but he was not. a controversial leader whose success is beyond question. he. wanted tragedy starts people t.w. . this is. coming up on the program keeping control why that's military looks set to maintain its influence over the country often dominating at the ballot box but was sunday's election really free and fair and. such for survivors. after another industrial accident in china. behind the country's safety record.

welcome to the show it's good to have you with us and has seen nearly five years of military rule and now it looks like the status quo when continue after general elections held on sunday up for all military parties says it's ready to form the next government that means this man former army chief and current prime minister. could carry on as prime minister for the next four years but the vote itself has come under scrutiny opposition parties have criticized the result as have been lection observer groups human rights watch has called reports of voting irregularities very alarming. he became prime minister thanks to a coup now. looks to have secured democratic mandate for keeping the chop his party which is linked to thailand's powerful military. victory soon. after partial

results were released. we have we have indicated the principle is that. the party of parties that have. there are able to assemble a largish number of which should have the opportunity to try for the next government waking up to the news this morning this man said he was happy about a continuation of power but. i think the country is heading in a direction that private as planned he will take care of the economy peace and especially corruption. but others aren't convinced though the electoral system favors the plan patcher out party p.p.r. pay few had expected it to do so well. i was surprised the p.p. oppy got the most votes. by the looks of the popular votes the p.p.r. p. appears to have swayed voters in the country's poor rural north but rights groups

are questioning the credibility of the election they will report about buying reports about your equality is in board how when tabulation there were reports about intimidation of opposition party members. with criticism growing over the way the vote was carried out the political divisions that have afflicted thailand in the last decade and even further. and joining us for more professor john shit out somebody on cd from homicide university in bangkok professor welcome before the chat i'd just like to show our viewers the context within which this vote has taken place now following the change in the constitution in twenty seventeen months has a total of seven hundred fifty seats of which two hundred fifty in the senate these are framed by an elected member as appointed by the military that means that going

into this election the military already had two hundred fifty seats in the bag needing only one hundred and twenty six to reach the majority mach of three hundred seventy six. professor given this arrangement is it a surprise that the probability theory along party has come up trumps not surprised at all i mean. the whole extra process has been decided to give the advantage to the top party the conservatives so i mean as a type person there's already been speculation that they would somehow form the coalition government however the fact that they got more than one hundred say it's quite surprising for a lot of analysts who predicted that they would get lower than that but so that's actually connected to the whole and even the playing field that has been created around the electoral process and i think that is creating

a lot of you know. anger at the moment this is what human rights watch also alluded to there's an even playing field in the lead up to this election and also talking about some irregularities on voting day do you actually believe that this is true or is there something else at play here well the irregularities that appeared on the election there is just another episode of the whole process i mean before that for months you see the misuse of state resources for campaigns. and you see the intimidation candidates of the opposition have faced and you've seen. all kinds of distortion of rules in order to advantage to a ruling party but at the same time and of mining opposition parties are you saying that in thailand the vast majority of people do not support the military led government i wouldn't dare to say that the society has been too wide it for for

a decade or more and i believe that half of the society believes in the establishment. and. right now we are facing with the rest of the other half of the country do not share these beliefs right so the no one touch is favored by these half of society that caused the weight of part of society if you like and because of that they have a lot of popular support but on top of that there's this. electoral wreck rallies that we've talked about so morphing combined you have the electoral gains that are quite unexpected plunker sharon thailand has had a history of military coups i think the only think eleven's all the trolls who i knew to be honest has this military government done something differently to the

other military governments of the. twenty cool. and successful. well i think we have to see the players of the military government in a historical context this is the first election and actually the coup or that oversaw all the transition from the last reagan to the new rig so what they do is they try to kind of smooth the transition process and in so doing they have to stay in the ruling position. so the election is the signed for the elites to be able to sustain that old political order yeah so what if they have done is good for those who want to see the established order doing well but not good for the rest who want to see change in the country or will have to give up their professor don't you know some but unsavory thank you so much for

coming in thinking of yours. to trying on our which last week suffered one of which was to industrial accidents more than sixty people died in a chemical plant blast that flattened an industrial park and destroyed the city of young junks province the explosion was so powerful. earthquake dozens of people are still missing. it was a massive blast. flattening nearby buildings and shattering windows almost two kilometers away. rescuers pulled this man out of the rubble of the destroyed chemical plant almost forty hours after the explosion happened the survivors hundreds of them are recovering in more than a dozen local hospitals. my injury is heavier than those of my

friends i was sitting right next to the window and shards of glass from a smashed window hit me our factory had temporarily suspended production and we were attending class to study suddenly i had a bang and a huge impact right smashed the window. outside this hospital the red cross society of china has been collecting and dispatching basic supplies for people whose homes were destroyed by the blast and people have been lining up to help by giving blood . i found out from the news that the blast cause many casualties so i rushed over as it's not far away i'd like to make a small contribution to the people who need help. this accident has stoked public anger further in china over the frequency of industrial accidents and safety standards the exact cause of this latest enormous explosion is still under investigation but tan g.i. chemical the owner of the plant has

a history of violating environmental. regulations. and that appears to be the underlying reason in a number of other industrial accidents in china last november for example an explosion at a chemical plant in the northern city of junk who killed twenty four people and injured twenty one others investigators said the chemical farm lacked safety measures in july also as last year a blast at a chemical plant in you've been in sichuan province left nineteen dead and twelve injured it's said the company had got it out illegal construction work and then twenty fifteen more than one hundred seventy people were killed in a series of explosions in the port city of ten jane authorities blamed incorrect storage of chemicals for that incident. and joining us for more is you double correspondent mathias belinda in beijing mathias it appears to be a common theme there are a canisters a lack of adherence to safety procedures why does this keep happening in china.

well the problem is not regulations the regulations are up to international standards for safety the problem is that these companies ignore regulations and that these regulations are not enforced by local governments and this is of course because there is a close link often between these governments and the companies the companies are either owed by the state or they are big tax payers and for governments for the most time of the last forty years the most important target to meet was growth rate so in order to meet the growth rate they would look away at a lot of things and this seems to be the case here as well what has happened in the case of the latest explosion in junk province that occurred last week what are authorities saying there. well the central government has send an investigation team it seems i cording to what we hear or what is reported that.

explosions have been happening there before one rather big one in two thousand and seven that killed eight people and that residents have been very worried about this industrial park the chemical plant was part of an industrial park that is now damaged as well. and a lot of people have been complaining that this dangerous potentially dangerous plant has been constructed too closely to a residential area however nothing has ever been done for my investigations by joining lists have been shut down or your lists have been. threatened not to report on this so we may be going to see a lot more in the coming few days on this but i did have a correspondent material speaking to us from beijing thank you very much for that thank you. and this model does try to overcharge you double book form for the

question and be sure to check as i was confused as well we need to know which make sure the glass side young change and the continuing search for survivors is your next stop by. the flame. coach a visit. to link school africa the more old story link to exception stories and discussions someone uses easy i want with safety deputed comes too much coffee coffee join us on facebook g w for god's. call on the road with our superheroes my mission is clear.

to get them to me closely should explore germany. they don't exist and everything out there's a lot going on in the global surely charge tested. going to w. could be and i become a second china for the world economy wants to strengthen its business partnership with hanoi even chinese companies are investing heavily in their neighbor. also coming up south korean stuff for chunks of that liaison office of the two koreas joint economic zone in k. song. and despite global trade tensions at the un certainty of a break that a key german business for all of its north. american fizzle. let's do

business while china and the u.s. tussle over trade multinational companies staking out the next big growth opportunity vietnam is just across the border from china it's one of the largest countries in the region as german economy minister pay to buy a points out and it's cheaper place than china to do business. there's a strong interest in working together here quoth from german and vietnamese companies there are a lot of tech and renewable energy firms who want to expand their presence here and . it's in germany it's interest to be a partner to all nations in the region and that applies especially to vietnam because in the next few years this country will become more and more important. and the vietnamese economy continues to grow up one of the fastest rates in the world we'll talk about the opportunities in a moment with our correspondent. first is report.