Was the Fox News Politics Twitter account (@foxnewspolitics) hacked?
Unusual activity on the news division's account seemed to suggest as much late on Sunday night. Later, additional tweets appeared falsely claiming that President Barack Obama was…
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--WASHINGTON -- Scientists have come up with a possible explanation for why the rise in Earth's temperature paused for a bit during the 2000s, one of the hottest decades on record.
The answer seems counterintuitive. It's all that sulfur pollution in…
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--I don't keep my adoration of the bike paths in the Twin Cities secret. At the Baltimore Park Sub Station, the path connecting the downtowns of Larkspur and Corte Madera (Route 15) converges with the Sandra Marker Trail heading east to Larkspur…
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--Two youths discovered more than 10,000 euros (9,029.92 pounds) in an envelope and handed the money in to the Salzburg lost and found bureau on Monday, officials in the Austrian city said.
"We were surprised ourselves by the size of the find," bureau head Kurt Hinteregger said. "That doesn't happen every day."
The youths -- described by the Austria Press Agency as 15-year-old pupils from Feldkirch in western Austria who were on a school trip -- get to keep the money if the rightful owner does not show up within a year.
Even if the owner can claim the money by giving the exact amount and describing the envelope, the finders get to keep 10 percent of the first 2,000 euros and 5 percent of the rest as a reward.
For five years, Melanie Stark worked diligently as a sales assistant at Harrods and won a commendation for customer service.
But she says bosses finally decided her face didn’t fit – because she refuses to wear make-up.
Miss Stark, 24, resigned after she was twice sent home from the Knightsbridge department store for refusing to comply with its strict dress code.
Anger: Melanie Stark claims she was driven out of her job at Harrods because she refused to wear make-up
On another occasion, she was made to work in a stockroom.
She says she was even offered a cosmetics workshop and told: ‘You can see what you look like with make-up.’
‘I was appalled,’ she said. ‘It was insulting. Basically, it was implying it would be an improvement. I don’t understand how they think it is OK to say that.
‘I know what I look like with make-up. I have used it, though never at work. But I just could not see how, in this day and age, Harrods could take away my right to choose to wear it or not.’
Harrods has a strict Dress Code
Miss Stark, of New Cross, South London, who left last week, added: ‘I was happy there, but I’ve been driven out.’
A copy of the 13-page dress code was handed to Miss Stark when she joined the HMV department in Harrods aged 19.
She worked part-time for the first three years while a philosophy, religion and ethics student at King’s College, London, then full-time for £8 an hour.
Miss Stark says she complied with all other aspects of the dress code and Harrods did not seek to enforce the make-up regulations until last August when she was sent home after a ‘floor walk’ by senior managers.
She wrote to Harrods saying: ‘To be told that one’s face is inadequate is extremely degrading.’ The next day she was put to work in the stockroom where customers could not see her.
Then she was summoned to a meeting with her floor manager and, she claims, told: ‘You wear make-up or you leave.’
It was suggested she could ‘just wear eyeliner and lipstick’ but Miss Stark stuck to her guns, returning to work without any make-up.
Three weeks ago a new floor manager told staff: ‘Girls, I want you to be made up.’
Miss Stark was briefly transferred to HMV’s store in Bayswater, West London, while a resolution was sought, but had already decided to resign. She has yet to find another job and said: ‘I’ve been upset by the whole ordeal.’
Clare Murray, of the specialist law firm CM Murray, said Miss Stark could have grounds to sue Harrods if she took the store to an employment tribunal claiming sex discrimination.
To do so, she would have to argue that the dress code is imposed differently, in more detail or more rigorously on women than on men.
A spokesman for the department store said she left 'of her own accord'
But UK case law supports the right of employers to impose dress codes with different requirements for women and men provided the overall effect is broadly the same between both sexes.
Harrods has an equally strict dress code for men including, for example, that sideburns must be no wider than one inch.
The HMV concession is on the third floor of the store and staff there must meet Harrods’ requirements for appearance. Miss Stark has no issue with HMV.
A Harrods spokesman said: ‘All our staff are subject to a dress code which they sign up to on joining the company, which relates to an overall polished appearance.
‘Our records show that discussions with Melanie Stark concerned a general lack of adherence to the dress code.
‘She subsequently decided to leave of her own accord with no reference made to dress code.’
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2010922/Harrods-shop-girl-Melanie-Stark-hounded-job-wearing-make-up.html#ixzz1RAEmHrQp
Well, not in America at any rate. But in France it seems DSK’s fellow socialists can’t see that he has an image problem at all. Some of them even reckon he should be back in the race to be the socialist candidate in next year’s presidential election. They imagine that his being released without bail is proof that there is no case against him, that he is merely a victim of what they see as America’s obsession with prying into people’s sex lives. The French intellectuals despise ‘Anglo-Saxon morals.’
Note to the French: at this writing, not one of the serious sexual charges against Mr Strauss-Kahn has been dropped.
All that’s happened is that the Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus Vance Jr, appears to be losing his nerve over the case. Why? Well, maybe it is because Mr Vance is less than two years in the job and is not a very good prosecutor, but it is more likely that he is gun-shy after losing two other high-profile prosecutions recently, one of them involving charges of rape against two policemen.
More on Mr Vance in a moment. Back to the French left-wing and their attitudes towards this case: the only outrage they have expressed from the start is not that they must now accept the truth about the man who was considered by many to be the next president of France. The truth is that he travels the world looking for sex with the hired help.
For of course the DSK defence team is not denying sexual activity between Mr Strauss-Kahn and the maid, it is just claiming whatever happened was consensual. They decline to say whether any money was paid. They claim the chambermaid is in fact a hooker who was placed in the posh hotel by her union so that she could make more money turning tricks for rich guests. (Do I have to tell you how quickly the hotel workers’ union denied that one?)
No, the only outrage among the French left-wing is that the former head of the IMF has been treated exactly the same as any other man against whom a credible allegation of rape might be made. The Canadian writer Mark Steyn reported this comment by Jean Daniel, editor of Le Nouvel Observateur: ‘We and the Americans do not belong to the same civilisation,’ insisting that the police should have known that Mr Strauss-Khan ‘was not like other men.’ Mr Daniel wondered why ‘this chambermaid was regarded as worthy.’
What outraged Parisian left-bank, left-wing philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy, was that an American judge ‘pretended to take [Strauss-Kahn] for a subject of justice like any other.’ Yes, treating Mr Strauss-Kahn like ‘a subject of justice like any other,’ which is to say, as equal before the law, that’s what really outrages French left-wing intellectuals.
Mr Levy – or BHL, as he is called in France, a kind of bookend to his ‘friend for 20 years’ DSK – was, like Mr Daniel, also scandalised that a mere chambermaid could get a ‘great’ man such as Mr Strauss-Kahn in trouble with the law by credibly accusing him of sexual assault.
I stand with American writer Jonah Goldberg on this one: ‘I am proud to live in a country where a housekeeper can get a world leader pulled off a plane bound for Paris. I something like that couldn’t happen in France, then shame on France and shame on Levy for thinking otherwise.’
What we have here is a happy American Independence Day, the Fourth of July, where 
That equality is of course why Mr Strauss-Kahn had to leave his first court appearance in handcuffs. Here is the thing about the perp walk: all accused persons are taken out of a New York criminal court that way. All of them. If the courts started to pick and choose which individuals to put in handcuffs and which to have the dignity of just strolling out of the court to a waiting car, maybe arm in arm with their wives and friends, it would make those who are denied that privilege look somehow more certainly guilty. But since handcuffs go on everyone, everyone looks the same, so the fact of handcuffs has no more meaning for one accused person than for any other.
Yet Bernard-Henri Levy called putting DSK through the normal form of arrest ‘pornographic.’ Wrong. What would have been pornographic is if Mr Strauss-Kahn’s position as a member of the elite had given him the special privilege of no handcuffs.
Now we are being told that the case against DSK is looking shaky. The fact is that if DSK did rape this woman, he picked exactly the right woman: she apparently lied on her application for asylum (hey, who’d have ever thought an asylum seeker might be bogus?). She is a woman who has at least one boyfriend who is dealing marijuana, and who may, or may not, be a hooker.
How is the district attorney supposed to get a conviction if he puts a woman like that on 
Which is what I suspect was behind that performance of one of the prosecuting lawyers in court last week, when a list of all these doubts was read out. Mr Vance may be losing his nerve and trying to find a way to get out of proceeding to trial. The usual thing to do in such a case in the American system is to plea-bargain – to offer Mr Strauss-Kahn a chance to plead guilty to a lesser charge, and in return escape a prison term.
This kind of practice is why more than 90 percent of felony charges are not tested before a jury: that’s right, the evidence in 90 percent of US felony convictions is never tested before a jury.
Which is a continuing scandal in America. If cops and prosecutors imagine there is little chance a jury will ever evaluate the evidence they gather, then they can get sloppy about the evidence.
Did Mr Vance and his team get sloppy in the way they gathered evidence against DSK – or in fact did they get sloppy in the way they gathered evidence to undermine the credibility of the alleged victim? The only way we will ever know is if this case is taken to court and the evidence is finally tested.
If we are lucky, Mr Strauss-Kahn’s arrogance will prevent him agreeing to plea bargain. Excellent: justice demands we hear testimony on what happened in that hotel room. Then the jury can give a verdict of guilty or not guilty: guilty, and DSK is a violent rapist. Not guilty, he is merely a sleazy French socialist.
In France, just one of those possible outcomes is a bar to his becoming president. Too right, as Monsieur Daniel says, the French and the Americans do not belong to the same civilisation.
It is entirely to the credit of Americans that they do not.
I will remind you that in 2006 Dumas said the eurozone would begin to unzip in five years, starting with Greece. He's so smart it's spooky.
Today he asks, who would lose if Greece should default, leave EMU [that's economic and monetary union, in other words the euro] and call in the IMF?
But listening to economics from Boris is like listening to economics from Tigger. I'd rather listen to Dumas cover the same ground. It's like listening to economics from Beethoven.
So, according to Dumas, the answer to 'who would lose if Greece should default, leave EMU and call in the IMF?' is: 'Nobody need lose -- it is not a zero-sum game.'
And his reasoning is worth listening too, since the British government has repeatedly been sucked into the multi-billion bail-out schemes that are supposed to 'save the euro.' Which means, keep all the member states of the euro in the damned currency, no matter what it costs.
But as Dumas says, if Greece gets out, nobody need lose: 'The answer is utilitarian, of course, It assumes the purpose of economic policy is to achieve the maximum economic/welfare benefit to the population. In reality, the losers would be the bulk of the continental European elite, which has hitched its wagon to a "falling star" -- a "black hole" would express it better -- since the early 1990s. This elite would be shown up for the arrogant blunderers they have always looked like, and have proved to be. Pride, guilt and fear are some of the most powerful motivations on earth -- hence the resistance to shrinking or dissolving EMU.'
'Default will not be avoided...By staying in the euro, Greece ensures it has no chance of generating external growth, to offset domestic deflation. Yet everybody knows that only with growth can excessive debts be repaid -- or, more realistically in the Greek case, be defaulted on by fewer cents in the euro.'
Equally Germany would also grow better if Greece were out of the euro: 'Over the nine years since the last recession (2001), German GDP is only up 10%, well behind Britain and France, for example, let alone the US, despite its greater cost competitiveness, and contrived undervaluation through linkage to its more inflationary "partners" in Euroland. And the suppression of wages that has achieved this...results in real consumer spending only up 3% over the same nine years...'
'Shedding Greece from the euro might be far from a sufficient cure for the gross distortions of EMU, but it would be a step in the right direction, and all the more important in signalling that maximising the present value of potential Greek (and other) debt repayments is now the chief goal -- rather than punishing Club Med "bad boys" [Greece, Portugal, etc] for past sins, or driving Europa through intense economic pain to some presumed nirvana -- actually, chimera -- of a European super-state where everybody behaves like "good boys."'
Dumas is so right, so often, about so many things --and never more than today when he writes about the European elite 'being shown up for the arrogant blunderers they have always looked like.'
Exactly. I have always known the euro-elite were devious and dishonest, but I'd always given them credit for a kind of Jesuitical intellectual skill. But since the first fumbled, panicked Greek bailout a year ago, the euro elite have shown themselves to be the gang that can't shoot straight.
I can only say to Offord: Bravo -- but why have you spoiled an otherwise honourable position by whining that you will invoke that euro-curse, the Human Rights Act, if you don't get your way?
Offord should have invoked instead the weight of the history and tradition of the English-speaking world.
Look across the Atlantic, where the Mother of Parliament's greatest child, the United States Congress, is happy to let its Senators and Representatives take their dogs to Capitol Hill.
These days the dogs stay in the offices, but certainly, in the golden age of the Senate before 1861, dogs even went into the chamber. That is because during the golden age America was still a great country, and most of the Senators were gentlemen -- and a gentleman always kept his gun dogs close.
A gentleman also kept his pistols close, as this account by the late Senator Robert C. Byrd of West Virginia illustrates.
In 1998 Byrd addressed a ceremonial gathering of Senators in the Old Senate Chamber, in which their predecessors met from 1819-1859. The room has quite a history:
'Here, in this room, Daniel Webster orated, Henry Clay forged compromises, and John C. 
'Here the eccentric [I would dispute that, but will let Byrd have it] Viginian Senator John Randolph brought his hunting dogs into the Chamber, and the dashing Texas Senator, Sam Houston, sat over here to my right; he sat at his desk whittling wooden hearts for ladies in the gallery.'
'Seated at his desk in the back row, Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner was beaten violently over the head with a cane wielded by Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who objected to Sumner's strongly abolitionist speeches and the vituperation that Sumner had heaped upon Brooks' uncle, Senator Butler of South Carolina.'
Where's the fun in the Senate chamber now? Gone, along with all the great men, and their pistols, and their gun dogs.
Just like at Westminster.
Thanks to ‘JDF’ for taking the time to post a comment – and for asking about the elite European Schools for the sons and daughters of eurocrats, which I mentioned in the previous post about the luxurious lives of the European Commission staff. This will fill you in a bit:
The schools are located in the most fashionable neighbourhoods of Brussels, Frankfurt, 
The schools offer an aggressively ‘European’ education from nursery level through secondary level, meant to produce children who are – and this is their founding mission statement -- ‘in mind Europeans, schooled and ready to complete and consolidate the work of their fathers before them, to bring into being a united and thriving Europe.’
In fact, these superior multi-lingual international schools are producing a caste of taxpayer-funded euro-elite who will grow up with connections and networking skills denied to other children. The picture above, from the schools' website, is of the European School in the fashionable Brussels suburb of Uccle. Draw your own conclusions.
One ‘old boys’ organisation for the European Schools actually has bragged that its objectives are to ‘create contacts’ and ‘expand a worldwide network’ across Europe and around the world, based on ‘a past history in the European School.’ And, No, your kids can’t join the network – even though your taxes pay for the schools.
The 14 ‘European Schools’ run on a £237m annual budget. These elite multilingual academies were founded in 1953 to give guaranteed free places worth up to £13,000 a year to the sons and daughters of already highly-privileged, low-taxed EU officials.
You will not be surprised to hear that British taxpayers are being forced to spend more than £25m a year in subsidies for these exclusive free schools for the children of the European Union elite.
Selection of the nearly 22,780 pupils is based entirely on their parents’ connections in the EU. Children hoping to go to one of the schools are divided into divisions based on family status.
The most privileged class is called Category I. A child is Category I if one of his parents is on the staff of an EU institution or is a national expert seconded by an EU institution or is an official attached to one of the Permanent Representations to the EU. (These are the national embassies which negotiate in Brussels at European Council level.)
Because all Category I children are guaranteed a place, the four schools in Brussels are already at full capacity and a fifth taxpayer-funded school is being planned to meet the demand. Well over 90 percent of the children at the Brussels European Schools are the Category I sons and daughters of top eurocrats. For local Belgians, entrance to the school is a privilege which their children can never enjoy. Yet the European Commission insists the schools are ‘public’ – in the American sense -- like any other state school in any EU member state, and not private.
Category II children have parents who work for one of the international organisations such as Nato which pay fees to the European Schools. Category III children have parents who have no connection with the EU but are willing to pay up to £13,000 a year to secure a place. Category III children have no hope of admission until demand by higher-category children has been met.
Britain pays a disproportionately high amount of the cost of these exclusive schools, because of the insistence by the schools that only native English-speaking teachers be used to instruct the European children in English language classes. The UK Government must meet the cost of paying 247 British teachers and management staff who have been seconded from British schools, even though they are working abroad and teaching foreign children.
When I talked to Stephen Booth of Open Europe about this some months ago, he said: ‘It is completely unreasonable to expect British taxpayers to foot the bill to educate privately EU officials’ children. Why should the sons and daughters of well-paid EU bureaucrats be granted privileges that the majority of UK taxpayers cannot afford for their own children?’
Nigel Farage, MEP and leader of UKIP said: ‘The schools of highly paid Eurocrats have the very best facilities while the average child in Britain has to do with much less. Our money should not be wasted on the free education and salubrious facilities of well-paid untaxed bureaucrats. The EU is a racket run for the benefit of the pencil-pushers.’
And for the benefit of their sons and daughters -- not your sons and daughters.
According to a new report by the London-based Bureau of Investigative Journalism -- see the news pages today for details -- there have been cocktail-fuelled international soirées at £66,000 a time. Guests of the eurocrats have been tucking tax-payer funded solid silver trinkets and elegant fountain pens from Tiffany into their pockets on the way home. And sometimes it has been a long way home: this new investigation has turned up the shocking fact of a European Commission five-star junket for officials and their families to Papua New Guinea.
Yes, and their families. The eurocrats took their families along: you paid for them and their 
But is any of this shocking anymore? Not to those of us who have been up close and watching the Brussels gravy train for years. It is what we have come to expect from the unelected, unaccountable euro-elite. These people do not consider themselves to be public servants. They consider themselves to be an anointed priesthood of the Church of the European Project. By their thinking, anything that furthers the power or the prestige of this new Church must be a good thing.
This leads to the relentless examples of arrogance, led from the top by José Manuel Barroso, the president of the commission. This arrogant Portuguese former Maoist politician and eight of his assistants ran up a bill of £24,600 at the Peninsula Hotel in New York in the space of just four nights. And you can bet they didn’t get there from Brussels flying tourist class.
Consider this. Right now the EU and their partners in the IMF are screwing the eurozone periphery countries down into penury with their demands for austerity -- all to save the eurocrats' sacred currency, the euro.
Yet meanwhile the European Commissioners alone have run up over £6.6m on private jet travel in the last four years. And now these same eurocrats are demanding that the commission’s budget be increased by almost five percent next year, despite governments across the Continent cutting back spending.
You can understand why the eurocrats want the extra money: those five-star hotels in the South Pacific aren’t getting any cheaper.
The only question that remains is this. How much longer are we and the other taxpayers of the EU member states going to let this extravagance go on?
Of course, complain about it and you will be smeared as ‘anti-European,’ rather in the way the reformers who complained about the extravagance of the Renaissance Papacy were condemned as heretics.
Fine, call me a heretic. I still say, ‘Roll on Reformation.’ If not revolution.
I had a crush on David Essex': Australia's first female Prime Minister reveals she had the 1970s star on her bedroom wallAs a pop star in the 1970s David Essex graced the walls of many a teenage girl's bedroom.
But now it seems that the singer and film star was the schoolgirl crush for none other than Australia's first female Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.
The Welsh-born premier said the Silver Dream Machine star had been the subject of her affections when she was growing up in Barry before she moved with her parents to Adelaide in the 1960s.
Crush: Singer and now EastEnder David Essex was a poster favourite of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard when she was growing up
Talking to Tasmanian radio station Edge FM in Hobart, she admitted when asked about who she had on her bedroom wall as a girl: 'It’s so long ago that this is going to be embarrassing, but it was probably someone like David Essex.
'It was the days when Skyhooks and bands like that were ruling the Australian scene, so all of the Australian scene, but [I had] a bit of a crush on David Essex.'
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2010325/Australias-female-PM-Julia-Gillard-admits-I-crush-David-Essex.html#ixzz1RAAtPXyK
What happens to relationships when partners march to the beats of different drums?
The couples arriving for marriage counselling at William Kir-Stimon's Chicago office must have done a double take: you want us to do what? Here they were, partners…
Click here to read the full story
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Exit polls in Thailand are showing the party allied to ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has won an absolute majority in the fractious country's tense election.
Two major polling organizations gave Yingluck Shinawatra's Pheu Thai party far more than the 250 of 500 seats it would need to form the next government. Yingluck is Thaksin's sister.
The Suan Dusit university poll gave Yingluck's party 313 seats, compared to 152 for the ruling Democrat party of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva. Another poll by Bangkok's ABAC university gave Yingluck 299 seats compared to 132 for the Democrats.
Preliminary results from the Election Commission are expected later Sunday.
The Yingluck Shinawatra-led Pheu Thai party is expected to win the polls. Whether it gets to govern successfully is another matter.
THREE days before today’s polls, Thai Army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha had to go on record to state that the military would not stage a coup if the Yingluck Shinawatra-led Pheu Thai party wins and forms a coalition government. “The rumours are merely rumours. There’ll be no coup. I have said so several times,” said Prayuth, one of the masterminds of the coup that ousted Yingluck’s brother Thaksin as Prime Minister on Sept 19, 2006.
Most Thais do not share the general’s optimism that the military would stick to its word of not interfering in politics again. Most are pessimistic about post-election Thailand. And Thai political analysts agree that the election will not magically solve the country’s sixyear political conflict.
So what’s th e political pundits’ prediction of the outcome of the elections? “It should be a Pheu Thai victory,” said Kevin Hewison, director of the Carolina Asia Center at the University of North Carolina, United States.
“The margin is unclear. All polls say it will be a huge victory. I will be surprised if it is as large as some of the polls have suggested. But it will be a convincing win.”
Hewison, a Thai watcher since the 1970s, added: “If not, there will be a lot of explaining to do.” He was, of course, alluding to the much whispered talk that this election is very “dirty”.
“If the opinion polls are right,” wrote Suranand Vejjajiva in Bangkok Post on Friday, “for the fourth election in a row over the past decade, the political party led in person or in absentia by Thaksin will prevail.”
Suranand, a political analyst who served in the Thaksin government, and Hewison basically voiced what most people (even politicians from Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s Democrat party quietly admit) take as a given: Pheu Thai will win most of the 500 MP seats up for grabs. It is all a matter of margin.
What can’t be agreed is whether Pheu Thai can form the next government. Conventional wisdom will dictate that it should be a walk-in-the- park for a party with the most seats to form a government.
But this is Thailand. The main player in Thai politics can’t even be mentioned and there is an invisible hand manipulating events behind the scene.
“If it is a normal election, Pheu Thai will form the government and Yingluck will be Thailand’s first female Prime Minister,” opined Kan Yuenyong, executive director of Siam intelligence Unit, a think tank specialising on politics, economics, public policy and foreign affairs.
“But I would like to make a bet that the Democrat party will form the next government,” he said. He, however, qualified his bet with “unless Pheu Thai can win a landslide victory.”
In this election, Kan explained, Pheu Thai was not only fighting the Democrat party and its coalition partners such as Bhum Jai Thai (Pride of Thailand Party). It is Pheu Thai, Thaksin and the Red Shirts supporters vs the rest of Thailand minus the neutrals (who, based on some estimates, comprise about 50% of the population).
To pigeon-hole Thai politics, it is: New Force vs Old Force. New Capital vs Old Capital. Progressive vs Conservative. “But it is not as simple as that,” explained Kan. “For example, there are people in the New Force who are in the Old Force.”
What the Thaksin forces are facing, said Hewison , is the power that be. In a nutshell, he said, the power that be are: military (which has either been in government or has had considerable influence over the government for many decades); big businesses (particularly Sino-Thai businessmen who control big banks and conglomerates and have a relatively easy relationship with the military); aristocratic elite (those who see themselves as born to hold position in the military, businesses and government and who consider Thailand as theirs); and the palace (a term used for people around the monarchy).
And Thaksin is the figure the power that be fears the most. “... in 2005, Thaksin grew to be a threat to the so-called establishment, as his influence at the time undeniably wielded itself across the board – in politics, business, bureaucracy and through his classmates in the military,” wrote Suranand in his column Let It Be.
(Thaksin is a former police officer who studied at the Armed Forces Academies Preparatory School.) Hewison said Thailand was facing political turmoil because, for many years, it had an unspoken agreement on how politics was organised.
“Before the 1997 Constitution (described as Thailand’s most liberal), weak coalition governments rose and fell but there was a power structure that organised the way Thailand operated,” the academic explained.
Then came Thaksin, who has never lost in a Thai election and is the only Prime Minister to complete a full elected term. He “usurped” the elite’s power.
“The power that be decided they would not give up their power without a fight,” Hewison said. “In the last two or three elections (Thailand’s April 2006 election was declared invalid by the Constitutional Court), the people who lost did not accept the result and worked to overthrow the result through a coup and judicial intervention,” Hewison said.
The odds are stacked against a victorious Pheu Thai. Even if it wins the most seats, it might not be able to persuade other parties to join it to form a coalition government. The power that be can always stage a “silent coup” by persuading other parties to decline the Pheu Thai invitation.
This happened in 2009 when the prime minister’s post landed on Abhisit’s lap. Chumpol Silpaarcha, leader of Abhisit’s coalition partner, the Chart Thai Pattana Party, has admitted that his party had a “forced marriage” with the Democrats and three other junior parties, Bhum Jai Thai, Puea Pandin and Social Action, and that it was cobbled together by the military.
Even if the Pheu Thai managed to form a government its rule might be short-lived. And the playbook for the downfall of two pro-Thaksin Prime Ministers– Samak Sundaravej and Somchai Wong sawat – could be played out again.
“Yellow Shirts will make a mass street protest. Yingluck will face a legal charge (allegedly for giving false testimony during an asset concealment case involving Thaksin), Pheu Thai (is the reincarnation of the People Power Party which is the reincarnation of Thai Rak Thai) will face a legal charge to dissolve,” Kan predicted.
In short, it will be déjà vu again. And if Abhisit and the Democrats returned to power, the country will revisit the bloody conflict of 2010- 2011. The Red Shirts will return to the streets and Abhisit’s government will deal with them with live bullets. When will it end?
“Whatever we call them – power that be, the elite, the royalists, they have to make the historic compromise,” Hewison opined. “In other countries, the ruling class has done this in the past. They made the compromise and recognised that a democratic form of government is in fact another way of controlling the people.”
How about a coup, which will be Thailand’s 19th since the 1932 revolution that saw the overthrow of the absolute monarchy? “You can’t rule it out. The military would like that to be a sort of a fallback option. General Prayuth has shown himself to be anti-Thaksin, anti-Pheu Thai and anti-Yingluck,” Hewison said.
“If things do not go according to his desires, a coup is on the cards.”
At the 2115 Café on Frederick Douglass Boulevard in Harlem, where the hotel chambermaid who accused Dominique Strauss-Kahn of criminal sexual assault used to spend much of her free time, there are some interesting pictures on the wall. One shows owner Ibrahim “Abe” Fofanah, 46, gripping and grinning with a police captain. Another shows him with New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly.
But pride of place goes to the photograph of Fofanah and Alpha Condé, who was elected last November as president of Guinea, the country from which DSK’s accuser immigrated and requested political asylum. Condé, as it turns out, also has extensive ties to major political players in France, including people close to—wait for it—both President Nicolas Sarkozy and Strauss-Kahn, who had been expected to be the incumbent’s main challenger in next year’s elections. You can see why the conspiracy-minded French find the case so fascinating.
The May 15 arrest of DSK and his subsequent resignation from his powerful position as director of the International Monetary Fund seemed to end his presidential prospects. That was such a lucky break for the very unpopular Sarkozy that many French people found the story incredible to the point of implausibility. Some 57 percent, when polled soon after the arrest, said they thought somebody (the poll didn’t ask who) had set up DSK.
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NYPD detectives initially ordered the arrest of Strauss-Kahn as he was about to leave JFK airport on a flight to Paris because the accuser’s testimony and corroborating accounts gave them probable cause to believe he had committed a serious crime. The charges included criminal sexual assault and attempted rape, and DNA evidence of sexual contact between the accuser and Strauss-Kahn supported the case. Initially, the police did not conduct extensive interviews of the accuser’s close associates in the African community. But the cops did not stop investigating once DSK was arraigned.
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“You want to check everything – everything,” said a law enforcement source familiar with the case who is not authorized to talk on the record. “You have to know if you are going to have something that will hold up in court.” Probable cause is not enough for a jury to convict; guilt must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. “If the further investigation shows that you don’t have that kind of proof,” said the same source, “then you want to show that the NYPD was doing its job.”
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Blake Diallo speaks at a press conference on May 19, 2011, inset: Dominique Strauss-Kahn, May 15, 2011, youtube.com (inset) AP Photos
So, according to this source, more detectives were assigned to look at the accuser’s possible criminal associations. Strauss-Kahn had hired TD International, an international investigating and troubleshooting firm with extensive CIA connections, to dig into the accuser’s background and connections. But the NYPD appears to have turned up the most damaging information first.
As The Daily Beast’s John Solomon confirmed earlier this morning, there were inconsistencies in the accuser’s asylum application when she came to the United States, unusual financial transactions into her personal accounts, and she had contacts with an incarcerated drug suspect. The day after she allegedly suffered the Strauss-Kahn assault, she was recorded talking to the suspect in jail about the possibility of getting money by proceeding with the charges against Strauss-Kahn. According to The New York Times, which first reported the concerns of prosecutors Thursday night, the woman had five different phones and had received as much as $100,000 into her accounts in the last two years from the man in prison and others, although those were not thought to be linked in any way to the DSK case.
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While the accuser’s ties to these alleged criminal elements did raise serious doubts, law enforcement sources say they have not come across anything to suggest a premeditated conspiracy.
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While the accuser’s ties to these alleged criminal elements did raise serious doubts, law enforcement sources say they have not come across anything to suggest a premeditated conspiracy.
The links of 2115 Café owner Fofanah to the accuser were self-proclaimed almost from the beginning. Fofanah is a successful entrepreneur and an indefatigable self-promoter who initially made money running a courier service that served the garment district and subsequently opened the café precisely to make it a social center for the West African community in New York, which is thought to number at least 60,000.
Just two days after Strauss-Kahn’s arrest, Fofanah and the restaurant manager, Blake Diallo, held a press conference on Frederick Douglass Boulevard to vouch for the woman’s character. She was a simple mother, they said, just trying to raise her teenage daughter in peace. Diallo described himself then as her brother, but later said that was just a manner of speaking; in fact he was just a friend. She is from Guinea and Blake Diallo is from Senegal, but both are from the large Fulla ethnic group, which spans several West African countries. It was Diallo who got the accuser her first lawyer, Jeffrey Shapiro. “He found him on the Internet,” said Fofanah. “He’s now off the case.” The accuser has been represented since last month by the more high-powered firm of Thompson-Wigdor.
Over a long lunch of okra and rice with Fofanah and Diallo at the 2115 last month, they continued to express their support for the woman, but with a certain reserve. “We don’t know the details,” said Fofanah, “but the message the community is sending is that we stand with her until all the facts are out.” When I reached Fofanah by phone early this morning, he said he had heard about the new developments in the case but said, “I don’t know anything about it.”
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Christopher Dickey is the Paris bureau chief and Middle East editor for Newsweek Magazine and The Daily Beast. He is the author of six books, including Summer of Deliverance, and most recently Securing the City: Inside America's Best Counterterror Force—the NYPD.
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Thailand's rival political camps launched a last-minute appeal for votes on Saturday, on the eve of a hard-fought election seen as crucial to the future of the kingdom after years of often bloody unrest
The two main parties contesting Thailand's parliamentary election on Sunday have proposed strikingly similar policies that focus heavily on winning over the rural poor, building up infrastructure and other populist measures.
Below are the election promises of the Democrats, who lead the outgoing government coalition, and the main opposition party, Puea Thai:
DEMOCRAT PARTY
Its "Moving Thailand Forward" pledges include:
- Raise daily minimum wage by 25 percent in two years from current levels of 159-221 baht ($5-7), depending on the region, and improve labor skills
- Give land title deeds to 250,000 farmers on state land
- Free universal quality medical treatment and childcare centers in every area
- Twelve electric train lines and high-speed rail links to the north, south and the eastern seaboard
- Extend subsidies on diesel and cooking gas prices, and provide some free electricity for low-income households
- Raise farm incomes by 25 percent through subsidies for fertilizer, with financial guarantees for farm production
- Two-year interest-free mortgages for first-home buyers
- Free education up to 18 years, soft education loans for 250,000 university students, $12 billion approved for a six-year education reform plan.
- Ease financial burden of 1 million small borrowers by extending state refinancing of personal debts owed to non-conventional creditors outside the banking system.
- Expand social safety net to include 25 million farmers and workers, covering illness, disability or death
- Give pension to those over 60 years of age; grant monthly living allowance for elderly people
- Double production of alternative energy, especially solar, turbine and bio-gas
- Expand national 3G broadband networks to link all districts in Thailand
- Anti-drug campaign.
- The Democrats and Puea Thai agree on indefinitely suspending plans for nuclear power in Thailand. Thailand's first nuclear plant had been scheduled for 2020 but plans were frozen after Japan's nuclear disaster.
PUEA THAI PARTY
Policy pledges include:
- Guarantee a uniform daily minimum wage of 300 baht ($10) throughout the country; this would rise to 1,000 baht by 2020.
- Raise salaries of civil servants and state workers
- Universal medical care; patients pay 30 baht ($0.97) per visit
- Credit cards for farmers to buy fertilizer and other things needed for production; rice intervention scheme with a guaranteed 15,000-20,000 baht per tonne for unmilled rice
- Three-year household debt moratorium for those with up to 500,000 baht in debt, focusing on teachers, farmers and civil servants; debt restructuring for those with more than 500,000 baht.
- Starting monthly salary of 15,000 baht ($500) for new university graduates, up from the current 10,640 baht.
- Free tablet computers for about 800,000 new school children each year. Puea Thai says these would cost 5,000 baht ($160) each and operate with open-source software.
- Corporate tax cut from 30 percent to 23 percent in first year, 20 percent in second year
- Tax cuts for buyers of first homes and first cars
- A flat 20 baht fare for all 10 mass transit rail lines in Bangkok
- Promote Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport as regional hub
- High-speed rail lines linking key cities in the north, northeast, east and upper south regions. Trains to link with outskirts of Bangkok and eastern tourism, industrial hubs
- Annual rural village development funds of between 300,000 and two million baht for each of Thailand's 73,000 villages.
- Monthly welfare allowance of 600 baht for elderly citizens of over 60, rising to 700 baht at 70, 800 baht at 80, and 1,000 baht at 90
- Free Wi-Fi and Internet connections in public places.
- Build 30-km (18-mile) anti-flooding levees to protect Bangkok and satellite towns from tide surges around the Gulf of Thailand
- Special administrative status for southern Muslim provinces
- Campaign to wipe out illicit drugs ($1 = 31 baht)
(Compiled by Martin Petty, Vithoon Amorn and Orathai Sriring; Editing by Alan Raybould)
Thais vote on Sunday in a general election that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva hopes will settle a long-running political conflict in the deeply divided country.
Below are some facts about the election and how a government will be formed.
DEMOCRATIC UPHEAVAL
- The election will be Thailand's 26th since it became a democracy in 1932, ending seven centuries of absolute monarchy. It has since been governed by 17 constitutions and has experienced 18 military coups -- actual and attempted -- the latest in 2006, which overthrew telecoms tycoon Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai party (TRT)
- TRT is the only Thai political party to win a second term in office, as a result of landslides in 2001 and 2005. The party was dissolved for electoral fraud after the coup. Its latest incarnation is the Puea Thai Party, which remains under Thaksin's control from exile.
KEY FIGURES
- 47 million eligible voters among Thailand's estimated 67 million people. The turnout in recent polls has been relatively high at 74.5 percent (2007), 60 percent (2005) and 70 percent (2001).
- There are 557 polling stations across the country.
- 42 parties have signed up to take part in the election. Seven parties won parliamentary seats in the 2007 poll.
- Lawmakers are elected for a four-year term.
- 500 seats are up for grabs, an increase of 20 from the 2007 election. There will be 375 constituency seats available from 76 provinces and the capital, Bangkok, which has a quota of 33 of those seats. The remaining 125 seats will be decided by the party list vote.
THE BALLOT
- Voters will tick two boxes on their ballots, one for their preferred constituency candidate and another for their preferred party at a national level; the latter decides who gets "party list" seats, allocated according to the percentage of votes each party gets. Each has nominated a list of candidates for their party list quotas. There is no minimum percentage required to win one of these 125 party list seats.
- Polling stations will be open from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. (0100-0800 GMT) on Sunday. Results will be announced from each constituency and a clear indication of which party will finish first should be known by about 8 p.m. (1300 GMT).
FORMING A GOVERNMENT
- According to the 2007 constitution, the new parliament must convene within 30 days of the poll to select a house speaker. There are then another 30 days in which to hold a vote on who will be prime minister. However, the entire process is normally completed within one month of the poll.
- In the event that no party wins a majority of more than 250 seats, the party with most seats, or a plurality, will be given first chance to form a coalition government with other parties.
- If the party that wins a plurality is unable to form a coalition, the second-placed party gets a chance.
(Compiled by Martin Petty; Editing by Alan Raybould and Nick Macfie)
Below are the main contestants (Seats in recently dissolved parliament in square brackets).
DEMOCRAT PARTY
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's party has not won a general election in two decades and only came to power in a parliamentary vote in 2008 after the previous ruling party was dissolved by the courts.
The Democrats have strong support in the south and Bangkok and are popular with middle-class voters. It is seen as the most capable party for handling the economy.
While the Democrats enjoy backing from the conservative elite and the military's top brass, they have struggled to win over the poor, the majority of Thai voters.
Hence, the party has launched a series of populist programs to try to broaden its support.
PUEA THAI PARTY (For Thais Party)
Puea Thai is the latest incarnation of ousted former premier Thaksin Shinawatra's Thai Rak Thai Party, which won election landslides in 2001 and 2005. Thaksin controls Puea Thai from self-imposed exile in Dubai and its campaign is built around his image and his populist policies. His sister, Yingluck, a 44-year-old businesswoman, is its candidate to be prime minister.
Puea Thai's stronghold is the vote-rich north and northeast and it has the backing of the powerful "red shirts," a protest movement of the rural and urban poor. However, that association may be a turn-off for swing voters, as might Puea Thai's idea of a possible general amnesty that would help Thaksin return home, a scenario that could trigger more turmoil.
Early opinion polls show Puea Thai has a comfortable lead over the Democrats, but the party has powerful enemies among the establishment and military elite and might have difficulty forming a coalition.
BHUMJAI THAI PARTY (Pride of Thailand Party)
The second-biggest partner in the ruling coalition, Bhumjai Thai is controlled by influential power-broker Newin Chidchob, a right-hand-man to Thaksin before turning against him. The party has formed an alliance with the Chart Thai Pattana Party to gain political leverage in anticipation of a new coalition, however, that deal is seen more as rhetoric than a reality.
Bhumjai Thai politicians were implicated in numerous corruption scandals that dogged Abhisit's government. It has a fierce rivalry with Puea Thai. Many of its lawmakers are former Thaksin allies who defected and Puea Thai members have ruled out the possibility of the two parties forming a coalition. Early polls suggest Bhumjai Thai has not increased its support.
Its policy pledges include a 2 percentage point cut in value-added tax, a crop price guarantee fund for farmers and monthly payments for the elderly and medical volunteers.
CHART THAI PATTANA PARTY (Thai Nation Development Party)
Controlled by banned politician Banharn Silpa-archa, Chart Thai Pattana enjoys solid support in the central region and is promoting national reconciliation to appeal to Thais fed up with constant political upheaval. With Banharn's deal-making skills, it will be central to any horse-trading if another coalition is on the cards. Most analysts say Chart Thai is the most likely party to agree to join a Puea Thai-led coalition. However, Banharn's record suggests his loyalty can never be guaranteed.
CHART PATTANA PUEA PANDIN PARTY (Nation Development for the Homeland Party)
A new party that is effectively an amalgamation of two coalition members, Ruam Jai Thai Chart Pattana and Puea Pandin, and run by banned politician Suwat Liptapanlop. It is using fuel subsidies, sports development and a drive to take Thailand to the soccer World Cup to draw voters, fielding soccer stars and former Olympic medalists as candidates. Suwat is a former ally of Thaksin and is seen as another potential coalition partner if Puea Thai beats the Democrats by a big enough margin.
MATABHUM PARTY (Motherland Party)
Led by 2006 coup-maker General Sonthi Boonyaratakalin, Matabhum's target voters are ethnic Malay Muslims in the south, home to a violent separatist movement. It is aiming for eight of the 11 seats available, which would be a blow to the Democrats.
RAK SANTI PARTY (Peace Lovers Party)
Ex-policeman Purachai Piumsombun, who co-founded Thai Rak Thai with erstwhile ally Thaksin, has made a comeback with this new party and could garner some support with his clean image as a former social order crusader. Rak Santi members deny the party is a nominee to help Puea Thai by splitting the vote in Bangkok, a Democrat stronghold that offers 33 seats in parliament.
RAK PRATHET THAI PARTY (Love Thailand Party)
A new party led by former massage parlor tycoon and self-styled graft-buster Chuwit Kamolvisit, Thailand's most colorful politician. His celebrity status and comical marketing campaign have earned his tiny party a good showing in opinion polls, illustrating his appeal among voters bored by politics.
SOCIAL ACTION PARTY
Part of the current coalition with just one portfolio, the party has kept a low profile so far.
(Compiled by Martin Petty; Editing by Jason Szep)
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