Bangkok coup blogging part 3

The Thai capital wakes up to a calm and rainy morning after a bloodless military coup overthrew the government.

Some additional information that is being broadcast on Thai TV channels include:

  • There is a ban on gatherings of 5 people or more.
  • There are guarantees of safety to international organizations, diplomatic missions (embassies).
  • The Thai Ministry of Foreign Affairs has has invited all embassies to an information session at 13.00h (06.00h UTC/GMT) at the Army HQ, where information to be translated in English and distributed. The MFA will also coordinate with all embassies to allow their staff to the meeting.
  • The ICT (Information and Communications Technology) Ministry is also monitoring telephone lines and possibly internet.

From the beginning of the coup and throughout the night, information has been hard to come by on TV, as all international news stations have been blacked out. Thai TV has also been playing clips of the king interspersed with communiques from the military. As of this morning, Thai TV channels have slowly started their own programs. In the moments before the coup, caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s statement (issued from NYC, as he was attending the UN General Assembly meeting) that was cut off after some 10 minutes. The military had moved into several of the TV stations.

Sources of information
Currently, the Thaivisa.com forums are very active with its many expat and Thai members posting translations of the communiques, information and some analysis of the situation.

I’m also trying to list some fellow bloggers tracking the news, although news from overseas is admittedly the main way I’m following developments here.

  • TVU networks broadband streaming TV player – only has a limited selection of channels, including CNN.
  • Steve Cross – my friend who has been blogging about Thailand in general.
  • Thai Visa forums news clippings.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 1:11 am. It is filed under Asia and tagged with , , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

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