The cabinet meeting on Wednesday 05, August 2009 has come to the following decisions:
The Cabinet agreed and approved all of the following three proposals from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
1. The draft of the security cooperation agreement between the Kingdom of Thailand and United Arab Emirates was approved, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was granted the liberty to edit the wording in the draft as long as the essence of the agreement remains intact.
2. Minister of Foreign Affairs or any personnel assigned by the minister has the authority to sign the agreement on behalf of the Royal Thai Government.
3. Notification to the United Arab Emirates was approved in order to enforce the agreement.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also reported that
1. The United Arab Emirates has sent the draft of the security cooperation agreement to Thailand for consideration, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has asked for input from various Thai organisations and has held meetings for relevant organisations between 29/07/08-31/07/08 and between 17/02/09-19/02/09. Both Thailand and United Arab Emirates agreed and signed initial on the draft on 19/02/09.
2. The essence of the draft is that both bilateral parties will cooperate in matters that involve criminal information exchange, experience exchange, and laws exchange, within the boundaries of internal laws and international obligations of both parties. The aim of the agreement is to follow criminal traces and to fight criminal activities, for instance, life threatening and property damaging crimes, terrorism, corruption, arms smuggling, economic crimes, etc.
3. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs sees that the draft of the agreement is a cooperation on crime-related information, experience, and laws exchanges done under internal laws and international obligations of both countries. It is therefore improbable that there would be consequences regarding the integrity of the Kingdom of Thailand's territory or extraterritorial rights of which Thailand has sovereign power over or rights given by treaty or international laws, nor there is a need to enact a new act in order to comply with the agreement that has a far-reaching impact to the people or the stability of the economy. As there is no commercial or budget-related obligation, it is not necessary to ask for the approval from the National Assembly according to article 190 section 2 of the Constitution.
The Cabinet considered the promotion of reading to national agenda, in an effort to create a life-long learning society. The Cabinet approved the following proposals by the Ministry of Education.
1. Reading was granted national agenda status.
2. April 2nd was designated as National Reading Day.
3. 2009-2018 were made the decade of reading.
4. A committee of reading promotion was created, and its purpose is to be an integral part in realising reading promotion.
The essence of reading as a national agenda are the followings.
1. Vision: Every Thai is instilled the love of reading and is accommodated by learning friendly environment.
2. Mission
(1) Instill the value in all kinds of reading as a means to gain knowledge and create a life-long learning experience to all Thais.
(2) Develop the ability to read, write, and critical thinking of all Thais.
(3) Develop the media and reading related activities as well as create a space for reading.
(4) Promote all sections in society to develop a network for creative learning.
3. Strategy
(1) Develop Thais' ability to read by campaigning for the reading and writing Thai, improving and developing the quality of Thai language teaching as well as create an alliance of reading network.
(2) Instill the love of reading by promoting values and attitudes that support reading in all kinds of media, and invite all sections of Thai society to join the alliance of reading network.
(3) Create a reading-friendly environment by finding allies in making a quality and up-to-date learning environment in every districts and communities in order to improve the appeal of reading.
--Cabinet Meeting (Abhisit Vejjajiva) August 5, 2009--