NEWS HOUND: Renewed efforts to extradite Thaksin

– A daily, pocket-sized packet of news from around the world, compiled by Phuket Gazette reporters for foreigners who want it short, sharp and straight to the point.

PHUKET: Thailand’s Foreign Ministry announced this afternoon that last week’s supreme court decisions, in which a cascade of guilty verdicts rained down on Thaksin Shinawatra, give renewed urgency to the government’s efforts to extradite the fugitive former prime minister from Dubai.

Chavanan Intharakomalsut, the secretray of the foreign minister, says that the ministry will use the abuse-of-power and other convictions to launch renewed efforts to convince the United Arab Emirates to help in bringing Thaksin back to Thailand where he faces a two-year jail sentence.

Meanwhile, Thaksin said on his internet radio station last night that he thought the court’s judges did not write the verdicts themselves, because they “read like political rhetoric by the opposition.”

Despite the heat generated by the court’s decisions and the rhetoric and threats being hurled by Thaksin’s red-shirted supporters, most of Thailand, including Phuket, remains calm in the wake of the order to seize 46 billion baht (approx $1.4 billion) of the former PM’s assets.

— Nation & Gazette Reporters