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Thai crisis shifts to king as airport gets going
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-12-04 16:59

BANGKOK -- Thailand's crippling political crisis shifted its focus on Thursday from Bangkok's gradually opening Suvarnabhumi airport to King Bhumibol Adulyadej, who will address the nation on the eve of his 81st birthday.

Passengers exit an Thai Airways flight from Phuket, the first to land at Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport December 3, 2008, after a week long anti-government protest paralyzed air travel. Anti-government protesters lifted their crippling, eight-day blockade of Thailand's main airport on Wednesday, raising the hopes of 230,000 stranded tourists even though there is no end in sight to the wider political crisis. [Agencies]

The revered monarch, thrust into the centre of the political fray by the anti-government People's Alliance for Democracy's (PAD) persistent invocation of his name, is due to make his remarks on radio after 0900 GMT.

Bringing hope to 230,000 stranded foreign tourists, Airports of Thailand said the $4 billion Suvarnabhumi airport, one of Asia's largest, would resume "full service" at 0400 GMT on Friday after a week-long shutdown by PAD protesters.

Thai Airways said it operated 12 flights out of the 125,000 passenger-a-day hub on Thursday, but sources said other carriers were being rail-roaded into getting back in the air and were worried about short-cuts to safety and security procedures.

"We are under enormous pressure to open, from the airport authorities, from stuck passengers, from shareholders, from the tourist industry," said one airline official who asked not to be named. "But our genuine security concerns are being ignored."

The airport shutdown has already cost the tourism- and export-dependent economy hundreds of millions of dollars.

The central bank slashed interest rates by a shock 100 basis points to 2.75 percent on Wednesday, reflecting the impact of the airport siege, the latest twist in a 3-year political crisis, on an economy already feeling the effects of a global slowdown.

Moody's Investors Service followed other ratings agencies in cutting its outlook for Thailand to negative from stable, and warned that the ongoing political uncertainty could undermine the government's creditworthiness.

Whether the king can calm the waters remains to be seen.

Regarded as semi-divine by many Thais, he has intervened decisively in politics three times during his six decades on the throne, favouring both democratic and military administrations.

His remarks in the last three years have been nuanced and focused on the need for national unity, although his calls for clean government were widely read as a swipe at Thaksin Shinawatra, the populist prime minister ousted in a 2006 coup.

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