Beyondheadlines Foreign Reporter

Thailand’s authorities warned the captal Bankkok would soon be flooded
and called a special five-day holiday to let people escape.The capital
is in danger from a combination of run-off water from the north and
high tides on the Chao Phraya river, which is at a record level at
certain points in the center. Thailand’s worst flooding in half a
century, caused by unusually heavy monsoon rain, has killed at least
373 people since mid-July and disrupted the lives of nearly 2.5
million, with more than 113,000 in shelters and 720,000 people seeking
medical attention.Late on Wednesday, the city’s governor said “massive
water” was on its way. The authorities have already warned that dikes
may not hold and the city of at least 12 million people could be
swamped.

“Now we’re at a critical moment, we need to monitor the situation
closely from 28-31 October, when many areas might be critical,”
Bangkok Governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra told reporters. “Massive water
is coming.”

Sukhumbhand said 90 percent of the northern Don Muang district was
under water and another, Bang Phlad in the west, was in a critical
situation. Fourteen city districts were threatened by floods and two
more could be hit on Thursday, he said.The economic damage is
difficult to quantify, but the central bank has revised its growth
forecast for southeast Asia’s second-biggest economy to 3.1 percent
this year and could cut it again on Friday.The floods are expected to
take their toll on Thailand’s tourism industry, which employs more
than 2 million people and makes up 6 percent of gross domestic
product.

Tourism Minister Chumphol Silpa-archa said arrivals could be 500,000
to 1 million below the government’s target of 19 million this year.
Crowded domestic check-in counters at Bangkok’s main Suvarnabhumi
airport was seen. Don Muang, the city’s old airport that is now used
for domestic flights, had to close because of flooding on Tuesday.

London: Mohd Asyraf Haziq, 20, a Malaysian student in London who was was victim of the riot last week was invited to the Westminster.

Haziq was invited to Parliament by Home Affairs Select Committee chairman Keith Vaz today that is investigating the London Riots.The Malaysian student was on his bicycle  was targeted by rioters and received a broken jaw in the attack. A fund to help the student has since raised  more than £22,000.

Asyraf Haziq (Courtesy: BBC)

Haziq was joined on the tour of the Palace of Westminster by his father Rossli, mother Maznah, and seven-year-old brother Fitri who flew in from Ampang, near Kuala Lumpur. He will stay back in UK to continue is studies. Speaking at parliament he said: “I’m very honoured, it’s great to be here and I like it very much.”On Sunday, Mr Haziq, a keen cyclist, was given VIP treatment at the Badminton World Championships at Wembley Arena.

Asyraf became the symol of humanity in the wake of widespread looting, arson and chaos. There was an outpouring of sympathy which  turned into anger when his so-called saviours, apparently from the same gang who attacked him, ransacked his backpack and took away his PSP. Unknown to him and his attackers, the incident was filmed by someone from a nearby building and it was posted on YouTube and repeated many times on the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and Sky TV.

The one-minute-15-second video clip was ironically as powerful as the tweets and SMSes that the likes of his perpetrators had employed to plan their mindless attacks and carnage throughout London and cities across Britain.Abdul Hamid, who filmed the attack, wrote a caption under his clip: “Footage I captured of some men using the riots as an excuse to just harm and humiliate an innocent person. I hope to get in touch with the victim and I am also trying to raise money for him.”

Reece Donovan, 20, of Chadwell Heath, Romford, Essex, is accused of robbing Mr Haziq. He will appear at Wood Green Crown Court on Friday for a plea and case management hearing.

Inputs from BBC

Kuala Lumpur: Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Tun Razak today questioned the effectiveness of censorship laws in the country. He attributed the changes to the ICT phenomenon, globalisation and higher education level among the people, adding that the Government needed to respond to these changes. The Prime Minister said in this new era, it was questionable whether censorship was effective, meaningful and relevant but also whether it would cause more harm than good.

He cited an example where an article published in the British weekly The Economist on the July 9 Bersih 2.0 illegal rally was censored by the Home Ministry and had brought about negative publicity.

“The very act of censoring it made a bigger story than the article itself. If the international media wants to criticize us, let it be. If we need to, we will engage them, we give our side of the story.

“If they cross the line, then we have to resolve through legal means and (suing for) defamation is one of the means if we feel that we have been wronged by the media,” Najib said.

if the media published a story which was defamatory, legal action should be taken but censoring it was no longer an effective method.

“This is one example in which we have to adjust ourselves in this modern era, where perception is bigger than the truth.

“Therefore, we need to engage in effective communication and take on the right approach to meet changes in today’s landscape,” he said.

Najib said the media had an important responsibility to deliver news and information correctly and in a timely manner, adding that the Government also depended on the media to inform the people of its policies and programs, and engage in effective communication.

New Delhi: Chinese Security forces have detained about 300 Tibetan monks for a month now in a crackdown after a monk’s self-immolation, the Reuters reported.

The Agency has cited sources saying monks from the Aba’s Kirti monastery in southwestern China were taken into custody on April 21.

China is celebrating 60 years of “peaceful liberation” of Tibet.

Kirti Rinpoche, the head of the Kirti monastery, told Reuters by telephone that it was the first time that Chinese security forces had seized such a large number of monks at a time, and that he had no information on their whereabouts.

According to reports when a 21 year old monk Phustsong tried to immolate himself in protest, security forces beat him up instead of putting out flames. This created resentment amongst people.

According to an exiled monk Kanyag Tsering, ‘patriotic re-education’ sessions are given to monks during which they are taught reasons why they should not keep any pictures of their spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, and then made to repeat them.

China has routinely rejected any mistreatment.

Inputs from Reuters

But “forgiveness doesn’t mean forget what happened. If something is serious and it is necessary to take counter-measures, you have to take counter-measures,” a report in the Los Angeles Times quoted the Tibetan leader as saying in response to a question about the death of bin Laden.

A separate statement on the Dalai Lama’s website explained further what the Tibetan leader had said at USC on Tuesday when asked whether in some situation ensuring justice is more important than being compassionate to the perpetrator of a crime.

In his response, the Dalai Lama “emphasized the need to find a distinction between the action and the actor.”

He said in the case of bin Laden, “his action was of course destructive and the September 11 events killed thousands of people. So his action must be brought to justice.”

The Tibetan leader added that with the actor one must have compassion and a sense of concern.

“Therefore the counter measure, no matter what form it takes, has to be compassionate action.”

Referring to the basis of the practice of forgiveness, the Dalai Lama said that it, however, did not mean that one should forget what has been done.

His speech at USC was titled ‘Secular Ethics, Human Values and Society’.

Investigators from the cyber crime unit of the Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency (SMPA) were dispatched to Google’s Seoul office early in the morning and confiscated hard drives and other computer data related to its mobile advertising agency, AdMob, local media reported.

“The raid on Google Korea was carried out to confirm the allegation that Google’s AdMob platform was used to collect data on individuals’ locations via smartphone applications,” an SMPA official was quoted by Yonhap News Agency as saying.

On the same day, SMPA investigators also raided the headquarters of local portal Daum Communications in central Seoul over similar suspicions.

The latest probes came amid growing worries about smartphone privacy breaches. South Korea’s telecom regulator launched an inquiry into Apple last week to decide whether the U.S. tech giant ‘s collection of location data from its iPhone and iPad users violates privacy rules.

An employee walks at Google Inc's office in Seoul May 3, 2011 (Courtesy:Xinhua/Reuters)

Thai troops fired artillery shell into Cambodian territory over the disputed border area at the Ta Moan temple in Oddar Meanchey province on Monday afternoon, the spokesman said.

“At 1: 45 p.m. Thai forces had fired six rounds of artillery at the area near Ta Moan temple,” Lieutenant General Chhum Socheat, the spokesman for Cambodian Ministry of Defense, told Xinhua by telephone.

No casualties were available now from the latest clash which marks the fourth straight day of conflict on Thai-Cambodian border. Both sides blamed each other for triggering the clashes.

Meanwhile, Col. Sansern Kaewkamnerd, Royal Thai Army spokesperson, told Xinhua that a clash occurred at around 10 a.m. near the 13th-century Ta Muen Thom temple in Phanom Dong Rak district of northeastern Surin province.

“Some four to five artillery shells landed on Thai territory but no further casualty was reported,” Col. Sansern said.

The spokesman also admitted that sporadic skirmishes continued as noise of rifle, machine-gun and mortar were heard continually from the area.

The clashes from April 22 to 24 around Ta Muen Thom temple and Ta Kwai temple, known in Cambodian as Ta Moan temple and Ta Krabei temple respectively, on Thai-Cambodian border left five Thai soldiers dead and at least 25 others wounded. On Cambodian side, there were six troops killed and 16 others wounded during the fighting.

The fresh clashes came after the four-day conflict in February across the disputed border area near the 900-year-old Preah Vihear temple claimed at least 10 lives of soldiers on both sides.

Chhum Socheat said that despite Thai insistence on bilateral talks with Cambodia to solve the border dispute, Cambodia kept its firm stance to hold talks with Thailand with the third party mediation.

He added that Thai’s ambition was to capture the 13th century Ta Moan temple and Ta Krabei temple in Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province, which shares the border with Thailand’s Surin province.

“So far, we have maintained all our bases, and have not lost any positions to Thailand,” he said.

Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa, current rotating ASEAN chair, canceled his original plan to visit Cambodia and Thailand on Monday to discuss sending observers to monitor ceasefire on border between Cambodia and Thailand.

Koy Kuong, spokesman of Cambodia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said that Marty did not explained the reason for the cancellation and mention when he would rearrange the visit.

“I just suspect that his visit cancellation is due to Thai disagreement to sign the terms of reference for the deployment of the Indonesian observers at disputed border areas to prevent further armed clashes,” he said.

As of Monday afternoon, 21,893 have fled their homes in Oddar Meanchey province’s Samrong district and Banteay Ampil district, some 30 kilometers from the fighting zone, Ly Thuch, chief of the Cambodian National Committee for Disaster Management, told Xinhua by telephone.

“As the situation remains tense, I believe that more Cambodian villagers will continue fleeing home for safe shelters,” he said.

Prime Minister Naoto Kan announced the “no-entry” policy will be effective from midnight Thursday while visiting the Fukushima Prefecture in the morning.

The restricted zone is already covered by an evacuation directive from the central government, but local residents have become concerned about their homes being burgled and the area has seen increasing numbers of residents going back to their homes to collect items of financial and sentimental value, as the previous directive was on a voluntary basis.

Under the government’s new mandate, residents will be allowed a supervised visit to collect items of value and other necessities and following this will have access to their homes cut off.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said at a televised press conference that only one person per family will be allowed to return for up to around two hours. They will be made to wear protective clothing and carry dosimeters.

The government plans to start the brief return “in a few days” to complete the first stage in one to two months, Edano added.

But the government has decided not to allow residents living within a 3-km radius of the plant to do so, and will likely exclude also areas outside the 3km radius that have registered high levels of radiation exposure.

All roads and access routes into the area will be sealed off. Persons violating the new governmental directive, including evacuated residents who live within the no-go zone, could face legal repercussions and will be forcibly removed.

Between 70,000 and 80,000 local residents in 10 districts in Fukushima Prefecture within the 20-kilometer radius evacuation zone have already relocated to other places, with some opting to move out of the prefecture.

Of the 3,378 households in the 20-km radius visited by police from March 29 through April 18, 63 households remained despite government’s persuasion.

Edano also said that the evacuation zone around Fukushima No. 2 nuclear power plant will be cut to 8 km from the current 10 km, as the possibility of serious accident at Fukushima No. 2 plant is low.