Word: thais
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...Like Britain, Thailand has embarked upon a rocky legislative road, hoping that new laws will fix an old problem. While Brits debated minimum pricing, Thais were arguing the merits of prohibiting alcohol sales during Songkran, or Thai New Year, which runs April 13-15 and is the country's most important annual holiday. This is a bit like Sir Liam banning booze at Christmas. Better known among tourists as the Water Festival, Songkran is famous for mass water-pistol fights and - with millions of Thais visiting their families - insanely busy highways. During last year's festival, 360 people died...
...Thailand is a largely Buddhist country, and one of the Five Precepts of Buddhism forbids intoxication. Yet excessive drinking is deeply rooted in the culture. "Thais are fun-loving people," said a recent editorial in the newspaper Thai Rath. "We all know that a party is not complete without drinks." This perhaps explains the ban's lukewarm reception from British-educated Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's government. The Tourism Minister claimed it would drive away foreign visitors and further damage a vital industry already reeling from global recession and the shutdown of Bangkok's two airports by antigovernment protesters last...
...Britain, PM Gordon Brown rejected minimum pricing as unfair to the "responsible, sensible, majority of moderate drinkers." He also knows that, in the midst of a recession and with his poor ratings, making booze more expensive is political suicide. Brown's Thai counterpart Abhisit enjoys greater popularity among his people, but still cannot afford to anger them - not when his country's unemployment rate has (like Britain's) spiked sharply. But Abhisit needn't have worried. With Songkran fast approaching, the ban was scrapped - not because it was unfair to the responsible majority of Thai drinkers but because, like minimum...
...protest leader whose followers commandeered Bangkok's international airport for eight days last December was shot early Friday morning in Bangkok in an apparent assassination attempt, shattering hopes for calm and political reconciliation following the dispersal of violent anti-government demonstrations earlier this week that paralyzed the Thai capital, brought the army on to the streets, and forced the cancellation of a summit of regional leaders...
...Sondhi's "yellow shirts," as PAD members are known because of the color of their attire, are a movement of royalists, big businessmen and urban middle class Thais who are opposed to the return of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Thaksin was ousted in a 2006 coup, convicted of conflict of interest charges by Thai courts last year and is now living in self-imposed exile. Sondhi's firebrand speeches full of demagoguery rallied crowds of supporters in prolonged, occasionally violent, protests last year against Thaksin, but he has been accused by critics of stoking hatred against rural people...