Shame at the UN

5 February 2012

Russia and China this evening vetoed a key UN resolution, supported by the Arab Leagu, on Syria calling for the resignation of President Bashar al-Assad following the massacre of more than 200 people by security forces in the city of Homs.

The other 13 council members, including the US, France and Britain, voted in favor of the resolution aimed at stopping the ongoing violence.

Reacting to the vote, France's ambassador to the UN, Gerard Araud, said: "It is a sad day for the council. It is a sad day for Syria ... History has compounded our shame."

The defeat came despite concerted efforts by western leaders to get security council backing for the resolution censuring the Damascus regime.

Speaking before the vote, Barack Obama called for Assad to step down following the latest bloodshed. The US president said Assad had lost his legitimacy as a ruler and had "no right" to cling to power. He said the regime's policy of terrorising its people "only indicates its inherent weakness and inevitable collapse".

Britain and France also condemned the violence and called for decisive action by the international community in an apparent rebuke to Russia, which carried out its threat to veto the draft resolution.

Death tolls cited by activists and opposition groups ranged from 217 to 260, making the Homs attack the deadliest so far in Assad's crackdown on protests that erupted 11 months ago in response to uprisings that overthrew three Arab leaders.

"The time is long past for the international community, particularly those that have so far sheltered the Assad regime, to intensify the pressure to end over 10 months of violence."

The French foreign minister, Alain Juppe, said the Homs bloodshed was a crime against humanity and "those who block the adoption of such a resolution are taking a grave historical responsibility".

But the Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, criticised the UN resolution, saying it made too few demands of anti-government armed groups, and could prejudge the outcome of a dialogue among political forces in the country. Syria has been a key Russian ally since Soviet times and Moscow has opposed any UN demands that could be interpreted as advocating military intervention or regime change.

Earlier on Saturday, Tunisia decided to expel Syria's ambassador in response to the "bloody massacre" in Homs and said it no longer recognised the Assad regime. As news of the violence spread, a crowd of Syrians stormed their country's embassy in Cairo and protests broke out outside Syrian missions in Britain, Germany and the US.

The opposition Syrian National Council said 260 civilians were killed, describing it as "one of the most horrific massacres since the beginning of the uprising in Syria". It said it believed Assad's forces were preparing for similar attacks around Damascus and in the northern town of Jisr al-Shughour.

Another group, the Local Co-ordination Committees, gave a death toll of more than 200. It is not possible to verify activist or state media reports as Syria restricts independent media access. Video footage on the internet showed at least eight bodies assembled in a room, one of them with the top half of its head blown off. A voice on the video said the bombardment was continuing as the video was being filmed.

The resolution had no mention of weapons, no mention of sanctions. It was thoroughly watered down. Yet the killings will continue in Syria.

The other 13 council members voted in favor of the resolution, which would have said that the council "fully supports" the Arab League plan.

Mohammed Loulichki, the U.N. ambassador of Morocco, the sole Arab member of the 15-nation council, voiced his "great regret and disappointment" that Moscow and Beijing joined forces to strike down the resolution.

Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN used unusually strong and undiplomatic language: On twitter she said "Disgusted that Russia and China prevented the #UN Security Council from fulfilling its sole purpose."

Just for the record the Syrian ambassador to the UN, while enjoying his comfortable Manhattan lifestyle, said that "the UN has become instrument of war instead of preventing war."

The Russians appear to see this resolution as the first step of a Saudi Arabian war against Iran - of the sunni muslims against the shiites. The fact that the Russians have been arming the Syrian and Iranian armies seems to have been conveniently ignored. The Syrian regime is controlled by Assad’s minority Alawite sect, which is an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

No one wants to see military intervention in Syria. But the international community does want to see an end to the bloodshed and suffering in Syria.

Simply a significant proportion of the Syrian people want to see an end of the current regime. Violence against the demonstrators has led to huge escalation and the use of heavy weaponry against the civilian population. The increase in violence will lead to increased sectarian tensions.

In the big picture there are many that would like to see a weaker USA; imagine a weaker USA with a stronger Russia and China. Sure the USA makes mistakes and some of its actions are wrong, but it is a democracy, as a nation it reflects on its failings, and then it adapts its behavior. China and Russia may never get to that level of sophisticated participation.

This Washington Post editorial helps to make sense of the issue and the key players in what could be a major middle east conflict: Syria’s outcome has high stakes for the entire Mideast

Survival of the fittest

5 February 2012 - The Economist

THE future of Malev, Hungary’s 66-year-old national flag-carrier, has looked bleak since the European Commission ruled last month that government aid it had received between 2007 and its renationalisation in 2010 was illegal and must be repaid. The deeply indebted airline had no way of paying the money back and indeed was relying on continuing state backing to keep going while a buyer was sought. Early on Friday it ceased flying after the government—which is suffering a debt crisis of its own—decided to stop financing it.

Viktor Orban, the prime minister, said that restarting Malev was “not impossible”. Earlier this week the airline’s boss had used the same half-hearted phrase to express his hopes of reviving takeover talks with the Chinese state owners of Hainan Airlines. However, in the absence of a deep-pocketed rescuer, the loss of confidence an airline suffers on grounding its planes tends to prove fatal. Especially when, as in this case, stronger rivals immediately swoop in to grab its customers. Ryanair, which only ten days ago had announced plans to open five new routes out of Budapest airport, said on Friday that it would increase that to 31 routes, basing a fleet of brand-new Boeing 737-800s at Budapest from February 17th. Likewise Wizz Air, a Hungarian low-cost carrier, also said it would expand its Budapest schedules to fill the gaps left by Malev.

Ryanair has laid up a portion of its fleet for the winter season so it has plenty of spare planes ready to start flying on Malev’s old routes. But no doubt its wily boss, Michael O’Leary, will be driving a hard bargain with the authorities in Budapest over such things as landing fees, as the price of rescuing both Malev’s staff (who are being invited to apply for jobs with Ryanair) and the airport itself, whose future was at risk if its main customer went out of business.

The airline business is a fiercely Darwinian, survival-of-the-fittest affair these days, and Malev’s demise comes just a few days after the collapse of Spanair, a Barcelona-based carrier, and Cirrus, a German regional airline. In Spanair’s case, both Ryanair and its rival easyJet already have extensive routes out of Barcelona El Prat, and both have rushed to scoop up stranded Spanair passengers with cheap “rescue” fares.

Casting around for suitors
Although, as my fellow blogger noted earlier, air traffic has been growing in much of Europe, we are likely to see a continuation of this process of weaker airlines going under or being taken over, and stronger ones getting stronger still. A number of smaller carriers are casting around for sugar-daddies to to come and rescue them, some because their own finances are in a dire state, others because their state shareholders are deeply in debt and need to flog them off. Air Berlin recently fell into the arms of Abu Dhabi’s Etihad, but Spanair’s hopes of being swept off its feet by another swashbuckling Arab sheikh, from Qatar Airways, were dashed. Emirates, the third of the Gulf’s fast-growing “super-connectors”, has just started flying to Dublin, and would no doubt be welcomed with open arms were it to express an interest in the local carrier Aer Lingus. The Irish government wants to sell its stake, and there had been speculation that Etihad might buy it, but so far nothing has come of this.

Turkish Airlines, which dreams of building an international network to rival the super-connectors’, is eyeing up Poland’s money-losing LOT. The Czech government is seeking suitors for its flag-carrier, CSA. Likewise Portugal and its carrier, TAP. Last year the expectation was that IAG—the merged British Airways and Iberia—would buy TAP, though at the moment IAG is busy absorbing BMI, a British rival.

Apart from a bit of short-term confusion, for travellers in Europe there seems so far to be little to worry about in this wave of takeovers and closures. It seems that, in most cases, wherever there is sufficient passenger demand for flights, someone will quickly step in and meet it. The continued expansion of Ryanair, easyJet and the Gulf’s super-connectors is providing plenty of competition and choice. And as some familiar names disappear from the skies, we will soon get used to others—such as Norwegian Air Shuttle, which has just announced a huge aircraft order and plans to join the big league of European carriers

Lewis looks like he's in for the long haul

3 February 2012 - published 1 November 2012 in The Irish Times

CADDIE’S ROLE: Tom Lewis’ victory in the Portugal Masters three weeks ago means he now has greater control over his schedule, writes COLIN BYRNE

BLEARY EYED, quite disoriented and at about 35,000 feet over Outer Mongolia in an Airbus A330 sometime early yesterday morning local time, I found myself contemplating the unpredictable nature of trying to eke a living out of worldwide professional golf.

It may not have been my most lucid moment, especially as I was trying to remain horizontal enough to lay claim to most of the free seats in the middle of row 39 and pretend to myself that spreading out would both secure my extra leg-room and slumber. Instead it only caused hip and back discomfort, my attempts at snagging a business class seat were foiled, last minute, at the departure gate in Abu Dhabi.

The fact I have headed east to the HSBC Champions Tournament in Shanghai when realistically a few weeks back I was thinking more of a jet-lag free jaunt down to Spain for the second stage qualifier of the European Tour school is another example of the whimsical nature of the great, galavanting gamble of professional golf.

In the professional game, and particularly starting to caddie for a young player, Tom Lewis, who at that time had no official playing status, you need to be pretty much on stand-by, in anticipation of a trip to who knows where.

The early stages of a young professional’s career can be almost as capricious as the recent contest to elect the ninth President of our own little land. Where there is chaos there would appear to be opportunity. Where there is despondency with a system and our public representatives it looked like anyone with a thick enough neck had a chance of contesting for the highest office in the land, until the final hour when sense and integrity prevailed.

With the heroic exploits of my young, and at the time status-less, player in the final round of the Portugal Masters three weeks ago, both Tom’s and his bagman’s schedules have changed dramatically. From the arduous quest of trying to gain a playing status through some tournament invitations, including the tournament he won, the more realistic journey was going to be through the long and rocky road that is the tour school.

There are three stages of the tour school in Europe and by a stroke of luck, resulting in another competitor pulling out of the school Tom gained exemption to the second stage which takes place early December. The top 10 on the world amateur rankings are exempted from the first stage qualifier. This was a fortuitous break already as we saw that the very talented and top points scorer in the Walker Cup, Paul Cutler, did not make it through the first stage qualifier.

There are twists and turns along anyone’s career path which determine the ease of passage to the upper echelons of the game, or if indeed they ever make that transition. On top of Tom Lewis and his team of advisers securing some invites for him to try to slip in the back door and out onto the European Tour, and some other subtle twists of fate like not having to endure the first stage of qualification, it was Tom himself who seized the moment to seal his immediate fate on tour.

It is a remarkable achievement to win so early in a young career. Along with the morale boost it will give Tom, almost as significantly he now has the chance to plan his early steps as a professional. This is almost as important an advantage as having won.

Top golfing is about routines and so too is scheduling. An annual plan, with performance optimisation at a premium is something that normally only established players have the luxury of hatching.

Tom has already put himself in the position of competing at the highest level with many of the top players on the PGA Tour who will be playing in Shanghai this week. Knowing the respect he has for his fellow competitors it will just be another event that he is going to compete in and although the names may carry a little more kudos the objective of playing the course as best he can will still be the ultimate objective. He will have a healthy respect but not a capitulating one.

It is not such a great surprise Tom has already catapulted himself onto the world arena of golf. You just need to spend a little time around him in order to get a sense of his prowess.

It is a surprise to be back trawling the globe quite so soon after myself and Tom’s recent initiation. I am now in Shanghai shaking off the numbing effects of my first long trip in a while, amongst the hacking and herding of daily life in a metropolis with well over 20 million inhabitants.

We have arrived early amongst the sounds and smells that tell you are in a very different part of the world, in preparation for his first World Golf event and another challenge to whet the appetite of my young master.

Some more columns from Colin Byrne

Unique blend of golf living in harmony with daily life
Women in blue pick right time to strike for glory
Best of luck Edoardo, it was a pleasure carrying your bag
The young boy who never forgot a legend's hug

Sadly - older articles are behind the Irish Times firewall.

BBC decides that rimming is humour

3 February 2012

I have been entertained by the BBC's rather delayed response to my email to them on Christmas Day objecting to a show's detailed descriptions of "rimming" on early evening television  courtesy of BBC Entertainment.

I do think that a detailed description of “rimming” is neither family entertainment nor “humour of a sexual nature.”

Nor I suspect is it very appropriate for the UAE market.

Here are the emails. The BBC really should do better But it dumps old programmes into this market with little thought for content and it would appear little control over what is shown and when.

"Dear Robert,

Thank you for your message to our Contact Us site. Firstly may we offer our very sincere apologies for the delay in responding to your concerns.

We are sorry that your mother was offended by comments made in this edition of Jam and Jerusalem broadcast on Christmas Day on BBC Entertainment. Regarding the comments you refer to, there was a presentation announcement before the start of the programme which advised:

“This programme includes humour of a sexual nature. Parental guidance is advised”

Feedback from viewers such as yourself regarding the content and scheduling of our programmes is extremely helpful and important to us and please be assured that your feedback has been noted and will be passed to the scheduling team for BBC Entertainment.

Thank you for taking the time and trouble to contact us.

Best wishes,

BBC Entertainment

Your message

Christmas Day 8.30pm in Dubai and Jam and Jerusalem gives us a detailed description of "rimming." My 78 year old mother choked on her turkey.

Some things may be better broadcast later in the evening - or in this case not at all; as it was sadly unfunny.

Merry Christmas. Who should I send the dry cleaning bill to?

Robert"

Reuters journalists to strike

3 February 2012 The Guardian

Journalists at Thomson Reuters have voted to strike – the first at the news agency in more than 25 years – over a below-inflation pay offer.

The National Union of Journalists chapel at the company voted "overwhelmingly" for a 48-hour strike next week, to coincide with the release of Thomson Reuters' full-year financial results.

"We tried very hard to reach a settlement with management but the company's refusal to improve its below-inflation offer of 1.75%, which follows years of effective pay cuts, has compelled Thomson Reuters journalists to vote overwhelmingly for strike action for the first time in more than 25 years," said the Thomson Reuters NUJ chapel officers, Mike Roddy and Helen Long.

"Thomson Reuters must shoulder the responsibility for this dispute. The company ignored repeated warnings that members had reached a tipping point, after years of below-inflation pay rises, combined with rising costs, that are pricing many members out of their jobs."

The NUJ said that the pay offer had hit journalists whose families cannot afford to live in London.

A ballot for industrial action saw 83% of NUJ members at Thomson Reuters voting in favour and the strike is scheduled to begin at midnight on Thursday 9 February, for 48 hours.

The NUJ claimed that Thomson Reuters was also "under fire" over its treatment of cleaning staff at its Canary Wharf offices.

Barry Fitzpatrick, deputy general secretary of the NUJ, said: "This strike is about fairness. The management is proposing a below-inflation pay deal, while holding back money for a merit scheme.

"This is just not on. While our members struggle to make ends meet on their wages, the management should be putting all the money into an across-the-board pay increase."

NUJ members at the news agency last threatened to strike in 2008 and 2009 over job cuts and working conditions following the merger of Reuters and Thomson.

Thomson Reuters declined to comment.

Thai Smile is all about lower costs

3 February 2012

Thai Airways International has confirmed that its new business division Thai Smile Air will launch services on 1July 2012 as recruitment commences for the start-up’s own cabin staff.

The airline will be positioned as a low-to-medium-cost carrier between the mainline operation and low-cost venture Nok Air, but will not be a standalone operation like Nok Air but an internal business unit.

The reality is that Thai Smile will recruit a new crew with new contracts and operate at lower costs.

Thai Smile will commence operations with four leased Airbus 320s, increasing its fleet to eleven aircraft in the future. These were initially expected to be used to start services to domestic destinations bu it now appears that the start-up will initially have more of a focus on international routes.

This may be due to Thai Airways International increasing its shareholding in Nok Air and expanded its domestic role. Thai Smile is expected to offer flights within a three to four hour range from Bangkok and Thai is understood to be discussing traffic rights for a number of new overseas destinations to be se served from Thai Smile’s launch in July.

It is expected to inaugurate operations on July 1 initially with a twice daily link between Bangkok and Macau. As additional aircraft arrive THAI Smile will introduce daily services on the Bangkok – Chiang Mai and Chiang Mai – Phuket routes from August 1, while the carrier will replace Thai Airways on international links from Bangkok to Jakarta, Kolkata and Phnom Penh from the same date. According to Thai’s provisional schedule THAI Smile will also take over the operation of the daily Bangkok – Surat Thani route from September 1 and will operate the four-times weekly winter seasonal Bangkok – Gaya – Varansai – Bangkok rotation from October 1.

Thai Smile looks like it will continue to take over routes from Thai Airways International as additional aircraft arrive. These are likely to be markets with limited premium demand and where the Thai Smile brand will fit the operation better.

The airline will offer a two-class product using Thai’s current ‘TG’ flight code. With a lower cost structure than its parent Thai Smile will able to fly to a number of locations that cannot be served profitably by the mainline division, or serve existing routes more efficiently. Possible new destinations may include Amritsar, Brunei, Danang, Macau, Medan and Penang.

A day on the Yas links

31 January 2012

Yas we can said Scotland’s Richie Ramsay as he produced an outstanding ten under par 62 over the Yas Links Golf Cub to win the 2012 Emirates Airline Invitational hosted by Abdullah Al Naboodah yesterday.

Ramsay topped the field of 50 European Tour players in the pro-am event in Abu Dhabi, which helps raise money for a number of charities including the Tour Players Foundation along with Friends of Cancer Patients, the UAE Down Syndrome Association, the Special Care Centre Abu Dhabi. The Gala dinner following the Invitational was aiming to raise over$250,000 through a charity auction.

It was a lovely sunny day for your writer to make his caddying debut on the European Tour. I was caddying for professional golfer Russell McIntyre who is based in Portugal. Russell's day did not start well when he cracked his Taylor Made driver on the first tee. On a long course using the 3 wood off the tee was great for accuracy but little help for distance. The downside for Russell yesterday - he really made only one good putt all day; plenty were close; none would drop.

Ramsay finished three ahead of Richard Finch and Thorbjorn Olesen (65 was a good score yesterday) in a field that also included Sergio Garcia and Graeme McDowell, last year’s champion Retief Goosen – who made a hole-in-one on the eighth – and Ryder Cup Captains past and present Colin Montgomerie and Jose Maria Olazabal (who were in the group behind us) in a star line-up.

The other pro in our group was Tom Lewis, who made such an impact at the 2011 British Open before turning professional. Tom is still only 21, he is a genuinely nice guy, was a great partner for his amateur colleague, and is a terrific ball striker. He eased a 69 yesterday. With a little good fortune, some good advice, and with a few putts going in, he could become very, very good.

Our two amateurs were Russell's father - Stewart McIntyre - and Keven LeCocq, a UK based American, who plays most of his golf at Wentworth. Links for our fourball are below.

Caddying is tough - its a long hike with a heavy bag on a warm day. And you do need to pay attention to the game and to your golfer. Tom Lewis' caddy is the experienced Irishman, Colin Byrne, very composed and thoughtful; he has won majors with Retief Goosen and should be a great help to Tom Lewis in his first full year as a pro.

Colin is my kind of caddy - asked in 2008 who would be in his dream foursome he replied : the Dalai Lama, Mahatma Ghandi and Gene Sarazen.

Me - I think my caddying career may be a once off - though Kevin LeCocq was kind enough to ask me if I had been a pro caddy before.

It was a very good day; a top course in lovely condition, and a chance to watch some of the best golfers from the best vantage point. I even got to chat to Monty and Jose-Maria Olazabal.

The modern golfers are very different - they are not necessarily tall; but they are very lean and have great body turns and swing speed. And their control over ball distance and flight puts my efforts to shame.

Some links to our fourball:

Russell McIntyre - Pro golfer at Quinta do Lago. Likes snooker and snakes.

Stewart McIntyre - A Captain of the Super Yacht Industry: Summer 2011

Kevin LeCocq - Head of Global Investment Solutions : Deutsche Bank’s Private Wealth Management

Tom Lewis

Caddies like Colin Byrne double up as on-course psychologists

Chuck Culpepper The National Jan 25, 2012

Any notion of caddies having cushy jobs is so very last century.

"The more you do it, the longer you spend at the golf course," said Colin Byrne, the veteran caddie of the 21-year-old English wunderkind Tom Lewis.

"Everyone's looking for an edge, and I think everyone's afraid to leave the golf course."

One reason: "We're all influenced by what happens around us."

What happens around them nowadays is toil. Twenty years ago, Byrne said, some players traded on talent; now players trade on moderate talent plus diligence or considerable talent plus diligence. Even away from the course, they frequent hotel gyms alongside physios.

Byrne noticed the rigour upgrade with Swedish players in the 1990s (for yet another case of Swedish excellence).

The caddie's job thus has become "a lot more than the four to five hours on the course," bloating to more hours of driving ranges and practice rounds, hunting balance between practice and competition.

The yang might have trumped the yin sometimes, Byrne said, as when Padraig Harrington, his fellow Irishman, "finally admitted" that in golf's eternal mystery, he might have won more had he worked less.

Don't picture caddies standing in museums absorbing local culture.

The "old days" - you know, that 20th century - allowed for marginally more travel glamour and cultural edification, before so many people became so good that time grew so limited.

"I've come to South Africa," Byrne said from the tournament last week, "and I've come for work. I'm in a beautiful part of the world. I'm, you know, close to it, but I'm not really seeing it."

That "sense of being somewhere different" has grown fainter.

Some call them on-course psychologists.

"You know, you kind of get in the back door to a very big arena," said Byrne, who has written newspaper columns in Ireland.

"You know, because we're not skilled … There's no caddie school, no way to study it. It's probably something a lot of us have stumbled upon."

Then again, it is a hard to teach -and learn - art.

While discussing the two-time US Open champion Retief Goosen's brutal Sunday at the 2005 US Open, Byrne said: "Probably the art of caddying is understanding whom your dealing with, what would motivate him and what wouldn't motivate him.

"Some people need to be pumped up, and some need quiet words of encouragement."

"You can say the right thing and the wrong thing, even though it's the same thing and at the right time," Byrne said, likening it to how saying "Good morning" can work - or, not.

The job security amounts to …

"There's absolutely no security in the job," Byrne said, "which makes a very clean case if you're not getting on with the person or you're not doing your job. There's no contract.

"It keeps people with an eye on the job. It kind of makes you hungry, as well."

Unlike the slightly raffish days of yore, caddies must be more organised, more "stable", he said. They outnumber available jobs, so those just hoping to fill in would be more populous in tournament parking areas had mobile phones not enabled players in need to locate alternates.

And then, one quirk: "If the economy's doing badly, there are more caddies out here," Byrne said. "It's not an indicator you'd see in any financial papers, but it's not a bad one to look at."

But then, that soaring moment …

On a golden Sunday on Long Island, at the 2004 US Open in Shinnecock Hills, New York, as players bemoaned the barbaric course, Goosen edged Phil Mickelson even as the American tried to claim the first two majors on offer that year.

Upshot: Goosen won a road match, with a caddie who has worked for - at least - Goosen, Greg Turner, Paul Lawrie, Alex Noren, Edoardo Molinari, Lewis.

"Obviously it was a very hostile environment but I think that secretly helped Retief, because the harder you push him, the better he gets, the more obnoxious you get, the better he gets," Byrne said.

So: "He holes the final putt to win. Wasn't a fist pump. Was very simple. A double flip of the cap.

"For him that was probably a big thing, to flip his cap twice as opposed to doffing it.

"He did a double doff. Just the understatedness of it, that's what I like about him."

A guy in through the back door stood amid a huge moment that "justified all the times when you've caddied when you've lost money, or you've got absolutely no satisfaction out of it." His adjective: "indelible".

Twitter turns evil?

30 January 2012

I was waiting until I understood Twitter's new censorship policy before commenting on it.

But perhaps the saddest comment is how quickly both China and Thailand embraced the new policy. The fact that the new policy has been so rapidly embraced by countries determined to censor freedom of speech so that the only message heard is the official message says it all.

Last week, Twitter announced changes to the way it handles content takedowns. What the company had announced was that they'd built in the capability to censor content per country... in response to official requests.

Prior to Twitter’s announcement, the company had the power to delete tweets, of course, but not the ability to do so on a country-by-country basis. What’s new, the company said in a blog post, is “the ability to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country — while keeping it available in the rest of the world.” As part of the new policy, Twitter is setting up a new transparency regime whereby “if and when we are required to withhold a Tweet in a specific country, we will attempt to let the user know, and we will clearly mark when the content has been withheld.”

The truth is, Twitter has indeed instituted a method whereby they can - upon receipt of a "valid and applicable legal request" - take down tweets. The company also states that they will only respond "reactively"; in other words, to content that has already been posted. There is a safety feature built in: Users can change their location if they think the one Twitter has listed based on their IP address is wrong.

This is censorship, but Twitter isn't above the law. When the company enters a new jurisdiction, setting up offices and putting employees on the payroll, it is bound by the laws of that jurisdiction.

It may not be too much of a change. One day Twitter will be ordered to take something down. Now they are ready and can do so transparently.

But that has not stopped the Thai authorities from sensing an opportunity and the Information and Communication Technology Ministry will work with Twitter to ensure that tweets disseminated in Thailand are in compliance with local law.

ICT permanent secretary Jeerawan Boonperm said Twitter's move to censor or block content regarded as offensive in particular countries was a "welcome development".

The ICT Ministry will contact Twitter shortly to discuss ways in which they could collaborate, she said. The trouble is that the Thai authorities see this as am opportunity to clamp down on political views that do not agree with their own.

Rather bizarrely Chavarong Limpattamapanee, president of the Thai Journalists Association, expressed support for the new policy. "Local users must still comply with local law. Freedom of speech is a human right, but this freedom is not borderless. One must be responsible," he said.

Thailand has embraced web censorship. Last year alone the nation asked Facebook to remove more than 10,000 pages deemed insulting or critical of the Thai royal family, in violation of Thailand's lese majeste law.

Though there have been no reported arrests relating to Twitter in Thailand, a number of Thais have been jailed for posting messages on Facebook and the Internet. There were a number of high profile lese majeste cases last year, including a 61 year old man who got a 20 year prison sentence for sending SMS messages and a dual Thai-US citizen who received a two and a half year prison term for translating a banned book about the king into Thai.

Meanwhile the Chinese have also embraced the new policy. A bit unnecessary as Twitter is blocked in China anyway. Global Times insisted that "it is important for it to respect the cultures and ideas of different countries so as to blend into local environments harmoniously. This is normal practice."

But we should be concerned. Twitter has been one of a number of tools used to support and organise the Arab Spring. Of course it was also used in the UK riots last summer. The risk is that Twitter is depriving cyberdissidents in repressive countries of a crucial tool for information and organization.

The Twitter view is that that freedom of expression is interpreted differently from country to country is unacceptable. Twitter is wrong. Freedom of expression is a fundamental principle enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”