Word: bangkok
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...lite that supported the 1992 democracy movement, and has as its ultimate aim a so-called "New Politics," whose fuzzy, oft-shifting aims have included the undemocratic step of appointing parliamentarians. "We're looking at a dead end politically," says Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a political scientist at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok. "It's hard to understand how democracy in Thailand has come to this...
...This ruler-knows-best attitude can make Asians act more like subjects than citizens. Militaries - the other power pole in much of Asia - can meddle in politics without much public distress from the masses. Just look at how Bangkok office ladies cheerily handed carnations to the soldiers who carried out a 2006 coup against Thailand's democratically elected leader. When Asians finally do react against their governments, it is often in extremis, anger spilling onto the streets in revolutionary-style rallies...
Shipping companies have been hit by a double whammy: falling global demand and, even more importantly, paralysis in the financial markets. The latter is crucial because the letters of credit that international trade relies on have all but dried up. Khalid Hashim, managing director of Precious Shipping in Bangkok, says government banking bailouts have overlooked the shipping industry's needs. "Trade finance is not getting enough attention within the banking system," Hashim says. "Governments don't recognize the danger signals coming up. It will take time to resolve...
...uneasy alignment of Abhisit and Newin reflects a fundamental rift in Thai society between disaffected rural voters and a disgusted urban elite that cannot fathom the string of populist - and sometimes iron-fisted - leaders whom the masses have been choosing to represent them. Bangkok may gleam with malls and high-rises, but most of Thailand is still a poor country of rice farmers. The Democrats, with the exception of a support base in the Muslim-dominated south, have yet to convince rural voters that their party has the best interests of most Thais in mind. Abhisit has had a hard...
...Nevertheless, after a dispiriting few months in which Thais have seen their country's near-term economic prognosis go from ailing to moribund - in large part because of the anti-government protests that convulsed Bangkok and scared away tourists and foreign investors since August - the prospect of a Prime Minister who will not cause hundreds of thousands of yellow-shirted protesters to flood the streets must be a relief. True, Thaksin's supporters, who wore red clothes during their rallies to contrast with the opposition's yellow shirts, are hardly pleased. But in a sign that there...