Police dispatched to stop post-tsunami looting in Thailand; Malaysia postpones mass deportation of illegals News
Police dispatched to stop post-tsunami looting in Thailand; Malaysia postpones mass deportation of illegals

[JURIST] Authorities in Thailand have dispatched hundreds of additional police to coastal provinces hardest hit by Sunday's tsunami in an effort to stem an apparent tide of looting. Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has issued stern warnings to would-be looters, and several arrests have already been made. Well-off Western tourists killed and otherwise affected by the disaster – now said to have killed over 75,000 people, including some 2000 in Thailand – left behind many personal belongings, and hotels and resorts where they stayed are largely unoccupied at this point. AFP has more. In other law-related news from the Asian tidal wave disaster, Malaysian authorities announced Wednesday that they have agreed to a request by the Indonesian government to extend by one month an amnesty period for foreign workers illegally working in Malaysia, postponing a mass deportation that was originally scheduled after January 1. The Indonesian authorities had feared that deportations would only deepen the humanitarian crisis brought on by the deaths of over 45,000 Indonesians in the tidal wave that originated off the west coast of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. There are about a million illegals working in Malaysia at the present time, most of them Indonesian. Some 220,000 have left since the amnesty period began at the end of October. AFP has more.

Many national and international relief agencies are collecting donations for relief of the tsunami victims. USAID, the US government's foreign aid arm, has posted this list. ReliefWeb, a project of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, is tracking tsunami-related news here. Wikipedia provides a continually-updated synopsis of events.

1:50 PM ET – The governments of countries affected by the tsunami are providing official information – casualty figures, contact numbers, aid needs etc. – on the following websites: