Thailand

So we have a few members in Thailand or from Thailand, as well as me who lived in Thailand and still visits. We hear a lot of news going on tv about Thailand and the chaos now. It was a long battle of red shirts vs yellow shirts. I wanted to share what I felt to be useful and accurate links to help those who don't understand what's going on. First an article which describes the entire situation, you must read both pages to completely understand: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/05/19/what_the_heck_is_going_on_in_thailand In that article Red shirts are the ones who support Thaksin, though not all red shirts support thaksin, some are just fighting for democracy because their government was taken over by the minority. The minority are the yellow shirts. They were the ones a while back who protested at the airport stopping all flights in and out of the international bangkok airport. They protested and the government decided to kick out the current prime minister and voted for a new prime minister, not a full on election though. Now Red want their full on election and that's what they are fighting for, to have it NOW. So the red had been protesting for a while, in the streets and sit-ins and now the government is starting to crack down. Daily red shirts are being killed and injured by gunfire presumably from the soldiers. This has caused a lot of pressure on the red shirt leaders. This added pressure and threats from the government has caused red shirt leaders to forfeit and turn themselves in to the police. What happened after that I don't completely know, however that same day there are reports of a hostile military force attacking unarmed red shirts as well as red shirts burning down buildings. It's turned into chaos. Here is a report from a reporter who was shot with a shotgun while sitting in a temple full of injured red shirt supporters: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/thailand-crisis-dodging-bullets-at-a-buddhist-temple-1977647.html Here is a series of large photos of the engagement, be careful, some might be graphic: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2010/05/crackdown_in_bangkok.html Central World Burnt down: http://twitpic.com/1pb8dj http://twitpic.com/1pb9yf http://twitpic.com/1pb89k http://twitpic.com/1pb9je MK Restaraunt: http://tweetphoto.com/23166238 The government has shut down a lot of media including tv stations and some people claim they are blocked from facebook and twitter. This is quickly turning into like what the Chinese government did during the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989. The Thai government has already brought in tanks as well. Hope this helps those who are interested in the situation. I will continue to edit this post and post more when I find it. Also, earlier, there was a general named Seh Daeng who sided with red shirts. He shook hands with red shirts and after a interview with a foreign reporter he was shot in the head by a sniper somewhere. Here is the video. Note it was after the interview so cameras were turned off and had to be turned back on, but many videos because many reporters in the area: [b]Seh Daeng Alive[/b] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJLIus5GLBs&feature=related [b]Seh Daeng Shot in Head[/b] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szwxa0YmdVY [b]Some other youtube videos[/b] Yellow shirts protesting at the airport when the red shirt prime minister was in power. The protests halted all airport operations and in the end the yellow was successful when the military came and forced the prime minister out of office: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UX10svbb8V8 Here is the red shirts protesting, they were unsuccessful and the military recently moved into their camp causing a huge conflict: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hfcheoUHluo&feature=related Tribute to red shirts who were killed protesting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fHhiz3-q834&playnext_from=TL&videos=NLOvvvy-lCo

I live here and I am just staying home and out of trouble - it doesn't seem so dangerous if you stay away from the main areas, although they did burn down 7-11 that's only a few hundred meters down the street from my home.

thanks 4my, i understand a little bit about what's going on now there is always trouble when political systems change over, especialy when changing to democracy

Yeah, I hope they are successful in changing over the government, the current prime minister shouldn't even be prime minister in my opinion. It's like a democratic president in America gets kicked out and then we put in a republican president to replace him... That's completely ridiculous.