Harry Nicolaides, an Australian writer jailed in Thailand for defaming Thailands monarch, is pardoned and set free.

 Mr Nicolaides, 41, had been sentenced to three years imprisonment in January.

The charges arose from a passage in a largely unknown novel he wrote in 2005, of which only seven of 50 copies printed were ever sold.

Mr Nicolaides was met by his family in Melbourne. He would next see his mother in hospital, his father told reporters.

Speaking at the airport in Melbourne, Mr Nicolaides thanked the Australian people for their support, the Associated Press news agency reports.

He told reporters he had been crying for eight hours, having only learnt moments before his flight that his mother had suffered a stroke while he was imprisoned.

"A few hours before that I was informed I had a royal pardon... A few hours before that I was climbing out of a sewerage tank that I fell into in the prison," AP quotes him as saying.

Full stiry on BBC: news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/7903019.stm

Suvarnabhumi Airport ready to receive relocated Don Mueang Airport flights: AoT

SAMUT PRAKAN: -- Suvarnabhumi Airport is ready to take back domestic flights from Don Mueang Airport, according to Airports of Thailand (AoT) acting president Serirat Prasutanont.

Mr. Serirat, who is also director of Suvarnabhumi airport, said that the flight relocations will begin March 29 as the national flag carrier, Thai Airways (THAI) has announced it will move all domestic flights now operating from Don Mueang Airport back to Suvarnabhumi Airport on that day.

Many airlines have agreed to move their services back to Suvarnabhumi, but some still oppose such a decision by the government, he said.

"The AoT will try to persuade and explain them the advantages of the relocation. Suvarnabhumi Airport is not as congested as they think. We can still support more flights," according to the acting AoT president.

In the future, Don Mueang Airport will serve only chartered flights and will become an aviation maintenance centre, Mr. Sererat said.

Mr. Serirat added that, during the Chinese New Year festival, all flights had fully resumed services at Suvarnabhumi and that the airport now welcomed about 100,000 passengers daily, a figure not much different from what it was before the airport seizure in late November, he said, serving 90,000-110,000 passengers daily.

The AoT chief said that an additional 165 flights from 21 local and international airlines have been operating during the Chinese holiday period (January 24-February 5), with about a 7,000 passenger-increase daily.

Mr. Serirat, however, admitted that the global economic slowdown has severely affected the chartered flight business, with the number of flights landing during Chinese New Year festival dropping by 50 per cent.

He hoped that the situation would gradually recover in the near future.

Thailand sentences Australian to 3 years for insulting Royal Family

It's all over the news now that Thailand has sentenced an Autralian writer Harry Nicolaides for writing insulting comments about the Royal Family.  He wrote about them in a book which apparently sold just 7 copies. 

For more information, check out the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7836854.stm 

Thai soldiers are detaining illegal migrants from Bangladesh and Burma and forcing them back out to sea in boats without engines, survivors say.

Survivors say their hands were tied and they were towed out to sea with little or no food or water.

About 500 migrants are now recovering from acute dehydration in India's Andaman islands and the Indonesian province of Aceh.

Thai officials were not immediately available for comment.

But sources in the police and army confirmed to the BBC's Jonathan Head in Bangkok that asylum seekers are being pushed out to sea. They did not provide further details about the practice.

Thousands of poor Burmese and Bangladeshis try to reach south-east Asian nations in search of work.

'Without food'

Survivors rescued by Indian coast guards say hundreds of other asylum-seekers are still missing after leaving Bangladesh and Burma since the end of November.

They told the BBC that they paid agents to take them to Thailand by boat so that they could have a better life.

They said that the Thai authorities detained many of them in Koh Sai Daeng island.

"Thai soldiers tied up our hands and then put us in boats without engines. These were towed into the high sea by motorised boats and left to drift," said Zaw Win, a survivor rescued by Indian coast guards off the coast of Little Andamans after drifting for 12 days.

"We were without food and water. The Thai soldiers clearly wanted us to die on the boats," Win told the BBC by telephone from a camp where survivors are being cared for.

Other survivors said that about 400 migrants were put on a huge boat by soldiers. It was equipped with only two bags of rice and two drums of drinking water.

"The food and water ran out in two days. After that we were starving for nearly 15 days before we saw a lighthouse and jumped into the sea and tried swimming ashore," Mohammed Said told the BBC.

This group of migrants was also rescued by the Indian coast guards and put into relief camps.

"They have all suffered huge dehydration. We are taking care of them the best we can," said Ratan Kar, deputy director of health services in the Andamans.

'Dehydration and starvation'

Nearly all of those rescued have equally harrowing stories.

 
The asylum seekers are dehydrated.  One Rohingya villager from Burma said that his son and seven friends had left together on the same boat.

He said that after they were arrested by the Thai authorities, they were forced onto the same large boat without an engine:

"Four of them, including my son, survived but four died," he said.

"My son told me that many died because of dehydration and starvation but many also jumped into the sea.

"When the boat finally drifted close to an Andaman island, there were only just over 100 still onboard."

The refugees say that hardly any of them escaped the Thai military guarding the country's coastal islands.

Human rights activists have condemned Thailand's "inhuman and brutal response" to this new wave of illegal migration.

(Courtesy of BBC website)

Thailand's savage southern conflict 

BBC News, Bangkok 

 
The southern conflict has claimed some 3,500 lives since 2004
Five years ago, on the morning of 4 January 2004, a group of more than 50 Muslim militants stormed an army depot in Narathiwat province.

They killed four soldiers, took more than 300 weapons and burned 20 schools.

The incident marked a dramatic escalation of the decades-old conflict in the south between ethnic Malay separatists and Thai security forces.

Thais block 'anti-royal' websites  

BBC News, Bangkok 

 
The government of new PM Abhisit, pictured, contains many ardent royalists
The new Thai government has ordered ministries to act more decisively against those who violate laws protecting the image of the monarchy.

The new minister for information and technology said the government was already blocking 2,300 websites deemed offensive to the monarchy.

It was seeking permission to block 400 more.

The authorities in Thailand have become increasingly sensitive to perceived slights against the monarchy.

This sensitivity in recent years comes as King Bhumibol Adulyadej grows older and the end of his 62-year reign draws closer.

The information ministry says it has set up a round-the-clock "war room" to combat websites containing content critical of the monarchy.

The army commander has also ordered military units to be more vigilant in tracking anti-monarchy activities.

Web targeted

The number of websites being targeted by the information ministry has increased sharply, from around 1,200 four months ago to 2,300 today - and the ministry still wants to block another 400.

The current government - which replaced one led by allies of ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra last month - has many more ardent royalists among its backers.

They argue that the monarchy's image is under attack as never before, despite the almost god-like public adulation for 81-year-old King Bhumibol.

Certainly there is plenty of salacious gossip on the internet about certain members of royal family.

But in their attempts to prevent such material being seen in Thailand, overzealous officials have been blocking relatively innocent sites that, for example, merely refer to the strict lese majeste statutes that outlaws criticism of the monarchy.

And no amount of internet censorship can prevent the growing, though still very discreet, discussions among ordinary Thais over the monarchy - some of which can be surprisingly frank.

Thai blaze club boss faces charge 

Hot from the BBC: Reports suggest the new years eve fire at the popular night clun Zantika, or Santika, may have been started by fireworks lit on stage.

Thai police have said the chief owner of a Bangkok nightclub where a fire killed 62 people celebrating New Year's Eve will face criminal charges.

TV footage showed Wisuth Setsawat, the main shareholder of the Santika club, crying as he apologised to the families of victims before he was questioned.

More than 200 people were injured in the fire, with more than 30 still in a critical condition, officials said.

Reports suggest the fire may have begun when fireworks were lit on stage.

The venue, which was packed with up to 1,000 revellers, had no fire exit and there were bars on the windows.

Survivors have accused the venue of ignoring basic safety rules.

Hot from the BBC:

Thailand's opposition leader, Abhisit Vejjajiva, has been confirmed as the country's new prime minister after winning a special vote in parliament.

The speaker of the lower house, Chai Chidchob, said the Democrat Party leader had beaten former police chief Pracha Promnok by 235 votes to 198.

Mr Abhisit will become Thailand's fifth leader in a little over two years.

The previous prime minister, Somchai Wongsawat, was forced to resign after a court ruling earlier this month.

The 44-year-old British-born politician needs to restore battered economic confidence, cool the emotional political climate, and impose his authority on a cabinet drawn up as a result of days of bargaining with his coalition partners.

'Silent coup'

After the speaker of parliament had gone round and asked each of the 436 MPs to state the choice, he announced that Mr Abhisit had won and that the Democrats would be given their first chance to govern for eight years.

"Abhisit gained more than half of the vote, therefore I declare that Abhisit has been elected the new prime minister," Mr Chai said.

 Protesters reacted furiously to the confirmation of Abhisit Vejjajiva as the new PM.

However, correspondents say the new coalition may only last a few weeks, as by-elections will be held on 11 January to fill 29 seats held by Thaksin supporters barred from politics by the court ruling.

There are also questions about the nature of the behind-the-scenes bargaining needed to persuade Thaksin loyalists to switch sides, with lucrative cabinet posts and, allegedly, large sums of cash being offered by both sides.

Outside the parliament, about 200 supporters of the ousted government reacted furiously to what they called a "silent coup", hurling barricades at the gates and stopping MPs from leaving. Several cars had their windows broken.

Some chanted "Abhisit, army nominee", Reuters news agency reported. The military is seen as being close to the Democrats.

Most demonstrators dispersed peacefully but promised to gather again later in the day.

Months of deadlock

Earlier this month, the Constitutional Court found Mr Somchai's governing People Power Party (PPP) guilty of fraud during the last election a year ago, and banned it and two other parties in the governing coalition.

Mr Somchai and several other PPP leaders were also barred from politics for five years.

However, lawmakers from the three parties who escaped the politics ban quickly formed a new party - Puea Thai (For Thailand) - or joined other parties.

On Sunday, Mr Somchai's brother-in-law, exiled former PM Thaksin Shinawatra, accused the army of using the courts to undermine the government and warned them not to interfere in politics.

The country was stricken by months of political deadlock as anti-government protesters from the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) mounted a campaign to topple the PPP.

The PAD accused the PPP of being a proxy for Mr Thaksin, who was ousted in a coup in 2006.

The protest culminated in a week-long occupation of Bangkok's main international airport which left 300,000 foreign tourists stranded.

The PAD called off its action following the Constitutional Court ruling.

Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej has not been able to give his traditional speech to the nation on the eve of his 81st birthday due to minor illness.

Hot from the BBC: Flights have resumed at Bangkok's international airport following the end of a week-long blockade by anti-government protesters.

Thirty-six aircraft were scheduled to take off, 12 of which are international flights, but officials say a full schedule will not resume until Friday.