Word: somchai
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...troops close to Bangkok to stymie or stage coups d'état. The police, McCargo says, are "vicious and incompetent." His unsparing criticism is supported by groups like Human Rights Watch, which, in a 2007 report, attributed 21 "disappearances" to the security forces, including that of campaigning Muslim lawyer Somchai Neelaphaichit...
...Thai football has lost its way, so has the country. Within weeks of Reid's arrival, two people were killed and hundreds injured in antigovernment riots in Bangkok. Protesters occupied the offices of beleaguered Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, and then, on Nov. 25, stormed the capital's airport. Tourists and investors are fleeing the country, the stock market is tanking. The famous Thai smile is fading fast. A Bangkok pollster calculated that the nation's "Gross Domestic Happiness Index" measured a mere 4.84 out of 10, the lowest for almost three years. Cheer up, Peter Reid? He's probably...
...bankrolling Reid's generous salary? Could it be former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, the self-exiled billionaire who - so his enemies claim - was pulling the strings behind the Somchai government? Thaksin was toppled in a 2006 military coup and the following year bought Manchester City, a struggling football club where Reid was once player-manager. Sentenced in absentia in October to two years in jail for conflict of interest, Thaksin remains a deeply divisive figure, loved by rural Thais but loathed by the urban élite...
...That seems almost inevitable. A billionaire populist, Thaksin was deposed in a 2006 military coup amid corruption charges and now lives in exile overseas. His supporters, reconstituted as the PPP, won elections last year. Even before the PPP was banned, another shell party called Puea Thai had been formed. Somchai, who is Thaksin's brother-in-law, is now exiled from politics. But other Thaksin allies will helm Puea Thai, from which the next Prime Minister will likely be picked in the next week...
BACK FROM THE BRINK As months of antigovernment protests culminated in the occupation of two Bangkok airports (above), a court dissolved Thailand's ruling party, finding its members guilty of election fraud. The protesters dispersed, flights resumed, and 109 lawmakers, including Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, were barred from politics for five years. Still, Thailand's troubles are far from over: the selection of its next Prime Minister could spark renewed clashes...