Round up of Thailand news with AJW

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A ROUND UP OF THAILAND’S NEWS

[Bangkok Post]

- World: Pro-bailout party wins Greece election. Rodney King dies, whose beating started 1991 LA riots. UK organizers in Olympics black market ticket scandal.

- Bangkok: Thaksin won't return "until reconciliation" bills are passed. Pheu Thai landslide in Udon Thani. Map Ta Phut residents demand safety laws.

- Thai politics: The majority of people in the provinces hit by floods last year say that they expect to be flooded again this year and say it is now time for a cabinet reshuffle, according to a recent Abac Poll.

- Thaksin said to Japanese media his chance of returning to Thailand lies with the reconciliation bills, which are now with the House of Representatives, reports said.

- "We have successfully overthrown three prime ministers, which proves our track record is excellent," said Chamlong Srimuang, co-leader of the People's Alliance for Democracy, whose yellow-clad members shut down Bangkok's international airport in 2008, "We have the ability to overthrow another government again if need be."

- Sunday: Suu Kyi finally got her Nobel. Now, regulators blame Grammy for Euro no-show. China launches female taikonaut. Saudi crown prince dies. UN stops Syria "peace" mission. Drought hits North Korea. Greece knocks Russia out of Euro 2012.

OTHER NEWS

- Phuket-Canadian sisters deaths: The mystery or how and why Audrey Belanger, 20, and her sister Noemi, 26, died, represents another chapter in this romantic holiday island's recent history.

In 2009, two other young women, Jill St. Onge, 27, an American, and Julie Bergheim, 22, a Norwegian, died on Phi Phi in similarly mysterious circumstances.

Ollie, a young British resident of Phi Phi, said he had seen into the room where the young women died. His room at a nearby resort overlooks the Palms Residence Phi Phi, where the women died in a ground-floor room.

A law student, he said he watched with some alarm as the bodies, which he said were garishly akimbo when he first saw them, were taken away and the room spotlessly cleaned.

A large number of the young people we encountered seemed to be suffering from hangovers of one kind or another. It's certainly true that Phi Phi, as TripAdvisor suggests, deserves the title of the world's no. 1 must-see island.

Whether toxicology samples were taken beforehand won't be known until later. But we did see police leaving the Palms Residence Phi Phi today with a clear plastic bag of items.

These appeared to include a headphone set, some pills and medication, and some other material that wasn't plain to us.

We were told that as well as talking to staff at the resort today, the police also interviewed a local doctor who was the first medical person on the scene.

The bodies did not go to the Phi Phi Hospital. They were taken straight off the island to mainland Thailand, where they were in Krabi Hospital today but likely to be sent for autopsy soon to facilities in Bangkok or another province, Songkhla.

The odor of sewage on the loose is not hard to find. This week the island is probably still suffering the aftermath of a monsoon downpour that swamped the entire region a little while back, a deluge on a scale seldom experienced.

Would Phi Phi's bad water and sewage disposal system have stood up to such an unusual torrent? We think not.

There's always the chance that Phi Phi's lack of proper infrastructure had something to do with the deaths of the Canadians.

Back in 2009, when a couple of other young women took sick on Phi Phi and died in mysterious circumstances, all the theories about chemicals, gasses, and food poisoning were suggested.

It is to be hoped the Canadian authorities charged with investigating this case, along with the Thai police, are aware of the need for a result and consider the option of flying the sisters' bodies back to Canada for a thorough second autopsy, should a cause of death not emerge soon.

Paradise regained is what we'd all like to see.

Give us not only an end to the black dirty water but also a conclusion to not knowing what killed two more vibrant young women on Phi Phi.
[Phuket Wan]

- young residents were found dead on Phi Phi in southern Thailand. Uncle Eric Belanger said: ''We're still waiting to hear back from a specialist who was sent to analyze the bodies, and (the media) are already telling us they were poisoned.''
[Quebec Sun]

- Canadian Embassy officials had arrived at Krabi Hospital to talk to the authorities about the pathology tests. Health authorities would not issue any health advisory to tourists and residents until they received more information.
[Bkk Post]

- LA: Rodney King, whose beating by police in 1992 sparked the LA race riots, has been found dead in his swimming pool. He was 47.
[AFP]

- Football Euro 2012 results: Greece 1-0 Russia, Czech Republic 1-0 Poland. Denmark 1-2 Germany, Portugal 2-1 Netherlands. Tonight's matches: Croatia vs. Spain and Italy vs. Ireland.

Match reports: Portugal overcame an early spurt by the Netherlands while Germany tamed Denmark, both winning by 2-1 scores and advancing to the final eight of Euro 2012. Cristiano Ronaldo scored twice to lead Portugal into the quarter-finals and send the Netherlands home. Germany finished with a perfect record in the three-match qualifiers, and now face Greece to try to advance to the semi-finals.
[Agencies]

- Eurozone: The euro strengthened while US and Asian equity futures rose as projections showed politicians that support Greece’s bailout won enough seats to control parliament, easing concern the currency bloc would lose one of its 17 members. Oil rallied. The euro increased 0.6 percent to $1.2717.

The euro extended last week’s 1 percent jump against the dollar, and US stocks were poised to add to a weekly rally, as the New Democracy and Pasok parties took 162 seats in the 300-member parliament, according to the official projections in Athens based on 95 percent of the votes. The results eased concern that Alex Tsipras’s Syriza party would take control of the Greek government and reject austerity measures needed to qualify for international aid.

The vote forced Greeks, in a fifth year of recession, to choose open-ended austerity to stay in the euro or reject the terms of a bailout and risk the turmoil of exiting the 17-nation currency. The election threatened to dominate the summit of world leaders in Mexico.

Leaders from the Group of 20 nations will boost the $430 billion firewall the IMF announced in April, host President Felipe Calderon said. European governments indicated a willingness to adjust the terms of Greece’s bailout package as long as a new government “swiftly” emerges from a closely fought election.

Greece was left with a political stalemate after the previous election on May 6. Since that vote, the euro weakened 4.8 percent against the yen and lost 3.4 percent versus the dollar through last week as investors sought havens from the turmoil. The crisis escalated on June 9 when Spain asked for a bailout of as much as 100 billion-euro ($127 billion) to prop up its banks.
[Bloomberg]