Neighbors of 40-year-old Umnuayporn Tongprapai contacted the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority when they learned she needed medical attention to remove a tumor in her right leg.

Bangkok’s media-savvy governor Sukhumbhand Paribatra summoned camera crews to document the event, which involved engineers, demolition crews, rescue workers, doctors and nurses.

Seated on the floor of her modest third-floor apartment on the outskirts of Bangkok, Umnuayporn told reporters she could only walk a few feet (meters) on her own and was confined to her studio apartment where she ran a laundry service with the help of her two adopted sons.

“I’ve been living in this room and have not gone outside for three years,” said Umnuayporn, whose weight is roughly the equivalent of a grand piano. “I can walk a little, just enough that I can go to bathroom. But I have to cling to my son the whole way.”

Umnuayporn walked slowly to a trolley aided by her son. She was rolled down the corridor to a nearby empty apartment where workers had torn down an inner wall to allow her entry and demolished a section of the building’s facade to take her outside.

As neighbors cheered on the pavement, Umnuayporn smiled and flashed a “V” for victory as she was lowered from the apartment by an elevator constructed outside. A forklift then transferred her to a waiting ambulance that took her to a Bangkok hospital.

“It’s very likely that she is the heaviest person in the country,” said Pijaya Nagavachara, director of the BMA General Hospital, which weighed her once she was admitted.

Her treatment will involve removing the tumor and reducing her weight, which doctors suspect may be due to thyroid problems, Pijaya said.

Once her medical treatment is finished, Umnuayporn says her dream is to go to the beach.

“I want to go to the sea,” she said, with tears in her eyes. “I want to play in the water.” — AP

“We are not sending Viktor Bout back today,” Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told reporters. “There are still several legal steps to go through.”

Abhisit’s comments came after a flurry of overnight rumors that Bout’s extradition had already taken place or that Bout would be escorted by commandos and handed over to U.S. authorities Wednesday morning. Other Thai officials also indicated that the U.S. was trying to speed the legal process but said that Thailand would not be pressured.

Bout, a 43-year-old former Soviet air force officer, is reputed to be one of the world’s most prolific arms dealers. He is known as “The Merchant of Death” and was an inspiration for the arms dealer played by Nicolas Cage in the 2005 film, “Lord of War.”

A Thai appeals court on Friday ordered Bout’s extradition within three months to face four terrorism-related charges in the U.S.

American authorities want him turned over quickly but a legal bottleneck appears to have stalled the process.

The U.S. Embassy declined any comment on the case or on Thai news reports that an American government plane had landed at a military airport adjacent to Bangkok’s Don Muang airport Tuesday.

“Due to security reasons we will not comment on pending extradition cases,” said embassy spokeswoman Kristin Kneedler.

Thailand’s National Security Council met Wednesday to discuss Bout’s extradition.

“The United States must not exert pressure in any way,” Abhisit told reporters afterward. “Every country has to respect the sovereignty of other countries. There are treaties and laws to follow.”

U.S. State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley would not discuss timing of extradition Tuesday night, except to say it is “pending.”

“We look forward to seeing him in a U.S. court,” Crowley said.

In an illustration of the confusion, the Bangkok Post newspaper reported on its front page Wednesday that the extradition had already taken place, with the headline “US swoops to grab Bout.”

Prior to Friday’s ruling, the U.S. had filed additional charges against Bout — a step that was now slowing down his extradition because Bout cannot legally leave Thailand until he goes to court to hear the charges or the U.S. drops them, said Sirisak Tiyapan, director of the international division at the Office of the Attorney General. The new charges of money laundering and wire fraud stem from an updated U.S. indictment against Bout filed in February 2009.

“I gather the U.S. government has contacted the Foreign Ministry asking to drop the second charges,” Sirisak said. If that happens, the ministry will notify the Attorney General’s office, which would ask the court to drop the charges, and then the court can process the request. The extradition itself involves separate paperwork.

Bout was arrested in Bangkok in March 2008 as part of a U.S.-led sting operation. The case set off a diplomatic tug-of-war between Washington and Moscow which opposes the extradition.

Bout has allegedly supplied weapons that fueled civil wars in South America, the Middle East and Africa, with clients including Liberia’s Charles Taylor and Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi and both sides of the civil war in Angola.

The head of a lucrative air transport empire, Bout had long evaded U.N. and U.S. sanctions aimed at blocking his financial activities and restricting his travel. He has denied any involvement in illicit activities and claims he ran a legitimate business.

Bout’s arrest at a Bangkok luxury hotel was part of an elaborate sting in which U.S. agents posed as arms buyers for the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, which Washington classifies as a terrorist organization.

Bout was subsequently indicted in the U.S. on four terrorism-related charges that include conspiring to kill Americans and conspiring to sell millions of dollars worth of weapons to FARC, including more than 700 surface-to-air missiles, thousands of guns, high-tech helicopters and airplanes outfitted with grenade launchers and missiles. — AP

Shackled at the ankles, 17 so-called Red Shirt protest leaders denied all charges against them in a preliminary hearing at the Bangkok Criminal Court. They are accused of inciting violence, threatening government officials including the prime minister and committing terrorism during 10 weeks of protests and clashes with the army earlier this year that left 91 people dead and 1,400 injured.

The next hearing was set for Sept. 27. Conviction on terrorism charges is punishable by a maximum penalty of death.

Most of the protest leaders have been in detention since the demonstrations ended May 19 after an army crackdown. Authorities were searching for six other suspects, including former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a 2006 coup and is accused of supplying funding for the protests from his self-imposed exile abroad.

Under tight police security, the protest leaders were led from a prison bus into the court as a small group of red-shirted protesters cheered. Under the state of emergency, political gatherings are prohibited.

“These are political charges,” Korkaew Pikulthong, one of the protest leaders, told reporters.

A state of emergency was initially declared in April in Bangkok after demonstrators broke into the Parliament building to press their demands for early elections. It was later extended to cover almost one-third of the country’s 76 provinces and has gradually been lifted in most locales.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva lifted the decree Monday in the northern provinces of Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai and the northeastern province of Ubon Ratchathani, said Tawin Pleansri, head of the National Security Council. All three areas are known to support Thaksin and the anti-government movement.

The government has kept the decree in place in Bangkok and six other provinces citing security concerns in the wake of the protests.

A state of emergency allows the government to impose curfews, prohibit public gatherings, censor and ban publications, detain suspects without charge, confiscate property and tap telephones, among other provisions. Critics say it is selectively enforced and used to harass government opponents.

Thailand has faced political instability since the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin. Thaksin’s supporters and opponents have vied for power, staging sometimes-violent street protests. In 2008, anti-Thaksin protesters occupied the prime minister’s offices for three months and seized Bangkok’s two airports for a week.

In contrast to the speedy prosecution of Red Shirt leaders who claimed to champion the rights of the poor, none of the rival protesters known as the Yellow Shirts have faced prosecution. The Yellow Shirts are widely believed to have backing from the powerful military and monarchy.

“This preferential treatment is a time bomb,” said Prompong Nopparit, spokesman for the main opposition party. “It takes less than three months to detain and then charge Red Shirts, but two years have passed and there’s not a single arrest warrant for leaders of the (Yellow Shirts).” — AP

MAE RAMA LUANG CAMP, Thailand – The weary, weather-beaten refugee, gently cradling his sleeping son, gazes at the ceiling, bites his lips, but can’t hold back the tears.

“I cry for those who were killed and died of disease or went mad, for the children who suffered,” says Pawo Tu. “I cry for the food I had to beg for but could not repay.”

This 46-year-old orchard keeper is just one among half a million Karen tribespeople driven from their homes by the Myanmar military, and his story is typical of the sagas of suffering that emerge in this refugee camp on the Thailand-Myanmar border.

Aid workers call the regime’s campaign against the Karen rebellion “the hidden Darfur.” To Christians who work with refugees from the country they still call Burma, it’s “the Calvary of the Karen.”

The world’s attention to Myanmar has focused largely on pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and her struggle with the junta that has held her under house arrest for 18 years in Yangon, formerly Rangoon.

Mentioned mostly parenthetically is the relentless war to eradicate a 60-year-old insurgency among the Karen, the country’s second largest ethnic minority, by cutting it off from the general population. Although the regime denies it, the U.N. and international human rights groups have documented executions, gang rape, torture, forced labor and mass relocations of civilians after their communities are torched.

Pawo Tu’s family fled when troops burned their village, Leka Deta, in 2006, suspecting it sided with the rebels who are fighting for an independent state.

“For five years we lived in the jungle in makeshift shelters of bamboo and banana leaves, always on the run, always afraid the soldiers would find us,” he said. Like most of the uprooted Karen, the family foraged, hunted, traded, tended small vegetable plots and sometimes begged from villagers. In their jungle hideouts, Pawo Tu’s wife bore five children.

With the food run out and the soldiers getting too close, the family risked land mines, cripplers and killers of countless escapees, to reach the Thai-Myanmar border. Here, some 150,000 Karen and other ethnic minorities live in nine camps.

“Once there were 100 families in our village, now only some ten are left,” says a recent arrival, Khwe Say Hto. “We became slaves of the military.”

Families are financially ruined, many refugees say, because the military demands “taxes” — sometimes nearly half a villager’s already minuscule income — for avoiding the draft or forced labor, or for no reason at all.

Farmers are kept from their fields doing long stretches of unpaid labor, hauling supplies, building military bases and repairing roads. Khwe Say Hto says that in his village of Palodu, men and sometimes women also served as human minesweepers. Two were killed and others wounded in the most recent incident, a few months back.

The 38-year-old farmer said he was shanghaied as a porter 10 times and on his last, grueling march three of his fellow villagers sank to the ground in exhaustion. The soldiers kicked them and then ground their boots on their throats until they died, he said.

“We could stand it no longer,” he said, so he fled with his wife and four children.

At another camp, Mae La, set up 21 years ago, so many refugees have poured in that it has become a virtual city of bamboo shacks, primitive schools and churches. It sits at the foot of soaring limestone cliffs in a remote jungle valley inaccessible by road during the monsoon rains.

In an open-sided hall, more than 200 teenagers gather to hear Rev. Simon Htoo talk about helping camp-born youngsters fight depression, drugs and AIDS.

“When we were in Burma, we were like wild cats, wild cats that were hunted, always fleeing the Burmese military,” reads a poem by one refugee, Toe Kro. “Living in the camp, we are like a wild cat that is being raised in domesticity, cannot go out of the cage.”

A sudden downpour erupts as the Protestant pastor leads the group in a song:

“We call our land Kawthoolei, the Land without Evil, a green and beautiful land,” the clear voices soar above the rain’s heavy patter.

“But today this land is rife with killing, fighting, land mines, and filled with evil. Widows, orphans are crying without help…We want peace. We want to go home.”

Some never will.

On a map of the U.S. in the camp, red dots from Seattle to Boston pinpoint the Karen diaspora. Since 2006, 60,000 Karen, who include Christians, Buddhists and animists, as well as other ethnic minorities, have left the camps, three-quarters of them bound for the U.S.

Hsa Gay, the camp’s deputy chief, says he is happy for those who find happiness abroad, away from the disease that afflicts up to 40 percent of camp-dwellers with bouts of malaria and 10 percent with tuberculosis at any given time. The refugees live mostly on rice and beans.

But Hsa Gay says resettlement has its downside, because those selected are usually the ones the tribe needs most — teachers, nurses, technicians.

Betrayed and forgotten: That’s how David Tharckabaw sees his people.

The vice president of the Karen National Union, the insurgency’s political arm, says that Britain, the colonial ruler until 1949, broke its promise to give the Karen a separate state. Today, the plight of the Karen, who number about 4 million in a population of 43 million, has become a sideshow.

“Most countries give lip service but it is economic interests which are driving them. They see Burma as a market, a place with natural resources,” he said.

The U.S. and European Union apply economic sanctions, but China, Thailand and other neighbors trade with Myanmar, while the U.S., Tharckabaw says, is “hooked” on engagement as a way of coaxing the 38-year-old junta toward democracy.

The Karen insurgency, dating back to 1949, is considered the world’s oldest, and the adage that “old soldiers never die” seems true enough in the figure of Lt. Col. Saw Doo, at 82 possibly the world’s oldest recruit still on active duty in an army with no pensions or retirement age.

The farmer’s son joined the insurgency when it broke out, spent decades on the front lines, was wounded and never managed to return to his parents and native village.

Striding as erect as a young officer reviewing troops, Saw Doo still serves “the Karen revolution” as head of training for the Karen National Liberation Army, the military arm of the KNU.

Armed only with basic infantry weapons, the Karen have lost ground to the Chinese-supplied Myanmar military, which has moved at least 200,000 troops into Karen State. But still they hope their guerrilla skills, or the junta’s internal conflicts, or a general pro-democracy uprising, will turn the tide.

“There is only one way we can lose — if we surrender all our weapons to the enemy,” says the old warrior, one of 16 who joined the rebellion at the start.

Even older is 91-year-old Saw Tamla Baw, the KNU president.

Gravely ill from a lung infection, barely able to lift his head from a pillow, he lies on a mattress in a small, sweltering room with bare cement walls. A grandson fans his face with a scrap of yellow plastic.

“It will be difficult,” he says, struggling with every word. “But we can regain our country. I believe one day we will have our own Karen state.” — AP

The body of Dashawn Longfellow, 23, was found before dawn Saturday at the Yanui Paradise Resort with several stab wounds in his chest, said police Lt. Col. Anukul Nuket. Longfellow’s passport said he came from Littleton, Colorado, police said.

According to witnesses, Longfellow was at a bar near his hotel with a Thai girlfriend when a British man identified as a regular picked a fight with him, Anukul said.

The Briton, who trained in Thai kickboxing, or Muay Thai, was known for “getting drunk and picking fights and bragging that he’s invincible,” Anukul told The Associated Press in a telephone interview. Longfellow fended off the attacker until bar staff separated them and the American left with his girlfriend.

The Briton is believed to have followed the couple back to their hotel, where Longfellow dropped off his girlfriend and went out to a convenience store, Anukul said. When the American returned, the Briton was allegedly waiting for him outside his room where a fight ensued and Longfellow was stabbed, according to Anukul.

A man who identified himself as a manager at the Yanui Paradise Resort declined to disclose details, saying he was only speaking to the U.S. Embassy. The embassy could not immediately be reached for comment.

Police said they have issued an arrest warrant for the suspect.

Longfellow had served in the Marines and was a machine gunner for the 2nd Battalion, 7th Marine Regiment, said Matt Gronbach, of Fort Dodge, Iowa, who was in the same unit with Longfellow.

“Dashawn was a caring and loving person. One of the nicest guys you could ever be around. Great friend, brother and son. He was just a huge teddy bear that everyone loved,” Gronbach said in an e-mail. — AP

They include three key protest leaders — Red Shirt chairman Veera Musikapong, opposition lawmaker Jatuporn Prompan and Kokaew Pikulthong, who stood as an opposition candidate in a recent Bangkok by-election.

The suspects have already been arrested and charged and many have been held in detention for almost three months.

“Evidence from investigators shows that there are sufficient grounds to indict the suspects on terrorism charges,” the Office of Attorney General said in a statement.

The Red Shirts’ lawyer, Karom Poltaklang, said he was confident the suspects would be proven innocent.

Prosecutors have not yet announced whether they will indict fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who faces an arrest warrant for terrorism but lives in self-imposed exile overseas.

Two months of protests by the Red Shirts, aimed at forcing immediate elections, triggered a series of clashes between demonstrators and troops that left at least 90 people dead — mostly civilians — and nearly 1,900 injured.

Most top Red Shirts surrendered to police after the army launched a deadly assault on the movement’s fortified encampment in the heart of Bangkok on May 19.

Some others are in hiding, including Arisman Pongruangrong, who led the storming of an Asian summit in the Thai resort of Pattaya in 2009.

After the May crackdown, Reds leaders asked their thousands of supporters to disperse, but enraged protesters went on a rampage of arson, setting fire to dozens of buildings, including a shopping mall and the stock exchange.

Thailand’s Supreme Court on Wednesday rejected an appeal by Thaksin and his family against the seizure of 1.4 billion dollars of their assets in February for abuse of power. — AFP

Deadly clashes have flared in the past over the Preah Vihear temple, which the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization named a World Heritage site in 2008, over Thailand’s objections.

Two Thai soldiers were killed and 12 wounded in April 2009 after troops exchanged fire with assault rifles and rocket launchers along Cambodia’s northern border near the temple, one of several clashes in recent years.

Cambodia will present a management plan in Brazil on the disputed territory at a UNESCO meeting this week.

The International Court of Justice in 1962 ruled the 10th-century border temple belongs to Cambodia, rejecting Thai claims. Cambodia’s World Heritage bid reignited Thai resentment over the ruling, and there have been small armed clashes in the area during the past few years.

Thailand claims the management plan would infringe on a small area of undemarcated territory around the temple, of which both sides stake a claim. It has called on UNESCO to reject the plan, and said it will walk out of the meeting if it is accepted. It also said it would consider withdrawing from UNESCO’s membership if Cambodia’s plan is accepted.

Leaders of both countries have used the issue to stir up nationalist sentiment and shore up domestic political support.

Abhisit met Wednesday with Defense Minister Pravit Wongsuwan, who told him that, pending Cabinet approval, the army is ready to deploy more troops to the already heavily defended border if Cambodian forces intrude into Thai territory.

“The army is now ready to defend our sovereignty if breached,” said Abhisit after his weekly Cabinet meeting. He said he was appealing to members of UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee “to remember the very purpose this committee was set up for. It should be a purveyor of peace and culture, not of tension and conflicts.”

A Thai delegation, led by Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Suwit Khunkitti, is in Brasilia to attend the UNESCO meeting.

“We must make it clear that Thailand cannot and will not accept the proposal,” said Abhisit. “And if the committee will not listen to our objection, we will not take part in the voting process.” — AP

Bangkok Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra told a news conference that the award offers a morale boost to the battered capital and called on political protesters to behave themselves. The recent political upheaval prompted dozens of international travel advisories and emptied hotels.

“What we have in our hands is very precious,” said Sukhumbhand. “We must prevent troubles and any more losses from happening in our beloved city. We should not damage it any further.”

A grenade explosion Sunday in a central Bangkok shopping area killed one person and wounded 10. Authorities have declined to speculate if it was politically related.

The No. 1 ranking in the magazine’s top 10 cities list appears in the August edition of Travel + Leisure, which was based on a poll of readers who cast votes from December to March to rate their favorite cities, islands, hotels, airlines and other categories. Nearly 16,000 readers participated. The polling stopped a few days before civil disorder erupted in Bangkok that lasted 10 weeks and ended May 19 with nearly 90 dead and 1,400 hurt.

Click image to see more photos of Bangkok life

AFP

During the chaos, several top hotels and upscale department stores closed because they were surrounded by thousands of anti-government protesters. Dozens of buildings were damaged or burned as the protests were broken up in a military crackdown.

Nationwide hotel occupancy in May — the end of tourism’s high season — was 32 percent, down 10 percent from the same period last year, said Prakit Chinamornpong, president of Thai Hotels Association.

The Bangkok governor visited New York last week to pick up the award from the magazine’s publishers and said he met with Mayor Michael Bloomberg and asked for advice about New York’s post 9-11 recovery.

“‘Bad things happened, but we must move forward. We can’t stop. We must keep up the morale.’ That’s what Mayor Bloomberg told me,” he said.

New York City ranked 10th among favorite cities in the poll. Second was the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, followed by Florence, Italy; San Miguel de Allende, Mexico; and Rome.

Bangkok also was the top city in 2008. — AP

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http://www.travelandleisure.com/worldsbest

This new trading system will allow more investors to invest in Thailand, this increased demand alone will take the market over 1000 before March 2011.

“SET has proposed its IT Master Plan to top executives from securities companies so that we can work together prepare our operations and personnel to reach a higher level of compliance with international standards,” revealed SET President Charamporn Jotikasthira.

“At present, global exchanges emphasize developing their trading systems to reach higher levels of efficiency, meeting international standards and able to readily connect to the trading systems of foreign markets. In addition, exchanges tend to adjust their rules to facilitate quick transmission of orders. Competition in reducing costs and time of operation processes has intensified, partly because of a more advanced technology with lower costs. New trading systems being introduced, e.g., Alternative Trading System (ATS), are receiving great attention from investors due to its higher speed, lower cost, and less rules than other exchanges,” said Mr. Charamporn.

“SET began developing its IT Master Plan in 2009, and plans to complete it this year. SET will take about six months from now to choose a vendor to develop and test the system. SET and brokerages will set up a working group to implement the IT Master Plan and achieve our joint goals,” he continued.

The IT Master Plan is one of SET major strategies to build a solid foundation for development, by enhancing the trading system’s efficiency to be advanced and able to support the trading of all products, i.e., equities, futures, and bonds, on a single platform. — Shayne Heffernan www.livetradingnews.com

There have been no claims of responsibility for Sunday’s blast at a bus stop in a busy shopping district, which coincided with a parliamentary election that pitted a jailed leader of recent pro-Thaksin protests against a government candidate who narrowly won.

Authorities have declined to speculate whether the bombing was related to Thailand’s continued political turbulence in the wake of the street demonstrations that paralyzed much of the capital for weeks. During two months of unrest that ended with an army crackdown May 19, almost 90 people died — mostly protesters — and more than 1,400 were hurt.

“I am 61 today,” Thaksin tweeted. “I want to see good things happening in our country and am prepared to cooperate with all sides.” He did not elaborate.

“Please do not resort to violence. I don’t like it. I disagree with it,” Thaksin added. The ex-leader and former tycoon is widely believed to have financed the so-called Red Shirt anti-government movement.

Thailand has been in a state of political turmoil since 2006, when a coup ousted then-Prime Minister Thaksin, who was popular among the rural and urban poor. Since then, his supporters and opponents have staged a bitter struggle for power and called for the return of Thaksin who fled into exile to avoid a 2007 corruption conviction. He is believed to spend most of his time in Dubai.

The Red Shirts, made up of Thaksin’s supporters and other opponents of the coup, staged protests in April last year and then relaunched their campaign against Abhisit in March this year and occupied parts of Bangkok for more than two months.

Thaksin supporters held birthday celebrations for him Monday in several parts of the country. Thaksin phoned in to a birthday gathering at a Buddhist temple in his northern hometown of Chiang Mai, telling the hundreds of people assembled that he wants to come home.

Pro-Thaksin groups accused government supporters of orchestrating Sunday’s blast to justify a state of emergency still in place in Bangkok and other provinces and the detention of several top protest leaders.

Government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn said an investigation was under way and it was too soon “to point a finger.”

Bangkok deputy police chief Panupong Singhrra Na Ayutthaya said that Sunday’s blast was caused by an M67 grenade stashed in a garbage bin next to a bus stop that had been modified to be detonated remotely. He said the grenade had a 15-meter blast radius.

Authorities were searching for suspects whose images were captured by closed-circuit cameras in the area, he said. — AP