Bangkok....
Ukraine......
http://rt.com/news/ukraine-clashes-protest-law-858/
( updates... )
Explosion rocks Bangkok opposition protests, as army calls for talks
Two blasts at an anti-government rally in Bangkok have left at least 28 protesters injured, some seriously. As the protests go on despite previous assaults, Thailand's army chief is urging the government and opposition to negotiate.
The first explosion near Victory Monument, in the north of the city, where protesters continue to rally ceaselessly, went off some 200 meters from a stage set up by opposition activists. Police believe the explosion was caused by frag grenades.
The 28 injured protesters were brought to four different hospitals in the city, according to the Bangkok Emergency Medical Center. Seven are in critical condition.
Another blast happened minutes later near vendors selling anti-government T-shirts, reportedly injuring two of them.
"The first blast I heard was from behind the stage," Reuters reported Teerawut Utakaprechanun as saying.
"People were looking around. I saw the security guards running after a suspect. After one minute I heard another bomb blast."
Protesters who run several round-the-clock demonstrations in Bangkok since November 2013 are being increasingly targeted by unknown malefactors.
On Friday a frag grenade thrown into group of marching opposition activists killed one and wounded at least 35 demonstrators.
On Saturday night, shooting took place some 300 meters from a stage used by protesters. A 54-year-old volunteer guard was seriously wounded in the back and remains in intensive care after undergoing surgery.
Also, police reported that small quantities of explosives were thrown at protest leaders’ homes.
Since November, the death toll of both protesters and police has reached nine.
Tensions are rising in the 12-million Thai capital ahead of the elections called to quell the latest political crisis, which started in November. The anti-government protesters are demanding that Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and her government quit.
Yet unlike similar protests in 2010, the pro-government ‘red-shirt’ demonstrators so far have not appeared on the streets of Bangkok, which definitely helps to prevent otherwise inevitable factional clashes. But this could change.
After PM Shinawatra assigned early elections on February 2, demonstrators’ major aim is to disrupt the elections, since the results of a national poll might not be in favor of the opposition. The main opposition Democrat Party has already announced it is going to boycott the elections.
As the date of the elections gets closer, the violence is intensifying, which raises suspicions that the Thai army might step in to put the unrest to an end. The Thai Army has staged 16 successful coups (and two failed ones) since the Thai monarchy ceased to be an absolute monarchy in 1932.
The latest coup in 2006 deposed the then-PM Thaksin Shinawatra, elder brother of the current Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. After the coup, Thaksin had to leave the country for “voluntary” exile and is still unable to return, even with his sister being a PM.
Yet as of today the army seems to be reluctant to interfere.
“The relationship between the government and the army is normal,” Thai top commander Thanasak Patimapakorn declared on Saturday after the country’s Army Day parade. He stressed that all sides must respect the law.
“I request that all sides should come together and talk to find a solution,” Thanasak said.
In an interview with the daily paper Bangkok Post, Thanasak said he had no interest in becoming prime minister or acting as mediator.
Since 2001 poor rural population of Thailand has been supporting Shinawatra clan, ensuring victory in every election. In contrast with rural Thailand, the urban population backed by country’s royalist elites and army, usually votes against “tribunes of the people,” which the opposition accuses of corruption and being a threat to democracy and power structures.
Ukraine......
http://rt.com/news/ukraine-clashes-protest-law-858/
( updates... )
Ukrainian protesters clashed with police in Kiev after at least 10,000 people took to Independence Square for an anti-government demonstration. Police retaliation with tear gas and water cannons was prompted by an attempt to storm the government quarter.
What started as a peaceful demonstration on the city’s Independence Square, or Maidan, with heated anti-government slogans being shouted and the announcement that the opposition was creating a“people’s assembly,” turned into violent clashes with the police later Sunday.
Protesters wearing orange helmets and wielding sticks and flares clashed with cordons of security forces surrounding government buildings and attempted to turn over a police bus. According to police, radical activists were also throwing smoke grenades.
Protesters wearing orange helmets and wielding sticks and flares clashed with cordons of security forces surrounding government buildings and attempted to turn over a police bus. According to police, radical activists were also throwing smoke grenades.
Witnesses from the scene reported that one of the policemen was dragged out of the cordon and beaten by several masked people, and then taken to a tent in Maidan for medical treatment by other protesters. Police officials later reported that he suffered head injuries, broken ribs and nose and has been taken to hospital in “a state of shock.”
A water canon was deployed to the scene of the clashes by the police, but has so far been used only once against those attacking the security cordon. The protesters have particularly been keen to discuss the armored vehicle on the Internet as the temperature in Kiev lowered to a freezing -7 degrees Celsius.
Brutal video: Protesters beating up police officers in Kiev
The footage showed a police bus fully ablaze, with fears voiced that it might explode. Eventually demonstrators formed a human cordon around the burning bus trying to stop people approaching it. A total of three police vehicles were damaged in the unrest.
Others, however, continued to incite the crowd, drumming away with hammers on canisters and shouting slogans like “Revolution!” or “Down with the gang!”
Twitter users and Ukrainian opposition figures decried the most aggressive protesters as “provocateurs”and called on them to stop provoking the police.
Teargas, fire, smoke as clashes erupt between police and protesters in Kiev
Ukrainian protesters clashed with police in central Kiev after at least 10,000 people took to Independence Square for an anti-government demonstration. Police retaliation was prompted by an attempt to storm the government quarter.
What started as a peaceful demonstration on the city’s Independence Square, or Maidan, with heated anti-government slogans being shouted and the announcement that the opposition was creating a “people’s assembly,” turned into violent clashes with the police later Sunday.
Protesters wearing orange helmets and wielding sticks and flares clashed with cordons of security forces surrounding government buildings and attempted to turn over a police bus. According to police, radical activists were also throwing smoke grenades.
Protesters wearing orange helmets and wielding sticks and flares clashed with cordons of security forces surrounding government buildings and attempted to turn over a police bus. According to police, radical activists were also throwing smoke grenades.
Live feeds showed riot police retaliating by throwing flash grenades from behind the cordon, as Twitter exploded with reports of Berkut special police forces readying to forcefully disperse the crowd and water cannon approaching the area. While such reports are not uncommon during mass protests in Kiev, they often prove to be deliberate false alarms.
As tension grew, media reports said police used teargas to push back the crowd.
Later, some of the protesters started breaking up the pavement, arming themselves with rubble.
The footage showed another police bus fully ablaze, with fears voiced that it might explode. Eventually demonstrators formed a human cordon around the burning bus trying to stop people approaching it.
Others, however, continued to incite the crowd, drumming away with hammers on canisters and shouting slogans like “Revolution!” or “Down with the gang!”
Twitter users and Ukrainian opposition figures decried the most aggressive protesters as “provocateurs” and called on them to stop provoking the police.
Hi Fred,
ReplyDeleteI think I caught up on reading, hope you are having a good weekend.
Good afternoon !
DeleteWell , there was a lot on the plate to catch up on ! Lol
Hope all is well , have been catching up on rest the last couple of days ( had a brutal travel schedule related to work ! )