Following almost six months of self-exile, Khunying Pojaman Shinawatra has flown in from the cold with several crucial tasks to accomplish during this time of highly volatile politics.
Her first order of business, according to one political observer, is to discourage Samak Sundaravej, the leader of the People Power Party, from taking over as prime minister because a Samak premiership would further deepen political divisions.
Ousted PM Thaksin Shinawatra has already talked it over with Chart Thai leader Banharn Silapa-archa over the phone. It appears there is a possibility of People Power agreeing to take a step backwards to let Banharn assume the premiership in order to cool the political temperature.
Second, now that People Power, which is a reincarnation of the defunct Thai Rak Thai Party, has won the election and stands a good chance of forming the next coalition government, Thaksin thought it would be good timing for Pojaman to return to Thailand. Between 2001 and 2006, while Thaksin was holding power, Pojaman played a key behind-the-scenes role in all major political decisions of her husband. She had the final screening of the Cabinet list and most other major appointments.
"The negotiations between the People Power Party and other political allies has been completed. Pojaman will play a major role in deciding the Cabinet line-up," one political source said.
Third, the return of Pojaman signals that the power struggle has entered into the final phase in the Judicial Branch when all the cases against her and Thaksin will be decided. When the courts issue their verdicts, they will determine the outcome of Thaksin's political future.
Thaksin had earlier said he would like to return to Thailand during Songkran in April in order to celebrate New Year's Day of the old Thai calendar in Chiang Mai. Pojaman's return is seen as an overture to pave the way for Thaksin to make a comeback - and to defend his cases in the courts. Would he really dare to return to Thailand?
Fourth, the return of Pojaman could also help boost People Power's popularity in by-elections after the Election Commission recently disqualified several candidates.
Pibhop Dhongchai, an adviser to the Campaign for Popular Democracy, said if a People Power-led coalition abused power to help Thaksin and his wife in the cases, or issued an amnesty for the 111 banned Thai Rak Thai executives, it would definitely face public resistance.
"Thaksin should review himself. As the person who caused the prolonged chaos, he should make a sacrifice by staying in exile forever. If he returns and places the country in turmoil again, society should instead review why it allowed back the one man to destroy the country," he said. [via The Nation]
Sierra Tangos
- Air pollution in Bangkok and nearby areas has reached a dangerous level, Pollution Control Department director-General Supat Wangwongwatana said . Air-quality tests conducted over the past two days showed the average amount of dust particles smaller than 10 microns stood at 149 micrograms per cubic metre in Bangkok's Din Daeng district and 120 micrograms per cubic metre in Bang Khunthien. The department requires that small dust particles be no more than 120 micrograms per cubic metre, or air is rated as unsafe. "The dust particles also exceeded the acceptable limit in Saraburi, Samut Prakan, Ayutthaya, Ratchaburi and Samut Sakhon," Supat said. [via The Nation]
- Catz Go Go party, Thursday, Jan 10.
- The Travel News magazine in Norway named Thailand "the Best Tourist Country in the World," Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Tharit Jarungwat said Wednesday. He said the Thai ambassador in Oslo, Julpong Nonsrichai, represented the country to receive the Grand Travel Award 2008 from the magazine. The spokesman said Thailand had received the award for five consecutive years.
Ed. Voted for by the Norwegian Society For Diving Through Windows
- Buffalo Bar have posted photos of their New Year's Eve party on their web site
- Free PDF to Word Doc Converter is a small, free program that can convert PDF files into DOC files used by MS Word. It can handle all elements of a PDF document including text, shapes and images.
I tested this software by converting a 20-page PDF document that contained images, charts and text into DOC format. At the end of the conversion process (which took mere seconds) the DOC file was created and opened by MS Word.
One word of caution. You are likely to get DOC files that are very large in size in relation to the small size of the original PDF. For the 2.5 meg PDF file I converted I got a 73 meg DOC file. [via freewaregenius]
- Crossloop is a remote desktop application with an easy to understand interface. You can literally get up and running in minutes without knowing a thing about ports or protocols.
There are other applications that will let you connect to another PC over the Internet like LogmeIn and VNC. But neither is as easy to use as Crossloop. Normally, remote desktop applications require that the host PC to run a server which can be complicated to set up, not so with Crossloop. The person needing assistance just installs Crossloop and runs the main application, then goes to share, and gives the access code to whoever is helping them. That person then enters access code and all the difficult stuff is handled by the Crossloop server. [via DownLoadSquad]
- CNET's Best Of CES nominees
- Are you a swinger? Then maybe you should check out a new lifestyle magazine that's all about swinging. Kasidie is a new online mag written by swingers for swingers and provides a sexy new outlet for those folks who love to travel, meet new people, and screw as many of them as possible.
- Iga is the 'it' girl of the Internet. She pops up everywhere and has a big following as well a big frontage
- Two old ladies were waiting for a bus and one of them was smoking a cigarette. It started to rain, so the old lady reached into her purse, took out a condom, cut off the tip and slipped it over her cigarette and continued to smoke.
Her friend saw this and said, "Hey that's a good idea! But, what is that thing you put over your cigarette?"
The other old lady said, "It's a condom."
"A condom? Where do you get those?"
The lady with the cigarette told her friend that you could purchase condoms at the pharmacy. When the two old ladies arrived downtown, the old lady with all the
questions went into the pharmacy and asked the pharmacist if he sold condoms. The pharmacist said yes, but looked a little surprised that this old woman was interested in condoms, so he asked her, "What size do you want?"
The old lady thought for a minute and said, "One that will fit a Camel."
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