Thai Army Seizes Power in Coup, Arrests Former Prime Minister

The commander of Thailand's military has ousted Thailand's civilian government in Bangkok in the midst or months-long demonstrations between 'redshirt' supporters of the caretaker government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and antigovernment factions. In a televised statement, Thai Army chief General Prayuth Chan-ocha said he had taken power because of a months-long impasse between the government and opposition demonstrators and also due to "the violence in Bangkok and many parts of the country that resulted in loss of innocent lives and property, [which] was likely to escalate""

The military also announced that the 2007 Constitution would be suspended, except for the chapter pertaining to the Thai monarchy. General Chan-ocha is described as pro-monarchy and served in the Queen's Guards Regiment and was involved in a 2006 coup that toppled the government of then PM Thaksin Shinawatra, who is the brother of the Yingluck Shinawatra.

With the coup announcement, the Thai Army also announced that they are imposing martial law and a nationwide 10 PM to 5 AM Curfew. In Bangkok, the Army took PM Shinawatra and her cabinet into custody and moved to disperse pro-government 'redshirt' encampments as well as antigovernment demonstrations.

In late 2013, PM Shinawatra dissolved the House of Representatives and called for general elections on Feb 2nd. However, the elections could not take place that day due to widespread protests. Thailand's Constitutional Court then revoked the elections in March and earlier this month had unanimously voted to remove Yingluck and some of her ministers from office.

Yingluck Shinawatra's Pheu Thai party won more than half the seats for the House of Representatives of Thailand in 2011, making her Thailand's first female prime minister and also its youngest at age 43. Both Yingluck and Thaksin enjoyed heavy support from the predominantly rural north, although wealthy and middle class Thais from around the capital often dismiss them and their Pheu Thai colleagues as backwards and corrupt.

The Thai Army has staged at least a dozen coups since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932.

Ten Days Later, Still No Answers on Whereabouts of Missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370

More than ten days after a Malaysian Airlines 777-200 vanished from radar, investigators are no closer to finding the missing airliner than they were the weekend Kuala Lumpur to Beijing Flight MH370 disappeared. Apparently the first three days were spent looking for signs of the downed airliner in the wrong ocean, as both the Malaysian and Thai military radar tracked an unidentified aircraft on a westward trajectory across the Malay peninsula shortly after air traffic controllers in Malaysia and Vietnam had lost track of MH370.

Since the March 8th disappearance, every new development has seemingly been a false lead or raised more questions than answers. Theoretically the aircraft could be on the bottom of the Indian Ocean or at a remote landing strip anywhere between Kazakhstan and the Australian Outback, but there have been no signs of the missing flight since March 8th. My pet theory about the plane being hijacked or intentionally crashed by Islamists working on behalf of Uighurs in western China seems to be not farfetched enough.


However, searchers were erroneously directed to a debris field in the South China Sea after media reports began circulating that a Chinese satellite had snapped images of what appeared to be wreckage and debris on the water- presumably from MH370. Investigators are now convinced that the missing flight banked left and continued westward in an erratic pattern long after the transponder was disabled, heading in the direction of India's remote Nicobar Islands when it was last tracked by radar. According to avionics data that was sent to the engine's manufacturer via satellite, the missing airliner was aloft for at least another four hours. However, the signals sent via satellite could not be used to pinpoint the aircraft's exact location.

Over the weekend, Malaysian officials ruled that Flight MH370's disappearance was due to a deliberate act and was treating the disappearance as a hijacking. Aviation officials believe that the aircraft flew as high as 45,000 feet- beyond the manufacturer's recommended cruising altitude- and at times as low as 4900 feet once it pivoted west.

Villagers along Malaysia's eastern coast reported to local police that they had heard what sounded like a low-flying jet the same night MH370 went missing. Authorities in the Maldives are also investigating a report that fishermen on the southern island of Kuda Huvadhoo saw a white 'jumbo jet' with red stripes flying overhead at a low altitude shortly after dawn- colors consistent with the Malaysia Airlines paint scheme.

Currently, 26 nations- including the USA- are involved in the search for the missing airliner. More than 150 of the 239 passengers and crew on board the vanished airliner were from China and that country has undertaken a search of their western territories in the event that MH370 resumed a northbound trajectory after vanishing.

Investigators are also looking at both the pilot and co-pilot. Captain Zaharie Ahmad Shah had more than 30 years flight experience and had built a home-made flight simulator at his suburban Kuala Lumpur residence. On Monday, police raided Shah's residence and were combing through the flight simulator for any possible clues. Shortly after the plane's disappearance, an Australian TV report claimed that MH370's co-pilot, Fariq Abdul Hamid, had allowed an Australian woman and her friend into the cockpit during a December 2011 flight from Phuket, Thailand to Kuala Lumpur, representing a major security breach.

Rising Thai Floodwaters Reach Bangkok

Flooded highway interchange at Pathum Thani north of Bangkok on October 20

Knee high floodwaters began inundating outlying sections and neighborhoods of the Thai capital this week as officials warned resident to move their belongings to higher ground.

Knee-high floods began to appear in some outer districts of the city, a day after authorities said they would take the risky move of releasing some waters that had been building up in recent days behind barricades fashioned along the city's northern outskirts. The idea is to let some waters run through the canals that crisscross Bangkok to escape to the sea, but it was unknown whether the operation could be executed without inundating large parts of the capital.

In Thailand, more than 200 major highways and roads are now impassable, while several key industrial estates have been inundated. Damages are expected to tally at least $6 billion and shave up to two percentage points off gross domestic product, according to economists' estimates. Humanitarian groups said parts of the affected provinces-- covering about a third of Thailand -- are inaccessible, with some towns under water more than six feet high.

There are several industrial parks around Bangkok that provide components for products from companies such as Toyota [NYSE: TM], Apple Computers [NASDAQ: AAPL] , Honda Motors [NYSE: HMC] and Sony [NYSE: SNE] that have halted production at their Thai facilities due to the ongoing flooding, further disrupting supply chains already in disarray from the March 2011 quake and tsunami that struck Japan.

State Railways of Thailand (SRT) passenger tran traversing flooded are near Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Thailand on October 19, 2011. Lerdchai Seangsong photo

Some of the expressways in and out of the capital had literally become parking lots as the high overpasses were the only high ground that the motorists were able to find. Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and over government officials have warned that the floodwaters could take as long as 6 weeks to fully receede.
Earlier this month, the Kingdom's State Railway of Thailand shut down freight and passenger service to two northern cities while more recently it offered tourists refunds on tickets rendered unusable due to suspension of service because of the floods.