Thais remember Bangkok protests

May 19, 2011 updated at 03: 30 GMT soldiers moved in a year there are demonstrations of plain red shirt anti-Government Thais are marking one year since the violent end to two months of anti-Government protests in Bangkok.

A total of 92 people were killed, including 20 civilians and five soldiers killed in an attempt to crackdown on 10 April.

Demonstrators hostile to the Government of "red-shirt" provide a peaceful rally to mark the anniversary.

Researchers and an investigative body did not apportion blame for the murders.

The demonstrators - numbering up to 100,000 times - had been demanding the dissolution of the Government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.

It is now called a planned for July 3 elections, but the anger and hurt remains intense among all the victims of disorders - protesters, soldiers, and those caught between two fires.

The anniversary will be marked first by a religious ceremony in a Bangkok temple, followed by a protest renewed the site of their fateful occupation in 2010.

The red shirts started demonstrations in March 2010, moving to the Central Ratchaprasong intersection, bordered by hotels five stars and shopping centres, after a military action have failed on 10 April.

After failed negotiations between the Government and certain leaders of protest figures, the Government decided to send soldiers on 19 May.

They were accused of using excessive force; as they moved, they came under fire from men armed fighting side by side with the demonstrators.

Several soldiers were killed and most of many civilians, protesters, journalists and nurses were also killed.

Unreconciled

A truth and reconciliation commission has been implemented to establish the facts behind the violence. But, a year after, he has yet to make public its findings.

Yingluck Shinawatra, regarded as a stand-in for his brother Thaksin will lead the opposition in the polls

"We have said time and again to the Government:"If you really want to heal, you have to take some of your officials,"" said Brad Adams, Director of Human Rights Watch Asia.

Rather, the lack of justice is the engine alongside more spaced apart, he said.

The BBC Rachel Harvey in Bangkok said that, with an election due in July, the political divisions of Thailand are likely to be exposed once more.

The question, she says, is whether differences can be resolved by the ballot box rather than on the street.

The main objectives of demonstrators now seem to be much more nesting with those of the main opposition, she said.

However, the Prime Minister himself admits that the wounds of May 2010 have not yet fully healed.

"Of course, if you ask me if today there is reconciliation, I must say"not yet"," Mr Abhisit said in a speech this month.

The former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, accused of financing the protest movement while living in exile in Dubai to avoid imprisonment, remains a figure immensely source of contention, says our correspondent.

For his supporters, he is champion of the disadvantaged who had power by powerful elites, supported by military unconstitutional.

For its detractors, Mr. Thaksin was a corrupt and authoritarian leader who manipulated gullible voters.

A third Intifadeh? Nakba Deadly protests Spark fears of escalating the border of Israel and Lebanon

South Lebanon Sunday witnessed its deadliest day since the month-long 2006 Israel-Hizballah war when 10 Palestinian demonstrators were reported shot dead and another 112 wounded as Israeli troops opened fire on protests along the border fence. The casualties came as a massive crowd of Palestinians gathered at Maroun er Ras, a small hilltop village overlooking the border with Israel, to commemorate the 63 rd anniversary of the Nakba, or Catastrophe, when the state of Israel was established.

By Sunday night, the militant Lebanese Shi'ite group Hizballah was on alert and United Nations peacekeepers, known as UNIFIL, and Lebanese troops were planning heightened security measures along the border to prevent the retaliatory firing of rockets into Israel and a continuing escalation of cross border violence. (See photos of today's violent intifadeh.)

The protests were not an isolated event. Other Nakba demonstrations were held in Jordan, Egypt and Syria, where up to four Palestinians were killed in a rare infiltration of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria. (Israel said that one infiltrator was killed.) Some organizers of the Nakba commemoration had hoped that it would herald the onset of a "third intifadeh" of peaceful mass protests to compel Israel to honor the rights of Palestinians living under occupation or whom were expelled from their homes during the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948.

The biggest of the border protests by far was in Lebanon, where an estimated 50,000 Palestinians were bussed from refugee camps scattered around Lebanon to Maroun er Ras. The huge turnout surprised even organizers. "I was expecting 21.000 at the most." "We ran out of nozzles to carry everyone," said Mahmoud Zeidan, a protest organizer from the Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon. "ain al hilweh looks deserted." "I haven't seen it so empty since the 1982 Israeli invasion when everyone evacuated," he said. (See photos of flaring tempers between Palestine and Israel on the Nakba.)

With the narrow winding road leading to Maroun er Ras blocked by parked buses, entire families from toddlers to stooped and wrinkled old men began climbing the steep northern slopes of the hill to reach the village. Across the verdant flower-speckled hillside, thin rivers of humanity defied gravity to steadily flow uphill, red, green and black Palestinian flags fluttering in the balmy spring breeze. Stout grandmothers wearing thick cotton dresses and white headscarves panted and wheezed, red faced, as youngsters scrambled past them. The vast majority of those participating in the event were born after 1948 and have never seen their original homeland, let alone visited their ancestral homes in what is now Israel. On cresting the hill at Maroun er Ras, a vast expanse of western Galilee - forested hills and belts of apple orchards - could be seen stretching away to the south. "I am lost for words," said Tarek, the 28-year-old owner of a laundry business in Beirut.

The atmosphere on the climb up the hill to Maroun er Ras was cheerful and friendly, almost like a picnic outing. Purpose on the southern side of the hill overlooking the border, the situation quickly grew tense. Hundreds of Palestinians scrambled down the rocky slope to reach the frontier fence. A crowd of some 300 to 400 reached the fence and began hurling stones at Israeli soldiers. Lebanese troops moved quickly, recognizing that perhaps a disaster could unfold if the thousands of Palestinians gathering on the hilltop could reach the fence. Troops fanned out along a dirt track about 400 yards from the border fence and forcefully prevented anyone from going further. Short sporadic bursts of machine gun fire echoed across the hillside as Israeli soldiers opened fire on the crowd at the fence. A steady trickle of casualties was ferried by stretcher from the fence to an awaiting fleet of ambulances.

One man writhed in pain on the ground as medics treated him. Another young man was shot in the thigh, blood seeping through the bandages. Another man appeared to have been shot in the stomach as he was helped into an ambulance by several men whose clothes were smeared with the victim's blood. (See pictures of young Palestinians in the age of the wall.)

"allah u-akbar" (God is great), intoned a solemn-looking man as he and other wide-eyed onlookers gazed at the casualties being treated on the ground. A forest of raised arms clutching camera-fitted cell phones recorded the scene.

As more were wounded, dozens more ambulances began to arrive on the scene. The silhouettes of Israeli troops could be spotted on the ramparts of a border outpost watching the protest. Inside the outpost, a tank revved its engines and emitted a thick cloud of smoke, partly obscuring the position. Other soldiers hurried along the border patrol road as showers of stones cascaded around them. Some Palestinians hunting for stones began straying perilously close to the minefields that Israel planted along most of the border inside Lebanon more than 30 years ago.

Checked by the thin line of Lebanese soldiers, Palestinian tempers frayed as the young men attempted to push through to reach the border. A group of Islamic Jihad supporters chanted "god is great" and "we will liberate Palestine with the Kalashnikov". Every few minutes, the surging crowd of Palestinians gained sufficient momentum to push past the angry Lebanese soldiers, cheering and whooping as they dashed toward the border fence to join their comrades. The scattered machine gun fire and casualties did little to deter the Palestinian demonstrators. If anything, each shooting appeared to galvanize them further. (See pictures of the flourishing Hizballah youth.)

The Israeli army said that the protests in south Lebanon and the Golan Heights boron the fingerprints of Iran and served Syria's interests. However, the Iran-backed Hizballah took a back seat at the Maroun er Ras demonstration, even though the village, scene of a key battle in the 2006 Israel-Hizballah war, staunchly supports the Shi'ite group. Hizballah men helped marshal the busloads of Palestinians, but Palestinian officials from Lebanon were clearly in charge of the event.

Still, agent provocateurs were not required to Burns Palestinian passions at Maroun er Ras. The presence of tens of thousands of dispossessed Palestinians standing on the edge of their former homeland on the emotional anniversary of the Nakba was more than enough to ignite tensions.

Before the 2006 war, Sunday's high casualty count almost certainly would have led to some form of military response by Hizballah. But Hizballah has remained quiet in the past five years, unwilling to goad Israel into another unwanted conflict. Less certain is the response of extremist Palestinian groups suspected of past rocket firings into Israel. UNIFIL and the Lebanese army were expected to expand their "rocket watch" patrols in the coming days to prevent the possibility of the deadly Nakba commemoration sparking a tit-for-tat escalation along the Lebanon-Israel border.

Yemen protests paralyse 2 cities, police kill two

SANAA - the Yemeni security forces have killed two demonstrators and wounded dozens Wednesday as rallies of mass demanding the overthrow of President Ali Abdullah Saleh paralyzed two cities Wednesday, residents and nurses said.

Snipers shot two demonstrators in Taiz as disorders in a third day running close main industrial city of the Yemen. Dozens were wounded by gunfire artillery, tear gas and beatings by officers in civilian, wielding bats, nurses in Taiz said.

Protesters retaliated by burning a building of the police, residents said.

Oil giant Saudi Arabia and the United States neighbors fear escalating violence could push Yemen impoverished, already riven by tribal and separatist, conflicts in the chaos which could be used by the wing based on the Yemen of al-Qaeda operate more freely.

The security forces in Taiz were trying to break up a blockade to protest the Ministry of education in the region, some 200 km (130 miles) South of the capital Sanaa.

But the demonstrators rather extended their blockade to complete public services and the Directorate-General of the Ministry of oil of Taiz. Residents, said that the city of 540 000 people has been effectively paralyzed.

"Shops are closed and the streets are completely empty of pedestrians, only demonstrators are around in the areas they face (security forces)," resident Wajdi said Abdullah.

Demonstrators also began life in the virtual Ibb city. "Almost all stores are closed to Ibb except a few sells basic food products." No one will work - it is unprecedented in this city, "said resident Ali Noaman.

The country of the Arabian peninsula was rocked by three months of daily protests and demonstrators frustrated by the unwillingness of Saleh to give up to about 33 years in power have sought new ways to release its grip.

Many called for extending a sporadic general strike in a daily event.

Yemen is facing a growing crisis of fuel that the tribes continue to blockade of long weeks of Maarib province, the main source of oil and gas. A shipping source told Reuters that the Government was losing about $ 3 million per day that exports have been blocked.

But this can be equally overwhelming for residents themselves for the Saleh Government.

A fragile economy of the Yemen is struggling to stay afloat, as the currency tumbling below 240 against the dollar and the price of necessities soar. This will increase the difficulties for the 40 per cent of the Yemen 23 million people living on less than $ 2 a day and one-third of them suffer from chronic hunger.

Residents in the more remote regions suffer also severe water shortages because trucks have been bringing shipments of water because of fuel rationing.

The popular Mexico Calderón, despite massive protests on its drug strategy

Mexico City - more than half of the Mexico approves of Presidency of Felipe Calderón, according to a new survey of public opinion, despite the appearance otherwise nationwide over the weekend protests calling for him to put an end to its strategy led by the military in the war against drugs.

Today, a day after tens of thousands demonstrators marched in the capital for peace and a new strategy against crime, the firm survey Buendia & Laredo has published a study showing President Calderón approval rating at 54 per cent - a little less in 2010, but not much.

Critics led by the military strategy Calderón to fight against drug trafficking, which took some 36,000 lives since it was inaugurated in December 2006, saying that their complaints have fallen more and more on deaf ear.

How know to the Mexico? Reply to our questionnaire.

But when specifically asked if the work of Calderón to the fight against drug trafficking was good or very good, 50 per cent of respondents have said that it was more than 46 per cent in November 2010. Commissioned by the Mexican newspaper El Universal, the survey reveals that the continuous public support Calderón emphasis on security, even if they disagreed with the manner in which it is being implemented, says firm Director Jorge Buendia.

"[A] must differentiate between ends and means", says Mr. Buendia. "The means, the strategy, people are not happy or are unhappy with it." He has translated in addition to violence, but the objective, they are very favourable. ?

And that, according to him, gives Calderón of the room to continue advancing in the conviction of her struggle, most analysts say it is unlikely to back down so that it is in position. Indeed, a day before peace mass March set out of Cuernavaca Thursday - including the culmination in Mexico City Sunday - Calderón went on the air to reiterate the need not to change policy but to redouble its efforts. "There is no option to withdraw from this fight", said the President.

At the same time, Buendia adds, the survey does not mean that Calderón may dismiss the protest weekend peace, archive growing sections of critical opinion and editorials or condemnation of academics, politicians and activists.

Javier Sicilia: Mexico can ' place of ruin

The most recent display of anger came Sunday at the end of the March of peace led by Javier Sicilia, a poet whose son was killed allegedly in the hands of drug in March.

"a€ new we have travelled and arrived here in silence, it's because our pain is so great and so profound and the horror that causes it is so huge, that there is no words to describe it," he said in a speech. "We always believe that it is possible for countries to revive and increase of the ruin and show the agents of death that the sons and daughters of this country are standing up".

Authorities have said that the younger Sicilia was not involved in the trafficking. While the Government has long maintained that the extreme majority of tens of thousands of drug-related homicides are drug traffickers themselves, many innocent victims have been killed, abducted and tortured.

Mr. Sicilia also demanded the eviction of Secretary of the Mexican public security Genaro Garcia Luna, considered the architect of the strategy of Calderón of deployment of tens of thousands of military and federal police across the country since December 2006. While the Government claims many successes, including arrests or killings of at least 20 leaders of drug since 2009, many observers believe that the fragmentation of the groups has led in turn to more violence.

When Calderón took office, beheadings made front page. In an atmosphere of violence today, decapitations shock barely more. Instead, more grim news dominated headlines, including organizations from tombs in the North of the Mexico, many apparently innocent migrants en route to the United States.

Protests raise calls for debate

Public safety became major concerns of Mexicans, before the economy--a trend that has grown since November of last year, the new survey Buendia & Laredo.

Although no one expects Calderón to change its strategy - especially with public support in the United States, where he is visiting this week - many hope the March Sunday, will stimulate more discussion.

"Calderón options gave were simplistic: you press the strategy or you ask for the transfer of the State," analyst Jose Antonio Crespo wrote in El Universal, which learned opinions as to what it come after peace March. "."It is more complicated. I hope that after the March discussions, forums, ideas, and continue to steps more. ?

Child killed while Syrian forces try to stop protests (AP)

Cairo - a Syrian activist said that a 12 year old boy was killed in the Centre of the city of Homs, the security forces have sealed off after massive protests against the regime.

An activist who became evidence of Homs, stated that the child was killed Sunday as firing and shelling erupted in the city. The activist refused to be named for fear of reprisals.

The Syria has banned foreign media and restricted access for reporters in several regions of the country, making it difficult to confirm the evidence independently. President Bashar Al-Assad has used the military and security forces to crush the uprising of seven weeks in the country across the country.

More than 580 civilians and 100 soldiers have been killed since the start of the revolt, say rights groups.

IT IS AN UPDATE OF BREAKING NEWS. Check back soon for more information. Previous AP story is below.

Cairo (AP) - the Syrian security forces arrested more than 200 people Sunday early - including a 10 year old boy - as President Bashar al-Assad is developing a campaign to crush the seven-week uprising, at the national level of the country, said militants.

Rami Abdul Rahman, Director of the Syrian human rights observatory, said that more than 200 people have been picked up in Banias, a town in key oil industry on the Mediterranean coast where one of the largest protests took place in the night. On Saturday, the troops of tanks and armoured vehicles rolled and sealed off the coast of the city.

A 10-year-old child was among those taken into custody, said Abdul Rahman.

"It seems to be designed to punish his parents," he told The Associated Press, adding that the water, electricity, and almost all forms of communication of the city have been cut.

Another activist obtain reports of witness said that three more were found dead there since Saturday, bringing the balance sheet of two days in Banias to six. The activist refused to be named for security reasons.

Syria uprising was triggered by the arrest of adolescents who scribbled anti-Government graffiti on a wall in the city of the South of Dara in mid-March. Protests inspired by uprisings sweeping the Arab world spread rapidly across the nation of some 23 million people.

More than 580 civilians and 100 soldiers have been killed since the start of the revolt, say rights groups.

The events of Banias, after the killed security forces 30 people in nationwide protests Friday, came in the wake of a military operation on a large scale in Dara. The headquarters of 11 days, with approximately 50 residents were killed, triggered international outrage and condemnation.

Banias, which is home to one of two of the country's oil refineries and is the main point of Syrian oil export, has a potentially explosive mixture of religious groups and sects. It is predominantly Sunni Muslim, but is also home to many Alawi - the sect of the ruling Assad family and several officials. He also has a large power station.

Syrian officials and the State media have tried to portray Banias as fertile ground for Islamic extremists to justify the Suppression of the regime. The news agency SANA said the army and security forces were pursuing fugitives in Banias and managed to stop a large number of them and confiscate their weapons.

Sunday, SANA said Syrian authorities seized sophisticated weapons and that the army is still hunting down "armed terrorist groups" across the country, including in Banias.

The United States has already imposed sanctions on three senior Syrian officials as well as intelligence of the Syria and revolutionary Agency keeps the Iran on law enforcement. The European Union should impose sanctions on Syrian officials next week, and the United Nations, said Saturday, and he sends a Syria team to investigate the situation.

Similar to that of Dara, operation of Banias where begins the uprising, risks further alienate the Assad regime, which used a brutal military force to crush the revolt without precedent against the dynasty of 40 years of his family.

Details of the deployment of troops in Banias, for weeks the scene of demonstrations demanding a change of regime, were rare as telephone lines and other communications with the region were mainly cut.

Syrian protests exploded after the Friday prayer (Reuters)

AMMAN (Reuters) - protests broke out across the Syria Friday for the with thousands of the call for freedom in the Kurdish east and dozens briefly walking in Damascus require the eviction of President Bashar al-Assad, activists and witnesses said.

But the army, who stormed the city in the South of Deraa last month to crush resistance in the cradle of the insurrection of seven weeks, deployed tanks in the Centre of the city of Homs and Damascus protest quickly dispersed security forces.

Witnesses said security forces also opened fire on demonstrators in the town of such, just north of the capital, injuring of demonstrators.

Militant Wissam tariff said demonstrations also took place in the South of the city of Jassem, coastal Banias and Amouda to the East.

Activists of the rights of man say army, security forces and gunmen loyal to Assad had killed at least 560 civilians during pro-democracy demonstrations that began in March. Thousands were arrested and beaten, including the elderly, women and children, they said.

Officials give a much lower death toll and say half the deaths were soldiers and police officers, and blame "army of terrorist groups" of violence.

The Western powers, which had sought for several years to engage in Damascus and loosen its alliances anti-israélien with the Iran and militant groups, Hezbollah and Hamas, has condemned the bloodshed.

The United States, who called the Suppression of the army in "barbarian" Deraa, also imposed last week targeted sanctions against the Syrian officials and major powers of Europe have lobbied for the European Union of similar measures.

DERAA "SEAT".

Last week, Al-Assad ordered the army to Adraa, cradle of the insurgency that started with demands for greater freedom and put an end to corruption and is now pressing for his removal.

A division of ultra-loyalist conducted by his brother Maher were bombed and machinegunned Adraa of old quarter Saturday, said residents. The Syrian authorities said Thursday the army had started to leave Deraa, but residents described a city still under siege.

Aid workers of the Red Cross and Red Crescent delivered their first emergency relief supplies to Adraa Thursday, providing drinking water, food and first aid materials. They had no immediate information on the number of victims in the city.

Human Rights Watch quoted figures saying Syrian rights groups 350 people had been killed in Deraa. He urged the authorities Friday to "lift the siege" on the city and put end to what he called a national campaign of arbitrary arrests.

"The authorities of the Syria believe that they can fight and kill their way out of the crisis," said HRW Middle East Director Sarah Leah Whitson. "But with each illegal arrest, each murder of a demonstrator, they precipitate a crisis already."

Diplomats said the European Union could reach a preliminary agreement on the imposition of sanctions on the hierarchy of the Syria to power Friday, but did not yet decide whether Al-Assad should be included.

Assad said the demonstrators were part of a foreign conspiracy to provoke sectarian conflicts.

His father Hafez Al-Assad used language similar when it crushed Islamist and secular challenges to its rule in the 1980s, which led to the violent repression of an uprising in the city of Hama, with 30,000 people were killed.

Hafez lost two wars in Israel, as Minister of defence in 1967 and as President in 1973. He held the position of the Syria as a central actor in the geopolitics of the Middle East by strengthening the links with the Iran of Shi'ite and support of the Palestinian guerrilla forces.

The younger El-Assad, which belongs to the Alawi sect of minority, has strengthened the anti-Israel alliance with Tehran, despite the concern on the part of the majority Sunni population of the Syria.

Brothers Muslims back Syria protests (Reuters)

Damascus (Reuters) - Muslim Brotherhood called Syrians get off the streets before the Friday prayer and to help the besieged city of Deraa, where a group of dead civilian armed attack said rights supported by the reservoir rose 50.

It was the first time that the brotherhood, ruthlessly crushed with movements secular leftists under the rule of the late President Hafez Al-Assad, had called the protest in Syria since the pro-democracy demonstrations against the son Assad, President Bashar al-Assadbroke six weeks ago.

A statement by the brotherhood, sent to Reuters, through his leadership in exile, Thursday, said: "do not leave the scheme lay siege to your countrymen." Singing with one voice for freedom and dignity. Don't let the tyrant to enslave you. God is great. ?

The events attracted a cross-section of Syrian society, which was under the regime of the Ba'ath party for 48 years. The young Assad kept the political system autocratic, he inherited in 2000, whereas the family extended its control over the faltering economy of the Syria.

The brotherhood said accusations by authorities that Islamists were behind unrest were aimed to foment civil war and to undermine the requirements at the national level for political freedoms and put an end to corruption.

But Friday, the Muslim day of rest and prayer, was the main opportunity for demonstrators to gather, challenging the authorities repeated warnings do step to demonstrate.

Security forces shot dead at least 120 demonstrators last Friday, said Syrian organization of the Sawasiah human rights, in the more great Syria demonstrations has seen since the democratic uprising broke out on March 18 in Deraa, with pro-democracy demonstrations spread to regions through the rest of the Syria.

Three days later the fourth mechanized Division, under the control of the Maher brother Assad stormed Deraa, doing their sound echoing attack of 1982 of the father on the town of Hama to crush a revolt led by the Muslim Brotherhoodkilling anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000 people.

Assad has tightened the grip of security in and around Damascus Thursday, with the various forces and the secret police units of security deployment in the cities nearby, Erbin and Tel and in the district of Damascus of Barzeh and the suburbs of the State Duma and Darayarights activists and witnesses said.

The Syrian human rights observatory, said that Adraa attack killed at least 50 civilians, with essential supplies in the town of running Act.

The offensive has helped intensify criticism against Assad to the West, which took steps to rehabilitate the Syrian leader over the past three years. The United States, said that it is considering tightening the sanctions.

Ambassadors of the Governments of the European Union in Brussels to meet Friday to discuss the possibility of imposing sanctions against the Syria plan, which could include asset freezes and travel of senior officials.

An EU diplomat said it is perhaps too early for the block to make a binding decision Friday, but Governments could send a message of signalling sanctions were on the table.

"I expect a political signal to the sanctions, but perhaps not a decision yet", said the diplomat.

EU against the Syria other measures could include the freezing of financial aid, which amounts to 43 million euros ($64 million) a year.