Phrae, Thailand – On a “fighting with smiles” tour by ex-premier Yingluck Shinawatra, selfies and symbols are the weapons of choice, showing adoring fans her family are still in Thailand’s treacherous political game – despite being hemmed in by the junta.

The Thai military has banned all political campaigning and Yingluck’s trips to the north and northeast are ostensibly billed as cultural tours to celebrate reaching five million Facebook fans.

But in a very Thai take on politics, each act on her tour is suffused with meaning, from ringing the “Bell of Freedom” at a Buddhist temple to speaking in the local dialect.

And the party faithful are lapping it up.

In Phrae, a lush, mountainous province in the Thai north a few hundred kilometres from the Shinawatra clan’s hometown, Yingluck was mobbed by legions of selfie-taking fans at every stop on Saturday – many wearing the ‘Red Shirts’ synonomous with her family.

There were tears, cheers and red roses given by supporters, many of whom ascribed their affection to Yingluck’s feminine qualities in a land where politics is broadly dominated by blustering middle-aged men.

“She’s beautiful and she has a good heart. I’m so happy to see her, hug her and take photos with her,” said Siriporn Thammawongsa, 59, at a lunch stop.

“I love how she managed the country as prime minister. If she can run the country again, it will go a long way,” she added.

But that is not on the cards anytime soon.

Downfall of Thai PM Yingluck?

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Reuters, AFP, The Nation/ANN

Yingluck was retroactively impeached after the May 22, 2014, coup and is banned from politics for five years.

She could be jailed for a decade if an ongoing negligence trial over a costly rice subsidy policy that funnelled cash to the Shinawatra’s poor farming base rules against her.

A new junta-scripted constitution will also straitjacket any politicians that emerge from future elections.

It is going before the Thai public in an August 7 referendum, although campaigning against it is banned in the bitterly divided country.

In that context Yingluck’s “yim su” tour – or fighting with smiles, as her aides dub it – carries a message of defiance to the hard-pressed northern portion of the country.

Not that she can admit it.

“No, this not a political moment,” the ex-premier told reporters after a blitz of photos with the party faithful at an ornate rural temple.

“I have been banned from politics for five years. All I can do is help the people in the ways I can, like this tour to promote the culture and travel.” The wealthy Shinawatra family mop up votes in the northern portion of Thailand. Their parties have won every election since 2001.

That infuriates the Bangkok-based establishment, with its deep military and judicial ties, and arch-royalist southern supporters, who accuse the family of poisoning Thai politics with nepotism and populist policies such as the rice scheme.

They have hit back hard.

Billionaire ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra – Yingluck’s elder brother – was booted by office in a 2006 coup and later convicted of graft, a charge that has seen him live in self-exile since 2008.

Two proxy premiers were taken out by the courts. Then in 2010 protests by the Shinawatra-aligned ‘Red Shirts’ against an appointed government were suppressed by the army, leaving more than 90 dead and over a thousand injured in downtown Bangkok.

Yingluck won an election the following year, but was ousted by the courts in early May 2014, and the rest of her administration was swept out by a coup a fortnight later.

The family and their Peau Thai party are now circling the wagons.

Yingluck, initially derided by critics as a political lightweight and a patsy premier for her exiled brother, is eyeing the long game as the Thai junta fumbles the economy and riles the public with curbs on freedom.

“The country looks like it is at peace, but they don’t know what the people really think,” she said.

Ex-MPs travelling with Yingluck say her political travails have brought a new steeliness to match the polite public demeanour of Thailand’s first female prime minister.

They hope those attributes will help bridge the kingdom’s caustic political divide, which is worsened by uncertainty over the future once the reign of the country’s ailing 88-year-old monarch ends.

“I have followed her since day one,” said ex-lawmaker Khattiya Sawasdipol.

“She has changed a lot. To stand in her shoes is not easy, but she does it and it gives us all strength.”

Manila – Armed police are detaining crying children, bewildered drunks and shirtless men throughout the Philippine capital in a night-time blitz that is offering an authoritarian taste of life under incoming president Rodrigo Duterte.

The incendiary lawyer won last month’s elections in a landslide largely on a pledge to end or suppress what he said was rampant crime, warning the Philippines was in danger of becoming a narco-state and that tens of thousands of criminals would be killed in his crackdown.

Across the nation police have already reported killing more than 20 alleged drug suspects over the past fortnight, egged on by Duterte who has urged them to begin his war on crime even before he takes office at the end of this month.

The efforts by police in Manila, a chaotic mega-city of more than 12 million people, to clean up the streets ahead of Duterte being sworn in casts a light on other controversial aspects of his law-and-order campaign.

Since winning, Duterte has said he will impose late-night bans on children walking the streets, alcohol sales and the national passion of karaoke singing – insisting that his crackdown must start with the fundamentals of discipline in society.

Police in Manila, eager to burnish their tough-guy credentials for their new boss, have in recent weeks begun their own versions of such night-time curfews that have seen hundreds of people detained.

In some districts police have even named the crackdowns “Oplan RODY” – an acronym for Rid the Streets of Drinkers and Youths that is also Duterte’s nickname.

“We all know drinking in the streets and youth roaming the streets at night are a formula for crime,” Senior Superintendent Jemar Modequillo told AFP as he led Oplan RODY’s sweep through a large southern Manila slum called CAA.

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AFP, Reuters

When AFP accompanied Modequillo’s forces through CAA, children aged under 10 were taken away in police vehicles.

Two girls were in tears as they were led away by armed officers even though they were out with adult relatives.

Under Modequillo’s operation, the children were taken back to the police station for lectures and to be picked-up later by parents.

But in another part of the Manila, parents of children found on the streets at night alone were jailed.

Duterte has said he intends to similarly jail parents for “abandonment”, while the children will be sent to be cared for by the already overwhelmed social welfare department.

Under Modequillo’s Oplan RODY, more than 100 adults deemed to be drunk or disorderly were detained and given the option of doing 40 push ups at the police station or a fine and a short prison stint. All chose the former.

Some said they had been unfairly detained.

Sitting on the police station’s floor, Rafael Ganton insisted he was sober but that his apparent crime was being outside on a sweltering night without a shirt on.

“I was just going to lock the doors of our billiards shop,” Ganton said.

Jose Diokno, chairman of the Free Legal Assistance Group, which lawyers for victims of human rights abuses, said the operations were concerning on many levels, including that armed police were traumatising children.

Diokno also voiced concern that Duterte’s war on crime, like with Oplan RODY now, would target the poor.

“They are the weakest sector of society the easiest to oppress, they are already oppressed,” Diokno told AFP.

Since winning, Duterte has said he will also offer bounties to police to kill criminals.

More controversially, Duterte has called for ordinary citizens to kill suspects.

Even hardened anti-crime figures in the Philippines have warned such incitements could lead to a breakdown in the rule of law, and mob rule.

“The situation could escalate into a serious peace and order problem in the entire country,” said senator-elect and former national police chief Panfilo Lacson.

Diokno said he was “appalled” by Duterte’s call for citizens to kill suspected criminals.

“It’s an invitation for people to take the law into their own hands,” Diokno said.

Unidentified gunmen have killed at least nine drug suspects over the past fortnight, according to police statistics, raising fears that vigilante murders have already begun.

The murders have echoes of Duterte’s two-decade rule of the southern city of Davao.

He said he turned the city into one of the nation’s safest but rights groups say vigilante death squads have killed more than 1,000 people there.

Duterte has variously denied and boasted about links to the death squads, but has been unequivocal about what is in store for the Philippines when he becomes president.

“I intend to instil fear in the criminals,” he said after winning the election.

London – Archaeologists are set to unveil further details of medieval cities hidden under jungle in Cambodia near Angkor Wat, the world’s largest Hindu temple complex, the Guardian newspaper said Saturday.

While the research has been going on for several years, the new findings reportedly reveal the scale of the cities to be significantly bigger than was previously known.

The research, drawing on airborne laser scanning technology, is expected to be unveiled in full at the Royal Geographic Society in London on Monday by Australian archaeologist Damian Evans.

“We have entire cities discovered beneath the forest that no one knew were there – at Preah Khan of Kompong Svay and, it turns out, we uncovered only a part of Mahendraparvata on Phnom Kulen (in a 2012 survey),” Evans was quoted as saying by the Guardian.

“This time we got the whole deal and it’s big – the size of Phnom Penh big.” Evans’s findings are also set to be published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

The Royal Geographic Society did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Research conducted by Evans and others in 2012 confirmed the existence of Mahendraparvata, an ancient temple city near Angkor Wat.

But the Guardian reported that it was only when the results of a larger survey in 2015 were analysed that the scale of the settlements became apparent.

Angkor Wat, a UNESCO World Heritage site seen as one of the most important in southeast Asia, is considered one of the ancient wonders of the world.

It was constructed from the early to mid 1100s by King Suryavarman II at the height of the Khmer Empire’s political and military power and was at one time the largest pre-industrial city in the world.