[Red Shirts at the Gate]
After the meetings this morning, I had a couple of hours off before PM arrived. The security people did not like the idea of me going to the gym because it is near the perimeter fence where red-shirted demonstrators were gathering and shouting on the other side. They relented in the end and brought me by buggy via a longer route. But I could hear the din even as I was doing my exercises. I did not feel unsafe at all. On my side of the fence were hundreds of uniformed personnel (soldiers and policemen), some resting on the grass, many looking quite bored.









It is sad how a people could become so divided, Last year it was the yellow shirts; now it is the red shirts. One ASEAN foreign minister from a neighbouring country said to me that there must in the end be national reconciliation. Question is how? However I must say that the Thai Government is fully discharging its responsibility in the Chair. We are all well looked after. The meetings are efficiently organised and the work of ASEAN is properly attended to. With the economic crisis affecting everyone, the focus of all our discussions is promoting economic cooperation and resisting protectionism.



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