Word: thailand
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Dhanin Chearavanont isn't ashamed to say he wants to retire. Still putting in 14-hour workdays at age 65, the chairman and CEO of Charoen Pokphand Group (CP)--Thailand's one truly multinational corporation--says he has found time to meditate on the possibilities of voluntary idleness (he's worth about $1.3 billion, according to Forbes). Maybe he would unmoor his yacht and sail off into the South China Sea. Or maybe he'd head to his farm and tend to his prized fighting cocks. Maybe. It's just that things keep cropping up at work, he explains...
...confronted with another potentially damaging setback: avian flu, which has devastated the Thai poultry industry over the past several months. As the No. 1 chicken producer in Asia, CP has been swept up in the crisis. Initially, rumors swirled that CP had contributed to the disease's spread in Thailand by trying to hide the outbreak. CP's participation in any cover-up "is just not true,'' says Dhanin. The company's chicken farms are a bulwark against the spread of diseases, he contends, because its birds are kept in giant warehouses, sequestered from birds believed to be carriers...
Moreover, Dhanin says CP began warning Thai farmers about the possibility of avian flu in November. That's when company officials showed him a newspaper photo of birds dying in central Thailand. Dhanin says he had no idea it was the deadly H5N1 virus, but he knew he had to act. Orders went out to seal up all of CP's chicken plants by further restricting access to plant premises--even delivery trucks were kept out. On Jan. 23, government officials announced that two young boys had tested positive for avian flu. The next day, CP's stock plummeted...
...South Korea, top firms like Hyundai Construction and LG Electronics are hoping to reap rewards in Iraq. Hyundai has already won two contracts worth $240 million to build a hospital and repair dams. And the need to bolster economic relations with the U.S. was a major factor for Thailand to send troops to Iraq. Since dispatching soldiers, Thailand, which sells 20% of its exports to the U.S., has received a basket of goodies from America, including a bilateral free-trade treaty and eligibility to bid for reconstruction projects in Iraq...
...Still, Thaksin knows that 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...