theSun | THURSDAY NOVEMBER 27 2008 13

news without borders

Gloom and frowns

in the ‘Land of Smiles’
BANGKOK: “We all came to
Thailand because we love Thailand
but this has left a very bad feeling,”
said British retiree Jean McCartan,
trapped beneath the glass bubble of
the international airport.
Thousands like her, thirsty,
hungry and tired, rued the day they
ever came to the self-declared “Land
of Smiles.”
As jubilant demonstrators shared
noodles to celebrate storming
Suvarnabhumi Airport, McCartan,
who was wrapping up a three-week
holiday, said she had nothing to eat
or drink since Tuesday night.
Conditions were deplorable
inside the airport, said McCartan,
from Argyll in Scotland. All the
restaurants and shops in the
flagship, two-year-old facility closed
their shutters.
Tourists complained that check-in
and other staff had run away as soon
as the demonstrators swarmed into
the US$3 billion (RM10.8 billion)
glass and steel gateway.
“Nobody could really tell us what
was happening,” said McCartan.
Across the vast departure area
tourists sat miserably on piles of
luggage.
Clumps of holidaymakers stood
glumly around the departure screens
desperate for upbeat news – but saw
REUTERSPIX
only red cancellation signs, blinking
hopelessly.
In the arrivals hall, a woman
stood alone, forlornly holding a
placard for a passenger who is
unlikely to arrive anytime soon.
The airport director said about
3,000 tourists were stranded since
the blockade started on Tuesday
night, and the protesters said that
all airlines must now ask them for
permission to land.
With the flagship airport now
firmly at the centre of an often
violent six-month campaign to
topple the government, it was a
scary experience for travellers who
arrived amid the chaos.
“We couldn’t see faces but we
could hear an awful lot of noise,”
said Marie Pritchard, who was trying
to make her way home to Wales.
“There was lots of riot police with
shields and batons. I just want to be
safe back in bed.”
About 8,000 protesters were Anti-
occupying areas around the airport, government
according to police. protesters
While most tourists were stop a driver
simply bewildered by the situation, on a main
some were furious with the road at
authorities, who have tried to avoid Bangkok’s
confrontation. Suvarnabhumi
Airport police stood around Airport
passively. – AFP yesterday.

Syria, Iran in spotlight

at key IAEA meeting
VIENNA: The UN atomic watchdog convenes
this week for its traditional end-of-year meeting
where the focus will be on the agency’s investiga-
tions into alleged illicit nuclear work in both Syria
and Iran.
The International Atomic Energy Agency’s
(IAEA) 35-member board of governors is sched-
uled to begin its traditional end-November meet-
ing today.
Two full days of deliberations are planned dur-
ing which the board will consider recent reports
on the disputed nuclear dossiers of Damascus
and Teheran.
The reports, circulated to the board last week,
found that the IAEA was making little headway
in either case.
Iran was continuing to defy UN demands to
cease uranium enrichment, a process used to
make nuclear fuel and the fissile material for an
atom bomb.
And IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei
also complained that Teheran was still refusing
to answer multiple allegations of past nuclear
weapons works.
The report on Syria was the first that the IAEA
has issued after inspectors visited a suspect
nuclear site in the remote Syrian desert in June.
The US claims that the site, Al-Kibar, had been
a covert nuclear reactor close to completion, until
it was razed to the ground by Israeli bombs in
September 2007.
IAEA found Al-Kibar did appear to share some
of the characteristics of a nuclear reactor and that
traces of uranium had been found there.
Responding to the report’s findings for the
first time on Monday, the head of Syria’s Atomic
Energy Commission, Ibrahim Othman, ruled out
any follow-up visits by IAEA experts.
“We will not allow another visit,” he told
reporters, insisting that Al-Kibar was a military site
and Damascus therefore had no obligation to let
UN inspectors in. – AFP