Cambodia allows diplomats to visit alleged spy

Bangkok Post

The Thai charge d'affaires in Phnom Penh and other embassy officials were allowed to visit Thai engineer Siwarak Chutiphong at Prey Sar prison this morning, the foreign minister's secretary Chavanond Intarakomalyasut confirmed on Tuesday.

It was the first time consular access had been allowed since Mr Siwarak was arrested on Thursday for supplying details of fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra's flight schedule to the Thai embassy.

On Monday, Cambodian foreign ministry spokesman Koy Kuong claimed a Thai embassy official was allowed to visit Mr Siwarak in Prey Sar prison where he was temporarily detained. Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya said this was not correct and that Phnom Penh had declined to allow a visit.

Mr Chavanond said charge d'affaires Chalotorn Phaovibul reported that Mr Siwarak was receiving proper treatment at the prison.

Twins spend first night in seperate bed

Yahoo News Conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna have spent their first night in their own beds after groundbreaking surgery at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital to separate them.

The girls, almost 3, who were joined at the head, endured more than 31 hours of surgery but now face a battle for survival as they recover in the hospital's intensive care unit.

A team of Australian surgeons performed a series of complex procedures on the tiny sisters, working through Monday and into Tuesday afternoon, while the nation waited for news.

The delicate task of separating their heads was completed at 11am (AEDT) on Tuesday.

Then, cranio-facial surgeons stepped in to reconstruct the girls' skulls using a combination of their own skin, bone grafts and artificial materials.

Way forward is between yellow & red

Bangkok Post

Underneath the multi-faceted confrontations that are rocking Thailand - Thai elites versus Thaksin, Thaksin versus Abhisit, Abhisit versus Hun Sen - there is a common strain that runs through them. Unless we find a way to resolve this half-hidden, powerful fault-line, Thailand will find it hard to move forward as a unified polity.

The strain is caused by a clash of two values: conservatism and liberalism.

Admittedly, there are many other factors, ideological as well as vested interests, that contribute to the making of the Thai equivalent of the Gordian Knot. Still, the unsettled clash between these two worldviews is a major undercurrent. It is also one that is likely to carry over even when some of the immediate personality-based conflicts as the one between Thaksin and Sondhi Limthongkul or PM Abhisit and Hun Sen are over.

It's true that a large part of the Yellow and Red movement revolves around the person of Mr Sondhi and Thaksin but that personality-cult following also intersects with a probably equally large part of people who overtly or secretly root for each movement because of the principles it stands for. In other words, there are people who support the Yellow or Red Shirts because of Mr Sondhi or Thaksin as well as the idea or ideal that the two men espouse.

Do you believe the PAD and UDD are truly intent on fostering needed change or just blustering?

Bangkok Post Poll: Do you believe the PAD and UDD are truly intent on fostering needed change or just blustering?

The Peoples Alliance for Democracy and the United front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) are two protest groups which have held numerous street demonstrations. Story: bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/27508/street-rallies-losing-impact.

 Clik here to see the result Poll

UAE gets fresh Complain about Thaksin

The Naton: Vice Foreign Minister Panich Vikitsreth said the ministry did not ask the UAE government to give a specific deadline as to when Thaksin would be asked to leave the country, but urged it to take into consideration bilateral ties.

"We have provided the ambassador with all the evidence. I probably should give them more time to think about it but we are not setting any deadline," Panich said.

UAE Ambassador Muhammed Ali Ahmed al-Shamisi was summoned to the ministry to receive a letter, dated November 13 that the government had sent to Dubai in reference to Thaksin's return to the Middle East country.

The letter said Thaksin has been using Dubai, as well as other locations, as a staging ground to attack Thailand and requested that the country deny him permission to reside there.

Thaksin was ousted in a September 2006 coup and returned to Thailand briefly to face corruption charges. He fled the country in October last year just before the guilty verdict was reached and resettled in London briefly, until the British government denied him entry.

Afterwards he relocated to Dubai from where he oversees his business interests. Thaksin continues to engage his supporters from abroad, discrediting the current administration and the country's judicial system for having political motivation in convicting him of a crime.

His latest stint in Cambodia backfired politically as the Thai public poured their support behind the government after Cambodia's Prime Minister Hun Sen took up Thaksin's cause and lashed out at the country's political and judicial system

Emotional apology to 'Forgotten Australians', PM Kevin Rudd

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd made an emotional apology on Monday to half-a-million "Forgotten Australians", including British child migrants, who faced abuse and neglect in care homes over decades.

Rudd, echoing his historic 2008 statement to Australia's Aborigines, addressed about 1,000 victims of abuse in orphanages and institutions between 1930 and 1970 who packed Parliament House.

"We come together today to offer our nation's apology. To say to you, the Forgotten Australians, and those who were sent to our shores as children without their consent, that we are sorry," he said.

"Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused. Sorry for the physical suffering, the emotional starvation and the cold absence of love, of tenderness, of care.

"Sorry for the tragedy, the absolute tragedy, of childhoods lost. Childhoods spent instead in austere and authoritarian places where names were replaced by numbers, spontaneous play by regimented routine, the joy of learning by the repetitive drudgery of menial work."

A 2004 Senate inquiry recommended the apology to those who suffered sex abuse, violence and emotional trauma in state and church-run orphanages, foster homes and institutions.

The probe unearthed hundreds of disturbing stories of children placed in care due to family breakdown, because their mothers were unmarried or because they were considered uncontrollable.

It found widespread assault and emotional, physical and sexual abuse, as well as neglect, humiliation and the deprivation of food, education and medical care.

"The truth is, this is an ugly story. The truth is great evil has been done," Rudd told Parliament House.

The statement has already made waves in Britain where Prime Minister Gordon Brown is set to apologise for sending more than 130,000 poor children to Australia and other former colonies.

Conjoined twins in surgery at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital

Surgery continues on conjoined twins

Yet to separate the twins' brains

Beyond expected completion time

DELICATE surgery to separate conjoined twins Trishna and Krishna has continued beyond the operation's expected completion time.

Julie Webber, spokesman for the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne, said surgeons were still working to separate the twins' brains, the Herald Sun reports.

She said the operation was still on track and doctors had encountered no major complications so far.

Dr Ian McKenzie, director of anaesthesiology at the Royal Children's Hospital, said earlier that the entire operation was expected to last until 3am (AEDT).

"It's just going absolutely according to plan at the moment and we couldn't be happier," Dr McKenzie said.

He said that surgeons are near the end of the process of separating the twins' brains, and will then have to separate the final piece of bone.

"That's a point of excitement, where we'll consider them separated," he said.

Dr McKenzie said that even if the separation goes well the success of the surgery would not be known for some time.

"Every time we have an operation we worry it could be infected in the next few days or week.

Armies stay cool as politicians ratchet up the heat

BANGKOK POST Amid the tension over Phnom Penh's refusal to extradite fugitive Thaksin Shinawatra to face jail terms in Thailand, the militaries of the two countries are taking a backseat to the political turmoil to prevent possible confrontation on the battlefield.

Thai military sources said Defence Minister Prawit Wongsuwan and his Cambodian counterpart Tea Banh had set up a direct line to one another out of concern that diplomatic fallout could translate into military problems.

The two sides agreed that the stake was too high for the two countries to go to war and agreed to keep "microphone diplomacy" at a minimum and not to aggravate the already tense situation, the sources said.

They also agreed not to beef up their military presence among the common border and vowed to keep the troop strength along the area at current levels.

The Thai Army is also planning a football tournament between Thai and Cambodian soldiers on November 21. The location of the match has yet to be selected, the source said.

As gesture of goodwill, Thai marines yesterday released two Cambodian soldiers - each with gift baskets of fruit - after they had been detained briefly.

According to local television reports, the two Cambodian soldiers had trespassed into the Thai side of the border.

Unlike the country's diplomats, Thai and Cambodian soldiers along the common border are old acquaintances.

In spite of the military soft diplomacy, a contingency plan is in place to evacuate local residents in case of clashes along the border.

All Thai armed forces have been told to stand by in case fighting between two sides erupts. Thailand's top brass said they would rely heavily on the country's superior air force power while ground troops would secure the common border.

Hun Sen is billing the tension as a personal dispute between himself and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva, whom he accuses of coming to power by obstructing Cambodia's bid to obtain Unesco's World Heritage bid for the historic Preah Vihear Hindu temple, which is situated near overlapping land claims.

Former PM Thaksin holds a press conference with Cambodian PM Hun Sen in Phonom Penh on Wednesday

BANGKOK POST

Visitors to Cambodia face tighter controls

BANGKOK POST Gamblers and others crossing into Cambodia from Thailand are facing tighter controls as tensions between the two countries continue to rise.

Acting national police chief Pateep Tanprasert yesterday said he had told immigration officers on the border to be stricter in checking the papers of people crossing over.

Among those facing the tighter checks are Thai gamblers heading to casinos in Cambodia's Poi Pet township.

Tightened security was not affecting border trade yesterday.

Cambodian traders were still entering Chanthaburi to buy goods, although the price of Hom Mali rice bought by the Cambodians had risen from 18 baht a kilo to 25 baht.

Thai traders and fruit growers in Chanthaburi rallied yesterday in front of the provincial hall to call on the governor to take steps to protect them from a possible downturn in business as a result of the deterioration in relations between Thailand and Cambodia over Phnom Penh's appointment of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra as an economic adviser.

It was also business as usual in Sa Kaeo, as Cambodians entered Aranyaprathet district to buy food and household items at the Rong Kluea border market.

But the number of Thai gamblers heading to Poi Pet opposite Aranyaprathet was down.

Sub Lt Charn Wongwaimethi, head of a ranger unit attached to the Sa Kaeo-based Burapa Task Force, said two Cambodian soldiers crossed the border to buy food at the Rong Kluea market.

Excerpts from the interview: 'If I breathe, I am seen as wrong'

BANGKOK POST: Already strained relations between Thailand and Cambodia took a turn for the worse when Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen appointed fugitive former Thai premier Thaksin Shinawatra as his government's and his own economic adviser.

After delivering a speech on economic issues to Cambodian officials in Phnom Penh yesterday, Thaksin talked to a small group of Thai journalists for the first time since his controversial appointment. Bangkok Post reporter ANUCHA CHAROENPO was among the group. The following are excerpts from the interview:

The Thai government views you as the main cause of the continuing conflict between the two countries. What is your comment?

The government must look at itself first [as to] who is responsible [for the conflict].

The government appointed the one [Kasit Piromya] as foreign minister. He attacked Prime Minister Hun Sen. Can I ask how he can build good relations with Cambodia?