Word: abhisit
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...forbids intoxication. Yet excessive drinking is deeply rooted in the culture. "Thais are fun-loving people," said a recent editorial in the newspaper Thai Rath. "We all know that a party is not complete without drinks." This perhaps explains the ban's lukewarm reception from British-educated Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's government. The Tourism Minister claimed it would drive away foreign visitors and further damage a vital industry already reeling from global recession and the shutdown of Bangkok's two airports by antigovernment protesters last year...
...Britain, PM Gordon Brown rejected minimum pricing as unfair to the "responsible, sensible, majority of moderate drinkers." He also knows that, in the midst of a recession and with his poor ratings, making booze more expensive is political suicide. Brown's Thai counterpart Abhisit enjoys greater popularity among his people, but still cannot afford to anger them - not when his country's unemployment rate has (like Britain's) spiked sharply. But Abhisit needn't have worried. With Songkran fast approaching, the ban was scrapped - not because it was unfair to the responsible majority of Thai drinkers but because, like minimum...
...adversaries, the "red shirts" whose pro-Thaksin antigovernment demonstrations brought Bangkok to a halt last weekend, have a long list of grievances: They are calling for the current government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to resign and for new elections. They are also demanding an end to what they see as interference in politics by the military, courts and the king's Privy Council, an amnesty for Thaksin, and his return as Prime Minister...
...which Thaksin, addressing the crowd by video phone, urged them to rise up in a "people's revolution." The red shirts subsequently stormed a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Pattaya, forcing its cancellation and the evacuation of regional leaders, attempted to physically attack Prime Minister Abhisit on two occasions, and launched a sometimes violent an chaotic protest in the capital, during which they burned buses, set off small bombs, threatened to blow up a gas tanker, blocked traffic on major roads, and shot and killed two local non-protestors who objected to their invasion...
...military dispersed the protest on Monday and Tuesday, but 123 people, including many soldiers, were injured. The Red Shirts are still claiming casualties, though no independent source has confirmed this. Prime Minister Abhisit said no red-shirt protesters were killed the military in breaking up their demonstration. He has refused to resign, called for a political reform process and invited the opposition to participate...