Peaceful Burma (ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းျမန္မာ)平和なビルマ

Peaceful Burma (ျငိမ္းခ်မ္းျမန္မာ)平和なビルマ

TO PEOPLE OF JAPAN



JAPAN YOU ARE NOT ALONE



GANBARE JAPAN



WE ARE WITH YOU



ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေျပာတဲ့ညီညြတ္ေရး


“ညီၫြတ္ေရးဆုိတာ ဘာလဲ နားလည္ဖုိ႔လုိတယ္။ ဒီေတာ့ကာ ဒီအပုိဒ္ ဒီ၀ါက်မွာ ညီၫြတ္ေရးဆုိတဲ့အေၾကာင္းကုိ သ႐ုပ္ေဖာ္ျပ ထားတယ္။ တူညီေသာအက်ဳိး၊ တူညီေသာအလုပ္၊ တူညီေသာ ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္ရွိရမယ္။ က်ေနာ္တုိ႔ ညီၫြတ္ေရးဆုိတာ ဘာအတြက္ ညီၫြတ္ရမွာလဲ။ ဘယ္လုိရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္နဲ႔ ညီၫြတ္ရမွာလဲ။ ရည္ရြယ္ခ်က္ဆုိတာ ရွိရမယ္။

“မတရားမႈတခုမွာ သင္ဟာ ၾကားေနတယ္ဆုိရင္… သင္ဟာ ဖိႏွိပ္သူဘက္က လုိက္ဖုိ႔ ေရြးခ်ယ္လုိက္တာနဲ႔ အတူတူဘဲ”

“If you are neutral in a situation of injustice, you have chosen to side with the oppressor.”
ေတာင္အာဖရိကက ႏိုဘယ္လ္ဆုရွင္ ဘုန္းေတာ္ၾကီး ဒက္စ္မြန္တူးတူး

THANK YOU MR. SECRETARY GENERAL

Ban’s visit may not have achieved any visible outcome, but the people of Burma will remember what he promised: "I have come to show the unequivocal shared commitment of the United Nations to the people of Myanmar. I am here today to say: Myanmar – you are not alone."

QUOTES BY UN SECRETARY GENERAL

Without participation of Aung San Suu Kyi, without her being able to campaign freely, and without her NLD party [being able] to establish party offices all throughout the provinces, this [2010] election may not be regarded as credible and legitimate. ­
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

Where there's political will, there is a way

政治的な意思がある一方、方法がある
စစ္မွန္တဲ့ခိုင္မာတဲ့နိုင္ငံေရးခံယူခ်က္ရိွရင္ႀကိဳးစားမႈရိွရင္ နိုင္ငံေရးအေျဖ
ထြက္ရပ္လမ္းဟာေသခ်ာေပါက္ရိွတယ္
Burmese Translation-Phone Hlaing-fwubc

Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Japan’s Capital Spending Will Avoid ‘Collapse,’ Nabeyama Says

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601101&sid=aMVaLEWscCGY

By Toru Fujioka and Tatsuo Ito

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Japanese companies will keep spending during the recession to remain competitive, according to the chief economist at the Development Bank of Japan.

“I’m not expecting a collapse in business investment,” said Toru Nabeyama, head of economic and industrial research at the state-run bank that provides loans to Japanese companies. “Given that some investment is unavoidable for companies to survive at home and abroad, a drop in capital spending won’t be drastic compared with the past recessions.”

Outlays on factories and equipment will fall around 1 percent this year, the first decline since 2003, because of the global credit shortage, Nabeyama said. That’s about a tenth of the pace of declines six years ago, when Japan was emerging from the previous downturn.


Businesses will keep replacing aging equipment and exploring ways to reduce their dependence on oil for power, the 49-year-old economist said, citing an investment plan by Seven & I Holdings Co., Japan’s largest retailer.

Seven & I said last month that it will install light emitting diodes in its new convenience stores, cutting the use of electricity by 13 percent and reducing carbon emissions. The Tokyo-based company owns more than 12,000 convenience stores nationwide.

Japan’s spending cutbacks will be the least among major economies also because companies have spare money, Nabeyama said. The Development Bank of Japan’s index of cash flow among all companies is hovering around a record 130 from 100 in 1994.

Spending Not Enough

Still, he added, corporate investment won’t be sufficient to prop up the world’s second-largest economy as the credit crunch slows output worldwide.

“The lack of funding is creating a kind of extreme anemia in the economy,” Nabeyama said. “The recovery will take about three to five years.”

Japan slipped into the first recession since 2001 last quarter as the global financial crisis prompted companies to pare spending. Nissan Motor Co. and Canon Inc. are among the exporters that have since announced cutbacks.

“Japan will have no base for growth for a while,” said Yuichi Kodama, chief economist at Meiji Yasuda Life Insurance Co. in Tokyo. “Waning overseas demand, squeezed profits and a deepening financial crisis mean capital spending will keep slowing.”

Japan’s largest companies surveyed by the DBJ in June said they will increase spending 4.1 percent in the year ending March 2009. Those plans will be revised as earnings of manufacturers are likely to decline by almost a fifth, Nabeyama said.

Canon last week postponed building a plant to make printer cartridges in Oita Prefecture, southern Japan, citing weak demand because of the global downturn. Nissan, Japan’s third- largest carmaker, said last month it will reduce capital spending by 11 percent.

To contact the reporter on this story: Toru Fujioka in Tokyo at tfujioka1@bloomberg.net; To contact the reporter on this story: Tatsuo Ito in Tokyo at tito@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 25, 2008 22:37 EST

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War on drugs takes a hit

http://www.russiatoday.com/features/news/33728

November 25, 2008, 14:05
War on drugs takes a hit
The USA has spent billions in South America fighting the war on drugs. After 37 years, narcotic production is rising while drug prices in the US have fallen dramatically. So, is it time to give the battle against drugs a shot in the arm?

The green fields around the sleepy little town of Chulumani in Bolivia’s semi-tropical Yungas region are dominated by one crop: coca. Where once the plant sacred to the Andean people grew alongside fruit and vegetables, now it alone remains – the base ingredient of cocaine.


November 25, 2008, 14:05
War on drugs takes a hit
The USA has spent billions in South America fighting the war on drugs. After 37 years, narcotic production is rising while drug prices in the US have fallen dramatically. So, is it time to give the battle against drugs a shot in the arm?

The green fields around the sleepy little town of Chulumani in Bolivia’s semi-tropical Yungas region are dominated by one crop: coca. Where once the plant sacred to the Andean people grew alongside fruit and vegetables, now it alone remains – the base ingredient of cocaine.

The record-high coca price and the removal of production limits means this is boom time for the cocaleros (coca farmers). Every night convoys of trucks laden with the green leaves take the dangerous dirt road through the breathtakingly beautiful mountains. The cargo will be sold, chewed, made into tea or refined into cocaine.

While Bolivia’s cocaine travels to Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Europe, rather than the USA, Bolivia is the world’s third-largest producer of coca and should be a crucial battlefield in the USA’s global war on drugs.

However, this month, the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was expelled from Bolivia, accused of espionage and financing the political opposition.

The US State Department described the accusations as “false and absurd”. Nonetheless, the DEA was given three months to leave. As a result, the US’ role in Bolivia will be severely curtailed. It has lead President Bush to blacklist Bolivia with Venezuela and Burma as “failing demonstrably” in the war on drugs.

Coca farmer president leads anti-cocaine fight

Evo Morales, ex-cocalero and president
Bolivian President, Evo Morales, was always an unlikely ally for the USA in its coca-eradication programme. While the official policy—“Coca, sí. Cocaine, no” —could hardly be simpler, the reality is more complicated. Morales is a former cocalero and headed a union of coca producers. Assisting the States in coca eradication without upsetting his natural constituent was always problematic.

Bolivia claims it will wage its own anti-drugs war without US support. President Morales points to successfully eradicating 5,000 hectares (12,500 acres) of illegal crops — achieving this year’s goal. In the first 10 months of this year, 24.5 metric tons of cocaine were seized, 7.5 tons more than the whole of last year.

How vigorously Morales’ government goes after his illegal former cocalero colleagues and current political supporters remains to be seen. Without the US’ resources, policing production will be difficult even if the will is real.

It seems likely that following the DEA’s expulsion and the animosity between the two countries, Bolivia will be responsible for more of the world’s cocaine. Whether it ever produces as much as Colombia — the USA’s closest ally in South America — is less likely.

Colombia: cocaine capital of the world

Colombia is the world’s largest cocaine producer. It is in the grip of a national drugs emergency. The corrupting influence of drug money is felt everywhere. When nationwide pyramid-selling schemes collapsed this month, it was revealed that traffickers were using them to launder money.

Since 2000, the States has been working with its ally on Plan Colombia, aimed at halving illegal coca production. The US$ 5 billion initiative has seen coca rise by 15%, according to the US Government Accountability Office.

Despite the vast military, security and economic assistance, 90% per cent of the cocaine and a large proportion of the heroin in the USA still comes from here.

Critics say Plan Colombia focuses too heavily on military investment and poisoning crops at the expense of rural development. The military aerially sprays vast quantities of land to destroy coca plants. In the process, the spray poisons the soil and kills fish in rivers.

The Colombian drug trade is controlled by armed groups, such as the Farc, which are involved in a decades old conflict with the government. Defined as “narco-terrorists” by the USA, their origins were politically inspired.

There are signs that there has been some success against these paramilitary drug networks with fewer kidnappings, murders and acts of terrorism. A price has been paid: human rights groups and the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights report “widespread and systematic” killings of civilians by the military.

Soldiers’ kill rates were used to qualify for bonuses and promotion, until it was discovered that 11 innocent men had been executed and passed off as combatants.

Peru’s Shining Path marches again

Coca production is also rising in Peru, the world’s second-largest producer. Another strong ally in the war on drugs, Peru destroyed more than 10,000 hectares of coca fields last year despite violent resistance from cocaleros.

As in Colombia, violent political groups control the production of coca. There are signs that the Shining Path, once a formidable group of Maoist guerillas, is making a resurgence. Last month, they killed 15 police officers and soldiers, and two civilians in remote coca-growing areas they control.

Peru, like Bolivia, defends the legal use of coca. Its indigenous Andean population has used coca for centuries in religious ceremonies, for making tea and to chew. For generations, coca’s alkaloids have relieved hunger and provided energy.

The last staging post

Confiscated drugs at the Mexican-U.S. border
(AFP Photo / Omar Torres)
Mexico provides the last defence in the USA’s war against drugs. Its border sees drugs going north and guns coming south. Mexican gangs are the largest movers of illicit drugs into the USA. Their trade is incredibly lucrative and the routes north are highly prized and heavily defended.

In parts of Mexico, the drug smuggling culture has become so ingrained that they even have a revered unofficial patron saint of traffickers, Jesús Malverde.

Extensive bilateral cooperation between Mexican President Felipe Calderón and his US counterparts has lead to 83 extraditions in 2007. The government has increased spending by 24% from 2006 to US$2.5bn to raise security and quell the drug-related violence.

More than 12,000 Mexican troops have been brought in, conducting joint investigations with the DEA.

However, there have been problems. The former drugs czar was arrested (21.11.08) accused of taking a bribe of US$450,000 every month from traffickers. From 2006 until this August, Noe Ramirez Mandujano was responsible for the attorney general’s office that fights organised crime.

Attorney General Eduardo Medina Mora admitted last month that five members of his office had been spying for the Beltran Leyva cartel. One of his staff even claimed to have fed information about the DEA back to the cartel from the US Embassy in Mexico City.

Bloody battles are fought between the various gangs for supremacy of the trade and the army sent to enforce peace. This year there have been 4,300 killed in the violence, according to the Council on Hemispheric Affairs. This is 1,600 more than in the whole of 2006.

The war on drugs on the home front

When Richard Nixon launched the war on drugs in 1971, it was a five-year plan to bring the problem under control. It shows no sign of being won 37 years later.

On the domestic front, the States is fighting hard concentrating on reducing supply and law enforcement.
The USA incarcerates a higher proportion of its population than any other country on earth. Its prison population of nearly 2,200,000 (Source: International Centre for Prison Studies) is testament to the government’s readiness to imprison offenders. The US Justice Department reports that 20% of them are inside for drug offences.

War on drugs is far from being over in the US
The financial investment and loss in this battle is vast; in 2004 the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy put the cost of illicit drugs at US$181bn.

The federal government spent more than US$19bn on the war on drugs in 2003, according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

This extraordinary effort has shown precious little result in either the supply of or demand for illicit drugs. Prices are down an inflation-busting 80% since the 1980s, while drug use remains at about 8% of the population, relatively constant for 10 years.

And so, the war on drugs drags on seemingly without any possible conclusion. Whether Chulumani’s cocaleros, Mexico’s traffickers or the USA’s prison population will see a different approach from the new administration remains to be seen.

While vice-president elect, Joe Biden, came into power on a platform promising change, he is an architect of the modern war on drugs. It seems a revolution in approach is unlikely and the war is set to continue.

Jonathan Stibbs for RT

Related links:

Bolivia won’t let US anti-drugs agency return

World record cocaine bust in Mexico

Security tightened in Columbia

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Myanmar faces 24,000 AIDS deaths for lack of ART drugs

http://www.newkerala.com/topstory-fullnews-51439.html

Bangkok, Nov 25: An estimated 24,000 people will die of HIV/AIDS in Myanmar next year unless the international donor community is willing to provide funds for antiretroviral drugs (ART), a medical group warned Tuesday.


"Myanmar has about 240,000 people with HIV/AIDS, and of them about one-third need antiretroviral treatment without which they cannot survive," said Frank Smithius, the head of Medecins Sans Frontier, which treats patients with ART in Myanmar.



The groups is providing ART to 11,000 patients while the Myanmar government, the UN and other non-governmental groups are supplying another 4,000.

"It's not enough, when 75,000 people need ART," said Smithius. "It is estimated by the UN and Myanmar government that 24,000 people will die if nothing is done in the next year."

Myanmar, which is run by a military junta that is condemned in the West for its atrocious human rights record and failure to introduce democratic reforms, is the second-lowest recipient of overseas development aid worldwide at three dollars per capita.

The Myanmar government spends a estimated 0.3 percent of its gross domestic product on health, one of the lowest rates worldwide.

In 2008, it allocated the equivalent of $0.7 per person on healthcare, of which about $200,000 was allocated to treatment of HIV/AIDS patients, an MSF report released Tuesday said.

The health care organisation has been operating in Myanmar since 1993. It said it spends about $300 per patient for ART in Myanmar, or about $3.3 million to treat 11,000 patients.

Smithius said it had no additional funds to treat the remaining 60,000 HIV/AIDS patients and called on the international donor community to assist in dealing with the pandemic.

An estimated $18 million will be needed to treat the HIV/AIDS patients currently deprived of antiretroviral treatment.

International donors are often reluctant to send aid to Myanmar for fear the funds will be diverted to the government, which faces strict economic sanctions from both the US and Europe.

"If we can guarantee that we have been able to deliver medicines directly to the patients, then there is no reason to not provide aid to Myanmar, and at MSF we can make that claim," said Smithius.

He said the group runs 25 HIV/AIDS clinics inside Myanmar and has government permission to import antiretroviral drugs tax free.

--- IANS


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US shifts policy on Myanmar

http://www.bt.com.bn/en/opinion/2008/11/26/us_shifts_policy_on_myanmar

Nehginpao Kipgen
ROCKVILLE, MARYLAND


Wednesday, November 26, 2008


IN AN apparent shift from the policy of traditional sanctions, the US Congress created a post for policy chief for Myanmar to increase pressure on the military junta.



In response to this unprecedented action, the White House announced the nomination of Michael Green for the post on November 10. Whether this manoeuvre brings vigour to the Myanmar's democratic movement is a question remains to be seen.



Green, who has served as a senior director for Asian Affairs under the Bush administration, should have noticed the quandary over the Myanmar's political imbroglio, especially the futility of conflicting approaches by the international community.




According to this legislation, the policy chief will consult with the governments of China, India, Thailand and Japan, members of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), and the European Union to coordinate international strategy.



Years of sanctions after sanctions, this is a new birth in the American policy toward Myanmar. Sanctions, however, still remain the popular way of punishing the rogue regimes and governments around the world.



When it comes to Myanmar, sanctions have little impact on the military regime due to engagements by neighbouring countries, notably China, India and members of Asean.



A solution to Myanmar's problems greatly lies in two possible ways: Popular Uprising and Intervention. Popular uprising have been tasted twice in 1988 and in 2007. Both events were brutally crushed by the military with force.



The word intervention can be engagement or sanction. There is no doubt about the US sanctions hurting the military generals and also the general public. Had there been a coordinated international approach, Burma could have been different today.



It must be difficult for the US government to abandon its traditional policy of isolating the Myanmar's generals and start engaging with them. But they have to realise that sanction alone is not effective in resolving Myanmar's crisis when there is engagement on the other end. While sanctions are in place, the new envoy can start initiating a "carrot and stick" policy by working together with key international players. The one similar to the North Korean six-party talk model should be given emphasis on Myanmar.



The six-party talks involving the United States, European Union, Asean, China, India, and Burma should be initiated. In the beginning, the military generals and some other countries might resist the proposal, but we need to remember that the North Korean talk was also initially not supported by all parties.

The hard work of the US in North Korea is now paid off with North Korea being removed from the State Department's list of terrorists, and in return, North Korea promised to shut down and dismantle its nuclear facilities.



It was not only the sticks that worked but also the carrots. The US offered energy and food assistances to the North Korean leadership. A similar initiative could convince Myanmar's military generals to come to the negotiating table.



Now that the UN Secretary General is heavily involved in the process, the US can garner stronger support from the international community. Without such move from the US, Ban Ki-moon's "Group of Friends of the Secretary General on Myanmar" will yield little. The most effective UN intervention would happen when the Security Council decides to take action. This scenario is bleak with China and Russia vetoing the move, and likely to do again if Burma issue comes up in the Council's agenda.



The creation of US special envoy and policy chief for Myanmar is a widely welcome move. With this new position coming into place, the US should start moving beyond imposing sanctions.



Nehginpao Kipgen is the General Secretary of US-based Kuki International Forum (www.kukiforum.com) and a researcher on the rise of political conflicts in modern Burma (1947-2004).

The Brunei Times

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China postpones summit with EU over Dalai Lama visit

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/081126/afp/081126115621top.html

BRUSSELS (AFP) - China has postponed a summit with the European Union next week over a visit to Europe by the Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, the EU said in a statement on Wednesday.

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Workers riot in south China over job losses: government

http://asia.news.yahoo.com/081126/afp/081126073618asiapacificnews.html

Wednesday November 26, 3:36 PM
Workers riot in south China over job losses: government


GUANGDONG, China (AFP) - Hundreds of workers sacked from a toy factory in China clashed with police and smashed buildings, authorities said Wednesday, in the latest bout of violent unrest linked to rising unemployment.

The riot occurred Tuesday in Guangdong province, southern China's export heartland where similar protests have flared recently, after about 2,000 workers gathered to demand severance pay, according to the local government.

The workers smashed offices at the factory where they used to work and overturned police cars, with the violence leaving six people injured, the government of Zhongtang township where the unrest occurred said in a statement.

"(Rioters) smashed one police vehicle and four police patrol cars... fought with security guards... and entered factory offices breaking windows and destroying equipment," the statement said.

The riot occurred at the Kaida Toy Factory, a company owned by a Hong Kong firm in Zhongtang that is in the process of laying off workers, the statement said.



A Zhongtang policeman surnamed Huang told AFP that 19 people had been arrested.


"Our investigation is continuing as not all of these people were employees of the Kaida Toy Factory," Huang said, adding that the situation was calm on Wednesday and authorities were looking to ensure there was no more unrest.

The Zhongtang government said that up to 500 workers were responsible for the riot, while 1,500 others "looked on."

The factory has been operating for more than 20 years and employed up to 6,500 workers, according to the government statement.

One worker surnamed Hu told the Guangzhou Daily the factory laid off over 380 workers on Wednesday last week, giving more severance pay to workers who had been employed for more than seven years and less to other workers, it said.

"Many workers thought this was unfair and negotiations between the factory and the workers did not reach a resolution on the issue," the paper quoted Hu as saying, adding more job losses were expected this week.

Southern China has enjoyed an export-driven boom in recent years supplying the world with cheap toys, gadgets and clothes.

But amid the downturn in the global economy, coupled with rising labour costs, expensive raw materials and the appreciation of the Chinese currency, factories have found it difficult to make ends meet.

Up to 7,000 laid-off workers staged a similar protest in Guangdong last month after another Hong Kong-owned toy factory, one of China's biggest, closed down.

China's social security minister, Yin Weimin, last week described the employment situation across the country as "critical", as the nation's police chief warned his deputies that this could lead to unrest.

"(You) should be aware of the challenge brought by the global financial crisis and try your best to maintain social stability," Public Security Minister Meng Jianzhu told his deputies.

China's economy has slowed sharply in recent months amid the global crisis, and the World Bank has forecast growth of 7.5 percent for next year, which would be the nation's slowest expansion in nearly two decades.

However the Zhongtang government maintained that the layoffs at the Kaida toy factory were not directly linked to the global economic downturn, rather an expiration of labour contracts.

Kaida's mainland operations were not immediately available to comment.

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Thai army chief calls for elections

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081126/ap_on_re_as/as_thailand_political_unrest

By CHRIS BLAKE, Associated Press Writer Chris Blake, Associated Press Writer – 43 mins ago Play Video AP – Thai protesters take to streets, block airport
Slideshow: Thailand Protests Play Video Video: Thai airport protest strands thousands AP Play Video Video: Thai army chief steps in, tells PM to call elections AFP AP – A stranded Western tourist listens to an explanation of issues by a supporter of the People's Alliance … BANGKOK, Thailand – Thailand's army commander urged protesters Wednesday to leave Bangkok airport and called for elections to end the country's political crisis after a day of chaos in which thousands of travelers were stranded.

All flights were canceled and frustrated passengers bused to hotels, as protesters shut down Suvarnabhumi Airport in a major escalation of their four-month campaign to oust the prime minister.

"The government should give the public a chance to decide in a fresh election," Gen. Anupong Paochinda said at a news conference after meeting with high-level government officials, academics, economists and security officials.



Suriyasai Katasila, a spokesman for the protesters, said the group would not abide by the army chief's plea to leave the country's international airport.

"Right now, our demand remains the same. If the government does not quit, we will not quit," he said.

Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat returned to Thailand on Wednesday from a summit in Peru, but there was no response from the government to the army chief's call for new elections.

However, government spokesman Nattawut Sai-gua said, based on the prime minister's previously stated positions, "it is unlikely he will change his position by resigning or dissolving Parliament."

He stressed that he had not spoken to the prime minister since Somchai landed.

The protest group, the People's Alliance for Democracy, known as the PAD, appears intent on forcing the military to intervene and bring down the elected regime.

"We sympathize with the passengers but this is a necessary move to save the nation," top protest leader Sondhi Limthongkul said on a makeshift stage at the besieged airport amid resounding applause. "If he doesn't resign, I will not leave."

By late afternoon, most of the 4,000 travelers, some who had been camped out since the night before, had left, a Thai tourism official said.

That left the protesters, a sea of matching yellow shirts, and they appeared to be settling in for the long haul.

They spread blankets on the floor, used luggage trolleys to carry boxes of water around the sprawling terminal and set up stands selling food and the plastic hand-clappers they use at rallies.

There was no word on when flights might resume. The U.S. Embassy advised Americans to stay away from the airport, while the Philippines and Singapore recommended that nonessential travel to Thailand be canceled.

Tempers frayed at sprawling Suvarnabhumi Airport, a major hub in Asia that averages 700 flights a day.

"I understand nothing, nothing, nothing," said French tourist Denis Hapard. "We don't understand what's happening. We're really upset."

Among those stranded were Americans trying to get home for the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday.

Cheryl Turner, 63, of Scottsdale, Arizona, had asked neighbors to pull an 18-pound turkey from her freezer a day ahead of time to defrost so she could cook it for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

"My turkey is sitting in the sink at home," she said.

Protesters distributed flyers trying to explain their action.

After reading the flyer, Clay Judd, 30, of Jackson Hole, Wyoming, said he didn't know what to make of the situation.

"For us to be upset because we can't have a huge turkey dinner — so what?" Judd said, waiting in a crowd inside the terminal to get bused to a hotel.

Support for the protesters has been waning, and the group appears to be edging toward bigger confrontations — involving fewer though more aggressive followers — to challenge the government.

Early Wednesday, assailants threw four explosives at anti-government demonstrators, including one targeting a group about a half-mile (one kilometer) from the airport.

A second was tossed into a crowd of anti-government supporters gathered at the domestic Don Muang airport, injuring three others, police said. Two other explosives were thrown in Bangkok, but no one was injured. It is unclear who staged the attacks.

The bold takeover — carried out while the prime minister was abroad — raised the stakes in a standoff that has seen a spike in violence in recent days and has given the tourism-dependent country a massive black eye.

Airport director Serirat Prasutanont, who had tried to negotiate with the protesters to allow passengers to fly out, said the takeover "damaged Thailand's reputation and its economy beyond repair."

The airport, the 18th-busiest in the world, handled over 40 million passengers in 2007.

Demonstrators had swarmed the international airport overnight, breaking through police lines and spilling into the passenger terminal.

Group Capt. Chokchai Saranon, a control tower official, said 50 masked protesters armed with metal rods demanded to enter the control tower Wednesday, seeking the prime minister's flight schedule. Three were allowed in, but with flights canceled, there were no controllers to provide the information and the protesters eventually left.

The People's Alliance for Democracy has been trying to topple Somchai, accusing him of being the puppet of a predecessor, billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra, who was convicted of corruption and other charges. The alliance said protesters would keep the airport closed until Somchai quits.

The alliance has staged a number of dramatic actions in recent months. It took over the prime minister's office in late August and twice blockaded Parliament — one time setting off street battles with police that left two people dead and hundreds injured.

The airport blockade is a fresh blow to Thailand's $16 billion-a-year tourism industry, already suffering from months of political unrest and the global financial crisis.

"We don't have an estimate of financial loss, but it is greatly damaging," said Vijit Naranong, honorary chairman of Tourism Council of Thailand.

___

Associated Press writers Ambika Ahuja, Jocelyn Gecker and Michael Casey contributed to this report.


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ဒါေတြလြတ္လပ္ေရးတိုက္ပဲြလား-ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေအာင္ဆန္း

၁၉၄၇ ခု၊ ဧျပီလ ၂ ရက္ေန ့တြင္ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေအာင္ဆန္းသည္ ရခိုင္ျပည္ ေျမပုံျမိဳ ့သို ့ ေရာက္ရိွသြားသည္။
ည ၈ နာရီခန္ ့တြင္ အလံနီ ကြန္ျမဴနစ္ ဆရာေတာ္ ဦးစိႏၱာ ႀကီးမႉး က်င္းပေသာ လူထု အစည္းအေဝးသို ့
ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ ေအာင္ဆန္း တက္ေရာက္ စကားေျပာႀကားေလသည္။ ဗိုလ္ခ်ဳပ္ေအာင္ဆန္း၏ ေျပာႀကားခ်က္
အက်ဥ္းခ်ဳပ္မွာ ေအာက္ပါအတိုင္းျဖစ္သည္။


ယခု ကၽြန္ေတာ္ လာရတာဟာ ဦးစိႏၱာ က ဖိတ္လို ့ လာတာျဖစ္တယ္။ ဒီညီလာခံမွာ ကဲြေနႀကတာကို ေစ့စပ္
ညီညြတ္ေအာင္ လုပ္ဖို ့ ဆိုျပီး ဖိတ္တဲ့အတြက္ တျခား အေရးႀကီးတာေတြကို ေရႊ ့ဆိုင္းျပီး လာခဲ့ရတယ္။
ဒီက်ေတာ့မွ တရားေဟာရုံေလာက္ ရိွတယ္ဆိုတာ သိရတယ္၊ လြတ္လပ္ေရးအတြက္ေတာ့ အရင္ကလဲ တိုက္ခဲ့တယ္၊
ေနာက္လဲ တိုက္မွာဘဲ၊ ဒီလာတာဟာ ညီညြတ္ေအာင္လုပ္ဖို ့လာတာ၊ မညီညြတ္ယင္ အလကားဘဲ၊ မညီယင္
လြတ္လပ္ေရး မရနိုင္ဘူး။ လြတ္လပ္ေရးအဓိပါၸယ္ကိုလဲ နားလယ္ဖို ့လိုတယ္။ လြတ္လပ္ေရးကို ေတာင္းယူလို ့မရ၊
တိုက္ယူမွ ရမယ္ဆိုတာ သေဘာတူတယ္၊ ဒါေပမဲ့ လြတ္လပ္ေအာင္ လုပ္နည္း လိုတယ္။ လြတ္လပ္ေရးဆိုတာ
ညီညီ ညြတ္ညြတ္နဲ ့ အင္အားရိွမွ ရနိုင္တယ္။

သူပုန္ သူပုန္ ထထ ေအာ္ေနရုံနဲ ့ လြတ္လပ္ေရး မရနိုင္ဘူး။ အလုပ္လုပ္တဲ့ ေနရာမွာ နားလယ္ဖို ့ လိုတယ္၊
တကယ္နားလယ္ျပီး လုပ္ယင္ လုပ္တတ္ယင္၊ တနွစ္အတြင္း လြတ္လပ္ေရး ရနိုင္တယ္။ ယခုေတာ့ နယ္ခ်ဲ ့ သမားကို
ညီညြတ္စြာ ေပါင္းျပီးတိုက္ရမဲ့ အစား ဗမာအခ်င္းခ်င္း တိုက္ေနႀကတာက ခက္တယ္။ အခ်ိဳ ့လူေတြက ျပည္သူ ့ရဲေဘာ္
တပ္ဖဲြ ့ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ကိုသတ္၊ ဖ၊ဆ၊ပ၊လ အဖဲြ ့ ေခါင္းေဆာင္ကို သတ္၊ မီးရထားကို ေမွာက္ေအာင္လုပ္၊ ဒီလို
လုပ္ေနတာဟာ လြတ္လပ္ေရး တိုက္ပဲြထင္ေနတယ္။ လုပ္ပုံ မဟုတ္ေသးဘူး။ ေသေတာ့ ဘယ္သူေတြ ေသသလဲ။
ဗမာေတြ ေသတာဘဲ မဟုတ္လား၊ နယ္ခ်ဲ ့သမားကေတာ့ လက္ပိုက္ျပီး ႀကည့္ရယ္ေနတာဘဲ။ ဒီလိုဆိုရင္ ဘယ္ေတာ့မွ
လြတ္လပ္ေရးရမွာ မဟုတ္ဘူး။

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