Out of the frying pan into the fire?

Bangkok Post Spy or Tool
The B-grade spying soup opera ended abruptly in the same amazing fashion that it started with the convicted Thai spy now out of jail and due to fly home this evening, but this doesn't mean the end of the show, as the Puea Thai Party is intent to making use of him for political gain.

In a news blog on Friday, Khmerization, the whole drama was played out like a soup opera on prime time television.

In the blog, the script was written and directed by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen himself.

According to the script, the Puea Thai party was supposed to play the hero’s role in securing the release of Mr Sivarak, who was found guilty of spying on former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and by the Cambodian court last Tuesday and sentenced to seven years imprisonment and a 10 million riel fine (about 82,500 baht).

It went on to say the drama was a political and diplomatic game set up to canvass political support back home for Hun Sen and for used as a diplomatic cudgel against Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva in retaliation for his action against Cambodia over the appointment of Thaksin as the government's economic adviser.

I could not agree more with the opinion expressed in Khmerization.

Irate Sivarak demands answers

Bangkok Post

Pressure is mounting on the government and the Foreign Ministry to take responsibility for the arrest and conviction of Sivarak Chutipong who returned to Thailand yesterday.

Sivarak Chutipong gives his mother, Simarak na Nakhon Phanom, a kiss on the cheek at Suvarnabhumi airport yesterday on his return from Cambodia. SOMCHAI POOMLARD

Mr Sivarak was the first to attack Thai authorities, demanding that Kamrob Palawatwichai, the first secretary of the Thai embassy in Cambodia, speak out and restore his damaged reputation by confirming he was not involved in a government attempt to get the flight schedule of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

The Puea Thai Party which, with the help of de facto leader Thaksin, pushed hard to get a pardon for Mr Sivarak after he was convicted last week by a Phnom Penh court for spying, vowed to take the issue to parliament to grill the government during the censure debate next month.

Yesterday the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, chaired by the opposition party, made further moves on the issue by demanding Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya and Mr Kamrob appear before it to clarify the spying allegations.

Chilli Calamari with Watermelon and Cucumber Salad

MasterChef Australia

Method

1. Combine the rice wine vinegar, palm sugar, lime leaves and chilli, in a small saucepan, place over a medium-low heat and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Pour into a bowl and place in the fridge to chill. Once chilled strain into a clean bowl and add the lime zest, juice and fish sauce.

2. Combine the watermelon, red onion, lime leaves and herbs in a bowl, using clean hands carefully mix. Set aside in the fridge.

3. Heat the vegetable oil in a wok until hot enough to deep fry. Combine the flour, garlic and onion powders, paprika and chilli powder in a bowl and season with salt and pepper. Prepare the calamari tubes by slitting the tubes along one side to open, flat and scoring in a criss-cross pattern, cut into 4 parts. Coat the calamari in the chilli powder, dust off excess and deep-fry in batches, for 30-60 seconds, careful not to over cook, drain onto a plate lined with paper towel.

4. Pour the dressing over the prepared salad and carefully mix.

5. Spoon the salad onto a serving plate and top with the calamari to serve.

Ingredients

Lime dressing: 1 ½ cups rice wine vinegar, 135g Jeeny’s palm sugar, 2 fresh kaffir lime leaves, 1 small red chilli, halved lengthways, 2 limes, zest and juice, 2 tsp fish sauce

Salad: ½ watermelon flesh, large diced, ½ red onion, finely sliced, 3 fresh kaffir lime leaves, finely shredded, ½ cup coriander, leaves, ¼ cup mint leaves, torn, ¼ cup basil leaves, torn

Chilli powder: Vegetable oil, to deep-fry, 100g plain flour, 2 tbs garlic powder, 2 tbs onion powder, 2 tbs paprika, 1 tbs chilli powder, 1 tbs freshly ground black pepper, 1 tbs sea salt, 4 calamari tubes, cleaned

Convicted Thai spy released from Cambodian jail

Sivarak Chutipong (right), who was convicted last week of spying on Thaksin Shinawatra last month and pardoned on Friday, was released from Prey Sar prison on Monday in a ceremony held at Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen's (left) residence in Phnom Penh.

Bangkok Post

Cambodia on Monday released a Thai engineer convicted and then pardoned for spying on ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra, witnesses and officials said.

The release of Sivarak Chutipong came as Thaksin paid a visit to Cambodia that could inflame diplomatic tensions between Bangkok and Phnom Penh. Thaksin visited Mr Sivarak briefly in prison Sunday.

Mr Sivarak, 31, a Thai employee of the Cambodia Air Traffic Service, left Prey Sar prison early in the morning in a convoy of three cars after receiving a pardon from King Norodom Sihamoni on Friday, witnesses said.

Mr Sivarak was initially sentenced to seven years in jail for supplying Thaksin's flight schedule to the Thai embassy when the former prime minister visited Cambodia last month.

After his release, Mr Sivarak went to a ceremony at the home of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to be presented with his signed royal pardon.

``From now on Sivarak has freedom and can carry out any business,'' Hun Sen said in front of reporters at the ceremony, which was also attended by Sivarak's mother and members of Thailand's main opposition party.

Berlusconi bloodied after hit to face

Yahoo 7 News MILAN (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was taken to hospital with blood smeared over his face after a man hurled a small model of Milan cathedral at him at a political rally, police said on Sunday.

Television footage showed the premier with blood splattered over his lips, teeth and chin being bundled into a car by aides and rushed away, minutes after finishing a lively speech to thousands of flag-waving supporters in a central Milan square.

Initial X-rays showed a loss of blood and injuries to two teeth but the 73-year-old prime minister and media mogul said "I'm fine, I'm fine" when he was moved to a hospital room in the northern city, Ansa news agency said.

A 42-year-old man was detained for throwing a small model of Milan cathedral at Berlusconi from close range, police said. The man has been undergoing treatment for mental problems for the past 10 years, Ansa said.

Berlusconi's allies were quick to say the incident was the result of a campaign of "hatred" by his leftist opponents. He has faced growing criticism in recent months amid mounting legal troubles and scandals over his private life.

Preah Vihear site set for restoration

Phnom Penh Post:

CONSERVATORS are at work restoring Preah Vihear temple and are set to plant about 2,000 hectares of forest in the surrounding area, officials said Thursday.

The 11th-century temple complex, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage site in July of last year, has long been a source of tension between the Kingdom and Thailand, which disputes Cambodia’s ownership of land around the site. At least seven soldiers have been killed in border skirmishes near the temple since July 2008.

However, the recent tension has not stalled preservation efforts at the temple, according to Chuch Phoeurn, the chairman of the National Preah Vihear Authority (NPVA).

“The process of preserving Preah Vihear temple is unrelated to the border issues – we’re still continuing our work,” he said.

Traffic in Phnom Penh

Photo by: AFP

Peak traffic clogs Norodom Boulevard. The Phnom Penh governor has pledged to set up a public transport system in the capital within the next five years in a bid to ease congestion

Shipment bound for Middle East

Bangkok Post:

The crew of the aircraft held in Bangkok after it was found to be carrying a large stock of war weapons say they planned to offload part of their cargo in Sri Lanka and the Middle East, investigators say.

A police source said some of the suspects admitted after more than six hours of questioning that they planned to unload part of "the goods" on their way back to Ukraine.

But they refused to name the buyers or locations, the source said.

The source, who is involved in the investigation, said the five crew members of the aircraft carrying the 35 tonnes of weapons from North Korea denied any involvement in arms trafficking.

The suspects said they were aircraft crew and had no knowledge the "goods" they transported were war weapons. They said they initially thought the cargo was oil pipes used as part of oil rigs, the source said.

The source said Mikhail Petukhou, the aircraft pilot, told investigators through an interpreter the plane travelled from Ukraine.

It made two stops for refuelling, at Azerbaijan and the United Arab Emirates, before heading to the North Korean capital of Pyongyang to load the cargo.

The plane then landed at Don Mueang for refuelling and planned to stop at Sri Lanka for more fuel before flying the cargo back to the Ukraine, the source said.

Thai security authorities seized the weapons on Saturday from the plane travelling from North Korea.

Authorities searched the aircraft after being tipped off by their US counterparts.

Five foreigners on board the aircraft were detained, the weapons confiscated and the plane impounded.

Four of the suspects hold Kazakh passports and the other a Belarus passport. Besides the pilot Mr Petukhou, 54, who is from Belarus, the other four crew were identified as Alexandr Zrybnev, 53; Viktor Abdullayev, 58; Vitaliy Shumkov, 54; and Ilyas Issakov, 53, from Kazakhstan.

The source said at this stage the suspects could only be charged with possession of weapons and ammunition without a licence.

Thaksin has tete-a-tete with 'spy' in cambodia

The Nation:

Sivarak flies home today; ex-PM's second visit certain to stoke tension between neighbours

Fugitive ex-Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra swooped into Phnom Penh yesterday and headed directly to the prison holding the Thai engineer convicted of spying, in a move destined to further strain ties with Cambodia.

Sivarak Chutipong, who was sentenced by a Cambodian court to seven years jail for leaking the flight plan of Thaksin's previous trip but was pardoned by Cambodia's king on Friday, will return to Thailand this afternoon, his mother Simarak na Nakhon Panom said.

Yesterday's meeting appeared to be the first time Sivarak had met Thaksin whose visit, the second in about a month, is certain to further stoke tension between the neighbouring countries. It has also been confirmed yesterday that Thaksin had requested Sivarak's pardon in a phone call to Cambodian leader Hun Sen.

Amid speculation in Thailand that the Sivarak saga was a political manipulation to reboost his image, Thaksin was driven straight from the airport to Prey Sar prison. Some 300 special forces troops were deployed along the route of his motorcade and around the penitentiary's compound.

Thailand: One side coin about PM Hun Sen

Bangkok Post: Hun Sen must cool this feud

The farcical episode of the Thai "spy" in Cambodia is over today. Sivarak Chutipong, sentenced to seven years by a Phnom Penh court and then just as quickly pardoned, is to return to Thailand accompanied by Puea Thai MPs after being farewelled by ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

He loses his job at the air-controller firm in Cambodia, but regains his freedom after weeks in the squalid Prey Sar prison. It seems likely, however, that the equally squalid crisis in Thai-Cambodian relations engineered by Prime Minister Hun Sen may still continue, and Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva must consider his options carefully.

Sivarak was a classic version of a bystander caught up in a whirlwind of events. His alleged crime was not much more than doing his job, which was to keep track of aircraft into and out of Pochentong airport on the edge of Phnom Penh. He worked for Cambodia Air Transport Services, a Thai-owned firm despite the name. He knew the arrival details of the flight into Cambodia by Thaksin. Apparently, when asked, he gave those flight details to a senior Thai diplomat, embassy first secretary Kamrob Palawatwichai. Hun Sen or one of his supporters blew that harmless exchange of information into a diplomatic incident - Mr Kamrob was expelled - and Sivarak's show trial.

The scripted verdict and pardon of Sivarak closes the chapter but not the book. Hun Sen remains at loggerheads with Mr Abhisit, and perhaps even more with Foreign Minister Kasit Piromya. The Sivarak trial and the expulsion of Mr Kamrob allowed the Puea Thai Party to get some credit and, just as importantly, shut Thai diplomats and the government out of the equation.

Oxfarm: $200 billion is needed every year to succeed in reducing green house gases in developing world

Negotiators from 192 nations are in Copenhagen trying to hammer out a global warming treaty that balances the economic concerns of rich nations with the demands of developing countries, who say they would suffer most from a warmer planet.

$200 billion is needed every year, said Oxfam to succeed in reducing green house gases in developing world

One NGO says putting more money on the table could mean the difference between success and failure at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.

Hugh Cole, a climate change advisor for Oxfam International, says there are three key components for a strong and fair climate change deal in Copenhagen.

“First, it has to be fair. That means it has to acknowledge historical responsibility. The second is it must be ambitious. It has to be ambitious enough to limit global warming. The third key element—whatever is agreed upon here in Copenhagen must be binding,” he says.

On Thursday, American billionaire financier George Soros proposed an alternative scheme for helping poor countries pay for the changes needed to adapt to climate change.

Cole says finance indeed is the key that could unlock the whole deal.

EU Earmarks $3.6 Billion in Aid for Developing Countries

VOA News European Union is earmarking nearly $3.6 billion yearly in short-term aid for developing countries to adapt to climate change. At a summit in Brussels, EU leaders also agreed to cut their carbon emissions by 30 percent - if other developed countries followed suit.

The agreement on short-term climate funding was reached after a meeting of European Union leaders in Brussels. EU aid for developing countries will total about $7.2 billion between 2010-2012, with Britain, Germany and France contributing the lion's share. Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt of Sweden, which holds the rotating EU presidency until January, announced the sum at a press conference.

"We of course are very pleased and satisfied that we [had] contributions from all member countries and that we also now show leadership in taking our fair share of the fast-start money that we know is important to get the global agreement in place and we of course now urge other developed parts of the world to make that same contribution so this will add up," said Mr. Reinfeld.

The EU aid may help boost negotiations at the climate change summit in Copenhagen. The United Nations is urging industrialized nations to contribute about $30 billion in short-term climate aid to poor nations. Overall, the EU estimates about $150 billion in assistance will be needed by 2020. The money would help developing nations invest in things like coastal protection and renewable energy to help deal with climate change. Reinfeldt said Europe would contribute what he described as its "fair share."