Flooding crisis forces Thai PM to abandon trade talks

Thailand’s prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra has been forced to cancel plans to attend an Asia-Pacific trade summit this weekend as she struggles to cope with her country’s worst flooding in half a century.

The flooding began in late July and has killed 527 people, mostly by drowning.

The water has inexorably made its way into Bangkok, causing distress among the capital’s more than 9 million inhabitants and heightening criticism of the government’s inefficiency in battling the problem.

The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, hosted by president Barack Obama, will bring together 21 leaders, including Chinese president Hu Jintao.

It would have given Yingluck an opportunity as a novice politician to boost her diplomatic profile, but also could have opened her to criticism of ignoring flooding at home. She had already postponed a trip to China last month because of the crisis.

Yingluck came to office in August after a Pheu Thai party landslide, but is widely seen as a stand-in for her brother, former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted by a military coup in 2006 after being accused of corruption and abuse of power.