Word: apec
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...meters Length of a banner depicting Thailand's Grand Palace set up to screen a Bangkok slum from the view of APEC summiteers...
...Thailand for the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting. There are two ways of looking at such confabs. On one hand, it?s sort of laughable. Nothing real ever comes out of such meetings. They pass resolutions but they mean little. APEC is particularly feeble. It?s biggest goal of creating a free trade zone over the next decade among its 21-member nations isn?t going to happen. The group is far flung, including all the nations lining the pacific. If anything, the rise of regional trading blocs seems more likely than Chile and China suddenly singing Kumbaya together...
...budging on the Yuan. It likes its big trade surpluses. And with the U.S. borrowing so much from China to finance the budget deficit, our leverage isn?t much better than yours when you get your Visa bill at the end of the month. When you see the APEC TV ads on CNN International-yes, they have them-it?s easy to laugh a bit at the tag line ?Thailand and APEC, a Beautiful Reason to Smile...
...might sitting down at a table together to lift everyone?s collective standard of living. Sure, it?s goofy when thousands of journalists and businessmen and do-good non governmental organizations swarm on a news event where the greatest tension is what the leaders will wear. (Each year at APEC the leaders pose for a group photo, donning the native costume of the host country.) But would it be better to live in a world without such confabs? Definitely...
...There are no excuses for being a vagabond." SAMAK SUNDARAVEJ, Governor of Bangkok, explaining his campaign to rid the city of homeless people ahead of the apec summit next month...