BANGKOK, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Toppled in a 2006 coup and living overseas to avoid jail for graft, Thailand's former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has long defied the odds by remaining a political force.
But in the days since his sister Yingluck took power as prime minister he has returned to the headlines with a vengeance, complicating the new government's attempts to win public acceptance and raising the risk of unrest.
Newspapers and television news broadcasts are just as likely to focus on Thaksin, a billionaire former telecommunications tycoon reviled by the country's elite, as his 44-year-old sister, a political novice who says she wants reconciliation in nation deeply divided since her brother's removal from power.
“It seems that he still cannot restrain himself. This is a very dangerous game,” said Michael Montesano, a Thai politics expert at Singapore's Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
From his villa in Dubai, Thaksin is widely understood to have been instrumental in Yingluck's election victory, playing the role of behind-the-scenes powerbroker and adviser despite his conviction by a Thai court of corruption three years ago.
Most had expected Thaksin, who from exile webcam and telephone links to rally thousands of supporters against the previous government of Abhisit Vejjajiva, to lay low and allow his political allies to consolidate power and pave the way for an amnesty that could eventually bring him home.
But he has done exactly the opposite, planning high-profile trips to Japan and Cambodia that have embarrassed Yingluck and detracted attention from her policies.
“This rashness and haste on Thaksin's part have come far sooner than I expected,” said Montesano.
“His behaviour is causing trouble for Yingluck. I expect that we will see more of this, and that Yingluck's troubles in managing her brother will get worse.”
Thaksin's legal advisor Noppadol Pattama told Reuters on Thursday that the former premier had decided to postpone the Cambodia trip, but did not give a reason. The visit, during which Thaksin was expected to meet Prime Minister Hun Sen, was highly contentious because it would have come before any official delegation from the new Thai government.
 
THAKSIN ON TOUR
Thai newspapers reported Thaksin was in Macau on Thursday, where he was scheduled to meet with many lawmakers in Yingluck's party. Noppadol said he could not confirm his schedule.
For Yingluck, the consequences of Thaksin's public attempts to re-assert himself so soon could be devastating.
Since the coup, Thailand has been locked in a polarising crisis marked by street protests, blockades of airports and government offices, and military and judicial intervention that has either brought down or preserved ruling parties.
The conflict broadly pits Thaksin, his business allies and his mostly working-class “red shirt” supporters against the army's top brass, a conservative elite and a royalist, urban middle-class “yellow shirt” protest movement that despises him.
Despite such powerful opposition, Thaksin's huge popularity in the countryside has ensured parties he has led or backed have won every election in the past decade.
All but Yingluck's Puea Thai Party have been removed from office, through either military or judicial intervention, and analysts say it could suffer the same fate if Thaksin oversteps and tries to run the country from exile.
Yingluck has enjoyed a relatively positive reception since her political career began just three months ago. According to an opinion poll this week, she is the most popular member of the new government.
Her economic team has vowed to push ahead with populist policy promises that helped her party sweep the July 3 election -- from sharp mimimun-wage increases to a cut in corporate taxes and increases in village development funds.
The risk now is that a spotlight on Thaksin could shift the focus away from her plans and possibly provoke the generals who worked to oust Thaksin five years ago.
In recent days, journalists have bombarded her with questions about Thaksin, while Thursday's newspapers were filled with unflattering columns, some of which questioned whether she would really serve the country as promised.
“Aiding Thaksin already, PM?”, read one headline in the Bangkok Post. “Pretty woman takes first misstep” was another in the same daily.
“Govt hard at work to bring Thaksin back” was the headline in one political column in the Nation newspaper, a day after a front-page banner blared “Ploy to bring back Thaksin”. Another read: “Thaksin should let his sister at least start working.”
 
VISA ROW
Her troubles began on Aug. 9 when she announced the name of Thailand's new foreign minister -- a distant relative loyal to Thaksin with no diplomatic or ministerial experience.
Surapong Towichukchaikul did himself no favours when he called a meeting two days later -- his first as a minister -- with a Japanese diplomat to request a visa for Thaksin.

PHOTO CAPTION:

Thailand's former premier Thaksin Shinawatra gestures as he speaks to journalists outside his home in Dubai, after Puea Thai Party's Yingluck Shinawatra announced her coalition in Bangkok, in this July 4, 2011 file photo. Japan said on August 15, 2011 it had granted a visa to Thailand's fugitive, self-exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin to boost ties with Thailand under a new government led by his sister, Yinkluck. REUTERS

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Aug 18 (Reuters) - Calls for Palestinian protests to back a diplomatic push for statehood at the United Nations next month have put Israel on guard; the peace process in deep crisis, some see a violent September, inspired by the Arab Spring.
Yet to many, a sustained Intifada, or uprising, appears unlikely, at least for now. To ordinary Palestinians, the significance of U.N. manoeuvres in New York is hard to fathom, their leaders in the West Bank are wary of violence with Israel and their national movement remains weakened by a deep schism.
“There might be some protests,” said Zakaria al-Qaq, a Palestinian political analyst. “But not with the size that the Palestinian leadership expects because the people feel they are marginalised. There is a great lack of confidence.”
Marwan al-Barghouti, a charismatic leader in the last two Intifadas and now jailed for life in Israel, was among the first to call for protests to add popular weight to President Mahmoud Abbas's bid to secure a U.N. seat for a new state of Palestine.
With memories of protests on its borders this spring still fresh, Israel is deploying extra forces in preparation for trouble. In the opinion of Avigdor Lieberman, the far-right foreign minister, the Palestinians are planning violence.
In Jalazone, a refugee camp a short drive from the centre of Ramallah, Mohammed Nakhla, 23 years old and unemployed, believes the failure of diplomacy means more confrontation is inevitable.
“There's no alternative,” he said. “You need to resist.”
With faith in the peace process non-existent -- Abbas himself says talks have hit a dead end -- observers have for some time warned of a vacuum that could be filled by turmoil.
Mahmoud al-Aloul, a veteran in the Fatah party led by Abbas, confidently expects widespread protests in support of the U.N. bid. “It is a declaration of a loss of hope,” Aloul told Reuters. “This will lead to a continuous escalation.
“They will be peaceful protests. But will they stay peaceful? This will depend on how the Israelis act.”
 
LITTLE APPETITE
Yet to many Palestinian analysts, the idea of an imminent outbreak of widespread insurrection, similar to those that are reshaping the rest of the Arab world, seems fanciful.
Some question whether Abbas is even serious in calling for the protests. He has long been opposed to violence and may fear that protests will spiral out of control.
Regardless, some Palestinians will probably take to the streets in response to his call. As is always the case in the generations-old conflict, there is ample potential for confrontations with Israeli security forces.
Yet if the experience of May and June is anything to go by, the participation will not be large. Protests called to mark major anniversaries in the conflict with Israel failed to galvanise large numbers in the Palestinian territories.
More attention focused on Israel's northern frontiers, where thousands of refugees gathered. Some crossed the frontline from Syria, delighting Palestinians and giving Israel's heavily armed troops the problem of dealing with unarmed mass protests.
The head of the Israeli army, looking ahead to next month, has said he does not see “strong energy” among the Palestinians.
Unlike foreign minister Lieberman, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak says he expects events to unfold quietly.
On the ground, there are few signs of preparation. Headlines in Palestinian papers focus more on protests against the high cost of living and on the uprising in Syria than on any thoughts about Palestinians' own possible demonstrations in September.
If Abbas has plans for mass mobilisation, they have yet to reach Jalazone. Established in 1949, it is today home to 11,000 refugees and amounts to a suburb of Ramallah, distinguished from streets elsewhere in the hilly city mostly by its poverty.
 
“IT'S MEANINGLESS”
At the local Fatah headquarters, Abbas loyalists forecast a large turnout for protests when Abbas asks the United Nations to recognise a Palestinian state. But they could not say what, if anything, was being done to organise that.
In the street, some expressed support for a move seen as a welcome departure from two decades of failed peace talks. Others were outright dismissive, arguing that the U.N. manoeuvres will have no tangible impact on their lives under Israeli occupation.
“It's meaningless. I talk to people and they make fun of the issue,” said Bahaa al-Din Zaid, as he stacked loaves in a bakery. “We don't have the foundations of a state.”
Away from the veneer of prosperity elsewhere in Ramallah, he said Palestinians had other concerns: “People are not interested in this subject -- they are interested in making ends meet.”
Like many Palestinians, he remembers the uprisings of the 1980s and a decade ago as failures, neither Intifada bringing the Palestinians closer to achieving their goal of independence.

LIMA, Aug 17 (Reuters) - Indigenous leaders and rights groups in Peru are expressing disappointment with President Ollanta Humala's plan to encourage oil exploration in the Amazon and want the leftist leader to safeguard tribal lands.
The new head of Peru's oil agency has said Peru hopes to attract up to $20 billion in petroleum and gas investment in the next five years, more than the $6.2 billion the sector brought in under former President Alan Garcia.
Garcia's term was marred by frequent clashes with indigenous groups over laws aimed at opening ancestral lands to foreign investors. Tensions with police often erupted in violence, at times turning deadly. Indigenous communities had thought Humala, who championed the glory of the Incan empire during the campaign, would be different.
But the former anti-capitalist radical has reinvented himself as a moderate and is now wooing the foreign investors he once railed against.
Indigenous groups, who have not made the political inroads of their peers in neighboring Bolivia and Ecuador, now fear Humala will put finding new energy for Peru's surging economy ahead of preserving their lands.
“The communities had entrusted this government to oversee a real, profound change,” said Alberto Pizango, head of Peru's most important indigenous rights group in the Amazon, AIDESEP.
“But Humala has altered his discourse, leading the people to say this government will just be more of the same.” Pizango criticized Humala for designating Carlos Herrera, an engineer, as mine and energy minister. Pizango says Herrera showed little concern for indigenous people when he approved petroleum concessions during the first time he held the post in 2000.
Humala's defenders, however, praise him for backing a proposed measure that would require firms to hold consultation meetings with local communities before drilling for oil or mining near their homes. Passing the consultation law has long been a priority for indigenous leaders.
The measure, which was passed by Congress but vetoed by Garcia last year, would put Peru in compliance with a U.N. convention on indigenous peoples that Peru signed in 1989.
Aurelio Ochoa, an Humala appointee in charge of energy concessions, told Reuters he personally supports the proposed consultation law.
BEYOND CONSULTATION
Pizango said enacting a consultation law would give indigenous communities more influence over how their lands are used but might not be enough to curb widespread opposition to energy extraction in the Amazon.
More than 200 towns have organized to stop mining or oil projects in Peru. In numerous cases, violence has erupted, causing at least 100 deaths in the past 3-1/2 years, according to the government's human rights office.
The conflicts threaten to delay some of the $50 billion companies plan to spend on natural resource projects in Peru over the next decade.
A clash between police and indigenous protesters in the northern Amazon town of Bagua killed 33 people in June 2009, the low point of Garcia's presidency. His government accused Pizango of fomenting the violence and blamed leftist presidents in the region for encouraging the unrest.
“I feel the people are increasingly convinced that the only way to be heard is through their protests,” Pizango said. “They want an end to traditional politics ... not just dialogue.” Others worry that tribes living in voluntary isolation from the outside world would suffer if virgin lands are opened up to drilling and mining.
Peru is home to one of the world's largest populations of so-called uncontacted tribes, advocacy groups say.
Peru has set up reserves to protect tribes that live in voluntary isolation. But Garcia's government said in some cases drilling was permitted in reserves, frustrating activists.
Humala's views on the reserves are not yet known, but activists working in the region are not especially optimistic.
“I'm not convinced Humala's going to stand up for people who don't have any power,” said Gregor MacLennan of the group Amazon Watch. “I'm concerned about what's happening to the whole region. It's going to reach a tipping point.” The international advocacy group has complained that
Pluspetrol, which operates two lots on the Camisea natural gas fields, explores inside reserve areas. Pluspetrol declined immediate comment.
Ochoa, the geologist managing concessions for Humala, says the reserves will be treated with “total respect” but he does plan to aggressively promote exploratory drilling in Peru, which he considers a “semi-explored” petroleum landscape.
“Remember that there are different types of reserves,” he said. “There are some that are untouched and virgin, but others can see some extraction.”

BRASILIA, Aug 17 (Reuters) - President Dilma Rousseff faces a damaging showdown with Congress that threatens to hurt Brazil's growth prospects as she struggles to contain a rebellion over her drive to cut costs and root out corruption.
Since taking office on Jan. 1, the no-nonsense former guerrilla has scorned the usual back-slapping and handouts that oil the wheels of Brazilian politics, depriving allies of influential posts and sticking to a tight spending budget.
But she is now under intense pressure to back down as coalition lawmakers threaten to paralyze planned reforms to boost growth in Latin America's largest economy, which is showing clear signs of a slowdown after a boom in 2010.
Signs of a breakdown in relations with Congress grew this week. Several parties in the ruling coalition openly boycotted Rousseff's bills after officials from various parties were shown on TV handcuffed during a police anti-corruption sweep at the tourism ministry. One small party, the Party of the Republic (PR), walked out of the coalition.
The leader of the main coalition PMDB party in the lower house, Henrique Eduardo Alves, said the government's legislative agenda would be blocked until Congress received the “respect that we want.” “The lack of clarity, of frankness, of respect for parliament can cause grave dissatisfaction,” he told reporters.
After a strong start in which she secured $30 billion in spending cuts to dampen inflation pressures, Rousseff has been bogged down by a series of political crises that have resulted in the resignation of three cabinet ministers.
Her drive to clean up government ministries toppled the transport minister -- a PR member -- in July and has spread to the agriculture and tourism ministries, where fresh allegations of bribes and cash kickbacks have sprung up in recent weeks.
PAYING THE PRICE
The price Rousseff is paying is a deep deterioration in her relationship with Congress, whose support she will need to pass already-delayed bills to spur growth and improve Brazil's bureaucracy-heavy business environment.
These include an overhaul of the country's Byzantine tax code, a regulation of royalties governing the country's oil riches, and framework legislation for a huge mining sector.
“She's fighting a lone war against corruption, that works as long as you don't need Congress but at some point she will,” Bolivar Lamounier, a Sao Paulo-based political scientist and consultant, told Reuters.
Crucially, Rousseff's drive for cleaner government does not appear to be winning much support from ordinary Brazilians, who are worried about the rising cost of loans to buy cars and TVs and the perceived political gridlock in Brasilia.
Many middle-class voters approve of Rousseff's diligent, managerial style but are unhappy about slow progress in tackling long-standing problems from health and education to public security, opinion polls show.
While Rousseff's approval rating remains high -- at 67% in the latest survey by polling firm Ibope -- it has begun to slip and her disapproval ratings have doubled this month in a sign that her political capital is weakening.
An economic slowdown to around 3-4% growth this year from 7.5% last year is likely to further undermine her ratings, which are well below the 80% or more achieved by popular former president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.
Lula, whose charisma and easy-going style helped him manage the unruly coalition, presided over a long economic boom and the rise of tens of millions into a new middle class. In contrast, Rousseff has had to apply the brakes after loose election-year spending in 2010 blew out the budget and fueled inflation, which is running at an annual pace of 6.87%.
She has presided over five interest rate hikes by the central bank this year to 12.5%, pushing up borrowing costs for ordinary Brazilians.
SPENDING PRESSURES
The austerity measures have extended to Congress, where lawmakers have been deprived of funds for discretionary spending in their constituencies.
Finance Minister Guido Mantega appealed to legislators last week not to approve a host of spending bills, including salary hikes for civil servants, that would torpedo ambitious budget targets the government was hoping to trumpet while Europe and the United States struggle with huge deficits.
But Congress appears to be in no mood to cooperate.
“The problem is the disrespect with which the government treats us. If things don't change, her agenda won't go anywhere,” Lincoln Portela, head of the PR party in the lower house of Congress told Reuters.
Close aides say Rousseff will likely make some concessions, such as raising discretionary spending for legislators. But they say she'll hold the course on fiscal discipline, seeing it as crucial to keep fighting inflation that remains close to the top of the government's target.