Thailand protest leader claims more powers
BANGKOK — The head of Thailand’s protest movement on Tuesday extended his extraordinary claims to holding power over government activities, issuing orders to officials over whom he has no legal or actual authority.
Suthep Thaugsuban’s latest move was bold, but bizarre. He turned the tables on his nemesis, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, saying his opposition group was ordering the prosecution of her on a charge of insurrection — a capital crime for which he himself has been charged for leading temporary occupations of government offices and urging civil servants to refuse to go to work.
The orders from Thaugsuban gave no clue as to how the deadlock over Thailand’s political crisis may be resolved, but were likely to keep tensions high after violent clashes early last week between protesters and police.
Yingluck said earlier Tuesday that she would not resign ahead of national elections set for Feb. 2.
Arms watchdog group accepts Nobel prize
OSLO, Norway – Recalling the “burning, blinding and suffocating” horrors of chemical weapons, the head of a watchdog trying to consign them to history accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on Tuesday, as prize winners in medicine, physics and other categories also took bows for their awards.
Ahmet Uzumcu, director-general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said such toxic tools of warfare have an “especially nefarious legacy,” from the trenches of World War I to the poison gas attacks in Syria this year.
“You cannot see them. You cannot smell them. And they offer no warning for the unsuspecting,” Uzumcu said as he collected the $1.2 million award in Oslo on behalf of the group.
The watchdog group was formed to enforce a 1997 international convention outlawing chemical weapons.
Associated Press
