Thai coup leaders order activists, academics, journalists to report to military authorities

BANGKOK (AP) -- In a chilling move apparently aimed at neutralizing critics and potential opposition, Thailand's new army junta on Saturday ordered dozens of outspoken activists, academics and journalists to surrender themselves to military authorities.

The junta, which is already holding most of the government it ousted in a coup Thursday in secret locations against their will, said it would keep former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and others in custody for up to a week to give them "time to think" and keep the country calm.

Two days after the army seized power in the nation's first coup in eight years, it also faced scattered protests that came amid growing concern over the junta's intentions. Also Saturday, the military dissolved the Senate — the last functioning democratic institution left, and absorbed its legislative powers.

"Military rule has thrown Thailand's rights situation into a free fall," said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The army is using draconian martial law powers to detain politicians, activists and journalists, to censor media, and to ban all public gatherings. This rolling crackdown needs to come to an end immediately."

At least 100 people, mostly top politicians, have been detained incommunicado so far. Deputy army spokesman Col. Weerachon Sukondhapatipak said they were all being well-treated and the military's aim was to achieve a political compromise.

Weerachon said all those held have had their cellphones confiscated because "we don't want them communicating with other people. We want them to be themselves and think on their own."

"This is because everybody involved in the conflict needs to calm down and have time to think," Weerachon said. "We don't intend to limit their freedom — it's to relieve the pressure."

In a military order broadcast at the start of the day, the junta summoned 35 more people, including politicians, political activists and, for the first time, outspoken academics and some journalists.

One of those on the list, Kyoto University professor of Southeast Asian studies Pavin Chachavalpongpun, said by telephone from Japan that he would not turn himself in. He said the summons meant the junta felt insecure.

"The military claiming to be a mediator in the Thai conflict, that is all just nonsense," said Pavin, who is frequently quoted by foreign media as an analyst. "This is not about paving the way for reform and democratization. We are really going back to the crudest form of authoritarianism."

In the evening, the junta broadcast its sixth official order, for a single journalist: Pravit Rojanaphruk, an outspoken columnist for the English-language daily The Nation, who was summoned to report to the army at 10 a.m. Sunday. In a tweet Saturday night, Pravit was defiant, saying "the more they exercise their illegitimate power the more illegitimate they become."

The junta also ordered banks to freeze the assets of two top politicians it had summoned but who remain in hiding, including the ousted education minister and the chief of the former ruling party.

Gen. Prayuth Chan-ocha, who leads the junta, has justified the coup by saying the army had to act to avert violence and end half a year of political turmoil triggered by anti-government protests that killed 28 people and injured more than 800.

The intractable divide plaguing Thailand today is part of an increasingly precarious power struggle between an elite, conservative minority backed by powerful businessmen and staunch royalists based in Bangkok and the south that can no longer win elections, and the political machine of exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his supporters in the rural north who backed him because of populist policies such as virtually free health care.

The army deposed Thaksin in a 2006 coup. And on Friday, it detained his sister, Yingluck, who was forced from office earlier this month by a controversial court verdict for abuse of power, which she denies.

The ruling party, which rose to power in a landslide election in 2011 that was deemed fair, had insisted for months that Thailand's fragile democracy was under attack from protesters, the courts and, finally, the army which together had rendered it powerless, step by step.

Although Thailand has been calm since the coup and there is little military presence on the streets, small-scale protests against the junta have been reported in the northern city of Chiang Mai and the beach resort city of Pattaya, south of Bangkok.

In the capital, life largely went on as normal. But hundreds of anti-coup protesters took to the streets for a second straight day, defying an army-imposed edict banning groups larger than five from gathering for political purposes. They shouted slogans demanding a return to civilian rule and waved signs outside a cinema complex before moving on to Victory Monument, a major city landmark several kilometers (miles) away.

The demonstrators briefly confronted rows of soldiers and police lined up with riot shields on a road leading to the monument, with a few scuffles breaking out before most of the protesters broke away. By late afternoon, about 500 demonstrators had gathered at the moment. Army and police presence was low key, and the groups dispersed before a 10 p.m. curfew came into effect.

Several demonstrators have been detained, and rights groups have expressed concern over the growing repression.

"This is a dangerous precedent — people simply expressing opinions must not be penalized," said Richard Bennett, Amnesty International's Asia Pacific Director. "The need for the military to exercise restraint is particularly crucial given that demonstrations calling for civilian rule could intensify."

The army launched the coup after ordering two days of brief peace talks in which the country's political rivals failed to end their deadlock. Anti-government protesters had been calling for the army to intervene and support their bid to overthrow the government, which they accused of corruption, since November.

Multiple nations have condemned the coup. The U.S. State Department urged "the immediate restoration of civilian rule and release of detained political leaders, a return to democracy through early elections, and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms."

Washington also said it had canceled ongoing military exercises, and a firearms training program for the Thai police. Pentagon press secretary Rear Adm. John Kirby said U.S. law and "our own democratic principles" require the U.S. to reconsider its long military relationship with the Southeast Asian country.

The Pentagon is also canceling the June visit of U.S. Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Harry Harris to Thailand and is withdrawing the invitation to the commander general of the Royal Thai Armed Forces to visit U.S. Pacific Command in June, Kirby said.

Underscoring the challenges facing Thailand's new rulers, police on Saturday said suspected Islamic insurgents detonated at least nine bombs in the country's restive south, killing two people and wounding at least 52. Pattani provincial police chief Phote Suaisuwan said the blasts hit four 7-11 convenience stores, two gasoline stations and three other locations.

It was unlikely that the blasts were related to the coup, though insurgents may have been emboldened by the dramatic development. More than 5,000 people have been killed since the insurgency flared in 2004 in Thailand's predominantly Muslim south.

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Associated Press writers Kay Johnson, Grant Peck and Jocelyn Gecker contributed to this report.

Thailand's coup leaders tighten grip on country

Yingluck Shinawatra, cabinet members and protest leaders remain detained as Senate is dissolved.
Summon activists, journalists

Brussels (AFP) - Three people were killed and one badly injured when a gunman attacked the Jewish Museum in the centre of Brussels on Saturday, authorities said.

"Two women and one man are dead, a third person is in hospital," Interior Minister Joelle Milquet said at the scene. "We don't yet know if they were tourists or staff, they haven't been identified."

Asked whether she believed it was an anti-Semitic attack, she said it was too early to say as a police and judicial inquiry was under way but that given the target "there are strong grounds for presuming so".

A Jewish community figure, Joel Rubinfeld, told AFP it clearly "is a terrorist act" after two men were seen driving up and double-parking outside the museum.

The gunman opened fire, allegedly shooting indiscriminately before getting away.

Rubinfeld, who heads the country's anti-Semitic League, said the act was the result of "a climate of hate."

Reports said the driver has been picked up within three hours of the shooting, which took place at around 4 pm (1400 GMT). There was no confirmation from police.

A bystander, Alain Sobotik, told AFP he saw the corpses of a young woman and a man just inside the doors of the museum.

A picture shows them lying in pools of blood.

Also at the scene shortly after the shooting was Belgian Foreign Minister Didier Reynders who told reporters that the two other victims had been shot inside the museum.

"I hope we will identify those responsible very quickly," he said.

Reynders said he had been nearby when he saw people fleeing and heard shots and rushed to help.

When he saw "bodies on the ground in pools of blood" he called the 112 emergency number and rounded up eye-witnesses to assist the police.

"I am shocked by the murders committed at the Jewish museum, I am thinking of the victims I saw there and their families," Reynders said on Twitter.

The Jewish Museum of Belgium, which was not answering calls, is located in the heart of the Sablon district which is home to the city's top antique dealers.

It is a popular weekend haunt for shoppers and holidayers, hosting the city's best chocolate shops and many cafes.

Police quickly cordoned off the area.

The head of Belgium's Jewish Consistory told La Libre that "it is probably a terrorist act. For us it is an extremely serious act."

He said the museum had received no recent threats and that its staff "are in shock".

Milquet said the government had moved to increase protection at Jewish buildings as well as the Israeli embassy.

The attack comes on the eve of elections in Belgium for a new federal government as well as for its regional parliaments and the European Parliament.

3 killed in shooting at Brussels Jewish Museum

A spree of gunfire leaves at least three people dead and one other injured in the tourist neighborhood of Sablon.
'A terrorist act'

Director says son responsible for shooting rampage

GOLETA, Calif. (AP) — A Hollywood director believes his son was the lone gunman who went on a shooting rampage near the University of California, Santa Barbara that killed six people — weeks after the family had called police about disturbing YouTube videos he had posted, his lawyer said Saturday.

Deputies found the gunman dead behind the wheel of his crashed BMW with a gunshot wound to his head Friday night in the beach neighborhood of Isla Vista, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said. The rampage also left seven others hospitalized with gunshot wounds or other major injuries, including one who underwent a life-saving surgery.

Alan Shifman — a lawyer who represents Peter Rodger, one of the assistant directors on "The Hunger Games" — issued a statement on behalf of the family saying they believe Rodger's son, Elliot Rodger, was the shooter.

"The Rodger family offers their deepest compassion and sympathy to the families involved in this terrible tragedy. We are experiencing the most inconceivable pain, and our hearts go out to everybody involved," Shifman said.

Authorities have not confirmed the identity of the shooter.

The shootings started around 9:30 p.m. in Isla Vista, a roughly half-square mile community next to UC Santa Barbara's campus and picturesque beachside cliffs.

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Police investigate the scene of a drive-by shooting that left seven people dead, including the attac …

Alexander Mattera, 23, said his friend Chris Johnson was walking out of an improv comedy show when he was shot in front of a popular pizza place. He stumbled into a nearby house.

"He walked into these random guys' house bleeding," he said.

Mattera was sitting at a bonfire with friends when at least one gunshot whizzed overhead. The friends ran for cover when they heard the barrage of gunfire.

"We heard so many gunshots. It was unbelievable. I thought they were firecrackers. There had to have been at least like two guns. There were a lot of shots," he said.

The gunman got into two gun battles before crashing his black BMW into a parked car. It wasn't immediately clear whether he was killed by gunfire or if he committed suicide.

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Fire trucks are parked outside the IV Deli Mart on Pardell Road in Isla Vista, Calif., Friday, May 2 …

A semi-automatic handgun was recovered from the scene near the university.

A visibly shaken student told KEYT-TV that she was approached by the driver of a black BMW who flashed a handgun and asked "Hey, what's up?" The student, who didn't provide her full name, said she thought he was carrying an airsoft gun and kept walking. She said seconds later, she felt something buzz by her head and quickly realized they were bullets.

Kathrin Schirazi Rad got a call from her 21-year-old son, Adrian Timothy Petersson, who told her in a shaky voice that he had been knocked off his skateboard by a BMW being chased by police about 9 p.m. Friday. He hurt his shoulder, but he went home after being checked by first responders to the scene.

"He was in shock," said Rad, who lives in Sweden. "He saw some plastic bags and said somebody must have died."

The victims' identities were not immediately released.

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Map locates Isla Vista, California shooting.; 1c x 4 inches; 46.5 mm x 101 mm;

In a statement, the university said it's "shocked and saddened" by the shootings. The university said several students were shot and taken to the hospital.

"This is almost the kind of event that's impossible to prevent and almost impossible to predict," UC President Janet Napolitano told reporters after giving the commencement speech at Laney College in Oakland, California.

Describing the shootings as "premeditated mass murder," Brown said authorities were analyzing a disturbing YouTube video posted that shows a young man describing plans to shoot women that appears to be connected to the attack.

"It's obviously the work of a madman," Brown said.

In the YouTube video, posted Friday, the man sits in a car and looks at the camera, laughing often, and says he is going to take his revenge against humanity. He describes loneliness and frustration because "girls have never been attracted to me," and says, at age 22, he is still a virgin. The video, which is almost seven minutes long, appears scripted. The identity of the person in the video could not be independently confirmed.

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Fire trucks are parked outside the IV Deli Mart on Pardell Road in Isla Vista, Calif., Friday, May 2 …

Shifman said the family called police several weeks ago after being alarmed by YouTube videos "regarding suicide and the killing of people."

Police interviewed Elliot Rodger and found him to be a "perfectly polite, kind and wonderful human," he added. Police did not find a history of guns, but did say Rodger "didn't have a lot of friends," had trouble making friends and didn't have any girlfriends.

The family is not ready to speak publicly yet, the lawyer said, but wants to cooperate fully with police, public agencies and "any other person who feels that they need to help prevent these situations from ever occurring again," Shifman said.

"My client's mission in life will be to try to prevent any such tragedies from ever happening again," he said. "This country, this world, needs to address mental illness and the ramifications from not recognizing these illnesses."

Shifman said the family is "staunchly against guns" and supports gun-control laws. "They are extremely, extremely upset that anybody was hurt under these circumstances," he said.

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A woman rides her skateboard past the scene of a shooting on Saturday, May 24, 2014, in Isla Vista, …

Isla Vista has a reputation for excessive partying. Last month, an annual spring bash spiraled into violence as young people clashed with police and tossed rocks and bottles. A university police officer and four deputies were injured and 130 people were arrested.

The community has experienced other tragedies in the past.

In 2001, the son of "Ally McBeal" TV director Daniel Attias ran down four pedestrians with his car on a crowded Isla Vista street. Witnesses testified that part-time college student David Attias got of the car and shouted: "I am the angel of death."

David Attias was ruled insane after he was convicted of second-degree murder and is locked up in a state mental hospital.

_____

Dillon reported from Goleta, California, and Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press writer Gillian Flaccus contributed from Los Angeles.

"Hunger Games" assistant director Peter Rodger believes his son killed six people, his attorney says.
Disturbing YouTube video

By Paul Ingrassia

ST PETERSBURG, Russia (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday dismissed talk of a new Cold War over the crisis in Ukraine and denied trying to rebuild the Soviet Union after reclaiming Crimea.

In an interview with Reuters and other international news agencies in a grandiose palace outside St Petersburg, Putin blamed the violence and political instability in Ukraine on the West and warned that sanctions would rebound on the United States and the European Union.

The crisis has plunged East-West relations to their lowest level since the Cold War ended in 1991.

But making a new pledge to work with whoever is elected president in Ukraine on Sunday, Putin called for dialogue with the West and hoped the European Union and the United States were ready for compromise.

"I would not like to think this is the start of a new Cold War. It is in no one's interest and I think it will not happen," said Putin, sitting at a large table with journalists in the Konstantinovsky Palace on the Gulf of Finland near the former imperial capital, the cradle of the 1917 Bolshevik revolution.

Although he has described the Soviet Union's demise as a geopolitical disaster, the former KGB agent denied trying to revive the Soviet empire after annexing Crimea in March, 60 years after Moscow gifted the Black Sea peninsula to Ukraine.

Plans to form a Russia-led trading bloc with two former Soviet republics, Kazakhstan and Belarus, should also not be seen as evidence that he harbors such ambitions, he said.

"They try to stick this label on us - a label that we are trying to restore an empire, the Soviet Union, make everyone subordinate. This absolutely does not correspond to reality," he said. "It is a media weapon of war."

RUSSIA AGGRIEVED

In a long interview after a week in which he visited China to complete a $400-billion gas supply deal and hosted Russia's answer to the Davos World Economic Forum, Putin mixed defiance with conciliatory talk.

At times he bristled at questions over the sanctions and his responses underlined Russia's grievance that it has not been treated as an equal partner since the end of the Cold War and the loss of superpower status.

But, as in a speech on Friday to investors at the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, he called for compromise over the crisis in Ukraine and a new start.

"I think that the idea of isolating such a country (as Russia) can only be temporary. It is impossible," he said.

A day after acknowledging that Russia's already stuttering economy was being hurt by the sanctions, mainly targeting officials and companies considered close to him, Putin called for better cooperation with Europe.

"We must proceed, not from possible threats, but from the possible benefits in cooperation," he said.

After a pro-Russian president was toppled in Ukraine in February, Putin declared the right to send in troops if the lives of Russian speakers and compatriots were in danger in the former Soviet republic of 45 million.

Since seizing Crimea, an action which sent Putin's popularity soaring in Russia, Moscow has massed tens of thousands of troops on the frontier, though it says they have now started withdrawing. An invasion to back an uprising in east Ukraine by armed pro-Russian separatists now looks less likely.

Washington and Brussels have threatened to impose tougher sanctions if Moscow interferes with Sunday's vote in Ukraine.

"By all means, we will respect the choice of the Ukrainian people and will be working with the authorities formed on the basis of this election," Putin said, abandoning Russian officials' sharp criticism of the election in recent weeks.

But he made clear Russia was not about to drop a threat to stop supplying Ukraine with natural gas next month unless Kiev pays off some of its $3.5 billion gas bill and starts paying for future deliveries in advance.

He said Ukraine had no contractual right to demand cuts in the price it pays for its gas supplies in a dispute that has raised concern in Europe that onward supplies to European Union member states could be disrupted.

"We are ready for a constructive dialogue, but it should not be carried out through baseless demands and ultimatums," Putin said.

(Additional reporting by Alexei Anishchuk, Lidia Kelly, Vladimir Soldatkin, Katya Golubkova and Jason Bush, Editing by Timothy Heritage and David Evans)

GOLETA, Calif. (AP) — The son of a Hollywood director stabbed three men to death in his apartment, gunned down two women outside a sorority and killed a sixth person in a rampage that was foreshadowed by a chilling Internet video in which he vowed to his victims that he would "take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you."

Authorities said the 22-year-old lone gunman, Elliot Rodger — the son of a director who worked on the "The Hunger Games" — carried out his attacks Friday night in the beach community of Isla Vista near the University of California, Santa Barbara. The rampage happened hours after he looked into a video camera and warned in a disturbing Internet video that he would slaughter those with a good life — especially women who shunned him, authorities said.

Deputies wounded him during two separate shootouts as he sped through Isla Vista, leaving a trail of bloodshed that ended with Rodger apparently shooting himself in the head before crashing his black BMW into a parked car, Santa Barbara County Sheriff Bill Brown said.

Thirteen people were injured — eight from gunshot wounds, four from being hit by his car and one who suffered a minor injury whose exact cause was not clear yet, Brown said.

Deputies found three semi-automatic handguns with 400 unspent rounds in his black BMW. All were purchased legally.

Authorities had had three contacts with Rodgers in the past year, including one case in which he claimed to be beaten but deputies suspected he was the aggressor. On April 30, officials went to his Isla Vista apartment again to check on him at the request of his family. But deputies reported back that the Santa Barbara community college student was shy, polite and having a difficult social life but did not need to be taken in for mental health reasons, Brown said.

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Police investigate the scene of a drive-by shooting that left seven people dead, including the attac …

Attorney Alan Shifman said the Rodger family had called police after being alarmed by YouTube videos "regarding suicide and the killing of people" that Elliot Rodger had been posting.

Brown called the tragedy "the work of a madman" and said the videotape posted by Rodger the night of the killings is a "particularly chilling one, in which he looks at the camera and talks about what he is about to do."

In the YouTube video, Rodger sits in a car and looks at the camera, laughing often, and says he is going to take his revenge against humanity. He describes loneliness and frustration because "girls have never been attracted to me," and says, at age 22, he is still a virgin. The video, which is almost seven minutes long, appears scripted.

"I'll take great pleasure in slaughtering all of you. You will finally see that I am, in truth, the superior one, the true alpha male," he says on the video.

Police described how he spent 10 minutes traveling from one location to another and opened fire on random people after leaving a gruesome scene at his apartment, where three men were stabbed to death.

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Fire trucks are parked outside the IV Deli Mart on Pardell Road in Isla Vista, Calif., Friday, May 2 …

Earlier Saturday, Shifman issued a statement saying Peter Rodger believed his son, Elliot Rodger, was the shooter. It was unclear how the son would have obtained a gun. The family is staunchly against guns, he added.

"The Rodger family offers their deepest compassion and sympathy to the families involved in this terrible tragedy. We are experiencing the most inconceivable pain, and our hearts go out to everybody involved," Shifman said.

Richard Martinez said his son Christopher Ross Michael-Martinez, 20, was killed in the shooting. He blamed politicians and gun-rights proponents. "When will this insanity stop? ... Too many have died. We should say to ourselves 'not one more,'" he said.

The shootings started around 9:30 p.m. in Isla Vista, a roughly half-square-mile community next to UC Santa Barbara's campus and picturesque beachside cliffs.

Alexander Mattera, 23, said his friend Chris Johnson was walking out of an improv comedy show when he was shot in front of a popular pizza place. He stumbled into a nearby house.

Raw: Shooting Rampage Near UC Santa BarbaraPlay Video

"He walked into these random guys' house bleeding," he said.

Mattera was sitting at a bonfire with friends when at least one gunshot whizzed overhead. The friends ran for cover when they heard the barrage of gunfire.

"We heard so many gunshots. It was unbelievable. I thought they were firecrackers," he said.

Isla Vista, which is centered on university life with outdoor cafes, bike shops, burger joints, sororities and fraternities, was shrouded in fog and unusually quiet Saturday.

Police tape crisscrossed Isla Vista streets, while blood was still visible on the asphalt. Bullet holes pierced windows of a parked car and the IV Deli Mart. A small shrine of flowers was growing outside the business, whose floors inside were stained with blood. For much of the day, the wrecked BMW driven by the shooter remained on the street, its windshield smashed in and its driver's door wide open.

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Map locates Isla Vista, California shooting.; 1c x 4 inches; 46.5 mm x 101 mm;

UC Santa Barbara senior Kyley Scarlet said she heard the BMW smash to a halt outside a house she was in. Scarlet, who is a former sorority president, said two women from a sorority next door were killed on the lawn, where a pile of flowers grew on Saturday.

Crying students wandered up to the spot, shook their heads and hugged each other.

Scarlet said a third sorority member was wounded there as well.

Scarlet said she was very disturbed by the video describing his anger at sorority girls.

"It's hard thinking my actions, being part of a sorority, led him to do this," she said. "When I saw that video, I was shaking and crying."

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Fire trucks are parked outside the IV Deli Mart on Pardell Road in Isla Vista, Calif., Friday, May 2 …

In a statement, the university said it was "shocked and saddened" that several students were shot.

"This is almost the kind of event that's impossible to prevent and almost impossible to predict," UC President Janet Napolitano told reporters after giving the commencement speech at Laney College in Oakland, California.

California Gov. Jerry Brown offered his condolences to the victims' families, saying he was saddened to learn "of this senseless tragedy."

The Rodger family is not ready to speak publicly yet, but wants to cooperate fully with police, Shifman said.

"My client's mission in life will be to try to prevent any such tragedies from ever happening again," he said. "This country, this world, needs to address mental illness and the ramifications from not recognizing these illnesses."

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Dillon and Mendoza reported from Goleta, California, and Watson reported from San Diego. Associated Press writers Alicia Chang and Gillian Flaccus contributed from Los Angeles, and Frank Baker from Santa Barbara.

The son of a Hollywood director stabbed three people at home before killing three more at a college town.
Had 400 rounds of ammo