MOst New Year celebrations in Bangkok were cancelled after a series of bomb explosions that left at least three dead and more injured.

From the Nation (Thailand):

 

String of blasts rock Bangkok, killing 2

New Year's Eve parties cancelled / Rumours point to 'undercurrents' / Police, military out in force around country

Police and military personnel were scrambling to find out who was behind what seems to have been a coordinated bomb attack in the capital last night that left two people dead and more than 20 people injured.

Bangkok was rocked by six explosions early in the evening at widely separate parts of the city, completely disrupting New Year's Eve celebrations. Tens of thousands of alarmed people swarmed out of the city centre hours before midnight after the capital's major parties were cancelled.

One person was killed and at least 17 injured when a powerful bomb went off at the Victory Monument at about 6.30pm. The blast ripped through bus stops, shattering windows at a restaurant and sent debris flying in all directions. The dead man was identified as Songkran Kanjana. His age was not known.

The rest of the story http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/01/01/headlines/headlines_30023013.php

The reference to undercurrents in the first sentence refers to supporters of the previous regime ousted by the military who have been linked to the serial destruction of schools in areas supportive of the Mr. Thaksin the ousted PM.

With Fouad Siniora's cabinet hiding in the Grand Serail behind acres of razor wire and thousands of troops - a veritable "green zone" in the heart of Beirut - the largely Shia Muslim opposition, assisted by their Christian allies, brought up to two million supporters into the centre of the city yesterday to declare the forthcoming creation of a second Lebanese administration. A "transitional" government is what ex-general Michel Aoun called it, while Naeem Qassem, Hizbollah's deputy chairman, spoke ominously of the mass demonstrations as "the separatist day".

From:http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article2064767.ece

But there is very little coverage in the Western Media of by far the largest demonstration ever in Lebanon. 2 million is about 50% of the countries population. Now a short while ago the March 14 movement was demonstarting in much smaller numbers against the previous elected government and it fell. The west announced this as democracy. Now with an opposition that represents over half of the country and who it seems can put about half of the population on the streets the west cries coup attempt.
That the Shia who represent 40%+ of the entire Lebanese population and who are currently massively underrepresented in the sectarian quota election system want more representation is hardly touched on by our free press. That the opposition includes two Christian groups led by former anti-Syrian army General Aoun is glossed over. Unless one reads the Angry Arab there really is only Fisk to rely on.

Well it looks like it is all a done deal. The information we have is that the army and police are united and in control of the country and PM Thaksin and his cabinet are either out of the country, under arrest or in hiding. Borders are closed today, and today is an official holiday for government workers, stock exchange and banks.
The reasons given for the coup were to save the country from:

1. Unprecedented national divisons that were getting no better and were going to result in violence.
   
2. Political interference by the administration in all of the check and balance institutions that resulted in them being unable to conduct the work they were intended to do.
   
3. Mass corruption in the administration.
   
4. Statements by the administration bordering on lese majeste.
   

The Administrative Reform Council comprising 6 top generals and led by army chief General Sonthi have stated that a civilain government will be in place within 2 weeks.

more below

The best English language Thai analysis can be found at: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/index_lite.php

In a slowly breaking story it seems that Israeli commandos and warplanes have been in a joint offensive operation in the Bekaa Valley according to Al Jazeera:

Media reports quoted Lebanese security sources as saying on Saturday that Israeli aircraft and commandos raided the village of Bodai, west of the ancient city of Baalbek in the Bekaa Valley, at dawn.

Full story from Al Jazeera:
http://tinyurl.com/q4s6j

If this attack is confirmed , what does it mean for the ceasefire process? Will Israel be condemned for breaking a UN resolution and ceasefire? It is difficult to impossible to argue this action was defensive. Will Condi condemn the action?

Updated below:

From todays Independent Robert Fisk has another excellent piece where he argues the war starts today. He also has a very different perspective of what has been happening militarily on the ground in the last 48 hours from what you will see on CNN.

The real war in Lebanon begins today. The world may believe - and Israel may believe - that the UN ceasefire due to come into effect at 6am today will mark the beginning of the end of the latest dirty war in Lebanon after up to 1,000 Lebanese civilians and more than 30 Israeli civilians have been killed. But the reality is quite different and will suffer no such self-delusion: the Israeli army, reeling under the Hizbollah's onslaught of the past 24 hours, is now facing the harshest guerrilla war in its history. And it is a war they may well lose.

Full Story: http://tinyurl.com/nbty3

The following is largely a personal reflexion on a developing situation:
Details of the devloping story can be found daily at: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/
 Tomorrow will see  a mass rally in bangkok for the second Saturday running. The rallies aim at forcing the resignation of Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra who stands acused of using his large parliamentary majority to change laws for the gain of his personal companies. His family recently made a 70 billion Thai baht profit from selling their flagship company to the Singaporean Governments trading arm. This was after laws were changed to allow higher percentages of foreign ownership of Telecommunication shares. The family also managed to avoid paying any tax. This all follows the virtual closing of any TV media opposing the government which gave rise to a grassroots campaign led by a former media man.This has led to the rallies. the first pased peacefully with a real total of about 100,000 people. The second tomorrow however, has been banned by the police. I have personal reasons for hoping it passes peacefully as my wife and mother of my daughter will be attending.

 

Section 266B of the Danish Criminal Code: "Any person who, publicly or with the intention of wider dissemination, makes a statement or imparts other information by which a group of people are threatened, insulted or degraded on account of their race, colour, national or ethnic origin, religion, or sexual inclination shall be liable to a fine or to imprisonment for any term not exceeding two years."

or

Section 140 of the Danish Criminal Code: "Those who publicly mock or insult the doctrines or worship of any religious community that is legal in this country, will be punished by a fine or incarceration for up to four months."

From the Guardian:

The rest of the article is at: http://tinyurl.com/7sl6l

I guess it had nothing to do with his investigation into the misuse and misappropriation of funds by the US and UK in Iraq.
Quite how his 3 year old daughter and seven month son reacted to having the bedroom sprayed with bullets is not clear in the article.

Left wing British paper Socialist Worker is alleging that the documents linking Galloway to Oil for Food are forged.

Ironically the arguement used is very similar to that in Rathergate.

Take a look:

http://tinyurl.com/cj9s4

At the bottom the article links to several other stories that should be read in conjunction.

Oh yeah posted at KOS too.

From the UKs Guardian: http://tinyurl.com/c2cht

Oh the hypocrisy. Update [2005-5-16 20:52:27 by observer393]: And now there is the story of the US using Galloway's middleman to trade oil. From the Independent: http://tinyurl.com/bz7fl

Three months after the devastating Asian Tsunami killed hundreds of thousands another tragedy has hit the region.
This time an earthquake hit just off the coast of Sumatra near the island of Nias( details from various TV reports) The quake was initially measured at 8.2 but that was soon reappraised up to 8.7 making it one of the ten biggest in the world since 1900.
This time no tsunami resulted although tsunami alerts were given in nearby countries resulting in panic, but at least the warning system worked.
However, there was a lot of structural dmage and intially a death toll of 300 was announced on the island of Nias although the Indonesian vice-president said that this could rise to 2000.

BBC World had an interesting little feature on the news today. Below is a brief summary.

In 1998 Honduras was devestated by hurricane Mitch. The world promised a fortune. To date less than 1/3 of what was promised by governments as opposed to individuals has materialized.

Even the aid that has arrived has been underutilized. A bridge was built with the Japanese donation, but the money was used to bring in expensive Japanese workers to do the job. Much needed employment was not found by the Hondurans. The feature concluded with an example of a mountaintop village where all reconstruction had been done by the local people using their own meagre resources.

Three months on from the Asian tsunami this story is a stark reminder of the reality of governmental aid pledges.