The Sydney Morning Herald reports:
The spirit of US President George W Bush has been trapped in a clay pot and tossed into a river in northern Thailand after being cursed by hundreds of farmers protesting US agriculture policy. A photograph of the US leader was sealed inside a pot amid black magic mantra chants, then tossed into the Ping River on Friday by demonstrators after they rallied at the US consulate in Chiang Mai, a farm group leader said. "This is a traditional northern Thai ceremony aimed at keeping his spirit down on the riverbed so he could not come and exploit our natural resources or suppress our (farming) brothers with his superior influence," Weerasak Wan-ubol, an executive of the Northern Farmers Alliance, said today. The 300 protesters, claiming to represent 20,000 members from seven northern provinces, railed against imminent plans for a free-trade agreement between Thailand and the United States. The act was also a protest against Washington's military intervention in sovereign nations, the Bangkok Post reported. A respected elder performed the voodoo rites, inscribing ancient Khmer scripts on the pot, aimed at trapping the spirit of the US president.