Word: monarch
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...health of King Bhumibol, the longest-reigning monarch in the world, is a sensitive subject in Thailand. "Most Thais alive have never known any other king,'' said Dominic Faulder, a veteran Bangkok-based journalist who edited The King of Thailand in World Focus, a compendium of media coverage of King Bhumibol and his 63 years on the throne. Illness or any sign of the monarch's mortality provokes a deep-seated fear of the unknown in many Thais, who regard the king as semi-divine...
...today more deeply divided politically and socially than at any time since its communist insurgency ended in the early 1980s. In the past three years, the country has been rocked by demonstrations, a military coup, an airport takeover and riots. Since the early 1970s, King Bhumibol, a constitutional monarch, has served as a unifying figure and stabilizing force in Thai society, intervening on occasion to stop bloodshed between the military and democracy demonstrators and defusing political tensions.(See pictures of the 2008 protests in Bangkok...
...Although Samak had become one of Thaksin's strongest supporters in recent years, they were once bitter rivals as Deputy Prime Ministers in 1996. Both had been tasked with solving Bangkok's intractable traffic problems, but their constant squabbling led constitutional monarch King Bhumibol Adulyadej to summon them to the palace for a dressing down. Afterwards, the two made an effort at working together, but still failed to solve the capital's traffic jams...
...guests lingered outside in the crisp air but were eventually pushed aside by workmen rolling up the layers of red Afghan rugs that had been laid over the concrete walkways for the occasion. Ali Seraj, great-grandson of former King Abdul Rahman Khan, Afghanistan's first modern monarch, took a nostalgia-tinged stroll through the nearby rose garden. His great-grandfather had built the turn-of-the-century palace, and Seraj took particular pride in pointing out the beautiful buildings his ancestors had once inhabited. The inauguration hall was where the king once received supplicants; a crumbling ruin had once...
However the project goes forward, the findings bring to life a cautionary tale that has not always been remembered by subsequent generations. Like Napoleon's march into Russia, Cambyses' doomed campaign serves as perhaps the ultimate act of hubris, of a power-hungry monarch who refuses to accept the limits to his ambitions. While these 50,000 Persian warriors disappeared in the desert, Cambyses didn't fare much better. At the time, he was marching on a kingdom in Ethiopia, but provisions ran out beneath a scorching sun and his troops were forced to pick lots having divided into groups...