Hua Hin and Cha Am Host ASEAN Summit
The Thai seaside resorts of Hua Hin and Cha Am are playing host this weekend to the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit. The event was due to take place in Pattaya in April of this year, but street protests forced the cancellation of the original meeting. The scenes in Pattaya resulted in a huge loss of face for Thailand who, as the current chair of ASEAN, are obliged to host the summit. Stringent security measures have been put in place in Hua Hin and Cha Am to prevent any repeat of the Pattaya fiasco. Items on the agenda for the summit include trade, climate change, disaster management, regional co-operation and human rights. One of the stated aims of ASEAN is to set up a framework to enable a single ASEAN community similar to the European Union. In addition to this, other meetings are also taking place with non-ASEAN member countries China, India, Japan, Korea, Australia and New Zealand all represented.
Away from the business of ASEAN, Thaksin Shinawtara has once again made the main headlines. Although he has been diplomatic in public, it’s likely that Thailand’s prime minister, Abhisit Vejjajiva, will not be impressed by his Cambodian counterpart, Hun Sen. The Cambodian leader announced that Cambodia would not extradite former Thai leader Thaksin Shinawtara if he moved to live in Cambodia. Thaksin is effectively on the run from Thailand having been convicted on corruption charges during his self-imposed exile from his homeland. The Cambodian prime minister has even drawn similarities between the position of Thaksin, ousted in the September 2006 coup, to that of Burma’s Ang San Suu Kyi. The comments of Hun Sen have further inflamed the yellow shirts in Thailand who are already angry with Cambodia over the Preah Vihear temple dispute.
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