Quickie World Round-up

The Thai PM is resigning, stranded air travellers finally free to fly home. One small step for tourism, one large step for ousting leaders by popular revolt. In Zimbabwe, soldiers attempting to violate the 18p bank withdrawal limit are now fighting against Harare police; this cannot be good for Mugabe, whose military supporters were key to his election fraud earlier this year. Christians and Muslims have agreed to stop killing each other in Nigeria, while Nkunda's "negotiations or war" ultimatum to Kabile's govt in Kinshasa fell off the media's radar in the wake of the attacks in Mumbia. Bahrain just celebrated its first National Women's Day and the Saudi govt has decreed that volatile books must be removed from circulation. Hillary and Gates are in, respectively replacing change and hope as cornerstones of the incoming administration. Condi Rice serenaded the Queen while W spent his list bit of Presidential Mastercard (TM) credit on the new Hank Williams 10 CD Deluxe BoxSet and is now wandering the White House humming the refrain from My Main Trial Is Yet To Come. Fidel meanwhile has been blogging about the collapse of capitalismo as his amigo on the continent makes another push for indefinite presidential terms in Venezuela. The american consumer subconscious is contending with death by shoppers; the Italians continue to contend with their garbage. Picture of the day comes from TimesOnline, taken by Antony Crossfield, winner of the 2008 Terry O'Neill Award.

Pad Thai: Some kind of housing scheme?

If you haven't been following recent events in Thailand, check out my Guardian clips page for the latest report on the airport stand-off in Bangkok. What is most amazing to me about this report is that not one of the stranded travellers seemed cognizant of the fact that they are witnessing a revolution. Literally. If asked about Pad (People's Alliance for Democracy), my guess is that the americans there would say it's a local housing innovation, as in, "My pad or yours?" Or maybe they'd describe one of Thai cuisine's spicier offerings. Either way, it's just hard for me to comprehend how anyone stuck there can talk about it without mentioning the history unfolding all around them.

The Pad folks have been stifling the Thai government for months, there have been some nasty demonstrations in which anti-govt activists were killed by police grenades, etc. and after the parliament decided they could only conduct business by relocating to the airport, Pad dogged them by occupying this facility as well. Persistence is 9/10's of success, as they say. The Prime Minister is due to fly in today from Peru, it remains to be seen (1) if he'll land, and (2) whether the military is going to protect him from demonstrators when he disembarks - if he does land there. Asia Times has been covering this situation as well, and today reports that although the military has been standing down, it's unclear what action it will take at the airport given there are approximately foreign 3000 ticket holders waiting there to board their flights. For the time being, police are staying cool, not wanting to kill anymore Thai's nor bring the street battles into the airport, proper. A fascinating situation both from the perspective of resistance tactics and political movements. As Asia Times' Shawn Crispin says, they have reached a point of no return. Let's hope that where they go next will bring some relief all around, including for those poor tourists who'll never understand what hit them.