The News Review:

- Booze and bogans a potent cocktail for ugly Aussies abroad
- Hmong general who helped US now accused of terrorism
- Severe Weather Strikes South Southwest; Aid Finally Getting into…

Booze and bogans a potent cocktail for ugly Aussies abroad
The Age – May 10, 2008
Most are not reportedand increasingly Cunningham is having to pick up the pieces asmore Australian travellers either cause trouble or get intotrouble. There is every sign his workload will get heavier. fficial figures show almost 660000 Australians visitedThailand last year up 20% on the previous year. The figures don’tshow how many went to Phuket but it’s likely hundreds of thousandsdo as the island is included in many cheap packages. Last yearaccording to Cunningham Australians were the largest singlenational group visiting Phuket. He attributes the increase to the drift away from Bali becauseof security concerns and the military coup in Fiji. ther factors are cheap packages — depending on the seasonreturn flights and eight days’ accommodation on Phuket cost aslittle as $1200 — and direct flights… It also has plenty of perils: aggressive touts thievesextortionists and rapists. The risk was highlighted last year when a young Australianstudent was raped after a drinking binge with friends in Patong. She was so drunk that she couldn’t even stand up but her friendsinstead of taking her back to her hotel five minutes away put herin a “tuk tuk” a motorised trishaw. The young woman fell face down in the back of the tuk tuk sothey put her in the front seat with the driver and gave him somemoney with instructions to take her back to her hotel. “And then they went back to partying” Cunningham says. Theircompanion was driven to a secluded area and raped. Last month a 27-year-old Swedish tourist was stabbed to deathafter she resisted a rapist on a secluded Phuket beach.

Hmong general who helped US now accused of terrorism
International Herald Tribune – May 10, 2008
The reported meeting with the CIA “didn't happen” said Lo Cha Thao's lawyer Mark Reichel. “Lo Cha Thao is a hustler and a half” not a master spy or a wannabe terrorist. According to the indictment on April 24 2007 in a room at a Hilton Hotel in Sacramento Lo Cha Thao looked over a cache of weapons offered by the undercover agent and said he would take two Stingers. Then on May 11 he and Harrison Jack sat down with the agent who pumped Lo Cha Thao for his battle plan. No worries about the money for the weapons Lo Cha Thao assured the agent. Vang Pao had plenty: “He's like the fifth-richest guy in the world” Lo Cha Thao said… When it does John Keker Vang Pao's lawyer told the court during a bail hearing “we happen to believe it's going to be a fiasco and that the jury is going to be chasing the prosecutors down the street for having brought it. ” The news that Vang Pao had been indicted by the government of the United States on a charge of conspiring to kill the leaders of Laos reverberated throughout Southeast Asia. The Thai government and the Laotian military accelerated plans to repatriate Hmong refugees a week after the indictment was handed up; the Thais deported 160 people trying to reach a wretched border encampment. Thousands more may follow and the likelihood that they will be questioned harshly – or worse – is very real says Lionel Rosenblatt of Refugees International: “The Lao are feverish to get their hands on refugees who might be able to shed light on the remaining 1000 Hmong fighters still in Laos. This heightens the Lao military's pressure on the Thai government to force the refugees back to Laos to interrogate some of them about the resistance.

Severe Weather Strikes South Southwest; Aid Finally Getting into…
CNN International – May 10, 2008
plans to send two relief planes on Tuesday if all goes well during Monday’s scheduled flight. Plus two aid flights from Thailand and Dubai landed in Myanmar today. Military rulers in the country also known as Burma are distributing much of the donations themselves despite the widespread devastation. The government today held a referendum on a proposed constitution. Military rulers claim it’s a step towards democracy. Critics dismiss it as a ploy by the military to remain in control… There was limited electricity and communications were fraught. But we were still managing to report on what was happening. We have to change hotels every day. Now my reports were on air I was a marksman. Having to sneak in and out of a hotel through the back stairs. So that they don’t know we’re here because we understand that the authorities are now looking for me specifically. There were two guys basically sitting in a car outside of our hotel looked like they could have been sitting waiting and watching.

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