Word: rural
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Thailand's young democracy was highlighted back in 2006 when the military masterminded a bloodless coup against former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. That confrontation, which is echoed in today's showdown, pitted members of a traditional Bangkok élite against an upstart billionaire whose populist policies intoxicated many rural-poor voters. Although the military claimed legitimacy by accusing Thaksin of misrule, the appearance of tanks on the streets pulled the country back to the bad old days when putsches, not polls, were the mechanism for changing governments. Thaksin's party was banned, and the deposed PM was charged with corruption...
...grilled squid at Government House. Indeed, even though the PAD's very name includes the word democracy, many of its supporters are skeptical of electoral politics. Some PAD leaders have advocated replacing an elected parliament with one in which some members are appointed, arguing that widespread buying of rural votes delegitimizes the polls anyway. "It's taken for granted in the West that democracy is the best system," says PAD leader and media tycoon Sondhi Limthongkul, sitting on a blue tarp that serves as the alliance's makeshift headquarters at Government House. "But all we are getting in Thailand...
...Quinn makes fresh purchases. The explosive color and intensity of nudes by Irish Post-Impressionist Roderic O'Connor, a close friend of Gauguin's, contrast strikingly with the simplified shapes and subtle lighting in William Scott's kitchen-implement still lifes. The collection also features powerful observations of Irish rural life by Jack B. Yeats, brother of the poet, haunting society portraits by John Lavery and a specially commissioned Dublin triptych by Martin Mooney. For definitive insight into the works, a tour with Olive Knox, a curator at the National Gallery of Ireland, can be arranged...
...sandwich vendor from central Thailand, as she swayed to a folk song calling for political change. "We are not scared to defend ourselves." That kind of brinksmanship may be just what the PAD wants. Its leaders decry the electoral system in Thailand, alleging that vote-buying in poor rural areas largely discredits any poll results. (Indeed, Samak's People Power Party is facing possible dissolution by the courts because of an electoral-fraud conviction of its former deputy leader.) "If democracy brings Samak, then I don?t want it," says Wijeau Noinoo, a finance executive from the southern city...
...country estates of rural England have long proved happy hunting grounds for Britain's fictional sleuths. Holmes, Poirot, Inspector Morse: all have tackled intricate and ingenious plots in the creaky corridors and labyrinthine gardens of the manor house. But when constables from the West Mercia Police force responded to a fire at the $2.4 million Osbaston property in Maesbrook in the west of the country last week, they uncovered murders that have so far proved more bafflingly chaotic than subtle or cunning...