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Extracted from MalaysianInsider, but is splashed across several major newspaper as well

“Ipoh Mayor Datuk Roshidi Hashim has issued a ruling to all shops and business premises in the city to fly the Jalur Gemilang on National Day on August 31 and the state flag during the Sultan of Perak’s birthday on April 19 if their want their business licences renewed.”

With mentality and rulings like this, you tell me if anything that the Najib Govt has been saying is for real. To me – for “reel” maybe, for real NO. (BTW, C grade “reel” at that)

Simon – 2

The court has been delaying the PAD airport/government house illegal case for 2 years (I believed they have posponded the case 14 times?) now while it took them 2 months to charge the UDD leaders, if that’s not a clear evidence of bias and political intrigue then I don’t know what is.

Victims Rights is quite correct about ASEAN being a key aider and abettor of the Khmer Rouge during the ‘civil war’ of the 1980s. ASEAN gets off incredibly lightly for this, because people – including Benny here – tend to focus on the US and China. But without ASEAN – and particularly Thailand – the Khmer Rouge would have been destroyed following the Vietnamese invasion and the civil war would never have happened. If anyone is interested in the details of ASEAN’s activities they can find them in my article, ‘ASEAN Intervention in Cambodia: From Cold War to Conditionality, in the Pacific Review in 2007. A copy should be accessible via my website.

He was on nightly tv in late July receiving a presentation from Hydro and Agro Informatics Institute.
http://thainews.prd.go.th/en/news.php?id=255307300052

It’s a pet project of his, but sadly he did not look overly interested when they handed over the report.

Not sure if the tv footage is available anywhere, and I’m not sure of the exact date of the report handover, though the news article is dated 30July2010.

chris beale @21:

You have “little doubt” that it has already happened? That’s quite a bold position to take on circumstantial evidence. The fact is that he has been ill for a long time, true, but modern medical care with no expense spared can work miracles of sustainment.

Short of a public display, we can “assume” quite a few possibilities, including the very plausible one that he’s not well enough to display, but very much alive.

If you want a real tip-off that the event has happened, look to the SET. An inexplicable sell-off by insiders would be a good indicator that they know something we don’t. Short of such indicators, your certainty seems presumptuous at best, provocative at worst.

Er, unless you know something you haven’t shared…

observer on 6, cheers. Theoretical physicist/mathematician/
philosopher/theologist – which are you? (do I know you?)

A verse to multi-verses, a 2 to 3, wind, light, night song
I held a cosmos in my plan and wrote a haiku in reverse
Tell me when my next story should begin

History, small
human being, Big
struggling to sculpt an arch of our shadow
poor us the rat race
…
In space, music oscillates in s-i- le-nc-e
On earth, too much writing, little thinking
Too much talking, little understanding

For the Humanist Society.

This is an important book, and an excellent, critical presentation of its arguments. Chatri chips away at the dominant historical narrative by bringing to life an insurgent architecture which, like the 1932 ‘change in government’ otherwise known as ‘the revolution’, fell short of its promises. In doing so, Chatri also foreshadows the revisionist history of the People’s Party era that will eventually be written once the wheel turns. It would seem too that that this revisionist history will be enriched if, as Lawrence Chua suggests, it strives to understand how the built environment of that period changed the nature of social space. Luang Wichitwathakan, who is lambasted and caricatured on a regular basis, was an architect of another kind. In my view he was the most influential Thai political theorist of the twentieth century, and his plays and numerous writings in the genre of success literature inspired several generations of Thais of all political colours. The populism, militarism and patriotism that feature in Thai political life today have their origins in the People’s Party era.

Susie Wong. Thanks for your thoughtful comments on my article. First of all, although I am from Indonesia, I am not an ambassador of that country. I served as the UN Secretary General’s political representative in Cambodia 1994-97 with the rank of ambassador. The views expre4ssed in my article are neither that of UN or of Indonesia but are entirely my own.
Please don’t get me wrong Susie. I worked for the United Nations all my life and I am and will always be a strong supporter of the international system of criminal justice to punish perpetrators such as Hitler and Pol Pot. Ass you are undoubtedly aware, the United Nations adopted a Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the crime of Genocide in 1948. Prior to that, as you rightly pointed out were the Nuremberg trials against Nazi leadersby the victorious allies and the Tokyo trials against Japanese war criminals. However, during the cold war, after Nuremberg and Tokyo, the quest of justice became a dead letter and the Rome Statutes quoted by you were only adopted in 1998 long after the cold war was over. In the meantime there was a long hiatus in international criminal justice.
In Cambodia, what bothers me is that the conviction of Duch only took place 30 years after the Khmer Rouge were ousted from power on January 17 1979 by the Vietnamese troops. Both Nuremberg and Tokyo and the other examples you gave took place immediately after the crimes were committed. As I stated in my article, in 1979 the United Nations in New York, at the instigation of the US and China, instead of punishing the Khmer Rouge, continued to recognize this brutal regime for another 11 years as the government of Cambodia, rather than the People’s Republic of Kampuchea established in Phnom Penh, out of spite of the Vietnamese. The stalemate during the 1980s continued because Russia and its allies voted against the resolution coddling the Khmer Rouge in the UN for eleven years until the Paris Agreements were signed. . During those eleven years the Khmer Rouge flag continued to fly over Manhattan!
Pino Striccoli and Victims Rights, echoing the western press, you say said that certain leaders pf the government in power today, mainly members of the PRK, should also be brought to trial. Just a bit of history. These leaders were indeed ex Khmer Rouge troops who rebelled and helped the Vietnamese to oust the KR regime. So the trial must go on and on without an end in sight.
I agree with Victims Rights that outside interference in Cambodia should stop. Indeed, during the cold war Cambodia was, due to its geopolitical location, a victim in the struggle for hegemony of South East Asia. Nixon’s indiscriminate bombing of Cambodia and the overthrow of Sihanouk by right wing pro American general Lon Nol were powerful catalysts to catapult Pol Pot, already strongly backed by China, into power. I already described how international interference in supporting the Khmer Rouge prevented it from going on trial. I wholeheartedly agree with Victims Rights that ASEAN, at the behest of Singapore, a staunch ally of the US, was very much assisting with the continued nurturing of the Khmer Rouge and its allies at the borders so that they can continue their so-called “civil war” against the PRK. However, this has nothing to do with the arguments in my article.
However, I disagree with Victims Rights that outsiders like us should stay away from this affair altogether. How does victim Rights justify the international western press insisting in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times of persecuting a bunch of ailing and aging Khmer Rouge leaders as the only road to justice when they were silent in 1979? or leaders of the PRK, ex Khmer Rouge, who helped the Vietnamese army got rid of the Khmer Rouge. Victim Rights said to me personally that I do not have the right to tell the Cambodians what to do just because I wrote a book and wined and dined with the elite. I did not assume that right. I only make the observation that young people of Cambodia have other things on their mind. I wrote my book spending three years in Cornell University. Do you think only western scholars and journalists have the right to comment on Cambodia and we fellow Asians do not have that right.
I continue to visit Cambodia three times a year and have many conversations with the youth of Cambodia. The majority of the population of Cambodia who are less than thirty years old want to get on with their pursuit of economic progress and their future. I heard comments from some of the victims complaining that the defendants were housed in air-conditioned comfort with three meals a day. The KR trials are very costly. In 2009, the original $78 million budget ran out and the international donors reluctantly agreed to raise another $92 million for the next two years. Reluctance from western donors stem from allegation of corruption and government interference.
Thus Susie Wong and others, I am not against putting on trial the khmer Rouge leaders but the trials are thirty years to late. Reconciliation and justice can be pursued in other ways than a trial especially since we are thirty years late and Cambodia is now in the epicenter of the Asian economic miracle of rapid economic growth from China to Indonesia, from Hong Kong to Vietna. Just like the youth in Germany and Japan cannot be expected to reflect on the crimes of the Nazi and Kempetai, the youth of Cambodia is interested in getting on with their life and career in the new Cambodia. This is my observation as a friend of Cambodia.

#17 Chris Beale. Has “the event” already happened? There is every reason to suppose we will not be told promptly and that the powers-that-be will allow themselves time to make their dispositions. The present location is as good a place as any to provide a medium term cover-up. The idea of using a double is amusing. Could already be the case but I am inclined to doubt it.

If Abbhisit , his military and other “accomplices” can pull off their smiling dictatorship then it will be better for business and better for the tourism industry. If they keep tossing some trinkets to the peasants then maybe life will go on as the elite wish.

I admit to being in two minds, wanting peace and stability for the sake of business, and yet sympathizing with the injustices these fascists are inflicting.

As to topics not to be mentioned let’s hope they can deal with it. Imprisoning the opposition party certainly can help at election time. I assume they thought they had wrapped it up last time, next time there will be no mistakes.