North Korea's dictator Stone Age in luxury

His people are starving, but for his lap dog, he spends hundreds of thousands!

North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il is reportedly spending by South Korean newspapers annually 100000-200000 U.S. dollars for the care and feeding of his dogs.

The dictator had dozens of dogs, which he lovingly spoil, Yoon Sang-Hyun told of the ruling conservative Grand National Party, citing intelligence information.

THE DOGS AND LUXURY ALL THE TIME IS NOT!

In his report to the parliament in Seoul, accusing the member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the North Korean leader to spend huge sums even for more luxury items.

KIM JONG IL'S SHOPPING LIST:

• Russian Race Horses: Kim Jong Il is in the past year, dozens of the animals bought for his family.

• fine wines: 600 bottles of best French wines were reportedly sent to North Korea.

• Jet-skis: For the dictator's son and possible successor to the best! For Kim Jong Il Kim Jong Un is to have bought ten jet skis, which can distribute his son to the various holiday villas in the family.

A large part of the buyer makes Kim, according to the report of his main allies China and Russia. The South Korean secret service would not comment on the disclosures.

UN Security Council sanctions against North Korea ban the export of luxury goods in the Stalinist-led country. According to UN figures are almost six million people, a quarter of the North Korean population is malnourished.

AUSTRALIA: SMALL PLANE CRASHES INTO FERRIS WHEEL

In Australia, a pilot with his small plane flew into a Ferris wheel and stuck it upside down - because he has missed the ride! Miraculously no one was injured.

The accident occurred on a public festival in the Australian Eastern coastal town of Old Bar, some 350 kilometers north of Sydney.

Suddenly a small plane raced type S200 Cheetah on the Ferris wheel. "I thought: My God, will fly to the deep, who comes just over it," one woman told the ABC. "And then the machine crashed into the Ferris wheel."

Equally surprising was the apparent impact of the 52-year-old pilot of the aircraft. Who declared that he ferris wheel and have not been seen by the device is stopped suddenly.

"I knew a few minutes long, not at all what had happened and hoped that no one was injured," said the 52-year-old.

The accident has proceeded so smoothly, probably due to the impending rain.

Eyewitnesses said a few moments before impact was the Ferris wheel was still busy with many children.Because of impending rain, then only a few had taken part in the next trip.

As the small plane struck, there were a nine-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl in the travel business. Had to wait two and a half hours in a gondola of the ferris wheel until they were rescued by the rescue workers, it said in a statement to local police.

Longer had the 52-year-old pilot and his 32-year-old son waiting for rescue. They waited nearly three hours in the wreckage of more than ten meters in height. "Fortunately, all were taken down and we were able to leave behind us," said Ben Shepherd from the local fire department.

The small plane had taken off shortly before the collision of an airfield nearby. The police and staff of the Australian Aviation Safety Authority on Saturday were on site in order to determine the exact circumstances of the accident.

Mean concentration of Taliban protest the United States

13 Taliban in Afghan capital Kabul, the U.S. Embassy and NATO headquarters to launch a major attack, described the situation in Afghanistan remains grim.Analysts pointed out that the Taliban choose the timing of the attack in September 11 terrorist attacks just after the tenth anniversary of the United States is very clear demonstration of the mean.

According to the analysis, the Taliban and NATO on the U.S. embassy attack in Afghanistan resident, has at least two problems.

First, the Taliban militants after a decade against the U.S. war on terrorism, the forces have not been destroyed, they use to prove years after the September 11 attacks still have the ability to attack the heart of Afghanistan, not only threatens the rule of the Afghan government, of U.S. and NATO forces can pose a threat.

The second is described in the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, the United States against Al Qaeda organization and the Taliban militants, has yielded some results, but the terrorist threat is far removed.Although bin Laden was killed, Taliban have been driven out of Kabul, but not to make Americans feel safe and at ease.U.S. counter-terrorism is still a long way.

Analysts pointed out that the Obama administration to develop a plan for withdrawal from Afghanistan, before the summer program from 2012 to withdraw from the local 33,000 soldiers, NATO troops in July this year handed over to Afghan security forces in Bamyan Province security rights.But this may be so severe attack after the withdrawal of U.S. troops in Afghanistan face a more complex situation.Whether the strength of the Afghan army to contend with the Taliban, is still unknown.The United States in order to ensure local interests, is bound to reside between the withdrawal and to do some real trade-offs.

Stanford University Fellow, Center for International Security and Cooperation Xue Tai pointed out that the Taliban with Pakistan, Afghanistan border tribal forces, walk, living in the border areas, rehabilitate, and await the attack.They also take suitable conditions in Afghanistan's political, military, and gradually expand the sphere of influence, the United States and NATO allies, destroy numerous suppressing the formation of a situation.

Although the U.S. military control of the city, the "point", but can not ensure that the lines that "line" of the flow, as rural and mountainous areas, the "face", but also to stay in Taliban hands.So long as U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan, Taliban can not be made in the strategic initiative.But once the Americans leave Afghanistan, Taliban inevitable comeback, sweeping most of the region.This is where the deadlock in the war on terror in Afghanistan.

China Train Accident

China Train Accident

A toddler was discovered alive a day after two bullet trains collided in eastern China in a deadly incident that has intensified concerns about the country's vaunted high-speed rail system.

The official New China News Agency said a boy was found unconscious by firefighters inside the wreckage Sunday afternoon and rushed to a hospital.

The rescue came shortly after three senior railway officials were fired in response to the collision, which killed at least 43 and injured more than 200 in Wenzhou, a city in Zhejiang province.

The accident took place Saturday night when a train from Hangzhou stalled after being hit by lightning and was then rear-ended by a train originating from Beijing. The violent crash sent four carriages from the oncoming train tumbling 66 feet off an elevated track.

Rescuers found hundreds of terrified passengers trapped under debris.

"Please save us," a passenger wrote on a Twitter-like blog. "The train is leaning toward one side now. And it's totally locked. The first few carriages hit each other."

Chinese President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao called for an "all-out effort" to rescue passengers and dispatched Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang to the scene of the accident, state media reported.

Still, anger remained high among Chinese Internet users who posted millions of comments online mourning victims — while also questioning the safety of the national high-speed rail system and calling for a thorough investigation.

"The railway minister should be required to resign his post immediately; don't go blaming lightning for this incident, the one who should be blamed most is you!" read a comment translated into English by the website ChinaGeeks.

Many were outraged over video that was posted online Sunday showing backhoes breaking apart carriages that had fallen off the elevated tracks. Another photograph online showed what some thought were the same backhoes burying parts of the train.

Internet users suspecting a coverup questioned how evidence could be destroyed so quickly and wondered if the carriages had been properly inspected by rescue teams for passengers first.

Authorities have so far been unable to explain why the oncoming train did not stop in time and whether engineers anticipated vulnerabilities to lightning strikes.

The disaster will no doubt invite greater scrutiny of the already embattled Ministry of Railways.

The three officials who were fired Sunday included the head of the Shanghai rail bureau and itsCommunist Party chief, whose jurisdiction included one of the trains.

The ministry was rocked by scandal in February when its chief, Liu Zhijun, was dismissed after allegedly taking $125 million in kickbacks tied to shoddy construction work.

Two months later, the ministry reduced maximum speeds along the network to reduce costs and as a safety precaution.

China's high-speed rail system, the largest in the world, has attracted controversy for years because its engineering is alleged to be have been copied from European and Japanese technology and because the national track network was laid in record time.

Officials have touted the country's rail technology as the world's most advanced and have eyed foreign markets including California.

But the marketing campaign, so far, has not gone well. The recently opened Beijing-Shanghai line featuring newer and faster trains than those that collided in Wenzhou has been beset by power failures and delays in recent weeks. The $32.5-billion line was meant to be a symbol of China's engineering prowess.

Whether travelers will now think twice about taking the train remains to be seen. The accident Saturday has struck the public as something of a national embarrassment. Chinese blogs have been noting that Japan hasn't had a bullet train-related fatality since its service opened in 1964. High-speed rail was introduced to China in 2007.

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking

Famed physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking is launching a new career as a singer. The wheel-chair bound genius sings 10 songs on a new CD, with his eerie electronic voice. The background music is from a Moog synthesizer, giving the songs a unique--and very alien--texture to them.

Dr. Hawking first song is a cover of 'My Way'. Although his bizarre mechanical voice cannot match Frank Sinatra, Dr. Hawking gives the song his own special poignancy. Those who have heard the song say it sounds like a Dalek singing while on acid.
Dr. Hawking also covers a Beatles song from the 'Sgt. Pepper Album' for his new CD. The fab physicist sings 'A Day In The Life' without any background music. His mechanical voice never runs out of breath, and he can hold all musical notes indefinitely. 'A Day In The Life' is not for everbody--it runs for over 8 hours.

The final song on the CD is a duet. Dr. Hawking sings 'Daisy' with the HAL 9000 computer from the movie '2001:A Space Odyssey. The science-fiction movie from 1968 seems to have anticipated Dr. Hawkings. Both the Hal 9000 computer and Dr. Hawking sing in the exact same key!

Machu Picchu

Machu Picchu was found by an American historian, and this weekend many are celebrating the centennial of the "discovery" of the cloud city high in the Andes — one of the most remarkable archeological sites on the planet.
Now, of course, Peruvians say that the city was not discovered a century ago today, because they never lost it. But Americans give credit to Hiram Bingham III, who climbed the Andes and saw the remarkable city, surrounded by holy mountains and filled with houses, terraces and temples that with all our modern skills and machines would be impossible to build today.
To write his new book, Turn Left At Machu Picchu, author Mark Adams retraced the steps Bingham took on his expedition. With the help of an Australian expatriate guide and a large supply of cocoa, Adams survived the journey to talk with NPR's Linda Wertheimer about the significance of the ruins and Bingham's legacy. They also discuss who really owns the centuries-old artifacts currently housed at Yale.
The Golden Age
"This was sort of the golden age of exploration. The moment Bingham got to Peru in 1911, [Robert F.] Scott and [Roald] Amundsen were camped out in Antartica ready to race for the pole," Adams says. "Even though Bingham was a lecturer in history at Yale, he identified himself as an explorer, and he continued to do so for the rest of his life, even though he later became the governor of Connecticut and then senator for Connecticut."
According to Adams, Bingham was in the exploring game less to make the ruins famous than to make himself famous. But Bingham's efforts most likely protected the ruins from destruction at the hands of treasure-seekers.

"At that time, people were blowing up Inca ruins with TNT," Adams says. "They were knocking buildings down looking for the lost treasures of the Incas."
Modern-Day Journey
To undertake Bingham's expedition, Adams had to embark on a taxing journey through the Andes. "After about a week or so of walking up one incredibly steep mountain ridge and down the other side, crossing a river and then repeating over and over and over, I did get in pretty good shape," he recalls. But he admits he was helped by what he calls "Mother's Little Helper of the Andes" — the cocoa leaf, which is known to keep energy levels steady and relieve what Peruvians callsoroche, or altitude sickness.
"It is the root ingredient of cocaine, but the effect is so different," Adams says. "The effect is like taking a nap and then having a cup of green tea. It's not like some wild high that's going to keep you dancing all night at Studio 54."
Still, he notes, "When I got back to the States, I looked it up on the DEA website and realized that purchasing this much cocoa would get me five to ten at Sing Sing."
Adams describes his tour guide, Australian expatriate John Leivers, as "a throwback to the sort of pre-Lonely Planet era of travel. When he's not leading trips in the Cusco area, he's off exploring for pre-Columbian ruins that no one has ever recorded before."
Sort of like Bingham himself.
Artifacts
After Bingham's introductory expedition in 1911, he returned the following year with backing from Yale and the National Geographic Society. As part of his mission, he arranged a handshake deal with Peru's then-president to obtain artifacts for Yale's Peabody Museum in New Haven, Conn. But as Bingham was gathering the antiquities, there was a revolt in the country, and the new president who stepped into power had different thoughts on Bingham's procurement of his nation's valuables.
"The new president said, 'You know what? I'll let you leave with everything you've taken, on one condition: If we ask for these things back, you have to send them back.' And Bingham said, 'Fine,' and he left the country," Adams says. "These things basically sat in New Haven for about 90 years. It's only recently that Peru has shown really serious interest in getting these things back."
But no matter who owns the artifacts, Adams maintains that the world is richer for having preserved its most fascinating and iconic ruins, thanks to Bingham:
"One of the most incredible things about Machu Picchu is that it's still standing."

Knights Templar

Pictures of the latest objects seized by the police in the Mexican state of Michoacan, revealed that the mysterious 'Knights Templar" drug cartel is more bizarre than most people imagine.
There were four hooded tunics, with a red cross, a metal helmet, and a pamphlet or Templar rule book. This drug cartel claims to draw inspiration from the medieval Christian warriors who fought to protect Jerusalem and the Holy Grail.
No one knows if its founder, Servando Gomez, a school teacher, was a history entuthiast or simply read the Da Vinci Code.
The rules in the modern day 'templar bible' call for observance of 'gentleman' like behaviour and respect for women – but also state that any disclosure of knights templar activities will result in the death of the person and his whole family, and confiscation by the cartel of the snitch’s property. Watch my tv report from Michoacan.
The cartel is like a secret society.
The Mexican Templars have an initiation ritual, which apparently includes dressing up like knights from the Middle Ages, and performing blood pacts.
The cartel recruits drug users and enrolls them in the organisation's rehabilitation centers; the process is closely monitored and has a strong religious component.
The double standard is striking: the Templars can not take drugs, and yet they run one of the biggest methamphetamines traffic corridors to the United States.
A resident of Morelia, the capital of the Michoacan province, tells me the cartel that preceded the Templars, La Familia, hired 'cooks' who had learnt to manufacture meth (known as ice or crystal) in the US.
As the government regulated the sale of one of meth's core components, pseudoephedrine (found in cold medicine), the 'crystal makers' or cristaleros moved back to Mexico and now get supplies from China through ports on the Pacific coast.
The young recruits are told to be 'gentlemen', the word for 'knight' in Spanish means a 'gentleman', but they have to kill those who they judge as thieves, rapists, or kidnappers, hanging them from bridges and attaching messages to their bodies.
The government of Felipe Calderon has declared war on the cartels.
It receives substantial military aid from the US to combat these drug gangs.
The national security spokesperson says the Templars are an offshoot of La Familia and their beliefs are a mere PR campaign to gain support of Michoacan residents.
President Calderon is from Michoacan, and his sister is running for governor.

But others see the religious element as a calculated move by its founder to prevent his hit men leaking information, while giving the group an aura of mystery that could inspire fear and respect. It is hard to know.
The cartel's structure, wealth, and size. It is perhaps the second most notorious Mexican cartel in terms of killing methods, the most vicious one, the 'Zetas', is a group formed by Mexican army special forces in the 90s.
I travelled to two Michoacan prisons and tried to speak with a member of the Templars or La Familia, but the only person who had ever agreed to talk to a journalist had already been released.
In Apatzingan, the stronghold of Servando Gomez, aka 'la tuta', there are currently 1,800 federal police and soldiers trying to hunt him down.
While we were in town the police announced they had captured the chief hit man from La Familia. He was immediately flown to the capital, after being questioned by the police. Journalists are never allowed to speak to the detainees.
Most residents refuse to talk openly about the Knight's Templar.
Some say they never harmed the community; most seem more annoyed by the federal police presence.
The mayor of Apatzingan, Grnaro Guizar was very skeptical about the arrests the military operation has produced so far.
He was once snatched out of his office, locked up for 11 months for his alleged ties with drug cartels, and later acquitted.
He denies all these accusations and says he has never been friends with a single drug lord.
"You want to know what the feds do? They go to a town and round up innocent people: the mariachi band, the guy who sells popsicles in the street corner, the whole crowd at a quinceanera (sweet-sixteen) party," he says.
Once in jail, he adds, the detainees must prove they are not affiliated to the cartel to be released.
It is possible that the Templars are not even hiding, and they get protection from local sources.
The road to Apatzingan has giant sized banners displaying photos of the top three leaders and offering a nearly $2.5 m reward for information.
All the signs had the faces and names covered up by spray paint. The secret society is battling to remain anonymous.

Bullet Train

China's first bullet train crash, less than a month after the launch of Beijing-Shanghai train with much fanfare may dash Beijing's multi-billion dollar plans to expand high speed train network at home besides making the technology a mainstay of its future exports.
Chinese government went all out to ensure massive publicity to the June 30 launch of the Beijing-Shanghai fast train which covered the distance of over 1300 km in less than five hours with five star comforts.
The service launched in a hurry to show as a major achievement of the country coinciding with the 90th anniversary of the ruling Communist Party of China, (CPC) soon raised hackles as the trains started stopping suddenly mid way often on high rise bridges due to power failures, causing panic and anger among passengers.
The breakdowns added immense pressure on tightly controlled state media as coverage was taken over by 197 million strong microblog media with highly damaging posting by passengers narrating the pain and panic which stretched to hours without air-conditioning.
Saturday night's crash of a bullet train travelling over 300 kmph crashing into another one which stuck on the track due to power failure caused by "lightening" that too on a high rise bridge created perhaps the "worst case scenario" for the future bullet trains at home.
The blog posts last night full of public worries about the trains and criticism about the way Chinese government went about launching them.
A netizen called Su Yan doubted the safety of high-speed trains.
"Who dares to take bullet trains or high-speed trains?" Su Yan said.
"The operational safety of China's railways is seriously challenged, and it'll be a long and tough process to earn customers' trust again," his posting carried by official Xinhua said.
"China should not only learn technologies but also management," said Ma Xiaolin, a well-known public commentator.
The bullet trains has "generated more complaints than compliments because of continuous breakdowns in the first two weeks of operation", the state run China Daily said in its report about Saturday's crash.
One blogger said, "I believe this is an act of sabotage of foreign enemies who are not happy with the progress of China".
China has planned to build a 13,000-km high-speed railway network by 2012, 16000 km by 2020.

Plans are afoot to increase the speed of the trains to 500 kmph radically reducing the travel time between the cities.
According to the National Audit Office the Ministry of Railways currently burdened with 1.3 trillion yuan ($ 200 billion) in debt in 2009, with 854.8 billion yuan in short-term debt and 448.6 billion yuan in long-term debt.
China has plans to cash in on the technology with plans to export it but the campaign came under cloud after Japanese company Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd. threatened to take action if China files for patents on high-speed trains made using Japanese technologies.
Chinese engineers, however, denied it saying that their was 300 km high speed technology while Japan's was around 200 km.
Reports in the Chinese official media recently said China got orders to export 228 bullet trains to Malaysia to develop intercity transportation for Kuala Lumpur.
Cai Chengping, director of the Tokyo-based Asia-Pacific Political and Economic Research Center, said Japan had suffered similar train derailing, but the safety condition improved a lot afterwards.

Aung San Suu Kyi

Aung San Suu Kyi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and had she been awarded it repeatedly all the years since, these would not have sufficiently acknowledged her contribution to the fight for human dignity

“It is not the strength but the duration of great sentiments that makes great men” — Friedrich Nietzsche.


Nietzsche’s quote always reminds me of Aung San Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela for their persistent uncompromising struggle for rights and human dignity. In case of Daw Suu, as she is respectfully addressed, because of her frailty in comparison to the monstrous strength of the brutal Burmese ruling junta it touches the heart even more. She has steadfastly struggled for the Burmese people’s rights since 1988 and spent 15 years in jail, survived murderous attacks, been held incommunicado, been put under tremendous emotional stress, seen friends and supporters suffer immensely at the hands of an unforgiving junta and yet persists and this is what makes her a truly great person, a beacon and symbol for all struggling people.
Daw Suu, still facing restrictions, secretly recorded lectures on ‘Liberty’ and ‘Dissent’ for Reith Lectures series, which were recently podcast on BBC Radio and through them I want to present Daw Suu and her thoughts hoping that these will guide all those who struggle against tyranny. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991 and had she been awarded it repeatedly all the years since, these would not have sufficiently acknowledged her contribution to the fight for human dignity.
She, as a 13-year-old, had read the book Seven Years Solitary by the Hungarian Edith Hajós Bone, a resilient person, who “was able to keep her mind sharp and her spirit unbroken through the years when her only human contact was with men whose everyday preoccupation was to try to break her”. She says it influenced her immensely and helped her survive tribulations. She says “in the business of dissent” the primary task is to remain “unbroken” and to persevere; this defeats the tyrants’ goals. She mentions how her supporter U Win Tin who authored, Is This a Human Hell? after 20 years in jail was sustained through the ordeal by Ernest Henley’s poem ‘Invictus’ of “struggle and suffering, the bloody unbowed head, and even death, all for the sake of freedom”; incidentally, Invictus had inspired her father too.
Quoting Max Weber she says, “Three qualities of decisive importance for politicians as passion, a sense of responsibility, and a sense of proportion” are required. Passion — passionate dedication to a cause “has to be at the core of each and every person who makes the decision, declared or undeclared, to live in a world apart from the rest of their fellow citizens; a precarious world with its own unwritten rules and regulations. The world of dissidence.”
Praising the young who have chosen the difficult path of dissidence she says, “Their weapons are their faith; their armour is their passion — our passion. What is this passion? What is the cause to which we are so passionately dedicated as to forego the comforts of a conventional existence? Going back to Vaclav Havel’s definition of the basic job of dissidents, we are dedicated to the defence of the right of individuals to free and truthful life. In other words, our passion is liberty.” And adds, “It is not a decision made lightly — we do not enjoy suffering; we are not masochists. It is because of the high value we put on the object of our passion that we are able, sometimes in spite of ourselves, to choose suffering.” She admits that “our most passionate dissidents are not overly concerned with academic theories of freedom” but have their own simple reasons of commitment to rights of people.
On May 30, 2003, her motorcade was attacked in Dabayin by hooligans of the junta and though her driver managed to take her to safety but 70 of her supporters were beaten to death and she was again put under house arrest; she tells how Anna Akhmatova’s words, “No, this is not me. This is somebody else that suffers. I could never face that and all that happened,” sustained her.
She informs that, “Whenever I was asked at the end of each stretch of house arrest how it felt to be free, I would answer that I felt no different because my mind had always been free” but adds that “there is certainly a danger that the acceptance of spiritual freedom as a satisfactory substitute for all other freedoms could lead to passivity and resignation. But an inner sense of freedom can reinforce a practical drive for the more fundamental freedoms in the form of human rights and rule of law.” She remains aware of the pitfalls that dot the paths of struggle.
She emphasises that, “A basic human right, which I value highly, is freedom from fear. Since the very beginning of the democracy movement in Burma, we have had to contend with the debilitating sense of fear that permeates our whole society.” This so true of Balochistan as well. She adds, “Fear is the first adversary we have to get past when we set out to battle for freedom, and often it is the one that remains until the very end. But freedom from fear does not have to be complete. It only has to be sufficient to enable us to carry on; and to carry on in spite of fear requires tremendous courage.” She asks not for super human beings but ordinary human beings.Sue Lawley, the moderator, during the question session said, “But you are pushing hard at the moment — you have given these lectures to the BBC, you addressed the US Congress, intending to tour Burma. The generals have been patient so far. How much do you fear that their patience may run out?” She replied, “I am not sure that patience is a word that you should apply to them. After all, we have been patient for 23 years. And when you say that they are patient, what do you mean? After all, it is my right as a citizen to travel around this country if I wish to and it is my right as a citizen of this country to say whatever I believe to those who ask me what I think.” This reminded me of Safar Khan Zarakzai who when surrounded by the Pakistan Army and asked to surrender, had replied, “You are the aggressors and do not have the right to ask me to surrender because this is my land” and died fighting on August 9, 1976.

Parents Day

In 1994 President Bill Clinton signed into law the unanimous adoption by the U.S. Congress to establish the fourth Sunday of every July as Parents' Day, a perennial day of commemoration similar to Mother's Day and Father's Day. This year the date translates into July 24—today.

According to the Congressional Resolution, Parent's Day is established for "recognizing, uplifting, and supporting the role of parents in the rearing of children."

Parents' Day is a national observance, but it is not a public U.S. holiday.

Please add photos of your parents here, with a line about what you appreciate most about them, how they inspired you or some favorite memory. And please give all parents a hug today!

Contradiction

The universal reassertion by the all-party meeting, convened by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the lokpal legislation, upheld our republic’s basic constitutional scheme of things where the Parliament and Parliament alone can make laws of the country. The government of the day can have
the widest possible consultations, but in the final analysis it has to bring before the Parliament a Cabinet-approved draft legislation for its consideration and adoption. Eventually, this is what the all-party meet decided. When the government brings this draft legislation to the Parliament, the political parties will reflect on it and give their opinion on the contentious issues.
One can’t escape from the reality that there is widespread public outrage against the mega corruption scams that are unfolding by the day. This is reflected in the support being received for the articulation of the need to combat corruption at high places by sections of ‘civil society’. While such concern has received support from political parties across the board, the government has to rise to the occasion by urgently undertaking measures to comprehensively combat corruption. This requires not only  the creation of the lokpal and the lokayuktas in states but also the constitution of a National Judicial Commission to address the allegations of corruption in the judiciary and serious electoral reforms  that are aimed to contain the exponentially rising influence of money power. Unless such a holistic approach is taken, corruption can’t be seriously combated.
In the process, some outrageous comments by some of the “civil society” leaders are being heard in the electronic media, questioning the right of the MLAs and MPs to represent the vast millions of Indians. This is simply unacceptable.
According to our constitutional scheme of things, the sovereignty of the people is exercised through their elected representatives to the legislatures and Parliament. The executive (government) is both answerable and accountable to the legislature and, through them, to the people. Questioning the right of elected representatives to represent the people is tantamount to undermining this very scheme. At the time of Independence, when we adopted our republican Constitution, India took a bold and courageous step in granting universal adult suffrage. Many an advanced democracy had taken decades, if not centuries, to grant this right to its people. The strength of India’s freedom movement ensured such equality through a Constituent Assembly whose members themselves weren’t elected on this principle but had to have certain criteria like property ownership etc. The supremacy of the sovereignty of the people in our republican Constitution was ensured through this principle of one person-one vote-one value.

It will do well to remember that it is these common voters who, through their electoral verdicts, defeated the authoritarian streak in Indian democracy in 1977. It is this very electorate that in 2004 ensured the defeat of the communal forces to uphold the fundamental secular democratic tenets of our republic. In the final analysis it is this very electorate that has created conditions for ‘candle light processions’ and ‘hunger strikes’.
While upholding the need to combat corruption effectively through our constitutional scheme of things, the country needs to heed Dr BR Ambedkar’s warning when he commended the draft Constitution for adoption: “On the 26th of January 1950, we are going to enter into a life of contradictions. In politics we will have equality and in social and economic life we will have inequality. In politics, we will be recognising the principle of one man-one vote and one vote-one value. In our social and economic life, we shall, by reason of our social and economic structure, continue to deny the principle of one man-one value.
“How long shall we continue to live this life of contradictions? How long shall we continue to deny equality in our social and economic life? If we continue to deny it for long, we will do so only by putting our political democracy in peril. We must remove this contradiction at the earliest possible moment or else those who suffer from inequality will blow up the structure of political democracy which this Assembly has laboriously built up.”
This inequality that Dr Ambedkar has warned about has, in fact, sharply widened rather than narrow, during these decades of neo-liberal economic reforms. On the one hand, 69 billionaires in the country have an asset value that equals a third of our GDP. On the other hand, over 80 crores of our people are barely surviving on less than R20 a day.
The figures of the latest National Sample Survey (66th round) on the employment situation in the country conducted during July 2009 and June 2010 do not paint a rosy picture. Compared to the 2004-05 survey findings, both the labour force participation rate and the voter’s population ratio have shown a decline while the unemployment rate has shown a marginal decline as well. This, clearly, is due to the Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme that was put in place due to the Left parties’ insistence.
However, among all the workers in the country, 51% are characterised as self-employed while 33.5% are casual labour. This means, 84.5% of our workforce continue to remain victims of economic insecurity.
The fight against corruption must be seen in the context of this larger picture. If the huge amounts being looted were instead deployed to create greater job opportunities and provide health and education for our youth, maybe we could have begun addressing the ‘life of contradictions’ that Dr Ambedkar has warned us about. The political parties and ‘civil society’ must, together, mount popular pressure on the government to adopt policies aimed at removing these growing inequalities rather than widening them.

Jiang Zemin Death

Is he or isn't he? Around 11 pm on July 5, China's blogosphere began trading in rumors that Jiang Zemin, the former leader of the People's Republic, had died. By midnight local searches on this topic had become very popular. But within half an hour, the heavy hand of China's censors descended. Chinese language searches for words relating to death, even without being paired with Jiang's name, returned the Orwellian message: “According to relevant policies and laws, the search results are not shown below.”
So is Jiang dead? Gossip about the 84-year-old's ill health has circulated for some time, and the fact that he didn't show up for the mega-celebrations of the Chinese Communist Party's 90^th anniversary on July 1^st further fueled speculation. (In 2009, Jiang joined the festivities marking the 60^th anniversary of the People's Republic.)

With his owlish glasses and penchant for droll attire abroad—a tricorn hat at Williamsburg was just one of his fashion blunders—Jiang was easy to dismiss as a clownish imitation of his powerful forebears, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping. He underwhelmed with his abstruse Three Represents ideology, which even after a nationwide propaganda campaign still left many Chinese confused as to what it actually meant. But during the 1990s, Jiang managed to hold together the Party and brooked no dissent, whether from religious groups like Falun Gong or liberals within China's leadership ranks. He oversaw the further modernization of China at a time when some naysayers were predicting the country's economic collapse. And he boasted an impressive memory that encompassed an ability to recite the Gettysburg Address and speak basic Romanian.
Perhaps most significantly in an autocratic nation, Jiang knew when to let go. At the end of his terms as President, Communist Party General Secretary and Central Military Commission chief, Jiang handed over the reins to Hu Jintao, avoiding the public tussles that had plagued previous leadership transitions in China. Even as his possible passing creates an Internet furor, Jiang will still be remembered as a man who knew how to make a graceful exit.

Singapore Food Festival

THE Singapore Food Festival is making an attempt to break the Guinness World Record for the world's single longest table, made with one, continuous table top.
Come July 23, diners can pay $100 a head to be part of a buffet dining experience at the record-breaking 120-metre long table made from a single sheet of steel. The event will take place along Race Course Road at 6pm.

There will be 60 dishes from 20 restaurants including Indian restaurants Gayatri, Jaggi's Northern Indian Cuisine and The Banana Leaf Apolo restaurant. Dishes range from freshly made thosai, an Indian pancake, to stews and fish-head curry.
That event is just one of the highlights of the 2011 food festival, which will centre around the theme of curry and spices.
Other highlights include a 60-stall food village at Clarke Quay and a 45-minute bumboat ride along the Singapore River where participants can tuck into local fare served in tiffin carriers.
The 10-day gastronomic fiesta kicks off on July 15 and will end on July 24. The festival is expected to attract 400,000 people in 2011.

Supreme Court Of India

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered videography of the process of unearthing of treasure inside Padmanabhaswamy Temple in Kerala, while also directing those associated with the process to not speak to the media.

The court also proposed appointment of a curator to preserve the treasure being unearthed from the temple, said to worth at least Rs 1 lakh crore.

Since June 27, the shrine has been making headlines after the discovery of eye popping treasure in Chamber A. It is one of six at the temple. The discovery has made the temple the world's richest. The statues, some made in gold, and an array of jewels have been found at the 16th-century temple’s secret cellars.

The SC’s order came a day after retired high court judge CS Rajan, who is part of the team that is making an inventory of the treasure, spoke to the media. Rajan said it was an amazing sight to see such a large quantity of jewels which one can never see in a lifetime and it was indeed a rare experience.

"This is not a treasure as you the media has been reporting. In fact, this is the contribution of the royal family of Travancore to the temple over the years. They have given this to the temple over the years, what they received," said Rajan.
"None can say what the value is, it could be more or less than what is being said in the media. We have made a proper inventory of the entire items," said Rajan.

He also said that they have recorded all the contents of the five chambers in five books and hence it is going to be a record.
The vaults of the temple, sealed for close to 150 year according to some estimates, have been opened on the instructions of the Supreme Court after a local city lawyer alleged poor security and mismanagement by the trust that handles the temple.

The seven-member committee appointed by the apex court is expected resume to meet again to resume the stocktaking process.

Crime

Syrian security forces may have committed crimes against humanity during a deadly siege in May, Amnesty International said Wednesday, citing witness accounts of deaths in custody, torture and arbitrary detention.
The London-based rights group called on the U.N. Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.
The security sweep in Talkalakh, which lasted less than a week, contributed to a growing sense of desperation over the government's brutal crackdown on protests as the nationwide uprising against President Bashar Assad's authoritarian regime gained traction.
At the time of the operation, The Associated Press interviewed residents who told of a catastrophic scene in the town of about 70,000, including sectarian killings, gunmen carrying out execution-style slayings and the stench of decomposing bodies in the streets.
Some activists have said the death toll from the May siege was as high as 36 people.
"The accounts we have heard from witnesses to events in (Talkalakh) paint a deeply disturbing picture of systematic, targeted abuses to crush dissent," said Philip Luther, Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Deputy Director.
The report issued Wednesday said the attacks "appear to be part of a widespread, as well as systematic, attack against the civilian population," which would constitute crimes against humanity.
Talkalakh is just across the border from Lebanon.
Amnesty quoted witnesses as saying Syrian forces fired on fleeing families and ambulances carrying the wounded; one witness said soldiers stabbed lit cigarettes on the backs of detainees' necks.
At least nine people died in custody, witnesses told Amnesty. Eight of them were shot at and wounded as they were ordered out of a house, and were then taken away by soldiers.
Amnesty cited interviews carried out in Lebanon and by phone with more than 50 people. The rights group, along with most foreign media, has not been allowed to enter Syria.

The 14-week uprising against Assad has proved resilient despite a deadly government crackdown that has brought international condemnation and sanctions. Assad is facing the most serious challenge to his family's four decades of rule in Syria.
Activists say security forces have killed more than 1,400 people — most of them unarmed protesters — since mid-March. The regime disputes the toll, blaming "armed thugs" and foreign conspirators for the unrest.
According to Amnesty, some of the family members who went to identify the bodies of their sons in Talkalakh were forced to sign a document stating that their sons were killed by armed gangs.
"Most of the crimes described in this report would fall within the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court," Luther said. "But the UN Security Council must first refer the situation in Syria to the Court's Prosecutor."
Four European countries have introduced a draft resolution in the Security Council that would condemn Syria's crackdown on protesters, but Russia and China have indicated they would veto it.
Amnesty's report comes a day after Syrian security forces and gunmen loyal to the regime shot dead 11 people as residents erected roadblocks to prevent the advance of tanks ringing the city of Hama, which has become a flashpoint of the uprising, activists said.
Hama residents burned tires, set up sand barriers and other obstacles to block the military, said Rami Abdul-Rahman, the London-based director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. He said at least 11 people were confirmed dead, citing accounts from doctors and witnesses.
Hama, which has a history of militancy against the Assad regime, was targeted by Assad's father and predecessor in a major government crackdown nearly three decades ago. In 1982, the late Hafez Assad ordered his troops to crush a rebellion by Sunni fundamentalists, killing between 10,000 and 25,000 people, rights groups say.

MJP

MJP

The return of Uma Bharati to BJPfold seems to have sparked off a season of home coming for estranged members of the party in Gujarat. On Tuesday, former BJP Amreli President Balu Tanti rejoined BJP and there are many more members in the line.

Tanti had resigned from the BJP after former Home Minister Gordhan Zadaphia and Sunil Oza broke away from the party to form Maha Gujarat Janta Party (MJP). The founder-member Sunil Oza too resigned from the MJP on Monday.

BJP party officials said that Oza is also in talks with the state high command to return to the party. However, Oza refused to divulge his future plans. Oza insisted: "I have resigned from MJP to work among the rural mass in my constituency." He refused to comment on whether he would join BJP. "I am yet to make up my mind," he said.

BJP state president R C Faldu said, "This is just the tip of the iceberg, there are many more to follow." Both Tanti and Oza said that their main objective was the need to work for their respective constituencies.

Tanti who was paraded before media by the BJP said that he had joined MJP owing to his "extreme loyalty" to some leaders who had formed MJP. "I have now realised that BJP was the party which gives liberty to its workers to work without any hindrance," he said.

However, party sources said that talks were on to ensure that not just Oza but the MJP itself will merge with the BJP. MJP founder-president Gordhan Zadaphia said, "This is a political party, people come and go. We are gaining ground among the rural masses and hence there is no question of merging the party with BJP."

Thailand News

Less than fourteen months after the Thai military crushed mass protests in the centre of Bangkok by red-shirted supporters of exiled prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, a political party lead by his sister has won a landslide election victory.
With more than 90 per cent of the votes counted, the Pheu Thai party headed by Yingluck Shianwatra, a political neophyte who took over first her brother’s business empire and then his political machine, looked set to win an outright majority, leading in 261 seats out of 500. The ruling Democrat Party of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva was a distant second, leading in 162 seats.
“The outcome is clear - Pheu Thai has won the election and the Democrats are defeated,” a wan-looking Mr. Abhisit told supporters in a concession speech on the steps of his party’s headquarters in downtown Bangkok.
"It's a landslide victory," said Surat Horachaikul, assistant professor of political science at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University. "Pheu Thai will form the government and everybody has to accept that. Whether you or I like it or not, the people have decided."
A short drive away at the Pheu Thai headquarters, the scene was jubilant, with supporters chanting “Prime Minister Yingluck” and setting off fireworks.
“I’m very happy. I think things will change,” said Tathanee Mahamed, a 33-year-old maid wearing a red headscarf and dancing in front of a television set up on the street. Like many red shirt supporters, the 33-year-old hails from northeastern Thailand and makes a modest salary working as a maid in Bangkok.

The election marked the fourth consecutive election in which parties led by or affiliated with Mr. Thaksin won the largest share of the vote. Mr. Thaksin – who remains wildly popular among the country’s rural poor, particularly in the north and the northeast of the country – himself won back-to-back landslides in 2001 and 2005 before being deposed in a 2006 coup.
In the eyes of many, Sunday’s election was a referendum on the military’s decision to seize power, and the wide influence it has wielded since that time. Many of the people dancing outside the Pheu Thai headquarters had taken part in the rolling protests that paralyzed the commercial heart of Bangkok for two months last year, prompting a live-ammunition military crackdown that left at least 91 people dead.
While her party ran under the slogan “Thaksin thinks, Pheu Thai does,” Ms. Yingluck used her first press conference as prime minister-elect to again assert that she is more than her brother’s proxy. “Thai people selected first myself, second Pheu Thai policy, third my management team. People did not select me only because my last name is Shinawatra,” the telegenic 44-year-old said.

Thaksin Shinawatra

The sister of Thailand's fugitive former prime minister led his loyalists to a landslide election victory Sunday, a stunning rout of the military-backed government that last year crushed protests by his supporters with a bloody crackdown that left the capital in flames.
The results pave the way for Thaksin Shinawatra's youngest sister, widely considered his proxy, to become the nation's first female prime minister - if the coup-prone Thai army accepts the results.
The Southeast Asian kingdom has been wracked by upheaval since 2006, when Thaksin was toppled in a military coup amid accusations of corruption and a rising popularity that some saw as a threat to the nation's much-revered monarchy.
The coup touched off a schism between the country's haves and long-silent have-nots - pitting the marginalized rural poor who hailed Thaksin's populism against an elite establishment bent on defending the status quo that sees him as a corrupt autocrat. Last year's violent demonstrations by "Red Shirt" protesters - most of them Thaksin backers - and the subsequent crackdown marked the boiling over of those divisions.
On Sunday, though, they played out at the ballot box in a vote that will decide the shape of Thailand's fragile democracy.
The Pheu Thai party was led to an overwhelming victory by his 44-year-old sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, a U.S.-educated businesswoman hand-picked by her billionaire brother.
He has called her his "clone." The party's slogan is: "Thaksin Thinks, Pheu Thai Acts."
From exile 3,000 miles away in the desert emirate of Dubai, Thaksin hailed the outcome. "People are tired of a standstill," he said in an interview broadcast on Thai television. "They want to see change in a peaceful manner."
At her party headquarters across town, Yingluck told an electrified crowd of supporters: "I don't want to say that Pheu Thai wins today. It's a victory of the people."
With 98 percent of the vote counted, preliminary results from the Election Commission showed Thaksin's Pheu Thai party far ahead with 264 of 500 parliament seats, well over the majority needed to form a government. The Democrat party of army-backed incumbent Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva had 160 seats.

Thaksin and his proxies have won the country's last four elections. By contrast, the Democrat party - backed by big business, the military and circles around the royal palace - has not won a popular vote since 1992.
Though he has been widely criticized for abuse of power and decried for a streak of authoritarian rule that has profoundly polarized Thailand, Thaksin has nevertheless "become a symbol of democracy for his supporters," said Siripan Nogsuan Sawasdee, a political science professor at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.
Thailand's democratic process has been repeatedly thwarted over the years, with 18 successful or attempted military coups since the 1930s.
Thaksin was barred from politics in 2007 and convicted on graft charges the next year. His overthrow was followed by controversial court rulings which removed two of the pro-Thaksin premiers who came after - one of whom won a 2007 vote intended to restore democracy in the nation of 66 million people.
Events were spurred on by enraged anti-Thaksin "Yellow Shirt" demonstrators, who overran the prime minister's office and shut down both of Bangkok's international airports in 2008, stranding hundreds of thousands of travelers.
After Abhisit was propelled into power by the military-backed maneuverings that followed, pro-Thaksin "Red Shirts," composed largely of the rural poor, took to the streets in protest.
They overran a regional summit in 2009 that saw heads of state evacuated by helicopter off a hotel rooftop.
Last year, Red Shirt protesters poured into Bangkok by the tens of thousands from the countryside, paralyzing the city's wealthiest district for two months. By the time they were crushed by an army crackdown, the capital's glittering skyline was in flames. Some 90 people were killed and around 1,800 were wounded, mostly protesters.
Last week, army chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha reiterated his vow to stay neutral in the vote, dismissing rumors the military would stage another coup.
"The future depends on whether the traditional elite will be willing to accept the voice of the people," Pavin Chachavalpongpun of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, told The Associated Press.
The more Yingluck's party wins by, he said, "the more stable her government will be, the more difficult it will be for the elite to do anything against it."
In Dubai, Thaksin smiled when asked whether the results would be respected and said he was optimistic justice would prevail. "In Thailand, things are changing," he said. "I don't think a coup d'etat will happen again soon."
Abhisit and his allies have accused Yingluck of plotting Thaksin's return to Thailand through a proposed amnesty for all political crimes committed since 2006. But speaking to reporters Sunday, Thaksin insisted, "I'm not in a hurry to go back."
"I want to see reconciliation happen first. If there is reconciliation, then I will be part of the solution. If I'm part of the problem, then I won't be there. That is OK."

Yingluck

Yingluck Shinawatra is poised to become the first female prime minister of Thailand, and the fifth person to hold that office since her older brother, Thaksin, was deposed in a military coup in 2006.

Five premiers in as many years is a statistic that might give Ms Yingluck pause for thought.
Thailand has been beset by political division ever since Mr Thaksin was ousted.
His loyal supporters and bitter enemies have vied for power in parliament and on the streets.
Last year, red-shirted demonstrators, the majority of whom were Thaksin allies, laid siege to parts of the capital, Bangkok.
The army was eventually sent in to put down the increasingly confrontational protest, which ultimately left more than 90 people dead.
Both sides in this election campaigned on the need for unity after a period marked by bloodshed and bitter recrimination.

The outgoing Prime Minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, focused the latter stages of his campaign on a warning - that a vote for Yingluck was effectively a vote for Thaksin, and that would pave the way for the exiled leader's pardon and eventual homecoming.

The negative tactics appear to have backfired.
Yingluck Shinawatra's challenges now lie in trying to reassure those who doubt her abilities and question whether she is more than a mere proxy for Mr Thaksin's political ambitions.
She campaigned on the family name and has promised to revive her brother's populist policies.
But she must now show that she is able to lead in her own right and step out of her brother's shadow.
Her party has floated the idea of an amnesty to promote reconciliation in the country. But critics fear the idea is a ruse to usher her brother back to power.
Both siblings deny that, but Mr Thaksin has made no secret of the fact that he would like to return to Thailand "when the time is right".

But Ms Yingluck will be acutely aware that she cannot afford to antagonise Mr Thaksin's powerful enemies.

The last pro-Thaksin government was brought down by a combination of street protest and court ruling.

Two previous incarnations of the party Ms Yingluck now leads have been dissolved after judges ruled them guilty of electoral fraud.
And then there's the military. The army chief, Prayuth Chan-ocha, says there will be no more coups.
The military, he says, will respect the will of the people and no longer interfere in the political process.
The trouble is they have said that before, but reneged when they felt it necessary.
This election was about putting the country's fate back in the hands of its people. But democracy in Thailand has too often been derailed.
The question then is whether this decisive victory for another member of the Shinawatra clan will mark a new start, a chance to leave the vitriol and violence behind.

Thailand Election 2011

The sister of Thailand's fugitive former prime minister led his loyalists to a landslide election victory Sunday, a stunning rout of the military-backed government that last year crushed protests by his supporters with a bloody crackdown that left the capital in flames.
The results pave the way for Thaksin Shinawatra's youngest sister, widely considered his proxy, to become the nation's first female prime minister — if the coup-prone Thai army accepts the results.
The Southeast Asian kingdom has been wracked by upheaval since 2006, when Thaksin was toppled in a military coup amid accusations of corruption and a rising popularity that some saw as a threat to the nation's much-revered monarchy.
The coup touched off a schism between the country's haves and long-silent have-nots — pitting the marginalized rural poor who hailed Thaksin's populism against an elite establishment bent on defending the status quo that sees him as a corrupt autocrat. Last year's violent demonstrations by "Red Shirt" protesters — most of them Thaksin backers — and the subsequent crackdown marked the boiling over of those divisions.
On Sunday, though, they played out at the ballot box in a vote that will decide the shape of Thailand's fragile democracy.
The Pheu Thai party was led to an overwhelming victory by his 44-year-old sister, Yingluck Shinawatra, a U.S.-educated businesswoman hand-picked by her billionaire brother.
He has called her his "clone." The party's slogan is: "Thaksin Thinks, Pheu Thai Acts."
From exile 3,000 miles away in the desert emirate of Dubai, Thaksin hailed the outcome. "People are tired of a standstill," he said in an interview broadcast on Thai television. "They want to see change in a peaceful manner."
At her party headquarters across town, Yingluck told an electrified crowd of supporters: "I don't want to say that Pheu Thai wins today. It's a victory of the people."
With 98 percent of the vote counted, preliminary results from the Election Commission showed Thaksin's Pheu Thai party far ahead with 264 of 500 parliament seats, well over the majority needed to form a government. The Democrat party of army-backed incumbent Prime MinisterAbhisit Vejjajiva had 160 seats.
Thaksin and his proxies have won the country's last four elections. By contrast, the Democrat party — backed by big business, the military and circles around the royal palace — has not won a popular vote since 1992.

Though he has been widely criticized for abuse of power and decried for a streak of authoritarian rule that has profoundly polarized Thailand, Thaksin has nevertheless "become a symbol of democracy for his supporters," said Siripan Nogsuan Sawasdee, a political science professor at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University.
Thailand's democratic process has been repeatedly thwarted over the years, with 18 successful or attempted military coups since the 1930s.
Thaksin was barred from politics in 2007 and convicted on graft charges the next year. His overthrow was followed by controversial court rulings which removed two of the pro-Thaksin premiers who came after — one of whom won a 2007 vote intended to restore democracy in the nation of 66 million people.
Events were spurred on by enraged anti-Thaksin "Yellow Shirt" demonstrators, who overran the prime minister's office and shut down both of Bangkok's international airports in 2008, stranding hundreds of thousands of travelers.
After Abhisit was propelled into power by the military-backed maneuverings that followed, pro-Thaksin "Red Shirts," composed largely of the rural poor, took to the streets in protest.
They overran a regional summit in 2009 that saw heads of state evacuated by helicopter off a hotel rooftop.
Last year, Red Shirt protesters poured into Bangkok by the tens of thousands from the countryside, paralyzing the city's wealthiest district for two months. By the time they were crushed by an army crackdown, the capital's glittering skyline was in flames. Some 90 people were killed and around 1,800 were wounded, mostly protesters.
Last week, army chief Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha reiterated his vow to stay neutral in the vote, dismissing rumors the military would stage another coup.
"The future depends on whether the traditional elite will be willing to accept the voice of the people," Pavin Chachavalpongpun of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, toldThe Associated Press.
The more Yingluck's party wins by, he said, "the more stable her government will be, the more difficult it will be for the elite to do anything against it."
In Dubai, Thaksin smiled when asked whether the results would be respected and said he was optimistic justice would prevail. "In Thailand, things are changing," he said. "I don't think a coup d'etat will happen again soon."
Abhisit and his allies have accused Yingluck of plotting Thaksin's return to Thailand through a proposed amnesty for all political crimes committed since 2006. But speaking to reporters Sunday, Thaksin insisted, "I'm not in a hurry to go back."
"I want to see reconciliation happen first. If there is reconciliation, then I will be part of the solution. If I'm part of the problem, then I won't be there. That is OK."