Word: thai
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...flock of discount carriers is taking wing this year, bringing lower prices and tougher competition around the world. Orient Thai Airlines launched low-fare One-Two-Go in December to defend its turf from newcomers like AirAsia. Elsewhere in Asia, elite Singapore Airlines is rolling out the cheap seats on its new discount marquee, Tiger Airways, which launches later this year, partly to fend off upstart ValuAir, which has set a May debut...
...soldiers in Iraq, of course, are not combat troops. But even though Asians have been assiduous in showing Iraqis they are there to rebuild the country, not fight a war, all Asian solders ultimately serve under U.S. command in the "coalition of the willing." And many Asian troops?the Thai, Mongolian and Filipino soldiers, in particular?are deployed in some of the most incendiary parts of Iraq. It's not hard, then, to imagine how a band of discontented Iraqis might target, say, an Asian medic or aid worker as a substitute for an American soldier. "The kidnapping...
...Japanese go, Korea might go," says Mo Jongryn, an international-relations expert at Yonsei University in Seoul. A similar calculus is being assessed in Thailand, which has 443 troops in Iraq and has already suffered two soldier casualties. Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra says he will consider pulling out Thai troops if the situation deteriorates...
...rosy trade numbers might not salvage his popularity if the terror threat hits closer to home. Some analysts connect a rising wave of violence in Thailand's predominantly Muslim south with the country's troop deployment in Iraq. "There are many people down here who use the issue [of Thai soldiers in Iraq] to whip up hatred of the Americans and the Thai government that supports them," says Wairoj Pipitpakdi, an opposition legislator in the southern province of Pattani where most of the 50 casualties of recent sectarian violence lived. Last week the U.S. and Australia told their citizens...
...icon. He has devoted his career to defending their rights against what he felt were "gross injustices committed by the central government against Muslims," says Sittisak Kongluer, a colleague of Somchai's at their small Bangkok law firm. Somchai's high-profile and often-controversial clients include four Thai Muslims accused of involvement in regional terror network Jemaah Islamiah and five men suspected of planning a deadly raid on a Thai army base on Jan. 4. The attack sparked an upsurge of violence in the area that has left at least 50 people dead, most of whom were local officials...