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) PM admits challenge to end vote-buying in Thailand
BANGKOK, Oct 20 (TNA) - Realising that vote-buying practices have existed in previous elections in Thailand, interim Prime Minister Gen. Surayud Chulanont Saturday called on eligible voters, political parties and politicians to cooperate to bring an end to the practice. Gen. Surayud said during his weekly radio and television programme that he believed it is hard to educate the public to understand the importance of changing their habits in exercising voting rights as well as how to persuade political parties and politicians to share responsibilities in making a clean general election. The government's role is to organise general elections, but it is the people themselves along with political parties and politicians to cooperate with each other, he said. More>> - (
) Thai Democrat Party Leader Outlines Pro-Business Policies
BANGKOK -(Dow Jones)- Thailand's Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva said his party would abolish capital controls, cut corporate taxes and keep interest rates low if it forms the government after elections in December.The youthful-looking Abhisit, 43, told about 250 business leaders on Thursday that he would scrap a number of measures, which are widely perceived as hostile to foreign investment, to restore confidence to Thailand's economy.
"The government would have to stop introducing complicated and hostile rules to the business community. Instead it should facilitate and help strengthen the competitiveness of the private sector," he said.
Elections, which will return Thailand to democracy after the September 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin Shinawatra and his Thai Rak Thai party, are slated for December 23. More>>
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) Canadian paedophile suspect mum over charges
BANGKOK: A detained Canadian paedophile suspect has said nothing about allegations that he sexually abused young boys across Southeast Asia, a Thai police official said Sunday. Christopher Paul Neil, who was arrested in Thailand on Friday following a global manhunt led by Interpol, was "smiling and chatty" during questioning but refused to speak about the child sex allegations, the official said. "He smiled a lot and talked a lot. He answered questions about his family, the schools he graduated from and other casual topics," said Police Lieutenant General Wimon Pao-In. "But once questions turned to the child sex allegations, he stopped smiling, only saying that he did not want to answer questions," Wimon said. The 32-year-old schoolteacher was caught after Interpol made a groundbreaking appeal for the public's help in finding the man seen in 200 Internet photos showing him abusing a dozen young Asian boys. More>> - (
) Thailand nabs hunted Canadian pedophile suspect
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Canadian pedophile suspect Christopher Paul Neil, accused of raping young boys in Vietnam and Cambodia and unmasked by a unique Interpol Internet appeal, was arrested in Thailand on Friday, police said.After a nationwide manhunt, Neil, 32, was arrested in the early hours of the morning in countryside northeast of Bangkok, a region well off the normal foreign tourist trail.
Police issued a warrant for his arrest on Thursday, a week since Neil fled South Korea to Thailand, after two Thai teenagers accused him of paying for oral sex when they were 9 and 14, grounds for prosecution under Thai law.
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) Thai police chief: Paedophile suspect 'threat to society' - Update
Bangkok - A Canadian paedophile suspect sat calmly in dark sunglasses without speaking when presented to the press in the Thai capital Bangkok following his arrest earlier Friday. Thailand's deputy national police chief told more than 100 reporters that Christopher Paul Neil, 32, appeared to be "a serious threat to society" who is suspected of having abused scores, possibly hundreds, of boys - some younger than 10 - and girls.
General Wongkot Maneerin said that it was likely that Neil, a wandering English teacher, would be tried in Thailand for abusing boys during his time as an English teacher in Bangkok in 2003.
These crimes carry a penalty of 20 years in jail in Thailand.
German police investigators triggered an international furore when they managed to "uncoil" his digitally altered internet photographs that showed him abusing many young boys in Cambodia and Vietnam. More>>