From this:
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Hundreds of Thai school children and air force recruits have loaded an estimated 100 million origami birds onto military transport planes in preparation for a “peace bombing” of the violent Muslim south of the country.
The little pieces of folded paper, to be dropped from the air on Sunday to mark the birthday of Thailand’s revered king, Bhumibol Adulyadej, are meant to sow peace, harmony and goodwill in the three southernmost provinces, where an 11-month insurgency has claimed nearly 500 lives.
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose government has struggled to get to the root of the violence, has defended his paper-bird scheme against opponents who say the government is just dumping 48 plane-loads of rubbish.
“Don’t criticise against the wishes of the majority of Thais,” Thaksin told Reuters on Friday at a sending off ceremony for the paper birds at Bangkok’s military airport.
The birds, folded out of everything from bank notes to plastic sheets, covered the floor of an aircraft hangar to a depth of more than two metres (7 feet).
Ceremony organiser Group Captain Chakrapong Homkrailas put the number of birds at 100 million.
“I think this is some sort of world record,” Chakrapong said, as ant-like columns of recruits and children carried thousands of plastic sacks across the airport tarmac and into the bellies of five Hercules C-130 military transport planes.
As background, recent protests in the largest Muslim provinces (Thailand is about 97% Buddhist but there are Muslims in the southern provinces which border Malaysia and of course in Bangkok) ended in violence; 78 protestors later died from suffocation after being jammed into trucks and left in high heat for over 10 hours.
I’m personally not a big Thaksin fan, but I’m still curious as to how something like this will go over.
“I think this is some sort of world record,” Chakrapong said, as ant-like columns of recruits and children carried thousands of plastic sacks across the airport tarmac and into the bellies of five Hercules C-130 military transport planes.
Damn, that reporter can turn a phrase.
The recipients are Muslims.
The paper birds are depictions of living things, which I have been told violates Islamic law.
I predict large bonfires.