Good afternoon,

Well, he has only just been appointed PM by the army but the workshy Quisling is already disputing the validity of Amnesty International reports, after one such described the systematic use of torture in the south by the military. Meanwhile, two more bombs were exploded yesterday and a ranger shot and wounded. The Quisling also fobbed off the foreign correspondents with waffle about reviewing the Emergency Decree in the South and the general situation there (brilliant – I wonder why no one has ever tried to do that before).

Coincidence or not, one day after Amnesty reported on torture by the Thai military, a JI (Jemaah Islamiya) ‘plotter’ has revealed details of a plan to seize a plane in Thailand and crash it into Singapore’s Changi Airport, citing Singapore’s support of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan. Other plans involved bombing Singapore’s water supply and subway system, the US Naval Repair base, a ‘backpacker café’ and to shoot Chinese gold shop owners (always it is the Chinese retailers who are to be shot – what do they have to do with America in Afghanistan?). It is not clear how serious these plots were and how far advanced any of them were.

Thailand began the next stage of the campaign for the 2001 Asia Cup with what seems to have been a hard-fought 0-0 in Jordan last night (glad I didn’t stay up for it then). Manager Peter Reid sounded pleased with the draw, which is not surprising since he had been coaching a 4-5-1 system and a bad defeat might have led to him being sacked. Elsewhere, Vietnam beat Lebanon 3-1, Iran hammered Singapore 6-0 and Syria beat China 3-2. There is still a long way to go in this group stage in which each team will end up playing six games.

My article on the Sarah Connor Chronicles has been published at Telewatcher here.

Back tomorrow.