<p>Police arrested two people giving the three-fingered salute in front of Parliament in support of former PM Yingluck Shinawatra.</p> <p>The police at around 13:30 pm on Friday arrested a man and a woman who allegedly gave the three-fingered salute, a symbol of defiance against the junta derived from the ‘Hunger Games’ movie, in front of the Parliament compound in central Bangkok. &nbsp;</p> <p>The two came to support the former PM ousted by the coup d’état in May 2014, who was facing impeachment before the National Legislative Assembly (NLA) at Parliament on Wednesday.</p>

<p>A recent comment on the New Mandala blog said of the Pheu Thai rice-pledging scheme: ‘It stripped wealth out of Thailand to about 800 billion baht, on a criminally stupid rice scheme and maybe another similar amount to the Thaksin and cronies.’</p> <p>OK, you have to excuse the ‘and cronies’ stuff.&nbsp; The poor dears who make comments of this ilk seem obligated to use such flaming language.&nbsp; I am beginning to suspect they have a programme on their computers that waves red flags if they fail to include ‘crony’ or ‘clone’ or ‘fugitive from justice’ or the like.&nbsp;</p>

<p><span lang="en-US">The attempt by the righteous </span><span lang="en-US">academics of NIDA to expand the Constitutional Court’s mandate into economic policy (after its recent brave forays into politics and legislating) has apparently stumbled at a fairly petty hurdle.</span></p>