The United Arab Emirates has promised to expel fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and send him to Thailand if he is found in Dubai – Bangkok Post.
The other way of saying it is, he won’t be touched if he’s found in Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm al-Quwain, Ras al-Khaimah and Fujairah – the six other emirates that, including Dubai, comprise the UAE.

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In a telephone address, Thailand’s fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who lives in exile in Dubai, told thousands of supporters gathered in Bangkok this week  that he is “dying in the desert.”

Instead of sulking, he should count himself lucky. Thousands of Thai inmates would prefer to wait for death in the comforts of a Dubai hotel than live long in a putrid Thai jail.

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Sixty-seven Filipino workers were arrested recently in Saudi Arabia for cross-dressing or wearing women’s clothes.

Yet the Saudis wear dishdasha — that white tunic that looks every inch a woman’s gown.

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Sixty-seven Filipino workers were arrested recently in Saudi Arabia for cross-dressing or wearing women’s clothes.

Ironically, all Saudi men wear dishdasha — that white tunic that looks every inch a woman’s gown.

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In Tabon-tabon, a poor dusty town in Central Philippines, plastic is now accepted as payment for goods at a grocery shop or medicine at a local pharmacy. Or even as settlement for taxes, according to the Philippine Daily Inquirer newspaper.

This is not news. In most affluent countries, including Thailand, people live on plastic, buying everything they need with their credit cards.

There’s a small difference though. Here in Thailand, as elsewhere in the West, we carry our plastic in our wallets.  In that faraway Philippine town, they carry their plastic (empty bottles, broken plastic containers, sachets, tubes, etc.) in big bundles.

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I’m not making this up. The first swine-flu death in the Philippines, ironically, happened in Congress, its national legislature known for its hefty pork-barrel spending.

I am almost convinced my theory is correct – that pork (and wine) attracts swine flu.

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Very sad. Until the very end Michael Jackson was dogged by law. A few years back, he had an arrest for molestation.

This time he had cardiac arrest.

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A Chinese woman married to a Singaporean national has sued an anti-corruption officer in Singapore for abuse and causing her injury. At her trial this week, Ms. Lin Yanmei told the court that Neo Siong Leng, senior investigator at the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), accused her of being a prostitute and marrying a Singaporean national for convenience so she could enter the country to ply her trade.
To prove if she was really married to the Singaporean, the woman said the investigator asked her about the size of her supposed husband’s sexual organ. Of course, she answered it correctly, she said, but he hit her with a plastic folder just the same.
This Singaporean investigator is an embarrassment — for his poor IQ. Wife or prostitute, she could have known the answer just the same!

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Last week, the Honduran president was roused from sleep in the presidential palace and flown overseas in his pajamas by the military.  He was accused of trying to tinker with the country’s Constitution in a bid to extend his term.

A reminder for Philippine President Gloria Arroyo, widely believed to be behind the move to amend the Charter so she could stay on in power: She should never sleep in her pajamas.