Word: thais
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2000-2009
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...next day, it was on to Koh Kong, a coastal frontier town on the Thai border, which until a couple of years ago was best accessed by boat. It is separated from the rest of Cambodia by the Cardamom Mountain range, a dense forest that houses endangered species like the Indochinese tiger and the Malayan sun bear, and used to be a Khmer Rouge stronghold. But a national highway built with help from the Thais, which includes four bridges spanning rivers once crossable only by ferry, has cut the drive to Koh Kong from the capital in half - to four...
...remotely by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 bloodless military coup. Subsequently convicted by the Supreme Court on conflict of interest charges over a land deal, Thaksin is now living in self-imposed exile to avoid serving a two-year prison sentence while another Thai court mulls the fate of about $2 billion of his assets seized on suspicion they were gained through corruption. The former leaders whereabouts are currently unknown, but allegations that he is in neighboring Cambodia have contributed to strained relations between the two countries. (See pictures of the August 2008 Thai...
...Vietnam's working classes have risen up against authorities before - with results. The most famous farmers' revolt took place in the northern province of Thai Binh in 1997. Burdened by excessive taxation and illegal fees, thousands of villagers challenged local officials over the course of several months. When their demands to be heard were ignored, they stoned Communist Party cadres, attacked their offices and homes, and held officials hostage for days. The national government eventually took charge, disciplining local officials and sending some to jail, along with some of the farmers. The following year, a national law known as Decree...
...Minority Report Arakan's capital, Sittwe, is a sleepy port near the Bay of Bengal where the pace of life inches along at the speed of a pedicab. But nearby, the rush for oil and gas is intense; last year, Russian, Thai and Vietnamese companies signed exploration deals with the junta. In late December, a consortium of four foreign companies, led by South Korea's Daewoo, inked an agreement with the junta and China National Petroleum Corp. to extract natural gas from Arakan's offshore Shwe fields and pipe it northeast through Burma to China's Yunnan province. The pipeline...
...brutality of Burma's military regime by escaping their Buddhist-majority homeland for lives as illegal immigrants. The ruling junta has denied the Rohingya some of the most basic human rights - no citizenship, no freedom of movement, no marriage without permission. In January, their plight made headlines when Thai forces reportedly towed hundreds of Rohingya boatpeople who made it to Thai territorial waters back out to sea in leaky vessels with little food or water. Some are now missing and presumed dead. The Rohingyas' situation is so acute that they were a major topic of discussion at last week...