Word: bangkok
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...violence in the south. Last September a military junta overthrew Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, accusing him of corruption and abuse of power-allegations Thaksin denies. Today, the junta faces many challenges: how to bring Thaksin, now in exile but still popular among millions of Thais, back to Bangkok for trial; when to hold elections and restore democracy; and how to keep the economy ticking. But the most intractable problem is the civil war in the south. Since January 2004, when a dormant, homegrown rebel movement ostensibly bent on establishing a separate Islamic state exploded back to life, more than...
...have long despised government schools, whether Buddhist or Muslim. The rebels see them as representative of a Thai state they believe suppresses the culture, language and religion of Malay Muslims, who make up the majority of people in the southern provinces of this otherwise overwhelmingly Buddhist nation. Resistance to Bangkok's assimilation policies-banning Muslim headscarves, closing schools not conforming to the national curriculum, preventing civil servants from attending Friday prayers-has simmered and boiled ever since Thailand, then known as Siam, annexed the Pattani sultanate a century ago. In the 1960s, the separatist Barisan Revolusi Nasional (National Revolutionary Front...
...doubled to about four deaths a day, and the generals, like Thaksin, have been forced to send in more security forces. While no armed group has claimed responsibility for the conflict, nor stated any aims or demands, the militants' strategy seems clear enough: render the region too violent for Bangkok to govern, then seize control, village by village...
...years ago a financial typhoon known as the Asian Crisis smashed into Bangkok. Over the next 15 months it swept through Jakarta, Kuala Lumpur, Hong Kong and Seoul. Tens of thousands of people lost their jobs. Others paid a higher price. Hundreds of Indonesian Chinese, accused by rioters of being accomplices to a corrupt regime, lost their lives or were raped in the violence that accompanied the ouster of Indonesia's long-serving autocrat Suharto. Abandoned half-built buildings throughout Asian cities stood as mute reminders not only of the shattered hopes of many an empire builder but also those...
...irritating that you're often mistaken for Meryl Streep? John Jasper Cortes, BANGKOK...