THAI PM EXTENDS DRUGS WAR

Thailand's Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has announced a 60-day
campaign to rid the kingdom of all social evils.

The programme will begin on Wednesday, and aims to eradicate drug
addiction, organised crime, poverty and illegal weapons.

It follows previous hardline campaigns earlier this year against drugs
and corruption.

However, despite public support for such schemes, it is unclear
whether these government policies are having any permanent success.

It will be the third time this year that Mr Thaksin has extended the
deadline to eliminate illegal drugs from Thailand.

After promising to do so by the end of April, when he launched
Thailand's war against drugs, he later moved the date to the beginning
of October.

Wednesday's new campaign will further extend that date.

"The war against dark influences", which was launched to eliminate
corruption, also ran into problems when it was overshadowed by
accusations from a massage parlour owner of widespread bribery amongst
the police force.

But Thailand's prime minister remains unperturbed, and the
government's hardline stance against criminals has been rewarded with
approval ratings reaching as high as 70%.

Thailand is the world's largest per capita consumer of methamphetamine
drugs and it is estimated that as many as 5% of the country's 63
million people are regular users.