had tracker mortgages with lenders such as Nationwide and Skipton, while up to a further 600,000 have a tracker deal with Halifax, which may choose to exercise its option not to pass on the rate cut in full./ph2Halifax/h2pThe small print in Halifax's mortgage gives it the option not to pass on all or any cut once the base rate falls below 3%. It tells customers: "We can also change the tracker margin to your disadvantage, but only at a time when the tracker base rate is less than 3% per year. /pp"By 'to your disadvantage' we mean increasing the tracker margin where it is positive or zero, reducing the tracker margin where it is negative, or changing a negative tracker margin to a positive one." /ppHowever, comments made yesterday by a representative of the City watchdog, the Financial Services Authority (FSA), suggest the bank could be in trouble if it a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/dec/02/mortgages-banks"tries to implement the clause/a./ppJon Pain, the FSA's retail markets managing director, told the Council of Mortgage Lenders annual conference that while tracker interest rate collars could be a legitimate term of a mortgage, "it can only be if it is clear and unambiguous to the consumer, and is consistently and prominently spelt out in the initial KFI [key facts illustration] and offer document throughout the sales process"./ppA spokesman for the FSA said it would not comment on individual companies, but it seems likely Halifax will be under pressure to pass on any reduction in full. /ppIf it doesn't, Boulger said it could face a legal challenge from borrowers. "I had a call last week from one borrower with a large Halifax lifetime tracker mortgage who said he would do just that," he said./ph2Standard variable rates/h2pBorrowers on SVRs are also unlikely to benefit from the full reduction. Lloyds TSB, which also lends under the Cheltenham Gloucester brand, is the only major lender which links its SVR to the Bank base rate. /ppIts terms and conditions pledge that its SVR will never be more than 2% above the base rate, which means it could fall as low as 4% if the MPC does opt for a full 1% cut./ppLast month, a number of major lenders were quick to reduce their SVR by the full 1.5% after coming under pressure from the government, but many others only passed on smaller cuts./ppOverall, 87 out of 95 lenders with an SVR passed on some of the reduction, but 57 did not pass it on in full, with some only reducing their rates by 0.25%. The Woolwich, Barclays' lending arm, has not passed on anything./ppLouise Cuming, head of mortgages at moneysupermarket.com, said: "If we see a 1% cut to [an overall rate of] 2%, it will be very, very difficult for lenders to pass that on./pp"They have to have an eye on profitability and 2008 has been about lenders wanting to get profit rather than volume lending."/ppBoulger agreed, saying that if rates were cut by 1% he would expect lenders to pass on between 0.25% to 0.5% to SVR customers, unless the government puts pressure on the major lenders to pass on the cut in full again./ppIf the MPC cuts interest rates by 0.5% and lenders pass on the reduction in full it would save borrowers with a typical £150,000 mortgage around £43 a month, while a 1% reduction would reduce monthly repayments by £85./pdiv style="float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/mortgages"Mortgages/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/property"Property/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/debt"Borrowing debt/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/banks"Banks and building societies/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/housingmarket"Housing market/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/interestrates"Interest rates/a/lilia href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/interestrates"Interest rates/a/li/ul/diva href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of this content is subject to our a href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/vFowmOJr7LLH_KbczF13xURKTeE/a"img src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/vFowmOJr7LLH_KbczF13xURKTeE/i" border="0" ismap="true"/img/a/p

Bangkok’s airports are now open. The protesters have agreed to end their protests after the country’s top court ordered the dissolution of the ruling party which forced the Prime Minister to step down. Military troops are now guarding the airports. Tourists are advised to contact their airlines and tourism offices to check for flight schedules.

Last week protesters belonging to the People’s Alliance for Democracy have occupied Bangkok’s two airports demanding the removal of the corrupt government. The airport takeover has stranded more than 300,000 passengers in the country.

Because of the favorable court order, the protesters have declared victory. However, they vowed to launch similar protest actions in the future if reforms are not instituted. Excerpts from PAD’s statement:

“The PAD would like to call on whichever side that attains power to run the country to find a solution for the current problems and not to create conditions for another political turmoil in the country. Do not bring to power people from the Thaksin regime. Address the wrongdoings conducted by those in the Thaksin regime. Join with the people in making new politics a reality.”

The PAD would like to make the following pledges.

1. If a proxy government of the Thaksin regime is set up again or if there is an attempt to amend the Constitution or the law to whitewash the wrongdoings of those in the Thaksin regime, to benefit politicians, or to lessen the power of the King, the PAD will return.

2. From now on, if there is any government which comes into power but is insincere in its efforts to launch new politics with the people, the PAD will return.

Thaksin is former Prime Minister of Thailand who was ousted in a coup two years ago. PAD accused the last two Prime Ministers of being puppets of Thaksin.

Thai Politico interprets the PAD statement:

“The implication at the moment is that if the next PM is not to the PAD's liking they will occupy the airport again. Will the security forces now completely secure Thailand's airports so that nothing like this can take place again? Or will we see the army back off like scared rabbits into the corner?”

New Mandala believes PAD’s victory will be short-lived:

“The celebrations by the yellow shirts at Suvanabhumi will be short-lived. The parliament has not been dissolved and the government looks very likely to maintain its majority. The Democrat-except-when-you-can’t-win-an-election-and-then-a-judicial-coup-is-OK Party simply can’t muster the numbers. More blatant judicial or military intervention will be required to remove the government.”

Political cartoon by Sacravatoons

PAD is popular in Bangkok (but the airport takeover has made it less popular today). PAD is accused of having close ties with Bangkok’s elite. On the other hand, most of the rural voters are supportive of Thaksin’s party. Someone asked: What if the farmers staged their own protest against PAD and the urban elite by refusing to plant rice?

Stranded tourists are now recounting their experience in Thailand. Tuesdaynight narrates how he and his wife were able to leave the country by traveling to Malaysia and Singapore by land. He writes:

“Finally, I have to say, after all this, I consider us to be lucky. We found a way out of the country and it worked. I truly feel for the hundreds of thousands people whose travel was impacted because of this. More importantly, I feel for the Thai people who have yet to find some form of political stability.”

Despite the airport chaos, life in Bangkok seemed like normal the past week. Oneditorial writes:

“During the week, I called my family to get their views on this event. They did not seem to be thinking too much about what is going on. They still carry on their daily lives as usual. As a matter of fact, on the day I talked to my mother on the phone, the entire family was completely absorbed in watching a Thai soap on the telly, never mind the fact that the country is in a state of political turmoil. I just wish I could be as detached as them.”

Andrew Biggs asks if the airport crisis would produce positive results:

“Could it be that the pain, shame and anger we have all experienced with the PAD’s closure of the airport actually be heralding a new era of politics in Thailand? Could it possibly be that something good is going to come out of all this?”

An anonymous commenter criticizes the organizer of the protests:

“Im sure terrorist groups in South-East Asia have witnessed the complete lack of security at the airport and thus it would be a sitting duck for groups who plan terrorist attacks against planes and passengers. Bangkok as a major hub? I dont think so any more. What airline will want to fly in and out of Bangkok when the airports own security guards ran like scared children from their own people. Shame on Thailand for allowing this anti democratic group to act like terrorists and hold an entire country to ransom. Thailand is about to see the trickle down from this catastrophe and I pity the ordinary people who were not involved in this protest but could lose jobs.”

Gabriella Haynes describes the mood in Bangkok:

“The atmosphere in wider Bangkok since the protests started has been calm and business as usual in general. While the city’s residents don’t take the sporadic and seemingly random spurts of violence and the loss of life and income lightly, there is no sense of widespread panic and concern. International news agencies report airport mayhem and interview distressed and worn-out tourists stranded in the country, yet most Thais I have spoken to only express concern about the potential violence of the situation and concern for the economy.”

And let’s not forget that pro-government supporters are also numerous in the city:

“The PAD has ceased their protests for now but the capital has also been inundated with pro-government supporters, which means the situation has not been completely diffused.”

Flickr photos from Ronn Ashore and Willie Lunchmeat

Thomas Wanhoff from Vietnam is disappointed that tourists are complaining of missed flights while Bangkok protesters are fighting for some cause:

“This is just unbelievable. There are people in Thailand trying to fight for democracy (but of course is their understanding of), at least stand up against the corrupt government, and tourists are just complaining about missed flights.”