Word: thailand
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...Mexico is not perfect, God knows, but what country is? The political and economic progress it has made compares well with that of nations that are frequently held up as exemplars of modernization. In development stars such as South Korea and Thailand, political convulsions have demonstrated that economic growth on its own does not make for prosperity and stability. To be sure, Mexico has not seen the modernization on all fronts that Spain experienced in the years after the end of Franco's dictatorship, but Spain's progress was much helped by the country's early accession to the European...
...shifting relationships between Thai politicians, military officers and those who serve the King - is an all but impossible task. After all, Apirat's own father, General Sunthorn Kongsompong, was a key architect of the 1991 army coup that culminated in a bloody crackdown against demonstrators in May 1992. Thailand's version of Tiananmen ended when the King brought together the country's two main political antagonists, who were pictured on television kneeling in front of the stern-faced monarch. In a surprising move on Monday, a group of Thai senators filed a petition to the King pleading...
...showing him playing a jazz saxophone. Apirat shook his head as water dripped on the images, which were left behind when the Red Shirts abandoned their post and started the trip back to their homes across the nation. An unspoken question hovered in the air: What were pictures of Thailand's King, beloved by millions, doing forsaken in the middle of what hours before had been a potential battle zone? (See pictures of the week's protests...
...more than six decades, Thailand's Buddhist majority has been remarkably unified under the country's King. Considered above politics, the 81-year-old monarch rarely comments on political matters and instead stands as a suprasymbol of Thai cohesion. His picture graces most every restaurant and business in the land, and a giant billboard of his visage with the words "Long Live the King" greets visitors at Bangkok's airport. For years, millions of Thais wore yellow every Monday in a voluntary show of support for the King, who was born on the first day of the week...
...behind the 2006 army coup that unseated him. That adviser, General Prem Tinsulanonda, has dismissed the charge. Thaksin and his Red Shirt cohorts have been at pains to underline that they don't think the King himself had anything to do with the putsch that overthrew one of Thailand's most popular - but also most divisive - Prime Ministers. Yet any implication of political maneuvering within the royal circle is incendiary in a nation where many practically deify the throne. One of Thaksin's lieutenants has already been charged with lèse-majesté, punishable in Thailand...