After washing away the scum and the filth North Korea is back on top and ready to take on the world. Maybe they'll threaten to burn down Seoul and Washington like they did last year or they'll up their game and give the rest of the world a chance to burn.
Kim Jong Un boasted Wednesday that North Korea enters the new year on a surge of strength because of the elimination of "factionalist filth" — a reference to the young leader's once powerful uncle, whose execution last month raised questions about Kim's grip on power. Already widespread worry about the country has deepened since Kim publicly humiliated and then executed his uncle and mentor, one of the biggest political developments in Pyongyang in years, and certainly since Kim took power two years ago after the death of his father, Kim Jong Il.North Korea's "resolute" action to "eliminate factionalist filth" within the ruling Workers' Party has bolstered the country's unity "by 100 times," Kim said in a speech broadcast by state TV. He didn't mention by name his uncle, Jang Song Thaek, long considered the country's No. 2 power.
A nation living in fear of its ruler is more unified than ever with the fear of what will come next. Economic improvement by turning the country into one large prison camp.
In what can be considered a miscarriage of justice the 20 Uighurs imprisoned at Guantanamo bay Cuba were captured in Afghanistan during the U.S. invasion in October of 2001 none of them were ever accused or charged with any crime involving terrorism yet they were all held for more than 10 years.
Three Chinese Muslim Uighurs have been flown to Slovakia from the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the Slovak interior ministry says.
The three are now in the capital Bratislava, a ministry official told the BBC. None of them are terror suspects, the ministry stressed.
Slovakia - a member of the EU and Nato - also accepted three inmates from Guantanamo in 2010.
The US says all the Uighur prisoners have now been released from Guantanamo.
Since 2001 the prison has housed suspects detained by US forces during operations against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
"As in the case of the first transport, the persons in this transport have never been suspected nor accused of terrorism. The transport is a follow-up to the agreement of 2009 [with the US]," the Slovak ministry statement said.
The sad reality is that a majority of those still held at Guantanamo bay were captured as part of a bounty offered by the U.S. for any suspected terrorist found in Afghanistan. 80% of them weren't terrorist they were just unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Anti-government rebels in South Sudan have attacked the key town of Bor.
A UN spokesman said the fighting began at daybreak, not far from the town's UN compound.
A South Sudanese army spokesman confirmed a "big fight" had happened.
Tuesday is the deadline given by regional leaders for President Salva Kiir to hold talks with his former deputy, Riek Machar, who is accused of mounting a coup that sparked the violence.
But analysts say there seems to be little chance of the deadline being met.
Only last week, the army was celebrating the recapture of Bor from the rebel forces - but it now appears that the rebels are back, and have captured a key crossroads.
Central America migrants flee turf wars and corrupt states for refuge in Mexico
Activists say Mexican authorities faced with most dramatic rise in refugees since 1980s era of rightwing dictatorships
Extreme violence in Central America is sending a surge of refugees fleeing north to Mexico where they are caught between official indifference and yet more danger if they continue to the United States, human rights activists say.
Activists in Tapachula describe a dramatic increase in the number of women and children arriving in southern Mexico this year. Though precise numbers are hard to come by, it seems clear that Mexico has not witnessed such a refugee flow since the 1980s when the region was beset by a series of vicious civil wars involving rightwing dictatorships and leftwing guerrillas.
"There is an undeclared civil war in Central America," said Father Flor Maria Rigoni, who runs a migrant shelter in Tapachula, near the border with Guatemala. "The refugees are coming, but the Mexican institutions aren't taking the problem seriously."
Netanyahu faces backlash after Israel releases 26 Palestinian prisoners
Israel has released 26 Palestinians from its jails as part of a US-brokered deal to restart Middle East peace talks.
Alongside the release, the country’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced the building thousands of new Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the Palestinians largest territory, which they claim for their future state.
Mr Netanyahu has received criticism from across the political spectrum, and wide public fury for the move. All of the men have been convicted of deadly attacks and have spent between 19 and 28 years in prison.
Supporters of peace talks said the construction of new settlements in the Palestinian territory would destroy any goodwill created by the prisoner release.
Dutch prostitutes seek same tax deal as footballers
Lawyer says similarities between the two professions are striking
Peter Cluskey
Prostitutes in theNetherlandshave begun lobbying for the same special pension rights as big-name Dutch footballers – stars such as Robin van Persie, Rafael van der Vaart and Ruud van Nistelrooy – arguing they too do “difficult physical work” during well-paid but short careers.
Their case has been put to the tax authorities by lawyer Wilhelmina Post, who says the similarities between the two jobs are striking: prostitution, like football, is best-suited to healthy youngsters, “and although the earning potential is high, by 40 you’d certainly aim to be doing something else”.
Prostitution has been legal in the Netherlands since October 2000, providing there is no coercion involved. And while the prostitutes’ case may seem unorthodox, the unique tax treatment of professional footballers does appear to set a legal precedent.
Bangladesh orders arrest of factory owners
December 31, 2013 - 7:16PM
A Bangladesh court has ordered the arrest of the owners and four others over the country's worst-ever garment factory fire that killed 111 workers, after police laid charges.
The court in Dhaka on Tuesday issued the warrants for Delwar Hossain and his wife Mahmuda Akter over the blaze in 2012 at the Tazreen factory, where workers stitched clothes for Western retailers.
"Dhaka's senior judicial magistrate Wasim Sheikh issued the warrants of arrest against the two fugitive owners, Delwar Hossain and his wife Mahmuda Akter, and four other company officials for the Tazreen factory fire," prosecutor Anwarul Kabir told AFP.
The fire on November 24, 2012, shone an international spotlight on appalling safety conditions in an industry worth more than $22.5 billion a year.
Russia suicide bombing: Is Doku Umarov the Kremlin's worst nightmare? (+video)
Two suicide bombings in a Russian city are stoking fear about the Sochi Winter Olympics. The most likely mastermind is a Chechen field commander who wants to humiliate Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin.
By Mike Eckel, Correspondent / December 30, 2013
In July, a video went up on a Russian-language website known as a forum for commentary and propaganda by militant Islamist groups in Russia’s troubled North Caucasus. In it, a Chechen man named Doku Umarov gave an unequivocal warning about the upcoming Winter Olympics in Sochi, in whose success the Kremlin has invested tens of billions of dollars.
"Today we must show those who live in the Kremlin … that our kindness is not weakness," said Mr. Umarov, dressed in camouflage and wearing his trademark bushy beard. "They plan to hold the Olympics on the bones of our ancestors, on the bones of many, many dead Muslims buried on our land by the Black Sea. We as mujahadeen are required not to allow that, using any methods that Allah allows us."
On Sunday and Monday two suicide bombers detonated their explosives at different sites in
Volgograd, a city, like Sochi, located just a few hundred miles from the Caucasus. Neither Umarov nor anyone else has claimed responsibility yet for the bombings, which killed at least 32 people and wounded dozens more. What’s certain, however, is that just weeks before the Olympic opening ceremonies, the attacks are bringing new tremors to a country that has struggled to quash a 20-year terrorist insurgency.
In a hidden corner of Asia, where two dramatically different and rapidly changing nations collide, a disturbing trade is taking hold that is endangering lives around the world.
With money to burn, China's non-stop party people are turning to drugs in unprecedented numbers, turning neighbouring Myanmar into a meth lab and driving a resuscitation of the bad old days of big-time trade in the Golden Triangle's devastating narcotic heroin.
The epic size and industrial scale of the new Asian drug supply is staggering. Intercepts of the methamphetamine Ice or the ingredients necessary for its manufacture are toted up in tonnages. But given authorities only manage to uncover a fraction of the trade that begins in Myanmar, and pours into China, a deadly dangerous drug is in overwhelming flood.
In an on going problem with subcontractors hired to help clean up after the disaster at the Daiichi Nuclear power plant in Fukushima its been relieved once again that those directly involved in the clean up are not only undertrained for the purpose but are being paid less than a living wage to do so.
Substandard wages and working conditions at Fukushima have been a problem thanks to the less than forthright nature of TEPCO the company responsible for cleaning up and deactivating the facility.
Monday, Reuters revealed that within the $35 billion web of government contracts some of the largest construction companies in Japan remain blissfully unaware of what their subcontractors are doing. This includes in Sendai, the largest city in the disaster zone, hiring homeless men to aid in the clean-up, “removing topsoil, cutting grass and scrubbing down houses,” for less than minimum wage. “In one case, a 55-year-old homeless man reported being paid the equivalent of $10 for a full month of work at Shuto,” Reuters writes. “The worker’s paystub, reviewed by Reuters, showed charges for food, accommodation and laundry were docked from his monthly pay equivalent to about $1,500, leaving him with $10 at the end of the August.”
Oversight is completely lacking in the government's dealings with these construction companies which allows them to exploit their workers and loopholes in the law all for increased profit.
In January, October and November, Japanese gangsters were arrested on charges of infiltrating construction giant Obayashi Corp’s network of decontamination subcontractors and illegally sending workers to the government-funded project. In the October case, homeless men were rounded up at Sendai’s train station by Sasa, then put to work clearing radioactive soil and debris in Fukushima City for less than minimum wage, according to police and accounts of those involved.The men reported up through a chain of three other companies to Obayashi, Japan’s second-largest construction company.
At least 14 people have been killed in a suicide bombing on a trolleybus crowded with morning commuters in Volgograd, less than 24 hours after another deadly suicide attack at the main train station in the same city.
The authorities initially said 15 people were dead, but a statement from local authorities subsequently put the toll at 14. Dozens were reported injured. A one-year-old child was critically injured.
The blast ripped the trolleybus apart, leaving a disfigured carcass without the roof and walls.
It is the third bombing attack in Volgograd in three months, with most security experts linking the wave of attacks to the pledge by the Chechen jihadist leader Doku Umarov to disrupt the Olympic Games in Sochi, which start in six weeks.
Police kill eight 'terrorists' in China's Xinjiang province
Eight people who were attacking a police station in Xinjiang province have been killed by police, Chinese authorities say. The largely Muslim region has seen a recent string of deadly incidents.
Authorities in western China said on Monday that police had shot dead eight "terrorists" who launched an attack on a police station in Shache county.
One of the attackers has been detained following the attack, the Xinjiang government news portal Tianshan Net said.
The website said the attackers were armed with knives and explosives.
The region, where mainly Muslim Uighurs are the largest ethnic group, has seen a number of violent incidents this year, with authorities blaming them on what they call "terrorists."
Security reinforced in Rio ghettos in World Cup clean-up
December 30, 2013 - 1:49PM
Donna Bowater
Rio de Janeiro: Security reinforcements were sent to Rio de Janeiro's biggest shanty towns over Christmas to try to contain an outbreak of violence that threatens to derail the city's pacification campaign ahead of the 2014 World Cup.
Extra police were drafted in to Rocinha, one of Latin America's most notorious favelas – ghettos – after an officer and a resident were injured on Christmas Day, amid intensifying gun fights with drug traffickers.
The confrontations flared in the wake of the alleged torture and murder of a resident by police, and come amid a growing backlash against the landmark program intended to end the dominance of drug gangs and militias.
More than 100 000 people displaced by religious violence in Central African Republic are in urgent need of basic supplies at the Bangui airport camp.
Medical charityMedecins Sans Frontiers (MSF) said on Sunday that it was receiving between 15 and 20 wounded a day at a makeshift camp at Bangui airport in Central African Republic, and has called for urgent aid.
The wounded are the result of fighting in the riverside capital, where the deployment of French and African peacekeepers in early December has failed to halt violence.
Attacks by Muslim Seleka rebels, who seized power in March, and Christian militias have killed more than 1 000 people and displaced an estimated 400 000 in Bangui this month.
Egypt arrests 3 Al Jazeera journalists
By Ralph Ellis, CNN
December 30, 2013 -- Updated 0901 GMT (1701 HKT)
(CNN) -- Three Al Jazeera journalists were arrested by Egyptian security forces, with the government saying at least one of them met with members of the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
Correspondent Peter Greste, producer Mohamed Fahmy and cameraman Mohamed Fawzy were taken into custody Sunday evening in Cairo, the network said.
The Egyptian Ministry of Interior said on its Facebook page that security forces arrested a Muslim Brotherhood member and an Australian journalist at a Cairo hotel. Greste, an Australian, previously worked for CNN, Reuters and the BBC.
30 December 2013Last updated at 01:09 GMT
Why many of Ghana's gold miners are giving up
By Matthew DaviesBusiness reporter, BBC News, Ghana
Kwaku Boham worries about the future. For years, he and his four fellow gold miners have scratched out a living on a tiny plot next to the roadside near Tarkwa in south-eastern Ghana.
All day in the tropical heat and humidity, they dig out the red soil and rocks and crush them in a noisy grinder, hoping to yield some small nuggets to cover their expenses and feed their families.
But they have no control over what they sell any nuggets for - that's set in markets in New York and London. And over the past year, the price of gold has been falling.
On 1 January this year, the spot price of gold was $1,687.22 an ounce, this month it has been trading around $1,240 an ounce - a loss of around 25%.
Syria, Colombia, Israel and the Philippines - we take a special look at the Listening Post's 2013 highlights.
The Listening Post is wrapping up 2013 with something a little different. Each of our producers has picked the feature story they most enjoyed working on this this year and the result is a mixed selection that will give you a taste of the issues, geographies and stories the Listening Post tackled in 2013.
We start with Gouri Sharma's report on the challenges freelance journalists face reporting on the war from inside Syria.
Myanmar's opposition leader explains her vision for the country and why she seeks to become its next president.
Myanmar is a country in transition. After years of unforgiving military rule its borders are beginning to open to outside scrutiny.
The march to freedom is being led by Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace laureate and chairperson of the opposition National League for Democracy.
She had returned to Burma in 1988 after years of living abroad, only to encounter a violent military dictatorship. She became the loudest voice calling for democracy and human rights.
It did not take the military junta long to recognise the threat she posed to them, and in 1989, the military government, which had renamed the country Myanmar, placed her under house arrest.
Aung San Suu Kyi spent the next 15 years in custody.
In 1991, her determination to win democracy was rewarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. But today, as she makes the transition from activist to full-time politician pursuing her goal of being president, Aung San Suu Kyi faces many challenges, including the fate of the Rohingya people.
Beirut blast: Ex-minister Mohamad Chatah to be buried
Preparations are under way in Lebanon for the funeral of former minister and opposition figure Mohamad Chatah, who was killed by a car bomb on Friday.
He will be buried in the capital Beirut, where the attack took place.
Mr Chatah, a Sunni Muslim, was a staunch critic of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Lebanon's Shia Hezbollah movement that backs him.
Lebanon has been hit by a wave of attacks linked to heightened Sunni-Shia tensions over the Syrian war.
No-one has claimed responsibility for Friday's bombing, which killed four people and injured at least 50 others.
Here's how data thieves have captured our lives on the internet
It's not just governments. Companies such as Google and Facebook spy on us too. We have clicked through to their 'free' digital services at the cost of sacrificing our privacy. So how do we get out?
Whatever else 2013 will be remembered for, it will be known as the year in which a courageous whistleblower brought home to us the extent to which the most liberating communications technology since printing has been captured.
Although Edward Snowden's revelations initially seemed only to document the extent to which the state had exploited internet technology to create a surveillance system of unimaginable comprehensiveness, as the leaks flowed it gradually dawned on us that our naive lust for "free" stuff online had also enabled commercial interests effectively to capture the internet for their own purposes.
And, as if that realisation wasn't traumatic enough, Snowden's revelations demonstrated the extent to which the corporate sector – the Googles, Facebooks, Yahoos and Microsofts of this world – have been, knowingly or unknowingly, complicit in spying on us.
Sunni monarchs back YouTube hate preachers: Anti-Shia propaganda threatens a sectarian civil war which will engulf the entire Muslim world
There is now a pool of jihadis willing to fight and die anywhere
Anti-Shia hate propaganda spread by Sunni religious figures sponsored by, or based in, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf monarchies, is creating the ingredients for a sectarian civil war engulfing the entire Muslim world. Iraq and Syria have seen the most violence, with the majority of the 766 civilian fatalities in Iraq this month being Shia pilgrims killed by suicide bombers from the al-Qa'ida umbrella group, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (Isis). The anti-Shia hostility of this organisation, now operating from Baghdad to Beirut, is so extreme that last month it had to apologise for beheading one of its own wounded fighters in Aleppo – because he was mistakenly believed to have muttered the name of Shia saints as he lay on a stretcher.
At the beginning of December, al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula killed 53 doctors and nurses and wounded 162 in an attack on a hospital in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, which had been threatened for not taking care of wounded militants by a commentator on an extreme Sunni satellite TV station. Days before the attack, he announced that armies and tribes would assault the hospital "to take revenge for our brothers. We say this and, by the grace of Allah, we will do it".
Russian screening of Pussy Riot film blocked by authorities
December 29, 2013 - 4:09PM
Melena Ryzik
Moscow: The first public screening in Russia of a documentary about the activist group Pussy Riot was canceled by the government at the last minute Saturday, organisers said.
The film, Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, was to have been screened in Moscow on Sunday afternoon, less than a week after two members of Pussy Riot were released from prison. Their two-year sentence, on charges of "hooliganism motivated by religious hatred" for performing a protest song in a Moscow cathedral, was commuted under an amnesty from the Kremlin on Monday.
But on Saturday, the directors of the Gogol Center, a state-financed theatre, received a call from the authorities threatening their jobs if they screened the documentary, said Maxim Pozdorovkin, who directed the film with Mike Lerner. A letter from the Department of Culture in Moscow formally banning the screening followed.
Hundreds try to flee C. African Republic on emergency flights
BY PAUL-MARIN NGOUPANA
BANGUI
(Reuters) - Hundreds of people tried to flee inter-religious violence in Central African Republic on Saturday aboard emergency flights to neighboring Chad, while nearby countries appealed for help to rescue their citizens from the mounting humanitarian crisis.
Tit-for-tat violence between Muslim Seleka rebels, who seized power in March, and Christian self-defense militias have killed more than 1,000 people this month in the riverside capital Bangui and displaced hundreds of thousands more.
Fighting in the former French colony has surged in recent weeks despite the presence of 1,600 French peacekeepers and nearly 4,000 African Union troops deployed under a U.N. mandate to protect civilians. Bangui was calm on Saturday.
Thousands of South Sudanese seeking refuge on U.N. base remain too afraid to return home
MALAKAL, South Sudan — The corpses of soldiers, dressed in camouflage fatigues, lay in the streets and ditches. Shop after shop had been plundered, leaving the poor and hungry to scavenge through the remains. Houses burned to the ground still smoldered, the scars of the four days of chaos that tore through this town.
Not even the U.N. peacekeepers’ base was entirely safe. A bullet passed through the stomach of Nyauny Otham, who had sought refuge there with her family and thousands of other terrified civilians. On Saturday, the 6-year-old rested in a hospital bed, a white sheet covering her tiny body.
Fighting among rival soldiers in South Sudan’s army engulfed Malakal on Christmas Eve, uprooting thousands of civilians and trapping scores of foreigners, including Americans.
That's a question that should be asked given the state of diplomatic relations between the world's second and third largest economies.
Simply stated Shinzo Abe's visit to Yasukuni Shrine wasn't meant as his way of praying for peace and non aggression the purpose was to show China's leaders that no matter how much they complained about Japanese foreign or military policy, he Abe was going follow his beliefs which are strongly nationalistic.
Already-frayed ties in the region will be further damaged by what Abe claimed was a pledge against war, but what one-time victims of Japan’s aggression see as a glorification of past militarism. Abe’s forthright views on history—he has previously questioned the definition of “invade” in relation to Japan’s military adventurism last century—have raised fears over the direction he wants to take officially-pacifist Japan. “His ultimate goal is to revise the (pacifist) constitution,” said Tetsuro Kato, professor emeritus at Tokyo’s Hitotsubashi University. He is “arrogant and running out of control”.
He questioned the meaning of invade? When one nation uses its military to take control of another country without provocation that's usually summed up in the word invasion. Shinzo Abe isn't alone in these types of revisionist beliefs a majority of the members of his party the Liberal Democrats share his views on history.
He sent shock waves around the region when he went to pray at Yasukuni Shrine on Thursday, the anniversary of his coming to power and just days after approving the second consecutive annual budget rise for Japan’s military. Partly, the money will be used to buy stealth fighters and amphibious vehicles intended to boost Japan’s ability to defend remote islands, the government said, citing fears over Beijing’s behavior in a row over the sovereignty of an East China Sea archipelago.
Japan and China have been at odds over the Senkaku Islands since the 1970's when the prospect of large amounts of natural gas and oil might be present in the waters surrounding the islands. It was never overt just a quiet diplomatic dispute. That all changed in 2012 when the former governor of Tokyo Shintaro Ishihara proposed the creation of a private fund to purchase the islands from their private owners. Because Shintaro Ishihara is an ultra nationalist and a racist his proposed purchase of those islands set off a firestorm of protests from the Chinese government.
What followed was attempts by nationalists from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan and Japan to land on the islands claiming them as their nations sovereign territory. In September of that year the Japanese government announced the purchase of the islands from their private owner and nationalized them in bid to keep nationalists from the various nations claiming the islands from landing on them.
China's response. The government began sending Coast Guard ships into the waters around the islands along with over flights by military aircraft. As a counter move Japan has increased its own Coast Guards presence in the area along with the repositioning of Ground Self Defense Forces equipment and personnel to Kyushu and Okinawa.
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe wants to return Japan to its glorified past when it wasn't just an economic power but a military one as well. Here's the problem Abe views this past through rose colored glasses failing to acknowledge the harm caused by Japan's imperialist adventures in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Could there be armed conflict between Japan and China? Sure anything is possible but its more likely to take the form of those which occur between North and South Korea if they happen at all. Both sides would lose in any military action taken by the other as it would not only disrupt their economies but the social fabric of both nations.
The women of the year helped bring the economy back from the brink, worked against tyranny, and championed equality, education and justice. Most of all, they helped open our eyes to how much remains to be done.
Malala Yousafzai
If 2012 was the year most of us first heard about the 14-year-old Pakistani girl, it was 2013 when we learned nobody could silence her, especially not the cowardly Taliban men who tried to kill her.
Malala had become a vocal advocate of the right of all girls to an education, a frightening prospect for the Taliban. In October 2012, machine-gun toting extremists walked onto a school van, asked for Malala, then shot her in the face.
Instead of intimidating her, the Taliban turned her into their own worst nightmare -- a powerful girl more admired and articulate than ever.
Changes in China: One-child policy is reformed and re-education through labour camps abolished
State media says China's top legislature has sanctioned the ruling Communist Party's decision to allow couples to have a second child if one parent is an only child.
It is the first major easing in three decades of the restrictive national birth planning policy.
Implemented around 1980, China's birth policy has limited most couples to only one child, but has allowed a second child if neither parent has siblings or if the first born to a rural couple is a girl.
The official Xinhua News Agency said the standing committee of the National People's Congress approved a resolution Saturday to formalise the party decision.
Medieval man believed dreams put him in contact with the supernatural. That belief persisted into the Renaissance, when the dream occupied a central place in visual arts.
Anti-government protesters clash with Turkish riot police
Turkish police have clashed with protesters demanding that the government step down. This followed a judicial blow to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government is facing a growing corruption scandal.
Riot police used water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets in an effort to disperse hundreds of anti-government protesters who had gathered in both Istanbul and the capital, Ankara, on Friday.
The Ankara-based court found that the decree "contradicts the principle of the separation of powers."
Zimbabwe ambassador to Australia seeks asylum: media
Reuters | 28 December, 2013 09:27
Zimbabwe’s ambassador to Australia has asked for political asylum just days before her term ends saying she fears for her safety if she goes home, media reported on Saturday.
Jacqueline Zwambila, who is a member of Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was appointed to Australia to renew ties between the countries after a unity government was formed in Zimbabwe in 2009.
MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai shared power with veteran leader Robert Mugabe in the unity government until a July 31 election which Mugabe won. The opposition rejected the vote as fraudulent but it was largely endorsed by African observers as free and credible.
“I am not going to be returning to Zimbabwe,” Zwambila told Australia’s Fairfax media.
Zwambila said the election had been “stolen” by an “illegitimate” government and she would not feel safe going home.
Five questions you want answered about Thailand's political tumult
Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has called elections for early February, but opponents on the streets of Bangkok want to derail the process.
By Simon Montlake, Staff writer
Besieged by massive street protests, Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra called early elections for February that polls suggest she would easily win. But her decision to seek another mandate has not ended the political unrest in Thailand, a US military ally with the second-largest economy in Southeast Asia.
Protesters have tried to prevent the registration of candidates for the election; two people died and dozens were injured on Dec. 26 in clashes between police and protesters. The country's election commission later called for a delay in holding the poll.
The chief of Thailand’s powerful army, which staged a coup in 2006, has called for calm but as of Dec. 27 had not ruled out a military intervention in the current crisis. The protest movement has vowed to keep up its campaign into the new year.
