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Former Thai foreign minister Thanat Khoman dies at age 101

2018-06-14T00:05:24Z

RosariaA01:

BANGKOK (AP) - Thanat Khoman, who as Thailand's foreign minister helped cement his country's close relations with the United States during the Vietnam War, has died at age 101, his family announced. His death was attributed to natural causes. U.S. diplomats who dealt with Thanat described him admiringly as shrewd and above all, dedicated to seeking advantage for his country. Shifting international politics saw Thanat move from being an advocate of close links to Washington to a promoter of regional balance by establishing relations with China, which had been a Cold War [http://www.glamour.de/content/search/?SearchText=bogeyman bogeyman]. "He defended Thailand's interests with grit and grace," U.S. Ambassador to Thailand Glyn Davies said in a statement after Thanat's death Thursday. FILE - In this Oct. 3, 1961, file photo, then-Thailand's Foreign Minister Thanat Khomanthen, left, talks with then-U.S. President John F. Kennedy at the White House in Washington. Thanat, who as Thailand�s foreign minister helped cement his country's close relations with the United States during the Vietnam War, has died at age 101, his family announced Friday, March 4, 2016. His death was attributed to natural causes. (AP Photo/Bill Allen, File) Thanat is credited with being a major force behind the 1967 founding of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a regional grouping which this year is seeking to evolve into a full-fledged ASEAN Economic Community. After working in the Foreign Ministry under three military dictatorships, Thanat entered politics, serving as leader of the Democrat Party, the country's oldest, in 1979-82 and as a deputy prime minister in 1980-82 before withdrawing from public life. Thai Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai described Thanat on Friday as "visionary and ... very determined in protect the interests of our country." Born on May 9, 1914, Thanat studied law at the University of Paris before joining the Thai Foreign Ministry in 1940 and serving in his country's embassy in Japan, which after occupying Thailand in World War II became its nominal ally. Returning to Thailand before the war ended, he joined the anti-Japanese underground. He resumed his diplomatic career with a posting in Washington in 1946-47, returning there as ambassador in 1957-58. He was named foreign minister in 1959, a job he held until 1971, when he was dismissed in a move thought to be linked to his advocacy of rapprochement with China. Thanat's name is most closely associated with the Rusk-Thanat Communique of 1962 - issued with then-U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk - which pledged that the United States would come to Thailand's aid in case it faced aggression. Communist advances in neighboring Laos were the impetus for the agreement, whose importance for both countries grew as communist forces stepped up pressure in South Vietnam as well. The agreement drew Thailand closely into the American orbit, indirectly leading to massive amounts of development aid and the stationing of tens of thousands of U.S. military personnel at air bases around the country used for missions against Vietnam. But when Thanat realized by the end of the 1960s that Washington was unlikely to stick it out in Vietnam, he began urging a realignment of Thailand's foreign relations to win China's favor. Diplomatic relations were established with China in 1975, after Thailand's military rulers had been ousted and U.S.-backed governments in [http://photobucket.com/images/neighboring%20Indochina neighboring Indochina] were defeated by communist forces. By 1976, the U.S. military was [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] gone. "Thanat Khoman was a convinced nationalist and worked well with the United States, as long as he felt the relationship was mutually beneficial," veteran U.S. diplomat John Gunther Dean recalled in a 2000 oral history interview for the State Department. "As time went on, Thanat's close relationship with the United States became progressively more strained and he became vocally critical of the U.S. on many subjects." "Thanat favored Asians working together in their own national interest and not relying on one single foreign power for leadership," said Dean, the U.S. envoy to Thailand in 1981-85. Thanat, [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] whose survivors include daughter-in-law Sirilaksana Khoman, a leading anti-corruption activist, is to be cremated after traditional Buddhist funeral rites. Advertisement

Today in History April 21

2018-06-13T22:37:46Z

RosariaA01:

HIGHLIGHTS IN HISTORY ON THIS DATE 753 BC - According to legend, the city of Rome is founded by Romulus. 1526 - Babur, an Uzbek prince, defeats Sultan Ibrahim Lodi at the Battle of Panipat north of Delhi, leading [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh] to Mughal rule over India. 1809 - Napoleon's army defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Landshut in Germany. 1856 - Stonemasons in Melbourne strike and march on state parliament, demanding an eight-hour day. They soon win their claim. 1861 - Australian explorers Robert Burke, [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html tour bắc kinh từ hà nội] William Wills and John King arrive back at Cooper Creek to find only a few provisions and tree marked "Dig, 21st April, 1861". Base camp party had left seven hours before. Burke and Wills died; King was saved by Aborigines. 1910 - Death of US author Mark Twain. 1918 - Baron Manfred von Richthofen, the German ace known as the Red Baron, is killed in action during World War I, apparently shot down by Australian troops. 1945 - Last German troops leave Bologna, Italy, in World War II; on the same day Russian troops reach suburbs of Berlin. 1954 - US flies a French battalion to Indochina to defend Dien Bien Phu. 1960 - Brazil's capital moves from Rio de Janeiro to Brasilia. 1961 - A [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/French%20army?s=ts French army] revolt led by General Maurice Challe begins in Algeria. 1967 - Military coup in Athens establishes the regime of the Greek colonels. 1975 - South Vietnam's President Nguyen van Thieu resigns and names successor to seek negotiations with Communist forces sweeping across country. 1979 - Queensland National Party-dominated Government demolishes Brisbane's historic Belle Vue Hotel. 1989 - Thousands of students, shouting for democracy and human rights, march from campuses to converge on Beijing's Tiananmen Square. 1991 - Soviet hardliners launch a petition drive for a Parliament session to impose a national state of emergency and take President Mikhail Gorbachev to task over worsening ethnic and economic troubles. 1993 - The Supreme Court in La Paz, Bolivia, sentences former dictator Luis Garcia Meza to 30 years in jail without parole for murder, theft, fraud and violating the constitution. 1995 - FBI arrests former soldier Timothy McVeigh in connection with the deadly Oklahoma City bombing two days earlier. 1995 - Australian Rugby League launches Federal Court damages claim against Super League for interference in the game. 1997 - The first Chinese Army soldiers march into Hong Kong, in preparation for the handover of the British colony to China on July 1. 1997 - The ashes of 1960s LSD guru Timothy Leary and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry are blasted into space in the world's first space funeral. 1998 - France announces an accord on the future of New Caledonia, easing more than a decade of tension between pro and anti-independence forces. 1998 - South Korea drops efforts to get compensation from Japan for women held as sex slaves during World War II, and says it will pay surviving women. 1999 - NATO warplanes attack Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic's party headquarters in Belgrade. 2002 - French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen shocks France and the world by coming second in the first round of a presidential election, qualifying for the run-off with the incumbent Jacques Chirac. 2004 - Nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu is freed from prison in Israel after 18 years, saying he is proud of revealing secrets that exposed Israel as an atomic power. 2006 - Australian soldier Jake Kovco dies in Iraq after his gun accidentally discharges. The wrong body is sent back to Australia. 2009 - European researchers say they not only found the smallest exoplanet ever, Gliese 581 e, but also realised that a neighbouring planet discovered earlier, Gliese 581 d, was in the prime habital zone for potential life. 2010 - Airlines tote up losses topping $2 billion and struggle to get hundreds of thousands of travellers back home after a week of crippled travel as recriminations erupt over Europe's response to the volcanic ash cloud. 2011 - Japan seals off a wide area around the radiation-spewing Fukushima nuclear power plant to prevent thousands of residents from sneaking back to the homes they had been forced to evacuate. 2012 - An infusion of hundreds of billions of dollars will give the International Monetary Fund a badly needed boost to tackle Europe's prolonged debt crisis. 2013 - Australian singer and Divinyls frontwoman Chrissy Amphlett dies in New York, aged 53, after battling cancer. 2014 - Syria calls for a presidential election June 3 to give President Bashar Assad a veneer of electoral legitimacy in the midst of a civil war that has killed more than 150,000 people and driven a third of the population from their homes. 2015 - As the worst storms in a decade hit NSW, three people [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html vtr.org.vn] die as water surges through the Hunter Valley town of Dungog. 2016 - US singer-songwriter Prince dies at his Paisley Park recording studio and home in Minnesota, aged 57. TODAY'S BIRTHDAYS Charlotte Bronte, English novelist (1816-1855); Anthony Quinn, Mexican actor (1915-2001); Queen Elizabeth II (1926-); Russell Boyd, Australian cinematographer (1944-); Iggy Pop, US singer (1947-); Tony Danza, US actor (1951-); Andie MacDowell, US actor (1958-); Michael Franti, US rap singer (1966-); James McAvoy, Scottish actor (1979-); Princess Isabella of Denmark, daughter of Crown Prince Frederik and Crown Princess Mary (2007-). THOUGHT FOR TODAY I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it. - Stephen Leacock, Canadian economist and humourist (1869-1944). Advertisement

User:RosariaA01

2018-06-13T12:27:19Z

RosariaA01: Created page with "There is nothing to say about myself at all. Feels good to be a member of this site. I really hope I'm useful in one way . Here is my page; [http://www.vtr.org.vn..."

There is nothing to say about myself at all. Feels good to be a member of this site. I really hope I'm useful in one way . Here is my page; [http://www.vtr.org.vn/cam-nang-du-lich-bac-kinh-5-ngay-4-dem.html du lịch Bắc Kinh]