This morning's Straits Time's headlines: Protesters wreak chaos; Army chief's poll call shot down; Tourists trapped. Oh wait, but then my cousin tells me to check out CNN: Terrorists take over Mumbai, bomb blasts rip thru the city; 80+ dead 200 injured in terrorist attacks.
What's going on in South & SE Asia? It's a grim welcome at the outset of my 2 month vacation. There's a lot of real time information on CNN right now who's doing 100% coverage of the Mumbai blasts, but the gist of it is that the venerable Taj and Oberoi hotels were targets of bomb blasts and the Oberoi has the added bonus of a hostage situation in which terrorists have singled out American and other Western passport holders. These are India's 5 star hotels, and large tourist areas. There were also blasts at a hospital and train station among many other reports of violence in the western peninsula section of the city.
Here's a timeline by the WSJ, textual, not visual. For some reason it excludes the Dec bomb blasts last year in Mumbai.
I'll have to wait it out and see what happens in Thailand before deciding to go to the south. I'll def be avoiding Bangkok at all costs. The main airports are shut down as 1000s of PAD protesters organized a sit-in. They're upset with corruption in the current administration which they feel is simply a proxy for Takshin Sinawatra's previous regime (the former king and PM stepped down and is in exile right now). The current PM refuses to step down and the military as it did in 2006 may step in and forcibly remove the current government to appease the protesters. The current PM is at an APEC summit in Peru and making all his comments from there, I wonder if and when he'll return to Thailand. A few violent clashes have broken out, but no violent steps have been taking by the government in suppressing protesters... yet.
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