Bombs rattle Bangkok during Asean summit, wounding four

BANGKOK–Several small bombs exploded across Bangkok on Friday, rattling the Thai capital as it hosted a regional summit attended by US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and leaving four people wounded but not disrupting the diplomatic event.

Thailand, which has a grim history of political violence, remains deeply divided after a controversial March election returned a junta to power as a civilian government.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha, who led the junta, blamed the bombs on “ill-intended people inciting violence” to “destroy peace and the country’s image”, while top Association of Southeast Asian Nation diplomats and their US and Chinese counterparts are in town.

Small devices — believed to be so-called “ping pong bombs” around the size of a table tennis ball — exploded at several locations across the city, all far from the summit venue.

Urging the public not to panic, Prayut said security had been tightened across the capital.

The blasts appeared to be symbolic attacks aimed at embarrassing the government during the major summit but not designed to cause mass casualties.


“Three people received slight injuries from shrapnel,” said Renu Suesattaya, director of Suanluang district where the first bombs were reported.

“I received a report that they are ‘ping pong bombs’ hidden in bushes by the road.”

An emergency service hotline later said a fourth person had been hospitalized.

Two further explosions shattered glass near a well-known downtown skyscraper, emergency police added.

Bomb disposal experts were deployed around the Mahanakorn Tower — owned by the King Power group that counts Leicester City football club among its assets.

‘Democratic fold’

The bombings took place just before a keynote speech by America’s top diplomat Pompeo, in which he praised Thailand for rejoining the “democratic fold” after five years of outright junta rule.

Thailand’s government urged the media to avoid speculation on the motive for the bombings.

“We do not know yet how many people are involved,” deputy prime minister Prawit Wongsuwon told reporters.

The blasts come weeks after former junta leader Prayut was inaugurated as a civilian prime minister, sparking outcry among many pro-democracy supporters in a kingdom scored by divisions.

The junta maneuvered itself back into power with the help of a fully appointed senate stacked with army loyalists and an electoral system its critics say was designed to limit the success of the pro-democracy parties.

A slew of court cases since then targeting an emergent anti-military group have rankled government critics, especially younger voters.

The older “Red Shirt” pro-democracy group has also reacted with outrage to the election, but has so far remained off the streets with the army seemingly in an unassailable position.

Mass protests, coups and short-lived governments have defined Thailand’s recent history, which is peppered with deadly bombings and shootings linked to politics, often by shadowy forces that are never held accountable for their crimes.

Thailand’s last hosting of Asean in 2009 was also overshadowed by unrest. 



Then, “Red Shirt” protesters smashed their way into the summit venue in the resort city of Pattaya demanding elections.

Pandemonium ensued, with a number of leaders having to be rescued from a hotel roof by Thai army helicopters while others fled by boat.

Thailand is also fighting a long-running insurgency in its Muslim-majority southernmost provinces, which occasionally spreads outside the conflict area.

Paul Chambers, a political analyst at Naresuan University, said regardless of who the perpetrators are “they are trying to delegitimize, discredit and destabilize the Thailand summit and embarrass Thailand as hosts.”

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Thailand to host 2018 Miss Universe pageant

BANGKOK — Thailand will host the 2018 Miss Universe beauty pageant, organizers said Tuesday.

The Miss Universe Organization said in a statement that it has granted “sole proprietorship” to a Thai investment firm to host the pageant this December.

Thailand has hosted the competition twice before, most recently in 2005, when it was won by Miss Universe Canada, Natalie Glebova. She afterward settled in Thailand.

Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha welcomed the organizers’ choice of Thailand.

“It’s a good thing that their officials see Thailand’s potential,” Prayuth said. “If we can organize it and there are no problems with various agreements, then the government is happy to support it.”

Prayuth said the Ministry of Tourism and Sports would be responsible for overseeing the event and arranging details of how it will be organized.

Organizers said Miss Universe 2018 will be a three-hour event broadcast live on Dec. 16. /ee

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Thai govt: Suspect identified in 'worst ever' bombing

Thailand's junta leader said Tuesday a suspect had been identified in the bombing of a packed Bangkok religious shrine, condemning the blast that killed at least 20 people as the "worst ever attack" on the kingdom.

The blast occurred on Monday in one of the Thai capital's most popular tourism hubs, ripping through a crowd of worshippers at the Hindu shrine close to five-star hotels and upscale shopping malls.

Chinese, Hong Kong, Singaporean, Indonesian and Malaysian citizens were among the 20 people killed, police said.

More than 100 other people were injured as the blast left body parts strewn across crushed pavement, alongside shattered windows and incinerated motorcycles.

Junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha on Tuesday branded the bombing the "worst ever attack" on Thailand, as he said the hunt was on for a suspicious man filmed on closed circuit television near the shrine.

"Today there is a suspect... we are looking for this guy," Prayut told reporters.

Police released CCTV footage showing the apparently young man in a yellow T-shirt walking near the shrine wearing a backpack, but then a short time later walking away without it.

"Things are becoming clearer now," Defence Minisiter Prawit Wongsuwon told reporters, although he declined to give details and authorities did not reveal if they had any motives for the attack.

Bangkok has endured a decade of deadly political violence amid a power struggle between the military, backed by the middle class and elite, and the poor led by populist politician Thaksin Shinawatra.

He is living in self-imposed exile after being ousted as premier in 2006. The junta has ruled the nation since May last year after toppling the elected government of Thaksin's sister, Yingluck.

Bangkok's power struggle has seen repeated rounds of deadly street protests and bombings for nearly a decade.

More than 90 people were killed in 2010 during clashes between security forces and Thaksin supporters -- many in the same area as Monday's bomb.

But the anti-junta groups have never conducted such a large attack, nor one that was apparently aimed at a tourist zone.

No obvious culprit

And with no-one claiming responsibility for Monday's assault, political and security experts said there was no obvious culprit.

Zachary Abuza, an independent expert on Thai security, told AFP he doubted it was in the interests of the anti-junta groups to carry out such an attack.

"Even if they are hell-bent on bringing down the government I just can't see them targeting a Hindu or any other religious shrine," Zachary Abuza, an independent expert on Thai security, told AFP.

"That would really alienate many of their supporters."

Muslim rebels from the country's far south have also waged a separatist insurgency for more than a decade that has claimed thousands of lives, mostly civilians.

But they have never been known to carry out substantial attacks in Bangkok, and Abuza as well as other analysts said Monday's bombing did not follow the insurgents' typical modus operandi.

Paul Chambers, director of research at the Institute of South East Asian Affairs in Thailand, said groups with links to military factions also had to be considered as potential suspects.

Various Islamic militant groups have also carried out many attacks in other parts of Southeast Asia, including on Indonesia's holiday island of Bali in 2002 that killed 202 people.

But they have not made Thailand a prime target.

Tourists 'targeted'

Junta leaders said the bomb was obviously aimed at damaging the country's tourist industry, which is a rare bright spot in an otherwise gloomy economy, and tarnishing the junta's reputation.

"(The attackers) had the clear target of destroying our economy and tourism.... and discrediting the government," Wongsuwon, the defence minister, told reporters.

Thailand's baht currency slumped to a more than six-year low on Tuesday and shares fell in Bangkok over concerns the attack could damage the tourism sector.

Built in 1956, the Erawan is an enormously popular shrine to the Hindu god Brahma but is visited by thousands of Buddhist devotees every day.

The bomb was detonated shortly before 7:00 pm (1200 GMT) in the middle of the city's rush hour, sending a fireball into the sky as commuters and tourists fled in panic.

Thais walking near the blast site on Tuesday expressed fear about more potential violence in the coming days.

"I'm worried about Bangkok, I don't know what will happen next," one woman, who gave her name as Rivewan, told AFP.

Adding to the tensions, a small explosion struck near a busy Bangkok train station on Tuesday afternoon, but police said nobody was injured.

Around 1,000 people queued for hours at a blood donation centre near the blast site on Tuesday, many crying as they waited to be seen by nurses.

"This shouldn't have happened to the Thai people," Pongchai Kulsitthiwong, a 45-year-old mobile phone seller told AFP, tears rolling down his cheeks while waiting to give blood.

Monday's attack drew quick expressions of grief from around the world. The US government released a statement warning its citizens to avoid the area, while also voicing sympathy for the victims. —Agence France-Presse

source: gmanetwork.com

A Filipino among dozens killed in Bangkok bombing –Thai police

BANGKOK  -  A Filipino was among the 27 people killed when a bomb on a motorcycle exploded on Monday just outside a Hindu shrine in the Thai capital, media reported, in an attack the government said was a bid to destroy the economy.

Two people from China and one from the Philippines were among the dead, a tourist police officer said. Domestic media said 27 people had been killed, 10 of them men and 17 women.

Police said 78 people were wounded. Media said most of them were from China and Taiwan.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast at the Erawan shrine at a major city-center intersection. Thai forces are fighting a low-level Muslim insurgency in the predominantly Buddhist country's south, but those rebels have rarely launched attacks outside their ethnic Malay heartland.

"The perpetrators intended to destroy the economy and tourism, because the incident occurred in the heart of the tourism district," Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan told Reuters.

The Erawan shrine, on a busy corner near top hotels, shopping centers, offices and a hospital, is a major attraction, especially for visitors from East Asia, including China. Many ordinary Thais also worship there.

The government would set up a "war room" to coordinate the response to the blast, the Nation television channel quoted Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha as saying.

"It was like a meat market," said Marko Cunningham, a New Zealand paramedic working with a Bangkok ambulance service, who said the blast had left a two-meter-wide (6-foot-) crater.

"There were bodies everywhere. Some were shredded. There were legs where heads were supposed to be. It was horrific," Cunningham said, adding that people several hundred metres away had been injured.

POLITICAL TENSION

At the scene, authorities ordered onlookers back, saying they were checking for a second bomb.

"We are now looking for another two to three bombs, as we have found one suspicious object," national police chief Prawut Thawornsiri told Reuters.

"There could be another explosion, so we have blocked off the crime scene and are asking bystanders to move back."

Authorities stepped up security checks at some major city intersections and in tourist areas.

While initial suspicion might fall on Muslim separatists in the south, Thailand has been riven for a decade by an intense and sometimes violent struggle for power between political factions in Bangkok.

Occasional small blasts have been blamed on one side or the other. Two pipe bombs exploded outside a luxury shopping mall in the same area in February, but caused little damage.

Police said that attack was aimed at raising tension when the city was under martial law.

The army has ruled Thailand since May 2014, when it ousted an elected government after months of at times violent anti-government protests.

The shrine intersection was the site of months of anti-government protests in 2010 by supporters of ousted former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Dozens were killed in a military crackdown and a shopping centre was set ablaze.  — Reuters