Word: thailand
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...from North Africa - tens of thousands make the trek to Europe every year, legally or not - a small but significant population is moving in the opposite direction. The generations of retirees who once flocked to Nice, St.-Tropez, or the Algarve are now exploring more exotic locales such as Thailand and Vietnam, and thereby extending Europe's reach beyond the acknowledged borders. And, at least officially, places like Morocco are thrilled at the prospect. To encourage investment, the kingdom offers foreign pensioners a tremendous incentive to bunk down in Morocco at least half the year: 80% tax relief on money...
...near midnight on Tuesday, tanks had rolled up to Bangkok's Government House and the monsoons were drenching the crowds. But the mood during Thailand's first military coup since 1991-the previous one eventually ended with protesters gunned down in the streets-was remarkably festive. Women in miniskirts posed for pictures in front of tanks, while elderly men in pajamas jabbered on cellphones. Last spring, hundreds of thousands of Thai citizens had organized daily peaceful protests on Bangkok streets, calling for the resignation of caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, whose popularity in urban areas had nosedived after the controversial...
...Army Chief Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratkalin, had taken over Bangkok and surrounding areas and was declaring martial law. The spokesman blamed the military's extreme measures on what he termed corrupt practices by Thaksin, alleging that the Prime Minister had hampered the workings of both parliament and the courts. Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej, a constitutional monarch, was reaffirmed as head of state, while the spokesman promised that a new caretaker Prime Minister would be named. (Cavalry regiment soldiers stationed by Government House had yellow ribbons, a color associated with the monarchy, tied to their uniforms and rifles in an apparent...
...Some background: one of the IMF's primary missions is to be an emergency lender to countries suffering from economic shocks, such as sudden currency devaluation. During the Asian crisis, the IMF loaned billions of dollars to countries including Thailand, Indonesia and South Korea, where years of excessive borrowing and frenzied investment by a financially overstretched private sector (abetted by errant government policies) led to sharp economic reversals. While IMF intervention helped put those countries on the road to recovery, it was not without controversy. For example, the IMF initially urged governments to cut spending, but quickly reversed itself when...
...Evelyn Rodriguez was concerned, neither side had any place at the site. "People shouldn?t be protesting today, people haven?t dealt with their grief yet," said Rodriguez, 42, who survived the devastating tsunami in Thailand in 2004. "There wasn?t anyone to blame there, but I?ve got friends here who still have open wounds...