A California Highway Patrol office was briefly evacuated earlier this month when investigators became concerned that an arrestee might have been carrying a concealed explosive device. When officers collared Steven Ferrini on a drug charge, a search of the 60-year-old suspect turned up "a suspicious wire, with an on/off switch" in his pants pocket. "The wire was found to extend from the pant pocket to the subject's anus," according to a CHP report. "Look out, Clancy! It's gonna blow!"
Though Ferrini claimed that the wire was connected to an anal vibrator, officers became suspicious when he subsequently "began to explain his knowledge of explosives and bomb making."
So they called in El Dorado County's "explosive ordinance disposal" team and, at 5:45 AM, evacuated "all unnecessary personnel" from the CHP's South Lake Tahoe office. At about 9 AM, the bomb squad "rendered the device safe" and determined it was not dangerous.
The report does not indicate why more than three hours passed before the vibrator was found not to be an explosive device.
"The vibrator was subsequently removed and placed into property," according to report, which does not identify the CHP employee tasked with that unfortunate evidence collection responsibility.
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04/20/2010 00:00 ||
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Man loses licence after drink-driving in toy Barbie car
A man who was caught drink-driving in a toy car with a top speed of
4mph has been banned from driving. Paul Hutton, 40, was pulled over by police as he drove an electric Barbie car, which moves slower than a mobility scooter, near his home in Essex.
Mr Hutton, who has four children Simon, 17, Calum, 14, Laina, 12, and John, 11, admitted being a 'complete twit'.
Speaking after the hearing at Colchester magistrates court, he said: "You have to be a contortionist to get in, and then you can't get out. I was very surprised to get done for drink-driving but I was a twit to say the least.
"It is designed for three-to-five-year-olds. Originally it was a pink Barbie car but I put bigger wheels on it but it's not fast.
"I'm not unhappy with my punishment, just a little bit surprised."
Mr Hutton, who is divorced, is a former RAF aeronautical engineer who now studies electrical engineering at Colchester Institute.
He explained: "I'm in the third year of my electrical engineering course and it was a little project I was doing with my son who is doing a car mechanics course. When it was done I couldn't resist the temptation to take it out."
Mr Hutton, was found to be twice the drink-drive limit, he said.
Appearing before magistrates last week, he admitted driving the toy car while drunk.
He was given a mandatory three-year ban because he had received another drink-drive ban within the past ten years. Magistrates also gave him a 12-month conditional discharge and ordered him to pay £85 court costs.
Chairman of the bench Neil Munson said: "This is most unusual. I have never seen the like of it in 15 years on the bench.
"The vehicle is not even capable of doing the speed of a mobility scooter and could be outrun by a pedestrian. Taking this into account, we feel we can impose a sentence of a conditional discharge for a period of 12 months."
The car was confiscated by police until the hearing but Mr Hutton now hopes to get it back.
Posted by: john frum ||
04/20/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
The idiot is probably the police officer who arrested him.
[Dawn] An earthquake of 5.3 magnitude hit central Afghanistan early on Monday, killing at least seven people and wounding more than 30, a provincial official said.
The quake's epicentre was 190 km northwest of the capital Kabul, at a depth of 10 km, the US Geological Survey (USGS) said on its website. The earthquake struck at around 1 a.m. local time.
Ghulam Sakhi, deputy governor of northern Samangan province, where the epicentre was located, said three districts in the area were particularly affected.
"Seven people were killed and 34 have been wounded. Forty houses have collapsed," said Sakhi, adding the casualty toll could increase.
Sakhi said access to one of the three districts had been blocked because of damage caused by the quake and until rescuers were able to approach the area the final toll would not be known.
Mountainous Afghanistan is an earthquake-prone country, with most concentrated in the northeast. Dozens of people were killed in a 5.5 magnitude quake in eastern Afghanistan in April 2009.
In 2002, at least 1,500 people were killed when a series of quakes of between magnitude 5 and 6 struck northern Baghlan province in the Hindu Kush mountains, destroying the district capital of Nahrin.
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[Iran Press TV Latest] Baku has welcomed an initiative by Tehran for resolving the dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Azeri media report. "I would like to remind that Iran is a country that participated in the negotiation process to resolve this conflict, being on the position of supporting the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan," said Foreign Ministry Spokesman Elkhan Polukhov, quoted by Azeri news agency Trend.
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki has suggested a trilateral meeting involving the foreign ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran.
"The Karabakh conflict can be resolved through negotiations and on the basis of justice," Mottaki said.
Both Azerbaijan and Armenia claim the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, which is largely populated by Armenians but located in Azerbaijan.
Armenia took control of Nagorno-Karabakh after a short but bloody war with Azerbaijan that left around 30,000 people dead in the early 1990s.
A ceasefire was agreed to in 1994, but the dispute remains unresolved despite years of international mediations.
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[Iran Press TV Latest] Ousted Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has left neighboring Kazakhstan, where he had sought refuge after his government was toppled.
"He's left Kazakhstan," Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilyas Omarov told The Associated Press, but did not provide details on his planned destination.
Bakiyev left Kyrgyzstan for Kazakhstan on Thursday, after spending over a week in hiding in southern parts of the country following a deadly revolt which toppled him and left at least 80 people dead.
Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday offered Bakiyev sanctuary in his country.
Another possible destination is the United Arab Emirates, where Bakiyev is thought to own property, according to AP. Why not the Caymans? He's got money there ...
Kyrgyzstan is still tense as the interim government tries to extend its grip on power. Fresh unrest erupted on Monday as hundreds of angry protesters armed with sticks and stones clashed with landowners outside capital Bishkek.
Security forces rushed to the scene to disperse the demonstrators, who seized land on the outskirts of the capital, media reports say. At least one person was killed and 15 others were injured, DPA reported.
In the capital, the protesters forced the acting mayor of Bishkek, Isa Omurkulov, to sign a document authorizing the handover of the land they had seized earlier, the official Kabar news agency reported.
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#1
As per TOPIX, RUSSIA has ordered its military to protect ethnic Russians in Kyrgyzstan.
#2
ION SAME + FOXNEWS AM > MILITANTS/REBELS KILL FOUR RUSSIAN SECURITY OFFICERS IN CHECHNYA.
FOX - repor that the the Bad Boyz are demanding A RIGID SHARIA-BASED, PAN-CAUCASUS [former SSRS AMAP ASAP] ISLAMIC STATE = EMIRATE FULLY INDEPENDENT FROM RUSSIA.
The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers' dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips. So's massage. God intended men to have 90-pound Oriental maidens walk nimbly up and down their spines. Everybody knows that.
Antonio Tajani, the European Union commissioner for enterprise and industry, proposed a strategy that could cost European taxpayers hundreds of millions of euros a year, The Times of London reports. Tennis lessons are a human right, too. Every lady needs access to a broad-shouldered blond named Sven who'll help 'em with the old forehand...
"Travelling for tourism today is a right. The way we spend our holidays is a formidable indicator of our quality of life," Mr. Tajani told a group of ministers at The European Tourism Stakeholders Conference in Madrid on April 15. Mr. Tajani was appointed to his post by Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. Personally, I think we have a human right to happy hour every day. Just think how a half dozen martinis at 5 pm every day would improve our outlook as a nation.
The plan -- just who gets to enjoy the travel package has yet to be determined -- would see taxpayers footing some of the vacation bill for seniors, youths between the ages of 18 and 25, disabled people, and families facing "difficult social, financial or personal" circumstances. The disabled and elderly can also be accompanied by one other person. The EU and its taxpayers are slated to fund 30% of the cost of these tours, which could range from youth exploring abandoned factories and power plants in Manchester to retirees taking discount trips to Madrid, all in the name of cultural appreciation. I'm up for the discount trips to Madrid, I guess. But if I can't go to Costa Brava I'm gonna feel oppressed.
"The commission is literally considering paying people to go on holiday," Mats Persson, of pro-reform think-tank Open Europe, told Britain's News of the World. "In this economic climate, it's astonishing that the EU wants to bribe people with cheap holidays." But it's not a bribe! It's a human right! I have a human right to have somebody go grocery shopping for me, too. It's demeaning and degrading to have to do it myself.
Mr. Tajani said the program will be piloted until 2013, and then fully launched. Intended to instill a sense of cultural pride in Europeans, Mr. Tajani's human-rights travel will also help bridge the continent's north-south divide and pad resorts' business in their off-season, the Times reports. Whaddya mean, "off season"? Why would I want to go to Costa Brava if there aren't any boobies on display?
Northern Europeans will be encouraged to visit southern Europe, and vice versa. Mr. Tajani wants to ensure people's "right to be tourists" remains intact. That's right. I got a human right to be a tourist. In Amsterdam. You should pay for me to get my ashes hauled.
#5
I recall a statistic that 40% of all Germans had been to Majorca.
Given the number of poolside chaise lounges with towels reserving them by 6 a.m., that's probably true, KBK. By law all Germans with jobs get six weeks of paid vacation as of their first day of employment... and if they work more than 39 hours per week they get one day more of vacation per X weeks of labour, not to mention doctor-prescribed stays at a health spa for a variety of mental and physical ailments.
#6
range from youth exploring abandoned factories and power plants in Manchester to retirees taking discount trips to Madrid, all in the name of cultural appreciation.
That's some terrific vacation for youth. Best wait until you're a senior. Manufacturing or Madrid. Which would you choose?
#7
Manufacturing or Madrid. Which would you choose?
This is an example of the sheer loathsomeness of the EU it's way beyond parody. Of course no one will go to the north of Europe - it's a blatant ploy by the lazy Mediterraneans (I'm sure they won't mind me saying that) to try to force more cash to prop up their tourism-reliant economies from hard working but benighted folk of places like Manchester. Forced Holidays would be the new Forced Marches.
Wonder how well this nuts proposal is going down with the Greenies.
Lower Merion School District employees activated the web cameras and tracking software on laptops they gave to high school students about 80 times in the past two school years, snapping nearly 56,000 images that included photos of students, pictures inside their homes and copies of the programs or files running on their screens, district investigators have concluded.
In most of the cases, technicians turned on the system after a student or staffer reported a laptop missing and turned it off when the machine was found, the investigators determined.
But in at least five instances, school employees let the Web cams keep clicking for days or weeks after students found their missing laptops, according to the review. Those computers - programmed to snap a photo and capture a screen shot every 15 minutes when the machine was on - fired nearly 13,000 images back to the school district servers.
"The taking of these pictures without student consent in their homes was obviously wrong," Hockeimer said.
The numbers disclosed by the district Monday confirmed that assertion and added more clarity. The district's full report is due within the next two weeks.
In addition to the photos and screen shots, the technology also used the laptop's Internet address to pinpoint its location. The system was designed to automatically purge all the images after the tracking was deactivated.
The "vast majority" of instances, he said, represent cases in which the technology appeared to be used for the reasons the district first implemented it in 2008: to find a lost or stolen laptop or, in a few cases, whether a student took the computer without paying a required insurance fee. That may have been the reason for turning it on... what was the reason for *not* turing it off?
About 38,500 images - or almost two-thirds of the total number retrieved so far - came from six laptops that were reported missing from the Harriton High School gymnasium in September 2008. The tracking system continued to store images from those computers for nearly six months, until police recovered them and charged a suspect with theft in March 2009.
The next biggest chunk of images stem from the five or so laptops where employees failed or forgot to turn off the tracking software even after the student recovered the computer.
In a few other cases, Hockeimer said, the team has been unable to recover images or photos stored by the tracking system.
And in about 15 activations, investigators have been unable to identify exactly why a student's laptop was being monitored.
Hockeimer said that the investigation found that administrators activated the tracking system for just one student this year who failed to pay the $55 insurance fee.
Robbins claims he is that student; Hockeimer declined to confirm or deny that.
About 10 employees at the district and its two high schools had the authority to request the computer administrators to activate the tracking system on a student's laptop, Hockeimer said.
Only two employees - information systems coordinator Carol Cafiero and network technician Mike Perbix - have the ability to actually turn on and off the tracking. Hockeimer said the district investigators have no evidence to suggest either Perbix or Cafiero activated the system without being asked.
But the requests were loose and disorganized, he said, sometimes amounting to just an brief e-mail.
"The whole situation was riddled with the problem of not having any written policies and procedures in place," Hockeimer said. "And that impacted so much of what happened here." As designed.
Question is: Who is the Legal Genius at the District approved doing this?
#1
If nobody was paying attention, then how did that one principal get his hands on an image that he thought indicated drug use when it was really candy?
Somebody should have noticed the problem by then and sent out a memo at least. If not, it suggests tacit approval.
Brad Sherman
Congressman (D-Calif.), member of House Financial Services Committee:
(Interview with POLITICO's David Mark)
Q: How can Democrats get out ahead of the Goldman Sachs story politically?
A: We can say, No taxpayer money to Wall Street firms, their creditors and the counterparts.' Then we go to the voters and tell them there's no money for Wall Street, but regulation instead. If you can't run on that slogan, you've got a problem.
But there are serious problems with the Dodd bill. The Dodd bill has unlimited executive bailout authority. That's something Wall Street desperately wants but doesn't dare ask for. The bill contains permanent, unlimited bailout authority.
Q: As an active member of the House Financial Services Committee were you surprised to see suspicious shorting perhaps illegal by a top financial services firm?
A: Goldman is accused of hand-selecting bad mortgages to sell. If that's true it's absolutely outrageous. There are two issues here. First, did they mislead their clients into buying this type of mortgage rule? And second, did they hand-select the worst?
#1
I want a bill the executes CITIBANK folks in the Credit Card dept..... and other like folk ... just on general principles of removing daemon spawn from the public environment.
I went to them before going to Spain for 2 weeks to make sure everything was "A OK"....
While in Spain they denied I made payments I did and raised the interest rate with no recourse. The phone support person was even more alien than India... (Wife is guessing Vietnam)....
The jerks don't need bailouts... They need a Madame Defarge to place their heads in the proper perspective.
Losing money is only for the 'little people'.
We prime the pump with our 401K money and they run off with all the money no matter what happens.
This is/has created an entire generation that will be like my great grandfather, no use for banks, no use whatsoever for stock market investments.
I don't know if I'll ever put any more money into the stock market. There doesn't seem to be any way for a non-institutional investor to get a fair shake.
At a warehouse in New Jersey, 6,000 used copy machines sit ready to be sold. CBS News chief investigative correspondent Armen Keteyian reports almost every one of them holds a secret.
Nearly every digital copier built since 2002 contains a hard drive - like the one on your personal computer - storing an image of every document copied, scanned, or emailed by the machine.
In the process, it's turned an office staple into a digital time-bomb packed with highly-personal or sensitive data.
If you're in the identity theft business it seems this would be a pot of gold.
"The type of information we see on these machines with the social security numbers, birth certificates, bank records, income tax forms," John Juntunen said, "that information would be very valuable."
Juntunen's Sacramento-based company Digital Copier Security developed software called "INFOSWEEP" that can scrub all the data on hard drives. He's been trying to warn people about the potential risk - with no luck.
"Nobody wants to step up and say, 'we see the problem, and we need to solve it,'" Juntunen said.
This past February, CBS News went with Juntunen to a warehouse in New Jersey, one of 25 across the country, to see how hard it would be to buy a used copier loaded with documents. It turns out ... it's pretty easy.
Juntunen picked four machines based on price and the number of pages printed. In less than two hours his selections were packed and loaded onto a truck. The cost? About $300 each.
Until we unpacked and plugged them in, we had no idea where the copiers came from or what we'd find.
We didn't even have to wait for the first one to warm up. One of the copiers had documents still on the copier glass, from the Buffalo, N.Y., Police Sex Crimes Division.
It took Juntunen just 30 minutes to pull the hard drives out of the copiers. Then, using a forensic software program available for free on the Internet, he ran a scan - downloading tens of thousands of documents in less than 12 hours.
The results were stunning: from the sex crimes unit there were detailed domestic violence complaints and a list of wanted sex offenders. On a second machine from the Buffalo Police Narcotics Unit we found a list of targets in a major drug raid.
The third machine, from a New York construction company, spit out design plans for a building near Ground Zero in Manhattan; 95 pages of pay stubs with names, addresses and social security numbers; and $40,000 in copied checks.
But it wasn't until hitting "print" on the fourth machine - from Affinity Health Plan, a New York insurance company, that we obtained the most disturbing documents: 300 pages of individual medical records. They included everything from drug prescriptions, to blood test results, to a cancer diagnosis. A potentially serious breach of federal privacy law.
"You're talking about potentially ruining someone's life," said Ira Winkler. "Where they could suffer serious social repercussions."
Winkler is a former analyst for the National Security Agency and a leading expert on digital security.
"You have to take some basic responsibility and know that these copiers are actually computers that need to be cleaned up," Winkler said.
[Iran Press TV Latest] The United States Air Force has announced that it will launch a secret space plane that has sparked speculation about the militarization of space.
If they announced it, how can it still be a secret?
The Pentagon has set April 21 as the date for the launch of the robotic space plane known as the X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV), which is a reusable unmanned plane capable of long outer space missions at low orbits.
Ummm... if the Iran Press TV news reader knows that much detail, what, exactly, is still secret?
Since the nature of the project is shrouded in mystery,
Is it the shroud that's the secret?
defense analysts allege that the US military is building the first generation of US 'space Predator drones' that will build up the United States' space armada, the Christian Science Monitor wrote in a recent article.
I'm very confused. Both the Iran Press TV news reader and the Christian Science Monitor journalists and editors, not to mention their dinner party guests and the significant others of all thus far mentioned, are aware of this, to whom exactly is any aspect of this a secret?
Military experts argue that the US Department of Defense would not have saved NASA's costly X-37B project, which had been scrapped, if it did not have a military application.
Would those be Iranian military experts, American military experts, or someone else's military experts?
They say the US wants to maintain a leading role in space via the development of the new 'space weapon' at a time when other countries like China are expanding their space programs.
However, US military officials maintain that the X-37B will only be used for transporting payloads and facilitating space experiments.
The OTV is capable of supporting a range of tests, the Air Force spokesperson for the project said earlier at the 26th National Space Symposium. "The first mission will emphasize proving technologies necessary for long duration reusable space vehicles with autonomous reentry and landing capabilities," Angie Blair added. She went on to say that the "specific details of the OTV capabilities, limitations and vulnerabilities" remain classified.
The X-37B can stay at an orbit between 200 and 800 kilometers for around 270 days before landing automatically at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, reports say.
The location of the mission control center for the Boeing-made space vehicle is also a classified secret, but Blair says that Air Force Space Command's 3rd Space Experimentation Squadron (AFSPC) will run the operation.
Military space specialist Professor Roger Handberg, who is the chair of the Department of Political Science at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, told Space.com that the X-37B project may signify continued U.S. Air Force interest in a rapid response vehicle along the lines of the long-proposed space maneuver vehicle.
He added that the project could be viewed "as the logical extension of the push into unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) where vehicles used for observation have moved into weapon carriers and various other missions, many classified."
"From the perspective of international observers, especially in space-aspiring states such as China, the X-37B program just reinforces their view that the U.S. is pushing to gain first mover advantage in rapid response, including possible weaponization of space using this vehicle or a derivative," Handberg noted.
Political analysts say that the X-37B project could be interpreted as a violation of the Outer Space Treaty of 1967 if the space plane is used for military purposes.
The Outer Space Treaty of 1967, officially known as the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, states that the exploration and use of outer space shall be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries and shall be the province of all mankind; states shall not place nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies or station them in outer space in any other manner; the Moon and other celestial bodies shall be used exclusively for peaceful purposes; astronauts shall be regarded as the envoys of mankind; states shall be liable for damage caused by their space objects; and states shall avoid harmful contamination of space and celestial bodies.
Article IX of the Outer Space Treaty states: "A State Party to the Treaty which has reason to believe that an activity or experiment planned by another State Party in outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, would cause potentially harmful interference with activities in the peaceful exploration and use of outer space, including the Moon and other celestial bodies, may request consultation concerning the activity or experiment."
In addition, a proposal has been put forward for a Space Preservation Treaty that would ban all space weapons, but no country has signed the treaty so far.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/20/2010 00:00 ||
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#1
ION WMF > FORMER USPACOM CHIEF ADM KEATING: TOTAL/FORMAL US MARINES WITHDRAWAL FROM OKINAWA, JAPAN WILL WEAKEN THE FIGHTING POWER OF THE US FROM ITS GUAM BASES [OTH force projection, Deterrence], AND REDUCE THE US GEOSTRATEGIC OR GEOPOL POSITION THROUGHOUT ASIA-PACIFIC REGION.
* SAME > US IN SHOCK: CHINA HAS ENOUGH SRBMS, MBMS TO "SETTLE" THE FIRST ISLAND CHAIN
[win "decisve battle" agz US-Allied].
* SAME > ONE MOUNTAIN CANNOT ACCOMODATE TWO OR MORE GREAT TIGERS: TO BECOME A TRUE GLOBAL SUPERPOWER, RISING CHINA MUST OVERCOME THE THREE GREAT BARRIERS OF THE US, RUSSIA, AND THE EUROPEAN UNION IN ASIA, WORLD.
* SAME > YONHAP TOKYO MEDIA: TOKYO GOVERNOR SHINTARO ISHIHARA SAYS DESPITE HUMILIATION IT WAS KOREA'S OWN CHOICE TO MERGE AND BECOME A VASSAL STATE OF JAPAN AT THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY ["Korean Annexation"] RATHER THAN BECOME A VASSAL STATE OF TSARIST RUSSIA. KOREA, NOW SOUTH KOREA, MADE THE PROPER/CORRECT ALBEIT DIFFICULT CHOICE IN ITS NATIONAL INTERESTS AND DID RECEIVE CORE BENEFIT FROM JAPAN. Manchu Imperial China as the then historic "Weak Man of Asia" back then could not milpol or geopol stop the modern powers of Russia + Europe [+ even US] from doing anything to China.
#2
It's obvious to me that the vehicle is being used by the military as a platform to test technologies they eventually hope to use in a reusable launch vehicle, and all the people talking about how they don't really see how it makes sense are just the usual suspects who have been saying for the past twenty years that reusable launchers can never work and we should never try.
--------------------
As to the Outer Space Treaty, well, last I checked, everyone else and their pets already had military satellites of one sort or another. I really don't see the point in getting the vapors over this.
(Amazing how much Iran Press TV can sound like the mealy-mouthed critics at home, isn't it?)
#4
TOPIX > DOES THE US MILITARY STILL NEED TANKS? | IS THE US ARMY'S ARMOR BRANCH DEFUNCT?
ARTIC > "Defunct" as RELEVANT as in US-NATO fighting insurgents in AFPAK 2010, NOT the COLD WAR USSR-WARPACT in FULDA GAP; or "INCOMPETENT" as Author claims Armor Brch has assigned Service personnel to it whom are NOT even qualified to drive, operate, or fix anything e.g. on the M1 Abrams MBT???
#7
X37-B has been around for a while and not really a secret. They weren't ready for a launch until about now, though.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
04/20/2010 8:16 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Obviously a test of the effects of assembling a critical mass of groundless conjecture emanating from a collection of self-anointed experts buffoons. Should be informative...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/20/2010 8:47 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Psst...but don't tell them about the double super secret design.
#10
[long list of names] and the significant others of all thus far mentioned, are aware of this, to whom exactly is any aspect of this a secret?
My sister's dog, for one. He seemed quite surprised and very interested when I told him about the secret space plane. When asked if he thought the maiden flight would go smoothly, Hickory replied "Rough." Let's hope he is wrong.
[Straits Times] THAI military forces threw a ring of steel around Bangkok's main financial district yesterday to stop anti-government protesters from paralysing yet another key commercial centre.
More than 1,000 military personnel armed with automatic rifles took up positions along Silom Road as early as 2am following threats by the 'red shirts' of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD) to take over the financial district.
About 200m away on the Ratchadamri intersection along Bangkok's famous Lumpini Park, several thousand red shirts assembled for a face-off with Thai troops.
Many business operators in the Silom area and diplomats expressed fears of violence in the coming days, just like the April 10 street battles that left 25 people dead and more than 800 others injured.
'The army has drawn a line in Silom and the red shirts will want to cross it. There will surely be fights,' said tattoo parlour owner Mana Bangchang, who is sympathetic towards the red shirts.
Barbed wire barricades were erected outside storefronts and commercial bank branches in the financial district. Traffic on the typically busy Silom Road was light yesterday because water-cannon tanks and military trucks occupied the thoroughfare, forcing many of the city's residents to avoid the area.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/20/2010 00:00 ||
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Man loses licence after drink-driving in toy Barbie car
The European Union has declared travelling a human right, and is launching a scheme to subsidize vacations with taxpayers' dollars for those too poor to afford their own trips.
