Two more travel advisories

Malaysia and Slovakia both issued travel advisories, yesterday, warning citizens against travel to Thailand. There are now travel advisories from 37 nations, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand marketing communications deputy governor, Prakit Piriyakiat.

This is probably the highest number of warnings since yellow shirt protesters closed the city?s airports in late 2008.

Usually, Malaysia is reluctant to issue travel advisories on its neighbour, as it supplies in excess of 1 million tourists a year to Thailand, mostly overland visits to the southern Thai provinces.

Earlier today, the Speaker of the House announced that the joint parliamentary meeting, that was due to open 0900, has now been postponed. Attendance dropped to 80, well below the quorum for the 625-member parliament. All government MPs had indicated they would not attend. Also the weekly Cabinet meeting, held Tuesdays, has also been cancelled. The PM is visiting the North today to inspect the areas suffering a water shortage.

At 1600 this afternoon, the red shirts will walk to government house to pressure the government to resign. They intend to throw blood, donated by protesters, at all of the gates leading to the compound. The government house is located not far from the Equestrian Statue of King Rama V in front of Amporn Garden.

The red shirts will then move to the Democrat Party?s Office on Rama VI Road and repeat the macabre display, throwing donated blood at the gate posts.

The Public Health Department issued a warning to protesters advising them that only new needles should be used and that blood donations of 10 ml, per protester, should be drawn under medical supervision.

Red shirt leaders hope to have 1 million ml to spray over gates. They claim the government has bled the country dry so during the protests they will offer more blood as a symbol of their disgust.

The PM announced, together with all the coalition parties, that they will not bow to pressure to dissolve the House or resign.

The PM deputy secretary-general, Panithan Wattanayagorn, said there was no discussions to use an Emergency Decree at the moment. However, he said the PM had the authority to issue a decree without consulting the Cabinet, but he would have to make a formal affirmation of his decision to the Cabinet within three days after the law came into effect.

The city and some surrounding provinces are under what is called the Internal Security Act that gives security officers specific powers to deal with unrest. However, it does include restricting meetings of more than five people, or the right to declare a curfew.

It now appears unlikely that the security level will escalate to a state of emergency. Under the present security level, more than 40,000 troops and police are in place in the capital and in general the city is calm and going about its business almost as normal.

Sourced = The TTR Weekly