SCHEDULE UPDATE
PM Yingluck Shinawatra will now visit the One Village One Product Fair in Phuket City at 3.30pm today to allow for a meeting with leading Phuket business people at 5pm before she is formally welcomed at the Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort and Spa in Karon tonight.
Today's Updating Report
PHUKET: Police halted a parade of Phuket people who were making their way to Phuket International Airport today to greet Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra.
The marchers and motorcycle-sidecar riders were stopped by a heavy cordon of police at the final t-intersection turning to the airport.
After negotiations, it was agreed that the 2000 people involved would stay outside the airport and send in a small delegation.
The six-kilometre procession included people from Phuket, Phang Nga, Krabi and Ranong who wanted to draw the PM's attention to rising water and power prices and issues with community land titles.
Organiser Supalery Bewithkeaw said marchers planned to proceed from Thalang Technical College to Phuket airport for the PM's expected arrival at 9.50am.
Committees had been set up to deal with community land titles in every province but no progress was being made in the case of the Rawai sea gypsies from southern Phuket where their land is being claimed by others, he said.
The people involved in the procession were keen to have the issue raised when Cabinet meets at Phuket's Prince of Songkhla University tomorrow.
Among other items expected to be raised is the construction of a double-track railway to link Bangkok and Padang Besar in Malaysia. Upgrading the highway along the Andaman coast to four lanes is also on the list, said Payungsak Chartsutipol, chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries.
