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(CNN) -- A rift between Bangkok's economic elite and the growing clout of Thailand's rural poor is feeding a unique divide in a country that is no stranger to political turmoil.
"We have had conflicts in 1973, 1976 and 1992, but this is unlike anything we've seen before," said Sukhumbhand Paribatra, the governor of Bangkok, as government troops moved on the area near the city's business district where thousands of protesters have been encamped since March. "Those conflicts were more political,...
Past divisions where more a clash of political personalities than a class division, said Paul Quaglia, a former CIA officer and head of PSA Asia, a Bangkok-based security firm. Access to affordable telecommunications across Thailand also is helping transform the nature of this conflict.
"It's impossible to overstate how important the ability of the rural poor to communicate beyond government censors has been in this protest," Quaglia said. "Everyone has cell phones, everyone has access to the Internet, to Twitter; the community radio stations in rural areas have been very active."
Moreover, the health of the nation's revered king has raised questions over the future role of the monarchy in Thailand, Quaglia said.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 82, has been hospitalized since September after complaining of fever and fatigue. King Bhumibol, the world's longest reigning monarch, wields little direct political power, but serves as a stabilizing force in Thai society. "We may be coming to a time when there is a sea change in the unofficia...
What are the Thai protests all about?
"This has evolved into something much more than complaints about Thaksin being ousted," said Quaglia, referring to the billionaire former prime minister who was ousted in a bloodless coup in 2006. The protesters at the heart of the current conflict support Thaksin.
"It's becoming more about why 2 percent of the population gains 80 percent of the GDP," Quaglia said.
Class barriers and class differences are now at the heart of the conflict, the Bangkok governor told CNN.
"In Thailand, there is a great deal of social mobility, especially mobility upwards ... this is one of our strengths," Sukhumbhand said. "I think we have to go back to the traditional values of our society and build from the ruins we have witnessed today and are continuing to witness."
Indeed, the street scenes of dark smoke rising against the backdrop of tanks and gunfire is hard to reconcile with Thailand's reputation as the tolerant "land of smiles." The Southeast Asian nation draws millions of visitors to its pristine southern beaches and to tribal areas in the mountains north near the Laos and M...
Thai Finance Minister Korn Chatikavanij told CNN that outside of the areas directly affected by the protests and military crackdown business continues in most of Thailand. However, he acknowledges the damage that the conflict has done to tourism, which accounts for just over 6 percent of the country's total economic ou...
Many foreign companies have moved executives and their families out of the center of Bangkok and closer to the international airport in case they need to evacuate, said Quaglia, the security specialist.
There also has been a sell-off in Thai stocks by foreign investors. The Stock Exchange of Thailand closed after its morning session Wednesday due to the escalating conflict on Bangkok streets.
"Investor sentiment is shot," said Korn, the Thai finance minister. "However, our stock market is robust -- in fact, it went up yesterday (Tuesday)."
"Thailand is an open economy ... we will recover from this," Korn said. "The economics I'm less concerned about ... What I'm worried about is the political division and social division."
He said the government has done a poor job communicating all it has done to subsidize rural farmers, bolster education and increase the social safety net for aging citizens.
"This message has not been received sufficiently at the rural level -- the perception is that we haven't done enough for the rural poor, although the reality is something different," Korn said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told state-controlled natural gas producer Gazprom on Wednesday to hold off on making Ukraine pay up front for gas from Russia.
Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev told a government meeting there were grounds for shifting to advance payments for Kiev, which owes Moscow $2.2 billion for gas and failed to meet a deadline this week to pay its March bill.
But Putin said Gazprom should seek consultations with the European Union first.
"Taking into account the complex situation in Ukraine and the fact that we have not yet finished talks with the EU, I would ask Gazprom and the government to hold off on such a possibility," the president said.
He said Russia and the EU had agreed to discuss Ukraine's moves towards closer cooperation with the 28-nation bloc.
Relations between Kiev and Moscow are in crisis following the ouster of Ukraine's Moscow-backed president on Feb. 22 and Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine a month later.
No official reason has, however, been given to explain Gandhi's absence from the meeting.
According to reports, senior UPA Ministers, including Pranab Mukherjee, A K Antony, S M Krishna and P Chidambaram, have already reached 7 RCR along with Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandhi.
Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha, Sushma Swaraj, and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran Lal Krishna Advani have reached Manmohan Singh's residence for today's meeting.
Zardari, who landed here at 12.10 pm at Palam Air Force Base (technical area) along with his son Bilawal Bhutto, Interior Minister Rehman Malik and some senior officials, is meeting Dr. Singh over lunch during his three-hour stopover in Delhi.
Zardari, who is on his first visit to India as Pakistan's President, was received by minister-in-waiting P K Bansal, Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai and Pakistan High Commissioner to India, Shahid Malik, among others earlier in the day.
Zardari's first visit to India as President assumes significance, as it will provide a chance to promote bilateral ties between both sides.
According to media reports, the US bounty on Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Mohammad Hafiz Saeed is likely to be the prime focus of the talks between Zardari and Dr. Singh, who will be meeting after almost three years.
The two leaders had last met on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Russia in 2009.
Though Zardari's visit is personal in nature, it is bound to have ramification on the relations between the two nations.
New Delhi had suspended the peace process between the two sides after the commando-style militant attacks in India' commercial capital Mumbai in 2008, by Pakistan-based militants, which caused the death of 166 people.
Since then, officials from the two nations have met to improve ties, but have shied away from resuming the dialogue that included resolving key differences, including dispute over Jammu and Kashmir.
Zardari will be flying off to Ajmer later in the day to pay obeisance at the shrine of Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti. He had earlier visited the sufi saint's shrine in 2005, with his wife, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, Benazir Bhutto.
Benazir, who was assassinated on December 27, 2007, was a firm believer of Chishti.
MNA reported that construction operation of a one-million-ton steel plant in Hashtrud, East Azerbaijan province, officially commenced on Sunday in a ground-breaking ceremony attended by the province’s governor general. According to East Azarbaijan Province Governor General Mohammadreza Pour-Mohammadi, the plant, which ...
The production unit will be established in a 10,000-hectare area at an estimated cost of 1.1 trillion rials (USD 26 million). Upon completion, the steel company will create more than 350 direct and 350 indirect jobs in the northwestern province.
Iran aims to become the world’s sixth largest steelmaker as per the 20-Year Vision Plan (2005-25), which envisions an annual crude steel production capacity of 55 million tons per year by the deadline.
Denis Simpson was a one-man entertainment machine. Actor, singer, dancer, director, TV host and writer, he glided effortlessly from the groovy vibes of Hair, to the satiny tones of the a cappella group The Nylons, to the hearts of children who shyly approached him on the street for an autograph.
Simpson, who died of a brain hemorrhage Oct. 22 in Toronto two weeks short of his 60th birthday, shocking many in the arts community, was a beloved and respected performer, and a restless journeyman who couldn't stay in one place long.
Rail-thin, lanky and sporting a perpetual smile, his breakthrough came in the early 1970s as Simon in the original Broadway production of Jesus Christ Superstar. Crisscrossing Canada, but based mainly in his adopted hometown of Vancouver, his credits over the years included the first Toronto staging of Hair, followed b...
Television appearances included MacGyver, Seeing Things, Robson Arms, and a Canadian game show called Acting Crazy. For a time, he hosted the Live Eye segments on Vancouver Citytv's Breakfast Television and also hosted a cooking show on Channel M called Café m.
But doubtless his best-known turns were as an original vocalist for the sublimely smooth Nylons and as one of the first regular black faces on Canadian television. He co-hosted TVOntario's celebrated children's show, Polka Dot Door, which ended a 22-year-run in 1993.
"He's sort of skinny, his eyes are too big, and he's black - not what one would assume as attributes for a television celebrity in Canada," noted The Globe and Mail in 1984. "Yet for thousands of youngsters, Denis Simpson and TVOntario's Polka Dot Door are the highlights of their day. He sings, he dances and talks to t...
His stint as a founder of The Nylons was short but pivotal, recalled Claude Morrison, who helped form the wildly successful a cappella group in the late 1970s. The two met while working as singing waiters at a Toronto eatery popular among theatre types.
"It was a crucial 2 1/2 months," Morrison recalled. "We would never have gotten off the ground if it weren't for Denis because of his generosity of spirit and can-do attitude. He just said, 'Yeah we can do it. That'll be fun.' He lit up the stage."
Like the other two Nylons originals, Paul Cooper and Mark Connors, Simpson and Morrison were "resting" (theatre talk for un- or under-employed) and itching to start something new. None could play an instrument but as the group's website says, "Dammit, they sure could sing."
Though a velvety baritone, Simpson sang bass, but he left before the group's debut album. "He was doing Indigo with Salome Bey," Morrison recalled. "He was the only of us who was actually working. He left because it looked like how was going to Broadway, but it didn't."
Reams of online condolences from fellow artists and friends have paid tribute to a warm, kind, funny and giving man; a meticulous craftsman who never took himself too seriously.
Dennis Anthony Leopold Simpson (he later dropped an "n" from his first name) was born in St. Ann's Bay on Jamaica's north shore on Nov. 4, 1950. "Upon hearing my mother sing in church at the age of three, I think that's when the bug bit me," he told Who's Who in Black Canada.com in August. "I also remember seeing and h...
The clan moved to Toronto's east-end Scarborough district when Denis was 10. He studied music, dance and theatre at York University for one year. "He chose to do it instead of learning about it," said his half-sister, Gloria Reuben, herself an accomplished singer and actress. Simpson's pace was legendarily brutal. "Tim...
His stint on Polka Dot Door, from 1978 to the mid-1980s, made him, but uncharacteristically, he sounded a bit chagrined about it.
"Professionally," he explained to The Globe in 1984, "Polka Dot Door has put me on the map. People know who I am. Personally, it has given me satisfaction in that I have given other people satisfaction. Kids have liked me and have learned from what I'm doing. Little kids have learned to speak and to tell time from what...
But the responsibility of being a role model to children created a sense of frustration.
"It was just a job - what it has become is a whole other thing. I didn't realize it would be such a cult."
His work garnered numerous awards. Apart from the 1983 Dora for Ain't Misbehavin', he won a Pioneer award from the Canadian Black Music Association for raising the profile of black performers in Canada - though Simpson jokingly said that his greatest fear "is becoming a titch too white for my ancestors' liking."
Simpson received a Jessie Award for Denis Anyone?, a 1996 one-man show he wrote, and he directed the critically acclaimed 2009 Fringe show NGGRFG starring Berend McKenzie. His most recent Vancouver performance was this past May to July in Buddy - The Buddy Holly Story.
"He would just take the audience into his embrace," Bill Millerd, artistic managing director of the Artsclub Theatre Company, told the Georgia Straight newspaper. "Really, that was his personality. He embraced people and was one of those just very open, honest, performers. ... He was just one of those dynamic forces th...
In an online posting, fellow actor Jay Brazeau recalled Simpson as "the funniest one in the pack. I can't even begin to remember the number of times I had to stuff a pillow in my mouth backstage to prevent the audience from hearing the guffaws."
Simpson recently finished his last work, STRUCK!, a play about his recovery from a stroke a few years ago, and was trying to write a solo piece based on the life and works of author James Baldwin.
His did charitable work for St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver and for A Loving Spoonful, which provides free meals to people living with HIV/AIDS in Greater Vancouver.
At the time of his death, he was rehearsing for A Year with Frog and Toad, a holiday musical at the Lorraine Kimsa Theatre for Young People. The piece was to combine his love of musicals and performing for children.
He leaves his mother, Pearl, stepmother Merle, and siblings Douglas, Rosemarie, Kathleen, Lennox and Gloria Reuben.
As for that cooking show: "I once asked Denis, 'What do you know about cooking?'" remembered Nylons co-founder Morrison. "He just shrugged and laughed."
A still unnamed "Russian investor" is the real buyer of Bulgaria's cigarette maker Bulgartabac, and there is no covert Bulgarian entities in the deal, according to the head of the Privatization Agency Emil Karanikolov.
At a Parliament hearing, the top Bulgarian privatization official refuted numerous media reports and allegations by political figures that a Bulgarian entity connected with Bulgaria's Corporate Commercial Bank, believed to finance the media group of mogul Irena Krasteva, and Vinprom Peshtera as the mysterious buyer, wh...
The document for the purchase of a 79.8% stake in the Balkan country's dominant tobacco company was signed on behalf of the Russian bank by Alexandra Doychinova.
BT Invest, owned by Russia's second-largest bank VTB , won at the end of August a tender to buy a 79.8% stake in Bulgartabac for EUR 100.1 M.
The contract bans the resale of the holding in the next ten years, a condition which can be skipped through a change in the ownership of BT Invest, analysts say.
Austria-registered BT Invest, behind which stands Russia's second-biggest bank VTB, remained the only bidder for the Bulgarian tobacco monopoly after British American Tobacco and Austria-based CB Family Office Service dumped the sale.
The deal has sparked protests by Bulgartabac workers, who oppose the sale of the cigarette maker to the only remaining bidder in the public procurement procedure and insist that the Governing Board rejects the offer.
A Russian investment fund is the actual owned of BT Invest, according to Emil Karanikolov, who refused to reveal the name of the entity in question but said he would provide the documents for the deal to the Members of Parliament.
Karanikolov answered a question by former Economy Minister and Socialist Party MP Petar Dimitrov, who asked who is behind the Austria-based buyer BT Invest, currently wholly owned by Russian state bank VTB, and what Bulgartabac's present assets are.
The Privatization Agency head revealed that according to the consultant for the deal, Citigroup, a fair price for the 80% share of Bulgartabac would be anywhere between EUR 82.7 M and EUR 122.8 M.
"The guarantees for the Bulgartabac deal are 4-5 times greater than the sale prices. We have only sold the Holding's business – a market share of 34% and the production assets," Karanikolov told the MPs.
According to Karanikolov, the guarantees on properties, production facilities, financial transactions and commercial brands with a total worth of EUR 450 M will ensure that the new owner of Bulgartabac will comply with the clauses of the privatization contract. Bulgartabac's properties are estimated by Colliers Interna...
Russia's VTB bank currently owns 100% of the capital of VTB Capital, a company registered in Cyprus, which in turn is the actual owner of BT Invest, he said.
He added that during the privatization deal talks, the Bulgarian authorities actually negotiated with both an Austrian lawyer who represented BT Invest, and with representatives of its Russian owners, VTB Capital.
Since 100% of the capital of VTB Capital is owned by the Russian bank VTB, it cannot be considered an off-shore company," Karanikolov said, responding to criticism by former Economy Minister and Socialist Party MP Rumen Ovcharov.
Ovcharov declared during the Parliament hearing that the Borisov Cabinet had violated the privatization conditions for the Bulgartabac Holding by selling it to an off-shore company.
"There are definitely no Bulgarian players in VTB Capital," the head of the Bulgarian Privatization Agency claimed, refuting allegations that DPS MP Delyan Peevski, the head of the Corporate Commercial Bank Tsvetan Vasilev, and Vinprom Peshtera, an alcohol producers, have a share of 25% in VTB Capital. Vinprom Peshtera...
Two of the less profitable plants of Bulgartabac holding - in the cities of Plovdiv and Stara Zagora - were sold in 2009 through the Sofia Stock Exchange - for BGN 31 M and BGN 18 M respectively.
The holding currently owns the two larger and more consolidated factories in Sofia and Blagoevgrad as well as a number of commercial brands.
During his hearing Wednesday, Karanikolov claimed, however, that the financial intelligence of the Bulgarian State National Security Agency DANS, is inspecting the declaration about the origin of the funds submitted by BT Invest.
He did admit, however, that the Russian state bank VTB can sell BT Invest, rather than selling Bulgartabac, at any given moment, and that will not constitute a breach of the privatization contract.
He further added that the selling of the Holding's assets – which is the real intention of the actual Russian investors if Russian reports are to be trusted – could be done only after the 5-year ban expires.
According to Karanikolov, the fact that BT Invest has pledged to invest only BGN 7 M in the next two years stems from the fact that Bulgartabac already invested BGN 23 M in new equipment earlier this year, and the credit payments will be assumed by the new owner.
He emphasized that the Bulgarian government has a great leverage over the new owner of the Holding as the Privatization Agency is entitled to change the guarantees under the privatization contract at any time, which even allows it to ban the owner from terminating the production of a certain brand of cigarettes.
"We can get back 50% of the price of the Holding even if there are only structural changes in it," Karanikolov said.
Rumen Ovcharov, whose term as Economy Minister in 2005-2007 was marked by a failure to sell Bulgartabac (allegedly because of the interests of the ethnic Turkish party DPS whose electoral base is largely constituted by voters employed in the tobacco industry), attacked the Bulgartabac deal by saying that it does not gu...
He accused the Privatization Agency of chasing away the actual strategic investors. He read part of the agency's correspondence with consultant Citigroup, which he interpreted to mean that the consultant itself thought the Bulgarian state's criteria would not be to the liking of strategic investors.
"You think we are total fools with this deal. This deal will be counted together with the sale of Balkan Airways and Bulbank among the most gruesome examples of privatization in Bulgaria. Boyko Borisov surpassed even Ivan Kostov with deal," Ovcharov said referring to Kostov, Bulgaria's PM in 1997-2001.
Jonathan Heller, CFA, CFP® is president of KEJ Financial Advisors, his fee-only financial planning company. Heller spent 17 years at Bloomberg Financial Markets in various roles, from 1989 until 2005. He ran Bloomberg's Equity Fundamental Research Department from 1994 until 1998, when he assumed responsibility for Bloo...
Jon is also the founder of the Cheap Stocks Web site, a site dedicated to deep-value investing. He has an undergraduate degree from Grove City College and an MBA from Rider University, where he has also served on the adjunct faculty; he is also a CFA charter holder, and certified financial planner ™ practitioner.
Find Jon on Linked In, and on Google+.
After a disconcerting December investors thought they could be in for more this year, but the markets have been behaving fairly well, thank you.
There are now just nine net/nets with market caps in excess of $50 million.

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