<p><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">When Abhisit Vejjajiva slipped through the back door and into the prime minister&rsquo;s seat in Thailand late last year, exiled democracy advocates from Burma welcomed him. Over a week after reports broke of the Thai navy forcing boatloads of people from Burma back into the ocean to die, they should be thinking again. </font></p>

<p><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">&quot;Grand reconciliation,&quot; said Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva last week to foreign journalists at a FCCT dinner talk on how he plans to end the on-going political polarisation. </font></p>

<p><font size="2">Thailand&#39;s drastic use of l&egrave;se-majest&eacute; laws is damaging the monarchy and freedom</font></p>

<p><font size="2">Lawyers for Australian author, Harry Nicolaides, will lodge an application for a Royal Pardon this week after the Melbourne man was sentenced to three years&#39; jail for insulting the Royal family.</font></p>

<p><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">While Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has vowed not to tamper with press freedom, over the past two weeks the administration launched an unprecedented crackdown on websites deemed as slandering the institution of monarchy. </font></p>

<p><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Thai soldiers are detaining illegal migrants from Bangladesh and Burma and forcing them back out to sea in boats without engines, survivors say.</font></p>

<p><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Amnesty International (AI) has called on the government to end the &quot;culture of impunity&quot; in the deep South where the London-based organisation has documented at least 34 cases of authorities torturing suspected Malay Muslim insurgents, four of whom died.</font></p>

<p><font size="2">The government is ready to lift the emergency decree in the restive southern border provinces if special laws are enforced to deal with the insurgents, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Wednesday.</font> </p>

<p><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Last month a campaign group in Thailand opposing Internet censorship released a list of 1,303 new website addresses that, it claims, are among those a government ministry has blocked.</font></p>

<p><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Politics and national security are intertwined and this is especially true under the current political climate. </font><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Social divide fuelled by months of political strife has reared its ugly head, threatening to undermine the royal institution in the process. </font>The threat has crept too close to the highest institution, thereby alarming the military which has sworn an oath of allegiance to protect the monarchy.</p>

<p><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">BRAZILIAN airline company Embraer has sold an ERJ 135 aircraft to the Thai military, which will be used for transporting civilian and military personnel, the aircraft manufacturer reported on Thursday. </font></p>

<p>It is very troubling to hear the new Minister of Information and Technology say that her first and main priority will be censorship of the internet. Ranongrak Suwanchawee gathered top officials of her ministry just before the holiday and gave her instructions in no uncertain terms</p>