Asean Summit Rescheduled to October
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and Thailand are going to have to wait until October to start rebuilding the countries tattered image that went around the globe during the recent Pattaya siege. The on again off again event has now been postponed until October due to the unavailability of a number of key diplomats. So hold the army and the security issues for now, the Governments Foreign Ministry has announced the event will now be held later in the year.
While there has been much public and private speculation about the nature of the delay, clearly for the scale of event the timeline is not realistic for travel plans for many overseas diplomat's many who are facing increasingly important domestic issues in their home countries.
There was no clarification if the event would still be held in Phuket but at the end of the day these type of functions do little in terms of restoring order to the challenges faced by the islands tourism and service industries. Perhaps there is a silver lining in the delay, as if some negative incident were to happen, its might cause a further set back, so in terms of upside its not all that tragic to see the event not happen in June. Stay tuned for news of the when and where of the events location and dates.