Word: buddhists
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...purity. Part of a project that Chalermchai started in 1997, the compelling ubosot, or assembly hall, is one of the three main structures at the sprawling White Temple complex (tel: (66) 5367 3579), a 6.4-acre (2.6 hectare) site in his native Chiang Rai in northern Thailand. When devout Buddhist Chalermchai's project is complete - with the help of 67 disciples, he hopes it'll be done by 2070 - he will have created nine equally intricate buildings, including a crematorium, each one teaching grand lessons in morality. "Every human has to see this," he says. "This...
...Lankans, whether Tamil Hindus, Sinhalese Buddhist, or Muslims, should not have to choose between multiculturalism and political rights on the one hand and national security and the safety of their children on the other. Before the official end of the war, a promise must be made to address many of the Tamil grievances—short of independence—that fueled the fire in the first place. There cannot simply be a victor’s peace, for that is no peace...
...British academic Duncan McCargo counters such heartless defeatism with Tearing Apart the Land, an introduction to a scandalously underreported conflict. Most of the 1.8 million people in Thailand's three southernmost provinces are Malay-speaking Muslims, but they make up only 2% of a largely Thai-speaking Buddhist country. For a century, attempts at assimilation have been met with resentment and rebellion. The current hostilities erupted under former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose hard-line response to what he dismissed as banditry turned sporadic militant attacks into a full-blown insurgency...
...Thailand is a largely Buddhist country, and one of the Five Precepts of Buddhism forbids intoxication. Yet excessive drinking is deeply rooted in the culture. "Thais are fun-loving people," said a recent editorial in the newspaper Thai Rath. "We all know that a party is not complete without drinks." This perhaps explains the ban's lukewarm reception from British-educated Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's government. The Tourism Minister claimed it would drive away foreign visitors and further damage a vital industry already reeling from global recession and the shutdown of Bangkok's two airports by antigovernment protesters last...
...Thailand has an increasingly vocal antialcohol movement. Last November Thai Beverage PLC, the country's largest producer of alcoholic drinks, indefinitely postponed its stock listing after Buddhist monks led a blockade of the Stock Exchange of Thailand building in Bangkok. Thais in favor of prohibition also cheered the passing of an alcohol-control act that took effect in February last year. It raised the legal drinking age from 18 to 20, banned alcohol-related advertising, and - at a time when Britain was liberalizing its licensing laws to allow for round-the-clock drinking - restricted the sale of alcohol to only...