Word: bangkok
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...considered capital controls to ward off currency speculators. Meanwhile, an insurgent movement in the largely Muslim south has ratcheted up its violent campaign, with near daily attacks in Thailand's three southernmost provinces. "[2006] was the year of the greatest social and political divisions in a generation," says Bangkok-based author and economist Chris Baker...
Irina Martin, a German tourist who was in Bangkok for the party-loving city's raucous New Year's Eve festivities, must be glad she listened to her gut. Around 9 p.m. on Dec. 31, the kindergarten teacher from Hamburg was grappling with the unnerving news that six bombs had detonated across the Thai capital just a couple of hours earlier, targeting everything from a shopping mall and a supermarket to a bus stop at Victory Monument, one of the city's busiest gathering places. Watching the police comb for evidence at Victory Monument, Martin changed her mind about attending...
...Year's Eve blasts were the work of small, crude devices, but the impact of the bombings felt outsized for a nation that depends heavily on tourism and foreign investment. Bangkok and its environs serve as a regional manufacturing hub, and part of the capital's attraction had been its reputation as a terror-free zone in a region where security threats are omnipresent. Complicating matters, the country's financial edge has been blunted lately by the new military-installed government, which is making foreign investment in Thailand more difficult-just as countries like China, India and even Vietnam...
...Year's Day, Bangkok was swirling with rumors about the possible masterminds behind the crude but deadly attacks. Initial suspicion centered on Muslim insurgents, who have terrorized Thailand's south with unrelenting small explosions that have claimed nearly 2,000 lives over the past three years. But the insurgents, some of whom are fighting for a separatist homeland for the country's minority Muslims, have never brought their bombing campaign out of Thailand's south. At a press conference on Monday afternoon, interim Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont specifically discounted speculation that the terror attacks were planned by Muslim extremists, instead...
...Foreign Business Act, for example, could force thousands of foreign firms to sell shares to Thai locals if they wish to continue operating in Thailand. "There is a lot of confusion about what exactly is happening in Thailand," says Sukit Udomsirikul, assistant managing director of Siam City Securities in Bangkok. "Such uncertainty negatively impacts business sentiment." A mysterious bombing campaign is sure to rattle confidence further. After such a tense and tumultuous 2006, Thais can only hope that the new year restores some measure of stability...