US regulators might change how they classify marijuana. Here's what that would mean

JENNIFER PELTZ
Thu, August 31, 2023 

Marijuana plants are seen at a growing facility in Washington County, N.Y., May 12, 2023. The Health and Human Services Department has recommended removing marijuana from a category of drugs deemed to have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” The agency advised moving pot from that “Schedule I” group to the less tightly regulated “Schedule III.” The decision is up to the Drug Enforcement Administration. 

(AP Photo/Hans Pennink, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — The news lit up the world of weed: U.S. health regulators are suggesting that the federal government loosen restrictions on marijuana.

Specifically, the federal Health and Human Services Department has recommended taking marijuana out of a category of drugs deemed to have “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” The agency advised moving pot from that “Schedule I” group to the less tightly regulated “Schedule III.”

So what does that mean, and what are the implications? Read on.

FIRST OF ALL, WHAT HAS ACTUALLY CHANGED? WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

Technically, nothing yet. Any decision on reclassifying — or “rescheduling,” in government lingo — is up to the Drug Enforcement Administration, which says it will take up the issue. The review process is lengthy and involves taking public comment.

Still, the HHS recommendation is “paradigm-shifting, and it’s very exciting,” said Vince Sliwoski, a Portland, Oregon-based cannabis and psychedelics attorney who runs well-known legal blogs on those topics.

“I can’t emphasize enough how big of news it is,” he said.

It came after President Joe Biden asked both HHS and the attorney general, who oversees the DEA, last year to review how marijuana was classified. Schedule I put it on par, legally, with heroin, LSD, quaaludes and ecstasy, among others.

Biden, a Democrat, supports legalizing medical marijuana for use “where appropriate, consistent with medical and scientific evidence,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Thursday. “That is why it is important for this independent review to go through.”

SO IF MARIJUANA GETS RECLASSIFIED, WOULD IT LEGALIZE RECREATIONAL POT NATIONWIDE?

No. Schedule III drugs — which include ketamine, anabolic steroids and some acetaminophen-codeine combinations — are still controlled substances.

They're subject to various rules that allow for some medical uses, and for federal criminal prosecution of anyone who traffics in the drugs without permission. (Even under marijuana's current Schedule I status, federal prosecutions for simply possessing it are few: There were 145 federal sentencings in fiscal year 2021 for that crime, and as of 2022, no defendants were in prison for it.)

It’s unlikely that the medical marijuana programs now licensed in 38 states — to say nothing of the legal recreational pot markets in 23 states — would meet the production, record-keeping, prescribing and other requirements for Schedule III drugs.

But rescheduling in itself would have some impact, particularly on research and on pot business taxes.

WHAT WOULD THIS MEAN FOR RESEARCH?

Because marijuana is on Schedule I, it's been very difficult to conduct authorized clinical studies that involve administering the drug. That has created something of a Catch-22: calls for more research, but barriers to doing it. (Scientists sometimes rely instead on people’s own reports of their marijuana use.)

Schedule III drugs are easier to study.

In the meantime, a 2022 federal law aimed to ease marijuana research.

WHAT ABOUT TAXES (AND BANKING)?

Under the federal tax code, businesses involved in “trafficking” in marijuana or any other Schedule I or II drug can't deduct rent, payroll or various other expenses that other businesses can write off. (Yes, at least some cannabis businesses, particularly state-licensed ones, do pay taxes to the federal government, despite its prohibition on marijuana.) Industry groups say the tax rate often ends up at 70% or more.

The deduction rule doesn't apply to Schedule III drugs, so the proposed change would cut pot companies' taxes substantially.

They say it would treat them like other industries and help them compete against illegal competitors that are frustrating licensees and officials in places such as New York.

“You’re going to make these state-legal programs stronger,” says Adam Goers, an executive at medical and recreational pot giant Columbia Care. He co-chairs a coalition of corporate and other players that’s pushing for rescheduling.

Rescheduling wouldn't directly affect another pot business problem: difficulty accessing banks, particularly for loans, because the federally regulated institutions are wary of the drug's legal status. The industry has been looking instead to a measure called the SAFE Banking Act. It has repeatedly passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

ARE THERE CRITICS? WHAT DO THEY SAY?

Indeed, there are, including the national anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana. President Kevin Sabet, a former Obama administration drug policy official, said the HHS recommendation “flies in the face of science, reeks of politics” and gives a regrettable nod to an industry “desperately looking for legitimacy.”

Some legalization advocates say rescheduling weed is too incremental. They want to keep focus on removing it completely from the controlled substances list, which doesn't include such items as alcohol or tobacco (they're regulated, but that's not the same).

National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws Deputy Director Paul Armentano said that simply reclassifying marijuana would be “perpetuating the existing divide between state and federal marijuana policies.” Minority Cannabis Business Association President Kaliko Castille said rescheduling just ”re-brands prohibition," rather than giving an all-clear to state licensees and putting a definitive close to decades of arrests that disproportionately pulled in people of color.

“Schedule III is going to leave it in this kind of amorphous, mucky middle where people are not going to understand the danger of it still being federally illegal,” he said.

___ Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed from Washington.

BANKER TO THE POOR

Obama, world leaders call on Bangladesh to halt cases against Nobel Peace Prize winner

Miranda Nazzaro
Thu, August 31, 2023

More than 170 worldwide leaders and Nobel laureates are calling on Bangladesh to halt cases against Muhammad Yunus, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for pioneering the use of microcredit to help impoverished people.

In an open letter to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, leaders including former President Obama, former U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and more than 100 Nobel Peace Prize winners said they are “deeply concerned with the threats to democracy and human rights” in Bangladesh.

“One of the threats to human rights that concerns us in the present context is the case of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus,” they wrote in the letter. “We are alarmed that he has recently been targeted by what we believe to be continuous judicial harassment.”

The letter calls on Hasina to suspend the current judicial proceedings against Yunus and asks for a panel of impartial judges in Bangladesh to review the charges with “some role for internationally recognized legal experts.”

“We are confident that any thorough review of the anti-corruption and labor law cases against him will result in his acquittal,” the leaders wrote in the letter.

Yunus founded Grameen Bank in 1983, a company that gives small loans to entrepreneurs who would not normally be able to obtain such loans. The bank helped bring individuals out of poverty and inspired microfinancing efforts in developing countries across the world.

Yunus has publicly criticized politicians, accusing them of having sole interests in money. Calling him a “bloodsucker,” Hasina alleged Yunus used force and other means to get back loans from poor rural women when heading Grameen Bank.

Hasina, who has been in power since 2009, launched an investigation in 2011 into into Grameen Bank’s activity. Yunus was fired as the bank’s managing director for alleged violation of government retirement regulations.

He later faced trial in 2013 over allegedly receiving money without government permission, including his Nobel Prize award and royalties from a book, according to The Associated Press.

He faced additional charges connected with other companies he created, including Grameen telecom. Earlier this month, 18 former Grameen Telecom workers filed a suit alleging he siphoned off their job benefits, according to AP.

Yunus also went on trial earlier this month for separate labor law violation charges.

The letter from Obama and others also asked the upcoming national election be “free and fair” and that the administration “be acceptable to all major parties in the country.” The letter argues the previous two national elections “lacked legitimacy.”

 The Hill.

Opinion: The Sunbelt was the retirement destination of choice. That was before climate change

Opinion by Deborah Carr, Ian Sue Wing and Giacomo Falchetta

Fri, September 1, 2023 

Editor’s note: Deborah Carr is a professor of sociology at Boston University and director of its Center of Innovation in Social Science. She is the author of “Aging in America.” Ian Sue Wing is a professor of earth and environment at Boston University specializing in climate change economics and integrated assessment modeling. Giacomo Falchetta is a research scholar with the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Italy. The views expressed in this commentary are their own. Read more opinion at CNN.

Retiree Jeanne Langan Burris, 61, a resident of Naples, Florida, often starts her daily tennis match at 7 a.m. Even at that early hour, however, she says she sometimes finds herself baking on the court in triple-digit temperatures.

The torrid heat is a far cry from Westport, Connecticut, where Burris and her husband raised their three children. It’s even further removed from Buffalo, New York — a city renowned for blizzards and brutally cold temperatures — where she grew up.



Deborah Carr - Courtesy Deborah Carr

Burris still loves life in southwest Florida, where she moved a half-dozen years ago to be nearer her aging parents, but climate change has brought challenges. Naples is said to be one of the US cities most likely to suffer the loss of home and property because of rising sea levels. And because of the intense heat, Burris said, “I change two or three times a day,” she said

.

Ian Sue Wing - Courtesy Ian Sue Wing

The summer of 2023 continues to punish Naples – and huge swaths of the United States – with furnace-like weather. Triple-digit heat afflicted tens of millions of people across the center of the country this summer and may prove to be a permanent feature of life in the Sunbelt.



Giacomo Falchetta - Courtesy Giacomo Falchetta

July and August, which saw the hottest summer on record in the US, were particularly brutal in the southern and southwestern states. And week upon week of blisteringly hot weather is especially worrisome for older adults, many of whom chose to relocate to Sunbelt regions in search of balmy winter weather – never counting on the dangerously elevated summer heat that has come with climate change.

Visions of ditching the wearying (and potentially dangerous) task of shoveling snow from their driveways have long attracted retirees to places like Florida, Arizona, North Carolina, Texas and South Carolina, which are the most popular retirement magnets. But older adults in the Sunbelt got warmer weather than they bargained for.

The record-breaking heat waves of summer 2023 (not to mention the already established pattern of temperature records tumbling summer after summer in recent years) has made these localities seem like “hell on earth,” in the words of one unhoused resident of Phoenix who found himself at the mercy of the unrelenting heat.

In Phoenix, 110-degree-plus temperatures continued for an astonishing 31 consecutive days. Arizona is not alone: El Paso, Texas, saw 44 consecutive days of triple-digit temperatures, and the heat index in Miami topped 100 degrees for 46 straight days. Many people find respite indoors in air conditioning of course, but part of the appeal of retirement is being able to stroll and do sports out-of-doors – something that this summer’s stifling heat has made all but impossible.

Organizations and professionals who help retirees plan their golden years have begun counseling that they toss out the old retirement playbook and consider retiring in places where the effects of global warming have so far been less pronounced.

We’re not just talking about personal comfort. Extreme heat is miserable for everyone, but can be particularly lethal for older adults. More than half of the two dozen people who died of heat-related causes in Maricopa County, Arizona, this summer were 65 or older. Heat stress is especially harmful to older people, worsening common health conditions like heart, lung and kidney disease, and even triggering delirium. Poor air quality makes it hard to breathe, especially for those who already struggle with shortness of breath. Even temperatures as low as 80 degrees can be dangerous for older people with underlying health problems.

Prescription medications make older people even more sensitive to heat: Anticholinergics — a class of drugs prescribed for gastrointestinal conditions, COPD and other ailments — reduce their capacity to sweat and cool down, while beta-blockers and diuretics can cause dehydration.

Meanwhile, being confined to an air-conditioned apartment for days on end can leave older adults depressed and isolated. High energy bills that go along with the air conditioning that makes life bearable in warmer climates can also be a significant burden for those living on a fixed income. And seniors with limited physical mobility may find it difficult to travel to a public cooling center — if they are lucky enough to have one nearby.

Will heat waves like the summer of 2023 scare away older adults from southern retirement destinations over the long haul? Or will retirees continue to flock to places like Florida and Arizona in the hope that the summer 2023 swelter is a fluke — and prioritize other enticements like recreational amenities and a low cost of living? The jury is still out, but we urge older adults to seriously factor climate issues into their relocation plans. Our research shows that Sunbelt heat extremes — a direct consequence of human-induced climate change — are here to stay.

If older adults continue to migrate to Arizona, Florida and desert regions of California, the dual forces of rising temperatures and aging populations will place unprecedented demands on cities, counties and states to meet older adults’ pressing health needs. That includes investing in conveniently located cooling centers and training first responders to work with adults who may be reluctant to leave their homes during a heat wave or other weather emergency.

One the other heand, should older adults living in cooler locales like New England, the Pacific Northwest and the upper Midwest stay put to avoid the heat extremes of the Sunbelt? Not necessarily. Northern climates may be cooler, but they are actually heating up faster. Chronic exposure of populations to heat, measured by an indicator called person-degree days, will triple nationwide by 2050 — but will increase by five times in the Mid-Atlantic and upper midwestern states like Michigan and Wisconsin, and a factor of six in New England.

Our research focused on heat exposure only, but climate change drives other extreme weather events, such as droughts, wildfires, hurricanes, flooding and intense blizzards. Resources like Climate Mapping for Resilience and Adaptation provides helpful weather-related information on potential retirement destinations.

Retirees also should research whether a potential future home state has a well-developed climate plan that considers older adults’ distinctive needs. Does your ideal destination have heat and/or weather advisory warning systems? Does your dream neighborhood have cooling (or warming) centers close by? Are there urban green spaces like parks that can protect against the urban “heat island” effect? Could you access supports like Low Income Home Energy Assistance Programs for hardening your home against weather extremes?

In the future, city planners and policymakers must prepare to face the twin challenges of climate change impacts and population aging by investing in knowledge, capacity and infrastructure for adaptation.

The climate system’s inertia means that warming is inevitable, with potential effects nationwide. Careful research and planning can help retirees find a home where they can live out their golden years in relative safety and comfort.

 CNN.com

Africa Offers Global Warming Solution in 1st Climate Declaration

Antony Sguazzin
Fri, September 1, 2023

(Bloomberg) -- Africa will seek to present itself as a solution to the global warming crisis in a declaration to be signed by heads of state on Sept. 6 at the inaugural Africa Climate summit in Nairobi.

African leaders, under the auspices of the African Union, committed to tripling the proportion of electricity generated from renewable sources to 60% by 2030 compared with 2019 levels, according to a copy of the draft document seen by Bloomberg.

“Africa’s untapped renewable energy potential, which is 50 times the global anticipated electricity demand by 2040,” the leaders said in the nine-page draft. The continent “can play a significant role in keeping the rise in global temperature within the 1.5C objective,” they said.

While it has abundant solar, wind and hydropower potential and is being touted as a future source of green hydrogen, almost half of Africa’s population, or 600 million people, are without access to electricity. Only 2% of global investment in renewable energy goes to Africa, the leaders said.

The AU won’t comment on the Nairobi Declaration until it’s been discussed and adopted, spokesman Ebba Kalondo said by phone.

Green industries could be built and given that much of the continent is undeveloped, they could leapfrog the use of fossil fuels, according to the document.

“Africa has the fundamentals to become a cost-competitive green industrial hub,” the leaders said. “Africa has a unique opportunity to pursue a much less carbon-intensive development pathway, if matched with timely finance and technology at scale.”

They also emphasized the role Africa’s so-called carbon sinks — forested areas that absorb carbon — play in reining in climate change.

The declaration, to be presented at next week’s gathering in Kenya, will serve as the continent’s formal submission to the COP28 climate summit in the United Arab Emirates in November. It was proposed that the Africa Climate Summit should be held every two years.

While offering to play a role in fighting climate change, the leaders bemoaned the impact emissions caused by developed nations are having on their countries and the lack of finance they are able to access to build renewable energy plants and strengthen infrastructure against extreme weather.

Warming Faster

“Africa is warming faster than the rest of the world and, if unabated, climate change will continue having negative growth impacts on African economies,” they said. “Access to affordable climate finance remains one of the biggest challenges to climate action.”

The declaration states that most assistance is in the form of loans, even though many developing nations battle debt burdens. It criticizes the European Union’s planned Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism as being unfair because it will make the export of materials to the bloc from Africa powered by electricity generated with fossil fuels less competitive as charges will be imposed.

The leaders called for increased agricultural productivity and the allocation of more of Africa’s land and marine areas to conservation, as well as demanding a greater share of profits from carbon-offset projects.

The world needs to “establish a new financing architecture that is responsive to Africa’s needs including debt restructuring and relief,” they said.

There was little mention in the document of reining in Africa’s own fossil fuel industries. Nigeria and Angola are major oil producers and Senegal and Mozambique are on course to produce significant amounts of natural gas. South Africa relies on coal for more than 80% of its power.

--With assistance from Simon Marks.

Bloomberg Businessweek

African children 'least able to cope' with climate risks: UN
AFP
Fri, September 1, 2023 

A child sheltering from rising floodwater in the Mozambican city of Beira, which was hit by Cyclone Eloise in January 2021 (-)


Children in Africa are exceptionally vulnerable to climate change but are "woefully" ignored by those responsible for funding the fight against the crisis, the United Nations said Friday.

Africa -- a continent of 1.2 billion people -- is home to some of the countries least responsible for carbon emissions but is hit disproportionately hard by droughts, flooding, storms and heatwaves.

Children in 48 of the 49 countries assessed are at "high or extremely high risk" of climate shocks, the UN childrens' agency UNICEF said in a report titled "Time to Act".

"It is clear that the youngest members of African society are bearing the brunt of the harsh effects of climate change," said Lieke van de Wiel, UNICEF deputy director for eastern and southern Africa.

"They are the least able to cope, due to physiological vulnerability and poor access to essential social services."

Furthermore, they "are woefully neglected by the key climate financing flows required to help them adapt, survive and respond to the climate crisis," UNICEF said.

Children living in Nigeria, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Chad, the Central African Republic and war-weary Somalia are at most risk, it said.

A key concern is exposure to diseases as the children face a "deadly combination of intensified exposure to multiple and increasingly severe shocks".

The UN agency said that less than three percent of global funding to tackle climate change was directed at children, and called for more to be done, especially by the private sector.

"We need to see a stronger focusing of funding towards this group, so they are equipped to face a lifetime of climate-induced disruptions," said van de Wiel.

The UNICEF report was published days before the first ever Africa Climate Summit in the Kenyan capital Nairobi next week.

The conference is designed to showcase Africa as a potential powerhouse for green energy, in the first of a flurry of big meetings ahead of crunch UN talks.

With the world far adrift of its goal of slashing carbon emissions and communities battered by extreme weather events, the November climate summit in the oil-rich United Arab Emirates will be dominated by clashing visions for energy.

The climate conference opens on Monday and is due to wrap up on Wednesday.

ho/amu/ri

The Death Toll From Climate Change Will Be Catastrophic, Scientists Say
Sharon Adarlo
Thu, August 31, 2023 

Terrible Toll

We know climate change is wreaking global havoc, from infrastructure destroyed by hurricanes to drought-fueled fires, but what will be the cost to human lives?

Now, a grim new estimate finds that approximately 1 billion people will die this century from various disasters driven by global warming, most of them poor and in the global south — a chilling data point as experts start to go beyond the mechanics behind climate change and move towards grappling with its dreadful toll.

This somber analysis was arrived at by researchers in Canada and Austria who analyzed 180 studies on climate change and mortality, as laid out in a new paper published in the journal Energies. From the analysis, they converged on a "1000-ton rule," which means for every 1,000 tons of fossil fuel burned, a person dies. Calculating with this rule in mind, the researchers concluded that roughly 1 billion people will die if the planet warms up to 2 degrees celsius or higher by 2100.

"If you take the scientific consensus of the 1,000-ton rule seriously, and run the numbers, anthropogenic global warming (AGW) equates to a billion premature dead bodies over the next century," said Western University researcher Joshua Pearce in a statement about the work. "Obviously, we have to act. And we have to act fast."

Averting Disaster

People will die from from a combination of disasters, according to the scientists.

"Storms and floods kill directly, but also indirectly, by causing epidemics," the paper reads. "Droughts kill when drinking water or food runs out. Rising seas kill when people are forced to leave their land and become migrants. In all these cases, poverty and AGW combine to cause human deaths."

So what's the world to do in the face of possible disaster?

The scientists argue in the paper that we should aggressively tackle energy policy to drastically curb carbon emissions.

"To save millions of lives it is ethically, morally, and logically acceptable to radically accelerate existing trends in energy efficiency, electrification, and the use of renewable energy, with the goal of powering global society without any fossil fuels at all," they conclude in the paper.

The Man Who Upended Thailand’s Politics

Charlie Campbell / Bangkok

TIME
Thu, August 31, 2023 

Pita Limjaroenrat, leader of Thailand’s progressive Move Forward Party, at the party headquarters in Bangkok on April 19, 2023.

 Credit - Andre Malerba—Bloomberg/Getty Images

Pita Limjaroenrat doesn’t look like a defeated man. The 42-year-old former tech executive strides into the meeting room of his upstart Move Forward Party’s Bangkok headquarters wearing an immaculate navy-blue suit, fuchsia necktie, and a winsome grin. It’s not long before our discussion on Thai politics takes a not unwelcome detour into sport and music, particularly Pita’s fondness of rugby from his childhood in rural New Zealand, as well as his love of playing guitar and rock bands like Metallica, Iron Maiden, and Radiohead. “If I said I like Coldplay, nobody would vote for me!” he quips.

But vote for him, they did. Move Forward, led by Pita, won Thailand’s general election in May, securing 38% of popular support on the back of a radical manifesto to bridle the nation’s elite power nexus centered on its military, royal palace, and business conglomerates, capturing the imagination of especially younger Thais desperate to throw off decades of paternalistic rule. By all rights, having won a plurality 151 parliamentary seats, our conversation should not be taking place on the eighth floor of a smog-wreathed office block but five miles west in Bangkok’s 1920s neo-Gothic Government House.

However, after the election results were announced, that same entrenched establishment that Pita railed against at the stump whirred into action. Pita’s bid to become Prime Minister was blocked by the country’s military-appointed Senate, and he was hit by a flurry of legal challenges. One charge, that he secretly held shares in a media company, the defunct iTV, resulted in a ban on Pita serving as a lawmaker according to Thailand’s byzantine election rules. (Pita denies any wrongdoing.)

After months of post-election jostling, on Aug. 22, 61-year-old property tycoon Srettha Thavisin was instead confirmed into the top job by parliamentary vote thanks to his second-place Pheu Thai Party ditching its brief coalition with Move Forward to instead ally with 10 establishment and royalist parties. With that, Pita’s bold and popular agenda to reform Thailand’s controversial royal defamation law, end military conscription, and break up its business monopolies was consigned to the scrapheap.

Read More: Thailand’s Populist Pheu Thai Party Finally Won the Prime Minister Vote—But at What Cost?

It was a triumph of “old politics over new,” says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, professor of political science at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. “Old politics is horse-trading, pork-barreling, patronage; new politics is more transparent and accountable, which is what the Move Forward Party exemplifies and advocates.”

To have come so close only to have victory snatched away would send many people into a bitter spiral. The last two decades of Thai politics have been marked by disregarded voters being urged onto the street in often-bloody protests. Pita, however, is sanguine. “I’m extremely proud,” he says. “At the beginning of the campaign, most political pundits gave me 30 seats. So I beat their expectations five times!”

It’s a laudable outlook though one many Move Forward supporters struggle to share. For them, May’s election victory was a turning point, the moment when Thailand changed, and the fact that nothing effectively did has engendered a deep sense of betrayal across the nation of 70 million. In the northern city of Chiang Mai, one piece of graffiti scrawled on a traffic sign at a busy intersection said it all: “Why isn’t Pita Prime Minister?”

Pita greets supporters in Pattaya, Thailand, July 22, 2023.Lauren DeCicca—Getty Images

It’s a question that Pita has had to wrestle with himself. In the immediate aftermath of his victory, he spent days on a victory tour of far-flung provinces congratulating supporters. Some have suggested he should have stayed in Bangkok to build support from other parties and senators.

Of course, modern politics hinges on how far to compromise, gauging to what extent the desire to enact change justifies diluting that change itself. Pita’s relentless targeting of Thailand’s royal defamation law, known as lèse-majesté or Article 112, struck at the establishment’s most cherished shibboleths. Since November 2020, more than 200 people have been arrested under Article 112 relating to activities at pro-democracy rallies and comments made on social media. They include a 26-year-old man jailed for three years in March for selling satirical calendars featuring a rubber duck—a pro-democracy protest symbol.

Read More: Thai Teen Jailed for Mocking the King as Prospects of Royal Defamation Reform Dim

Nevertheless, Move Forward was the only party committed to curbing Article 112, and reneging on that pledge was never an option for Pita. “I was willing to be flexible,” he insists. “But a flat-out dishonest maneuver in order to have this interview in Government House? I couldn’t do it.”

Not all parties felt the same. Much of the ire for Move Forward’s sidelining has been directed at Pheu Thai, which for more than two decades played the role of Thailand’s anti-establishment foil and has seen its own past elected leaders ousted in military and judicial coups but still entered an unholy marriage of convenience with the very forces it once campaigned against to secure power.

Compounding the sense of gross perfidy, Pheu Thai’s de facto patriarch, billionaire former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, returned from 15 years in self-imposed exile on the same day that Srettha was confirmed as Prime Minister. Thaksin was arrested at the airport and sentenced to eight years for historical in absentia convictions of corruption and abuse of power, though within hours the 74-year-old was transferred from his jail cell to a hospital suite amid persistent rumors and reports of a forthcoming royal pardon.

That Pheu Thai seemingly did a deal that keeps Move Forward out of power in exchange for Thaksin’s return has enraged many of Pheu Thai’s own voters, some of whom burned effigies outside the party’s headquarters. Even innocent choc-mint drinks were suddenly rendered objects of scorn, as they are known to be a favorite of Thaksin’s daughter, Paetongtarn Shinawatra, prompting many cafes to refuse to sell them. Thai artists have flooded social media with sardonic images of treachery, such as tanks wrapped in red shirts—the enduring symbol of Pheu Thai’s firebrand supporters.

Pita joins a demonstration—demanding the release of two young pro-democracy activists who were detained for criticizing the monarchy—at Tha Phae Gate in Chiang Mai, Thailand, Feb. 4, 2023.Pongmanat Tasiri—SOPA/LightRocket/Getty Images

Was Pita hung out to dry by Pheu Thai in order to bring Thaksin home? For Pita, personally, the subject of betrayal is complex. Thaksin was his mentor as a young man and even penned his recommendation letter to Harvard. When Thaksin was first ousted by a coup d’état during a visit to the U.N. General Assembly in New York in 2006, Pita was traveling alongside him. Today, Pita may not be carrying Thaksin’s bag, but he’s reluctant to throw him under a bus either.

“He has every political and civil right to return to Thailand,” says Pita, “just like all the political refugees that have been chased away from their own country for the past 20 years.”

Of course, if anyone can sympathize with an ignored popular mandate it is Thaksin. Before May’s ballot, populist parties backed by the policeman-turned-media mogul won every election since 2001, only to be deposed thrice by the military and twice by the courts. (One Thaksin proxy, former Prime Minster Samak Sundaravej, was farcically ousted in 2008 over 5,000 baht ($350) he received in travel expenses for hosting a televised cooking show.)

That Thaksin has switched from victim of Thailand’s anti-democratic elite to their ally and enabler is, at the very least, a cruel lesson in realpolitik. “Before the election, I did believe that [Pheu Thai] were part of the larger force to turn Thailand toward democracy,” says Pita. Now, however, he fears their goal was “to become the government at whatever cost they had to bear.”

“I hope the return of Thaksin and Pheu Thai’s efforts to form a government were decoupled,” he adds. “But I don’t know if my hope is true or not.”

Pita may have usurped Thaksin as anathema of the Thai establishment, though for an anti-elitist, he’s very much the iconoclast. Born in Bangkok to an affluent and politically connected family, Pita was privileged enough to attend secondary school in Hamilton, New Zealand, where he says he gained his political awakening. Back then, there were only three TV channels, and given the choice between watching the Australian soap opera Home and Away and parliamentary debates, he chose the latter, listening to the speeches of then Prime Minister Jim Bolger while he did his homework.

“I would look at the way agriculture is done in Thailand versus New Zealand, the way education in Bangkok compares to Hamilton,” he says. “All those things played a vital foundation of how I view the world, how I view democracy, and how I view politics.”

After completing his undergraduate degree in finance and banking at Bangkok’s Thammasat University, Pita enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin, where he got his first taste of American retail politics during the 2000 presidential election between then Texas Governor George W. Bush and Vice President Al Gore. “I could feel the vibe; people were really active citizens; there were Bush signs in front of their lawns; they were volunteering,” Pita recalls. “So I understood that American politics is a different level than what I had seen back home or in New Zealand.”

Pita returned to Thailand at age 25 to take over the family business, CEO Agrifood, after the death of his father. Despite his youth and inexperience, he helped the company recover from huge debts to become one of Asia’s largest producers of rice bran oil.

But politics was always his aim, and Pita soon returned to the U.S. to complete a joint master’s degree from MIT and Harvard in business and public policy. It was the run-up to President Barack Obama’s 2012 election victory and proved hugely instructive. “Obama was coming a lot to speak at Harvard; John Kerry was there all the time, so I would bring a brown bag lunch to hear them,” recalls Pita. “And I saw how they had a phone booth, and would knock on doors, and tell people where to go vote, and how you register the vote in advance, and how important it was to call people and remind them.”

In 2018, after working in banking and management consultancy and a brief stint as the executive director of Grab Thailand, Pita joined Move Forward’s predecessor party, Future Forward, where he was tasked with agricultural policy. He was elected to parliament in 2019 and soon earned a reputation as a rising star on the back of impassioned speeches about the plight of the nation’s farmers. In March 2020, Thailand’s Constitutional Court dissolved Future Forward and banned its executives from politics for 10 years. When Move Forward rose from its ashes, Pita emerged as a key leader.

Pita waves to supporters while holding his daughter Pipim at a Move Forward rally in Bangkok in May. Sirachai Arunrugstichai—Getty Images

Pita’s rise on the political stage, however, came with greater scrutiny on his life behind the scenes. In 2019, Pita’s marriage to Thai actress and model Chutima Teenpanart fell apart. It was an acrimonious divorce during which Chutima accused Pita of being controlling and abusive. Pita strenuously denies physically injuring his ex-wife, and the case was dismissed in court, though she in turn said that “violence may not have been an issue but he did harm me psychologically.” Earlier this year, Chutima signaled her support for Pita’s election campaign. “It’s been a long time. Let it pass. In any case, I’m cheering for Pipim’s dad,” she posted online, referencing their seven-year-old daughter whom they share custody of and who frequently joined her father at Move Forward rallies.

Pita says he’s “not at all” surprised that allegations about his private life were seized upon by political opponents. “I’ve been preparing to become a politician since my 20s,” he shrugs.

The question remains what comes next for Pita—and Thailand. The nation appears more polarized than ever, with its largest party shut out of power ostensibly due to its efforts to amend Article 112. For decades, Thailand’s royal family was a unifying force. Today, however, it’s been recast as the fault-line by which politics are defined.

It’s a schism that promises to deepen after Thailand’s Constitutional Court agreed to hear a case against Move Forward regarding whether its campaign to reform lèse-majesté constitutes treason. In particular, the suggestion by the party’s deputy secretary-general Rangsiman Rome that Thailand should switch its national day from Dec. 5—the birthday of beloved former King Bhumibol Adulyadej—to June 24, the day the nation moved from absolute to constitutional monarchy, was seized upon by royalists as evidence of republican intent. A guilty verdict could see the party dissolved, like Future Forward before it, and party executives banned from politics for life, or potentially even jailed.

Asked about Rangsiman’s remarks, Pita admits that “the cadence was a bit off,” though he says that “diversity is a strength of our party, not a weakness.” Pita insists that his goal was never to tarnish the monarchy but to place it “above politics,” which, he says, is the surest way to ensure its longevity as “a vital institution of national unity.”

Being squeezed out of power and threatened with dissolution and jail might not seem like a reason to celebrate. Still, the stakes were always plain, and Pita, like Future Forward’s leaders before him, was willing to pay the costs. “They are already prepared for this,” says ​​Aim Sinpeng, a senior lecturer at the University of Sydney. “It’s a party that doesn’t run on money, but on ideas and ideology, because it’s a movement.”

Thailand’s progressive movement remains “in a very strong position,” agrees Napon Jatusripitak, a visiting fellow at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore. “They can ban Pita or dissolve the party, but by doing that, they’ll only crystalize this movement into stronger support for its future incarnation.”

Pita appears to float above the uncertainty. If Move Forward gets to take a place in the opposition: “We can do a lot more to provide checks and balances in parliament and speak on the behalf of the people,” he says. And if he is banned, then he knows there are many others waiting to take up the cause.

“I’m not planning to be in Thai politics forever,” he says, revealing intentions to perhaps explore a role in international organizations like the U.N. “I don’t want to be 70 or 80 and sleeping in the parliament and speaking nonsense about blockchain and AI! I want to be able to pass the baton to the next generation of leaders.”

Thaksin: Former Thai PM's prison sentence reduced to a year

Nicholas Yong & Jonathan Head - In Singapore and Bangkok

BBC
Fri, September 1, 2023 

Former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra returned home in August after a 15 year exile

Thailand's King has reduced the eight-year prison sentence of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra to a year.

Mr Thaksin, who returned home last month after 15 years of self-imposed exile, was immediately sent to jail.

He was then moved to the luxury wing of a state hospital after complaining of heart problems.

Mr Thaksin had previously said the outstanding sentences, over charges of corruption and abuse of power, were politically motivated.

Deposed by a military coup in 2006, Mr Thaksin, one of Thailand's most influential and polarising personalities, left the country two years later to avoid a prison sentence.

His return on 22 August was assumed to be part of a wider political deal. And it was one that was meant to bring his popular Pheu Thai party together with its one-time adversaries in a compromise government.

And it did that. Hours after he arrived, a new coalition government, led by Pheu Thai, voted its candidate Srettha Thavisin as the new PM. The coalition includes Mr Thaksin's former military rivals who deposed his party in 2014 in a coup.

Who is Thaksin Shinawatra?

Thaksin's return seals grand Thai political bargain

Mr Thaksin clearly hoped for leniency as a part of that deal, and King Vajiralongkorn has responded quickly to his request for a pardon, reducing his eight-year sentence to just one. Mr Thaksin is likely to stay in hospital.

In response to his request for a royal pardon, the royal gazette on Friday noted his age and "illness". It added that Mr Thaksin "has done good for the country and people and is loyal to the monarchy".

However, Mr Thaksin must have hoped his sentence would be overturned, and not just reduced.

His continued incarceration will limit his ability to influence his party, as it struggles to manage an unwieldy coalition in which it holds only around half the parliamentary seats. It also faces energetic opposition from the youthful Move Forward party, which eclipsed Pheu Thai to come first in the last general election.

But Move Forward was unable to form the government, even after agreeing to a coalition with Pheu Thai. Together, the two parties were unable to gain the assent of the 250-member unelected senate, which is allowed to join the 500 elected MPs in voting for the Thai PM.

By coming back and accepting his sentence Mr Thaksin has now settled the bitter rivalry with conservative royalists that has hung over Thailand for the last 20 years. But at the cost of being a much-diminished political figure.

Syrians rally in south against Assad, economic decline

Reuters
Fri, September 1, 2023 

Syria's President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Hundreds gathered in southern Syria on Friday urging President Bashar al-Assad to step down, capping nearly two weeks of demonstrations that erupted over poor living conditions but have spiralled into renewed calls for political change.

"Bashar out, Syria free!" shouted a large crowd in the southern Druze city of Sweida. "Syria is not a farm, we are not sheep," read another poster.

Syria is in a deep economic crisis that saw its currency plunge to a record 15,500 Syrian pounds to the dollar last month in a rapidly accelerating free-fall. It traded at 47 pounds to the dollar at the start of the conflict 12 years ago.

Demonstrations broke out in Sweida in August over the removal of fuel subsidies. Home province of most of Syria's Druze community, Sweida remained in government hands throughout the war and was largely spared the violence seen elsewhere.

Open criticism of the government remained rare in the areas it controls but as the economic situation grew worse, the discontent has gone public.

Friday's turnout was large despite apparent divisions within the Druze leadership over the demonstrations. Some Druze sheikhs have criticized protesters' calls for Assad to step down and say that any improvement to the socioeconomic situation must come through dialogue.

Dozens also gathered on Friday in the province of Daraa, where the 2011 protests kicked off. They carried the three-star flag emblematic of Syria's uprising, as well as signs criticising the role of Iran, a key Assad ally.

Residents of other government-held parts of Syria - where restrictions are tighter - have made more discrete gestures of protest to avoid detection by government forces.

In the coastal province of Tartus on Thursday, some residents held up small postcards reading "Syria belongs to us, not to the (ruling) Ba'ath party", according to photographs posted on activists' social media pages. A large billboard portraying Assad's picture could be seen in the background.

(Reporting by Maya Gebeily; Editing by Nick Macfie)