BANGKOK, Thailand – If you are a teen with a sexual urge, what should you do?

It's a question faced by young people across the world, and one met with many responses.

So high school seniors in Thailand were perplexed this year when they were asked for the answer in a nationwide multiple-choice test for students hoping to win a coveted place at university. They were given five possible options to choose from:

A: Call friends to go play football (soccer)

B: Talk to your family

C: Try to sleep

D: Go out with a friend of the opposite sex

E: Invite a close friend to see a movie

Most students had no idea how to respond. And it quickly became clear that they were not the only ones who struggled to identify the right answer. Parents and teachers were equally baffled.

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The story soon attracted national media attention, and Thai educational experts were interviewed to share their insights. But even they seemed uncertain. The tentative consensus was that students were probably expected to pick option B — “Talk to your family.”

It seemed like the answer adults might want to hear, even though most teenagers in the real world would be appalled at the very idea of discussing their sexual urges with their parents. The most realistic answer was probably option D — go on a date.

So there was widespread incredulity when the preferred answer was eventually revealed by Dr. Samphan Phanphrut, head of the national exam board that drew up the tests. It was option A —“Call friends to go play football.” Regardless of whether they were male or female, Thai youth were supposed to deal with sexual urges by playing soccer.

For many Thais, the key lesson learned from the saga had nothing to do with soccer. Rather, it was that Thai officials have a total lack of understanding about the lives of teenagers and the importance of sensible sex education.

Growing teen pregnancy problem
It's an issue that is causing increasing problems in this Southeast Asian country.

"The number of pregnant teenagers is growing every year. And they are getting younger and younger," said Apiradee Chappanapong of Plan Thailand, an NGO that champions children's rights and education.

In fact, Thailand has the second-highest pregnancy rate among 15-19 year-olds in the world, according to the government’s Office of Welfare Promotion, Protection and Empowerment of Vulnerable Groups. (South Africa has the highest rate).

The issues in Thailand are complex. Contrary to the country's image as a hedonistic sex tourism destination, Thai culture remains highly conservative, but premarital sex is widespread although many older Thais regard it as taboo. (As a result, underage girls are often pressured to marry, especially in rural areas.)

This conservatism means subject is rarely discussed in Thai families, and as the debacle over this year's university exams demonstrated, schools are also failing to teach Thai youth what they need to know.

Many teachers and education ministry bureaucrats refuse to acknowledge that premarital sex is a reality. Instead of teaching teenagers how to avoid pregnancy through the use of contraception, they preach abstinence. And when Thai teenagers become pregnant, they often have nobody to turn to. Legal abortion is only available to teenagers if their parents approve, and many Thai girls don't consider that an option.

“I don’t think my school taught me enough about sex education,” said Nat who asked not to reveal her full name, a 17-year-old who became pregnant after running away from her home in an area of northern Thailand where traditional values remain strong.

Unable to get a legal abortion because she was estranged from her parents, she chose the dangerous option of ordering abortion pills online and taking them without any medical supervision. She told me she suffered severe vaginal bleeding afterwards.

Many conservative Thais deny that outdated and incompetent education is the problem. They say Thai teenagers are being corrupted by dangerous modern influences such as racy movies, social media and Internet chat rooms. Facebook was even cited as one of the causes of Thailand's growing teenage pregnancy crisis in a recent study by the National Economic and Social Development Board (NESDB). 

Dangerous illegal abortions
Another controversial issue is whether Thailand's abortion laws should be reformed. Approximately 95 percent of Thais are Buddhists, according to the CIA World Factbook, who believe taking any life is a sin. Officially, abortion is illegal except in cases of rape, incest or underage sex, or when the mother's physical or mental health is at risk.

Even when women have a legitimate reason to undergo a legal abortion in Thai hospitals, many are deterred by the judgmental attitude of doctors and nurses, according to 39-year-old activist Supatra Panuthut, who counsels women with unplanned pregnancies at Sahathai Foundation in Bangkok.

For most women who want to terminate a pregnancy, the only option is to do so illegally. In many cases, abortions are conducted using unsafe procedures and in unsanitary conditions. In a notorious case in 2010, more than 2,000 aborted fetuses were discovered at a temple in Bangkok after locals complained of an unpleasant smell. Earlier this April, a five-month-old fetus was found dumped in a hospital bathroom. Newborn babies have also been found abandoned in bus shelters and garbage bins.

A small number of abortion clinics run by NGOs providing safe and compassionate treatment occupy a legal grey area: they are technically illegal, but the authorities have generally allowed them to operate, as long as they do not promote their services too openly.

But recently police raided one of these clinics after a well-known model told the media she had an abortion there. Panuthut fears the raid will end up discouraging some women from seeking abortions at responsible clinics and could lead to more unsafe backstreet abortions.

It seems unlikely that the law will be changed to allow more Thai women to legally terminate their pregnancies. Successive Thai governments have shown no enthusiasm for such a controversial move, and indeed some Thais want to see the law tightened even further so that abortion is totally outlawed.

Coping with unwanted pregnancies
Meanwhile, out of the approximately 250,000 Thai teenagers who become pregnant each year, half of them seek abortions, according to Dr. Yongyut Wongpiromsarn, Senior Expert in Mental Health, Thai Ministry of Public Health.

That means more than 100,000 children are being born each year to teenage mothers who in many cases cannot properly look after them.

Often these children are raised by their grandparents or other relatives, rather than their biological mothers.

This was how Panida Saengjan coped when she became pregnant at the age of 16 while she was a high school student in Bangkok. She told me she was terrified of the dangers of an illegal abortion, but admitted she was also too immature to look after her baby, a boy she named Haroon.

Now 4 years old, Haroon has been raised by Saengjan's mother. When I met them at their home, Saengjan was laughing and playing with Haroon, whom she said was more like a little brother to her than a son.

Many teenage mothers end up giving their children to foster homes. Palm, an 18-year-old I interviewed who spoke on the condition of anonymity, wept as she told me about how she had to give away her 5-month-old son after her boyfriend broke up with her.

Government officials insist they are taking the problem of teen pregnancy seriously. But while Thai bureaucrats remain so detached from reality that they consider it appropriate to tell teenagers to choose soccer instead of sex, there seems little prospect of a sensible solution any time soon. 
 

 
BANGKOK – Carrie Jeffers feared she would never kick her heroin addiction after relapsing repeatedly in her native Michigan. Then she flew to Thailand, and her life changed.

Jeffers, a 37-year-old yoga teacher, says she broke her dependency thanks to treatment at a remote Buddhist temple. The rigorous regime includes meditation and the daily ingestion of a foul-tasting herbal drink that induces projectile vomiting to cleanse the body of toxins.

“I got my strength back slowly but surely after the treatment,” Jeffers said after spending months at Thailand’s Thamkrabok Monastery, a drug rehabilitation center in Saraburi province about 90 miles north of Bangkok.

The center, in the heart of a sunlit forest surrounded by limestone crags, has won a worldwide reputation as a place with harsh but effective addiction treatment and has attracted thousands of foreigners from Europe and the U.S.

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Harsh, but effective
Jeffers said she had been addicted to heroin since the age of 14 and underwent rehab treatment twice in the United States. The fees were $1,000 a day, which, fortunately, were covered by insurance. "A lot of drug addicts don’t have that [insurance] and they get turned away,” she said.

Thamkrabok, by contrast, offers its services for free. And Jeffers said she found it far more effective than rehab in the West.
“At other rehabs they feed you drug after drug; there is no meditation or teaching you to look into yourself,” she said.

Monks at the temple say another key to the success of their treatment is the special tonic, made with 108 herbs according to a secret recipe. 

“I remember feeling a kind of a burning sensation, but it soaked up all the toxins,” said Jeffers, who is now helping teach yoga to foreign patients at the temple.

The Thamkrabok monastery has another rigorous feature: addicts must take a vow swearing that they are 100 percent committed to being drug or alcohol-free. They can only be admitted to the monastery for treatment once; if they break their vow, they are not allowed to return. 
 
Same treatment for celebs to civilians
At Thamkrabok, everyone is treated equally regardless of wealth or status. Patients have to wake up early each morning to clean their bedrooms and bathrooms, and sweep the temple compound. They all wear the same red uniforms and sleep in dormitories on thin mattresses closely packed together.

The detox center is a complex of low-rise whitewash concrete blocks set apart from the main compound, which is dominated by several giant Buddha statues.

"It’s very humbling here. It doesn’t matter who you are, you are using the same bed,” said Jeffers, who plans to return to the U.S. in May.

Some don’t last. Pete Doherty, the controversial British singer and former boyfriend of model Kate Moss, was a patient at the temple but only completed three days in 2004 because he found the treatment too austere. One of the monks told me that Doherty lacked the patience that the treatment required and that he did not enjoy the spartan living conditions.

However, another British musician, Tim Arnold of the band Jocasta, returned home drug-free after completing the treatment. The temple said they have treated other celebrities, but they wanted to keep their names confidential.

The temple has treated more than 100,000 addicts since it started the rehab program in 1959 and about 30 percent of former patients, including Jeffers, become ordained as monks or nuns after completing their treatment to help out the new patients.

Many of the young Thai monks are tough-looking chain-smoking youths with tattoos. They enforce the temple rules and keep new patients in line.

"Only three more minutes, get inside. Just get inside,” one of the monks shouted at patients outside the packed herbal steam bath room during my visit. 

Patients are not allowed to carry money at the temple, in part to prevent them sneaking out to buy drugs. Instead, they buy coupons at the start of the treatment for food, which costs about $6 a day for three meals.

Cleaning body and mind
“When I first arrived, it felt very surreal because we all have preconceived idea of what the monastery or rehab might be – but this is very far away from any kind of imagination,” said Nick Thorp, a musician from London and one of many of the foreigners who found out about the temple through the Internet or from friends who had been treated there.

“They clean up your body and they give some input in your mind,” said 57-year-old Ong Boon Beng from Malaysia, who had been taking opium and heroin for more than three decades before seeking help. “At the other rehabs, you pay money, but it is just like you go for holiday. They give you sleeping pills – that doesn’t help.”

Mike Sarson, a founder of the East West Detox Center in southern England, works with the monastery and sends some patients there. He said about 95 percent of the patients the charity has sent to the temple remain drug-free.  

BANGKOK - A Colorado car salesman who was jailed Thursday for insulting Thailand's monarchy has become a pawn in an escalating political battle over freedom of speech in the southeast Asia country.

The case of Joe Gordon, a 54-year-old U.S. citizen who was born Lerpong Wichaikhammat in Thailand before emigrating to the United States decades ago, has been troubling for Washington. The U.S. sees Thailand as a crucial ally in the region but has been increasingly concerned by restrictions on free expression in the kingdom.

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Gordon was arrested in May during a trip to Thailand for medical treatment. His crime was posting a partial translation of a critical academic biography of Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej on the internet while living in Colorado.

• American jailed for insulting Thai king

U.S. Consul General in Thailand Elizabeth Pratt said Gordon's two-and-a-half year sentence was severe and he been jailed for exercising his right to freedom of expression.

"We continue to have full respect to the Thai monarchy and we also want to support the right to freedom of expression which is internationally recognized as a human right," she told reporters at the court.

Thailand is one of the few countries in the world where a hereditary monarch still has immense powers. Although the country is supposed to be a constitutional monarchy where the king has only symbolic powers, in fact the palace has massive political influence, and a law banning any criticism of the monarch is still in force.

National debate
Many Thais feel great respect for the king, but there is increasing concern over whether restrictions on freedom of speech are damaging the monarchy rather than protecting it.

As a Thai, I admire the king, but as a journalist I am concerned that I cannot discuss the growing national debate about the monarchy. Even in private, many Thais are worried that discussing it could get them jailed.

Most Thais I spoke to about the sentence were afraid to express their views openly.
 
"He's not the book author, he only translated and posted on his blog. It's a bit unfair for him," said school officer Suthasinee who declined to give her last name.

The book Gordon translated is The King Never Smiles, written by U.S. journalist Paul Handley and published by Yale University Press. It is one of the few publications that attempts a critical but academic look at the Thai monarchy.

"The media can report anything but not the royal family topic, we are all know that," said Kan Yuenyong, an analyst at Siam Intelligence Unit. "If there are ... more of lese majeste cases, it might make people stand up to resist against the royal institution," Kan added.

Under Thailand's so-called lese majeste laws, those found guilty of defaming the monarchy face three to 15 years behind bars.

Ever since a 2006 coup that ousted popular Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the use of lese majeste legislation has surged.

• 'Witch hunt'? Thailand cracks down on king's online critics

Recently, the authorities have focused on social media, especially Facebook, as it has become the main discussion forum for Thais who oppose the lese majeste law.
 
The ministry of Information and Communication Technology has set up a hotline for those who want to report "cyber crimes" against the monarchy. The ICT suspended more than 60,000 websites between October and November and urged people to not click "share" or "like" on Facebook posts that criticize the monarchy.
 
Ironically, it is not even clear whether King Bhumibol supports the crackdown. In his birthday speech in 2005, he said that he should not be above criticism: "Charges against those accused of lese-majeste should be dropped and those held in jail for lese-majeste should be released."
 
However, it seems that some of his supporters were not listening. And many Thais fear that instead of protecting the palace, the new atmosphere of fear and repression may have the opposite effect.

BANGKOK, Thailand – One of the most striking things about the Thai floods is the sheer ingenuity people have shown to simply get around.

I've seen all manner of aquatic contraptions, from rafts made from empty drinking water bottles to crafts fashioned from larger plastic drums, with a bicycle mounted on the deck driving a home-made propeller through the increasingly fetid waters.

Thailand's National Science and Technology Development Agency even ran a competition called "Mobility in the Time of Flood," which attracted 89 entries and was won by another bicycle-driven raft cobbled together by a bunch of students. The Bangkok Post devoted most of its back page to the contest Tuesday under the headline "Amateur Inventors to the rescue.”

It provided a note of humor amid increasingly angry recriminations over who's to blame for a deluge that's swamped a third of the country and killed more than 600 people. The floods have also affected some 10,000 factories, and hit the global supply chain for automotive parts and hard disk drives.

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Nearly half a million workers have been affected. Japanese-owned factories are particularly badly hit, and the government fears that many will curtail future investment plans. Japan is the largest foreign investor in Thailand.

The clean-up and recovery will cost billions of dollars, and shave an estimated 2.5 percent off economic growth.

The good news is that the floodwaters are receding to the north of the city. In Bangkok, the authorities say the eastern suburbs should be dry within a week or so, though it could be the new year before the water drains from western areas.

Don Muang airport and its surrounding areas still resemble a lake. The airport is only home to a couple of low-cost carriers these days, most flights now departing from a new airport, but it’s still a remarkable sight.

Blame game begins
Of course, few people now trust the predictions of the authorities, which have changed constantly, with officials frequently contradicting each other from day to day.

National government officials are in a constant sparring match with their city authorities, and, of course, rival political camps are accusing each other of mismanagement.

There's anger in the outer suburbs, where many believe they were sacrificed to keep downtown Bangkok dry. Angry residents have even ripped down dikes in some areas to allow the floodwaters to shift.

Some blame irrigation officials for failing to release water from up-country dams earlier in the year.

Deputy Prime Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong had a simpler explanation in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires. It was unfair to accuse the government of mismanagement, he said. "This has to be the result of climate change and global warming."

Well, up to a point, Mr. Kittiratt.

Many reports have suggested that low-lying Bangkok is vulnerable to rising sea levels, and, yes, Thailand had heavy rain this year – roughly 25 percent more than normal by some estimates.

But the great flood of 2011 was a largely manmade disaster.

The country has seen years of mindless development, much of it on what has historically been a flood plain to the north of the capital. Paddy fields have been paved over with concrete to make way for vast industrial estates and urban sprawl. Natural drainage routes have been blocked.

In the city, too, a once massive network of klongs (canals), the city's drainage system, has been replaced by roads; housing developments sit where water used to flow.

That so many people and businesses were in harm's way in areas that are historically vulnerable to floods, with the waters left with nowhere to go, is the result of decisions taken over the years by short-sighted and often venal politicians. To blame it all on climate change is an enormous cop-out.

Photoblog: Thais adjust to life in waist-deep water 

 

  

By Ian Williams, NBC News Correspondent

BANGKOK, Thailand – The floodwaters that had swamped the riverside community of Sam Sen receded Monday, but nobody was taking any chances as they worked to reinforce a wall of sandbags that had been overwhelmed by Sunday's all-time record high tide in the Chao Phraya River.

Men and women formed a relay team, passing sandbags from hand to hand along the length of the wall. All the time keeping a wary eye on the bloated waters of the river – known as “the river of kings” – which swept by in front of their small wooden houses. There were smiles and jokes.

A small boy pointed to the water line on the side of his house, a full three feet up the wall, as tall as him. But now, just a couple of inches of water flowed across his bare feet.

On Sunday, Thai soldiers had formed a human wall in a forlorn attempt to block the flood water in this area.

Thailand’s prime minister has told the city that with the passing of the weekend's high tides, they may be over the worst. But the information from the authorities has chopped and changed, and there's a good deal of skepticism in these frontline communities.

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Now what?
Kritsada Rakwongchai just smiled when I asked him what he thought of the prime minister's comments.

Rakwongchai is in charge of drainage on the other side of the river from Sam Sen, and we had followed him through chest high water to one of the dikes he supervises.

"I watched the water surging in," he told me. "It flooded this high in just 30 minutes."

He said he's seen nothing like this in his 10 years in the job.

Rakwongchai, a good 6’ 5” tall, led the way, and though the water was murky, he knew the route well, cautioning us about hidden stones, steps, holes or dips. Bangkok's streets and sidewalks are not easy to navigate – even when you can see where you are going.

We waded gingerly past semi-submerged wooden homes, where whole families had taken refuge on the upper floor.

"They are frightened," Rakwongchai said, a dog suddenly appearing and paddling frantically between two houses. "Some have started to move to evacuation centers, but many are staying to look after their belongings."

One woman pleaded with him to find her baby milk. While another sat in her window watching the water go by. "Because my house is high, I didn't expect to get flooded. Now, what can I do?" she asked.

While many riverside and canal-side communities were swamped by the weekend's high tide, the center of Bangkok was largely unscathed and remains dry. For the most part the flood defenses did hold.

‘Water everywhere’
But this is really the story of two floods: those caused by the high tides, and those more directly the result of the massive run-off from flood waters almost surrounding the capital, the result of weeks of flooding in surrounding provinces, which has been slowly bearing down on Bangkok, picking off the northern and eastern suburbs one by one.

There was no let up for those areas Monday, though the more optimistic of the authorities predict that with lower coastal tides, the water will drain more quickly to the sea.

I asked Rakwongchai what he thought.

"There's water everywhere," he said, with a shake of the head. "Water everywhere."

By NBC News’ Ploy Bunluesilp  

BANGKOK, Thailand – This city is on edge as we wait to see whether the worst floods to hit Thailand in decades will engulf us, too. 

Water rushing toward the sea from swollen rivers and rain-swept highlands to the north of the capital have already inundated most of central Thailand. And we are in its path next. The government seems overwhelmed. Nobody seems to be able to give us a straight answer on whether Bangkok will soon be under several feet of water.

For me, it's more than just another story to cover. I live in a wooden house in Thonburi, a neighborhood of Bangkok on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River that has kept the city's traditional character and has canals instead of streets.

Many people in the area still access their homes by boat. It's a beautiful place to live, but it is right beside the river, on low and marshy ground. If Bangkok is flooded, my home will be one of the first affected.

Like many in my neighborhood, I've been trying to build up brick defenses around my house, and moving everything upstairs to the second floor. But I'm worried about my friends and family. And I'm worried about my two little puppies, Sarsi and Brown. They can probably swim, but they prefer dry land.

And the government has warned that more than 100 alligators and crocodiles have escaped captivity when floods swamped their enclosures on farms. They are offering 1,000 Thai Bhat or $33 bounty for each one caught alive – some are up to seven feet long.

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People have questioned the measly pay out for wrestling a crocodile into submission: according to a poll on the Bangkok Post, 77.5 percent of people did not think that was an equitable payout.

More than 340 people have lost their lives in the flooding across Thailand since July. And wildlife is suffering too.

Animal rescue mission
So this week I took a trip with an animal rescue team north of Bangkok, looking for stranded household pets – or dangerous escaped predators. With roads flooded, the only way to access the area is by boat.

Sometimes they would find cats and dogs sitting on rooftops. Others were left behind by owners who had fled. And the animals don't always appreciate being rescued.

"Force needs to be used if the dog is not willing to come with us," said Roger Lohanan, the head of the rescue team. In all, the team tried to save 300 trapped cats and dogs throughout the city of Ayutthaya.

Some have to be caught with a net and sedated before being put on the boat.

"I have to take them all with me as nobody can access here to give them food," Lohanan added.

Rescued cats and dogs will be looked after in a safe area, and the owners can claim their pets back later when the water recedes. As for wild animals rescued – including tigers, crocodiles, monkeys and pangolins – they are being looked after in zoos, but will be released back into the wild later.

Except for one group of the wild animals, I hope. Officials plan to keep the crocodiles in captivity, which is fortunate for Sarsi and Brown.

Related link: Floodwaters begin seeping into outer Bangkok

By Warangkana Chomchuen, NBC News

BANGKOK, Thailand – It’s the dawn of a new era in Thailand with the election of the country’s first female prime minister on Sunday.

Yingluck Shinawatra’s supporters already are comparing her to other Southeast Asian female political icons, like the Philippines' first female president, Corazon Aquino; Indonesia's housewife-turned-president Megawati Sukarnoputri; and Burma's pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Incredibly, it took only six weeks to transform the 44-year-old businesswoman into the country’s premier. Her success has been attributed to her pop star appeal, easy-going disposition, overwhelming support from majority rural voters and the fact that she’s a woman.

But no one is happier for Yingluck’s win than her older brother Thaksin Shinawatra, who served as premier for five years before he was booted out in a 2006 military coup.

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Yingluck is believed to be a "proxy" for Thaksin, a billionaire business tycoon, who has called her his "clone." He now lives in exile to escape a two-year-prison sentence after a graft conviction, but he has handled all major interviews with the media on behalf of his sister.

When the polls closed, Thaksin was the first to confirm on a phone interview broadcast on Thai television that his youngest sister will fill the role of prime minister. 

"The voters didn't choose me only because my last name is Shinawatra," Yingluck said at a press conference trying to downplay her brother’s influence. "They like me, the Pheu Thai party, and the management team combined."

Triumph of a braver electorate

Sunday’s general election was seen as a battle between Thaksin and the coup makers who uprooted him.

The champion of three consecutive elections was deposed, his close allies banned from office, his two parties disbanded, and two prime ministers he backed disqualified by the courts.

But the Pheu Thai party's electoral victory is not necessarily a reflection of love for Thaksin and his party by voters.

The election was also a referendum on what voters think of what has happened to their country since the coup in 2006.

Many Thais are increasingly frustrated by what they see as the systematic undermining of democracy, through political suppression, coercion and judicial manipulations.

Similarly, outgoing Prime Minister Abhisit, who once held so much promise, was defeated not simply because his party is unpopular or its candidates inferior.

Critics say he was submissive to the political elites and military leadership, who helped him to beat the Pheu Thai party in 2008 to take office. That, the critics say, alienated him from the rural poor and pro-democracy supporters.

He also was haunted by his handling of "red shirt" protesters – largely Thaksin's urban and rural supporters – who staged a two-month rally that paralyzed parts of Bangkok last year. The demonstrations led to military crackdowns that left 90 people dead.

Street demonstrations in the past five years – whether by ultranationalist anti-Thaksin "yellow shirts" or pro-Thaksin anti-coup "red shirts" – are testimony to a dramatic change: Suddenly, Thai voters are no longer too shy to make demands.

Turnout of at least 70 percent was reported, and many polling stations saw lines forming before voting began. In Sukhothai, residents braved a ravaging flood, and in the restive south, voters ignored the risks of roadside bombings by insurgents. 

"The ongoing political crisis has become the country's major issue," says Kan Chokrungvaranon, a 23-year-old voter. "It affects people from all walks of life, and elections mean more to them than ever before."

A dawn of reconciliation?

In the short term, Pheu Thai's large mandate could go a long way to restoring Thailand’s stability.

Key political players responded to Pheu Thai's victory in a more conciliatory tone.

Defense Minister Gen. Prawit Wongsuwon said Monday that military leaders "will allow politicians to work it out" and would not interfere.

Abhisit solemnly conceded election defeat and announced his resignation as the Democrat Party's leader.

He said his party would work with Pheu Thai, but he pledged to oppose Pheu Thai's controversial proposal to give amnesty to political allies and rivals charged in connection with the 2006 coup.

Many people fear the plan could pave way from Thaksin's return and whitewash the corruption charges against him, which he said were politically motivated.

Thaksin tried to avert the concern by saying he's not in a hurry to come home.

"I will wait for the right time and under appropriate conditions to return," he told Thai television. "My return must be part of the solution, not the problem."

BANGKOK - It's election time in Thailand and a forest of posters has been planted along the capital's roads.

The voters of Bangkok spend a good chunk of their time stuck in horrendous traffic, so the 26 competing parties see this as a pretty effective way of getting their message across to a captive audience.

Among the most colorful are a series of placards featuring animals including buffaloes, monkeys, dogs and lizards, all wearing suits. They feature a large caption in Thai, which translates as "Don't Let the Animals into Parliament".

The nationalist party behind these posters is urging voters to reject all the candidates and tick a "vote no" box on their ballot papers.

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Other parties have complained to the electoral commission that portraying politicians as animals is undemocratic.

Offensive to animals?
But perhaps the most heartfelt complaints have come from Thailand's vets. A seminar of the Thai Veterinary Medical Association last weekend suggested that the posters areoffensive to animals. "'Beastly' posters vex vets," was the Bangkok Post's headline.

Nantarika Chansue of Chulalongkorn University's veterinary science department pointed out that dogs and lizards are incapable of lying, which could not be said of certain parliamentary mammals.

Among the clutter of posters, the others that really stand out are those of Chuvit Kamolvisit, who leads one of the smaller parties.

Chuvit was once knows as the "massage parlor king", as he owned a series of these notorious establishments, the biggest of which are almost industrial-scale brothels. He has re-invented himself as a crusader against corruption, exposing the cart-loads of cash (and payments in kind) he used to make to police and politicians to keep his sex businesses running smoothly. Chuvit appears angry in his election posters, which urge the public to let him fight corruption.

The posters of the two front runners, Abhisit Vejjajiva's Democrat Party and Yingluck Shinawatra's Pheu Thai Party, are by comparison, well, rather dull.

Abhisit led the most recent and rather lackluster government. Yingluck is the youngest sister of Thaksin Shinawatra, who was deposed in a military coup in 2006. From self-imposed exile in Dubai he remains the force behind the party, though his sister has brought a fresh face and some excitement to the campaign. With just over two weeks until the July 3 election, most polls show her in the lead, and there is much talk of Yingluck becoming the country's first female prime minister.

If, that is, the army allows her.

Deadly military crackdown
The military remains the most powerful beast in the Thai political jungle. Not only did they kick Thaksin out in 2006, but since then they've worked hard behind the scenes to undermine his supporters and keep them out of power. Last year's military crackdown against red-shirted protesters, who support Thaksin, resulted in the deaths of more than 90 people.

If the army were to interfere this time, though, the anger against them might be far greater than in the past.

The election posters may offer clues of this. 

During previous election campaigns, many candidates have been pictured wearing their crisp military-style uniforms. Most government servants (and a good many others in official and semi-official positions) have these. They are common sight at official gatherings, replete with medals for various achievements in public service.

But not this time, not in the current crop of placards.

Thai friends say this might reflect a desire by candidates to distance themselves from the coup-culture, and the popular suspicion of the military.

Something for the top-brass to reflect on next time they find themselves stuck in traffic.