Word: bangkok
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Last Saturday, a very fancy 10-course meal was consumed in Bangkok. I did not partake. Mostly this was because I don't have a spare 1 million Thai baht (or $29,800) to lavish on a single eating experience. The meal, lovingly constructed by six three-star Michelin chefs flown in from Europe, sounded delectable: highlights included a tartare of Kobe beef with Imperial Beluga caviar and Belon oysters (paired with a 1995 Krug Clos du Mesnil) and a tarte fine with scallops and $350 worth of black truffles (paired with a 1996 Le Montrachet Domaine de la Roman?e...
...appropriate conduct by the populace at all levels," according to a royal statement. Many Thais, including top economists, aren't quite sure what that means on a practical level - "none of us really understand it, but we can't say anything because it's His Majesty's idea," one Bangkok investment banker told me. But it's safe to assume that a $29,800 meal doesn't hew to the middle path. (In their defense, the organizers of the feast say most of the money raised will go to charity...
...which runs a Thai mobile-phone operator. (Formerly controlled by Thaksin's family, Shin was sold last year to Temasek Holdings, the investment arm of the Singaporean government, for $1.9 billion.) "Thaksin makes the CNS very nervous," says Ukrist Pathmanand, associate director of the Institute of Asian Studies at Bangkok's Chulalongkorn University, who has co-written a book about the ousted leader. "I don't believe he will stay out of politics. I could see him returning when people begin to think that the leaders who followed him have failed. He could be seen as the best alternative...
...Surayud Chulanont have promised fresh elections by year's end. But just four months after the coup, local polls show that the Thai public is wearying of military rule. At the same time, financial missteps by the military-appointed Cabinet have spooked international investors, as did fatal bombings in Bangkok on New Year's Eve that the junta has yet to solve. Meanwhile, in the restive south, Muslim insurgents have ramped up their murderous campaign; on Monday, three Buddhists were gunned down. Thaksin says that if he were to eventually return home, he could help heal the nation...
...more than 2,000 people during three months of the 2003 war on drugs, made many wonder whether the former police lieutenant-colonel had taken the law into his own hands. The tax-free windfall from the sale of Shin Corp., which sparked the mass public protests in Bangkok against Thaksin, hardly burnished his cultivated image as a simple man of the people. And his tenure was plagued by accusations of graft. The CNS is currently investigating 52 cases of possible corruption or abuse of power during his time in office and has said it may bring charges...