Word: pads
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Chaiwan Charoenchoketawee, spokesman for Vajira Medical College in Bangkok. "His condition is serious. He has a brain hemorrhage, but he is expected to survive," Chaiwan said. Sondhi was wounded, along with his driver and bodyguard, when his car stopped at a gas station about 5AM, according to a PAD member. News reports quoted police as saying Sondhi's car was sprayed with bullets from gunmen in another vehicle. (See pictures of the Bangkok protests...
...Sondhi's "yellow shirts," as PAD members are known because of the color of their attire, are a movement of royalists, big businessmen and urban middle class Thais who are opposed to the return of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup, convicted of conflict of interest charges by Thai courts last year and is now living in self-imposed exile. Sondhi's firebrand speeches full of demagoguery rallied crowds of supporters in prolonged, occasionally violent, protests last year against Thaksin, but he has been accused by critics of stoking hatred against rural people...
...PAD's adversaries, the "red shirts" whose pro-Thaksin antigovernment demonstrations brought Bangkok to a halt last weekend, have a long list of grievances: They are calling for the current government of Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva to resign and for new elections. They are also demanding an end to what they see as interference in politics by the military, courts and the king's Privy Council, an amnesty for Thaksin, and his return as Prime Minister...
...lawyer for the PAD said his group would not respond to the assassination attempt with violence. "We want the way of peace, not payback. We will only use violence to defend ourselves, as is permissible under the law. But this is bad. It means a civil war is starting, and Thailand could end up like Rwanda," said Puchong Tirawatana. Puchong blamed the Red Shirts for the assassination attempt on Sondhi, and said there were police and military men who were red shirt members or sympathizers. Red Shirt leadership and the police have yet to comment...
Nowhere is this bilateral relationship more apparent than in Tijuana, the busiest border crossing on the planet. A giant launching pad for migrants, center for U.S.-owned assembly plants and strategic front in the drug trade, the city of 1.6 million has long enjoyed the best and worst of living next door to the U.S. colossus. However, that relationship has soured in recent months with news of a bloody cartel turf war that has scared many Americans away from even stepping foot in Tijuana. (See pictures of Mexico's war on drugs...