The Thai media accused Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of turning the country into a dictatorship today after his government ordered
Posted in General on 21. Oct, 2010
The Thai media accused Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of turning the country into a dictatorship today after his government ordered the expulsion of two foreign journalists for writing a critical article. “Politics there are about caste, corruption and crime, and it was the BJP’s record in government that people ultimately voted on, not the larger national question.”The BJP’s drubbing in Uttar Pradesh is likely to add momentum to the campaign of the so-called “saffron brigade”, Hindu zealots who want to build a temple to the Hindu god Ram on the site of a mosque destroyed 10 years ago in the northern city of Ayodhya.. Hindu hardliners have been increasingly frustrated by their government’s refusal to wield real military muscle against Pakistan, after the attack on the Delhi parliament in December.Though the Indian government accuses Pakistan of supporting an Islamic insurgency in the contested Himalayan state of Kashmir, it has so far bowed to international pressure not to launch an all-out assault on Pakistani territory.”The BJP tried to make the most of national security and Pakistani-backed terrorism but, in the end, local issues defeated them in Uttar Pradesh,” the Indian political commentator Inder Malhotra said. Some critics even accused him of cranking up the anti-Pakistani rhetoric to woo the more extreme elements among voters. The BJP was hoping to extend its five-year tenure by appealing to nationalist sentiments already inflamed by India’s tense stand-off with nuclear rival Pakistan.Before the polling Mr Vajpayee and his party colleagues had been under increasing pressure to play the nationalist card.
Final results from rebellion-torn Manipur, on the Burmese border, are expected today.Although these state assembly election results do not immediately threaten to topple the BJP-led government, they could seriously undermine the authority of the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, making his job of controlling a multi-party coalition all the more fraught.Elections in Uttar Pradesh are widely seen as a litmus test of the national political mood Who controls Uttar Pradesh, they say, controls Delhi. The BJP’s leaders must now decide whether the party can cobble together support for a state coalition government or resign itself to a spell in opposition.The rival Congress party swept to victory in the newly created hill state of Uttaranchal and in the wealthy Punjab. Widely regarded as the Hindu heartland, Uttar Pradesh returned a hung verdict. India’s ruling Hindu nationalist party was last night setting up emergency meetings after its disastrous performance in state elections across the north of the country.
The Bharatiya Janata Party lost control of three states, including the most politically important one, Uttar Pradesh. The most severe of the three sentences was a mere seven days in prison.. Three soldiers were punished for posing for “trophy” photographs as they stood over Israeli Arab shot by mistake at a roadblock last week.
They know that the Israeli army hardly ever punishes its wayward soldiers, and when it does so they are treated with astounding leniency That much has again been made clear. Yesterday’s events will further stoke this.Nor will it assuage the anger of the Palestinians, any more than the prospect of an Israeli inquiry, also announced by the army yesterday. It said that in both cases the soldiers assumed they were under attack.This will not stop a growing tide of criticism within Israel of the army’s conduct, led by more than 200 reservists who have refused to serve in the occupied territories. It accused the drivers of their vehicles of trying to break through a roadblock and ignoring repeated commands from Israeli soldiers to stop.
This weekend, soldiers near Ramallah opened fire on the bullet-proof car of Ahmad Qreia, one of Yasser Arafat’s top officials.The Israeli army yesterday offered detailed explanations for shooting at the two pregnant women. But they are particularly on edge after last week’s attack by Palestinian guerrillas on a West Bank checkpoint last week, in which six soldiers were shot dead.More now than ever, the Palestinians are focusing their attacks on soldiers and settlers inside the occupied territories rather than inside Israel, a trend underscored last night when two gunmen opened fire on a bus stop and injured 10 people – five seriously – in a residential neighbourhood in Neve Yaakov, a Jewish settlement in occupied east Jerusalem.Israeli army checkpoints in the occupied territories have become the scene of regular shootings. Three minutes after arriving in hospital, shortly before dawn, Maysoun gave birth.Israeli soldiers have been trigger-happy throughout the conflict, and have killed hundreds of Palestinian non-combatants, including many children. His father Abdullah was rushed off for surgery; he was on a respirator yesterday.