Salon.com > Thailand http://www.salon.com Fri, 03 May 2013 14:34:45 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Review: Google laptop is impressive, but may disappoint some http://www.salon.com/2013/04/03/review_google_laptop_impressive_but_not_for_all/ http://www.salon.com/2013/04/03/review_google_laptop_impressive_but_not_for_all/#comments Wed, 03 Apr 2013 16:12:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/2013/04/03/review_google_laptop_impressive_but_not_for_all/ SIEM REAP, Cambodia (AP) — Google's first high-end laptop, the Chromebook Pixel, is an impressive machine. It feels light and comfortable in my hands and on my lap. Its high-resolution display makes photos look sharp and video come to life. From a hardware standpoint, it's everything I'd want a laptop to be.

But the Pixel isn't very practical — at least not yet — for most people. It works well when you have a steady Internet connection, but can't do much once you lose that connection. And because it uses Google's own operating system, it doesn't run enough software yet to replace your other machines.

I brought the Pixel along for a nearly three-week trip to Thailand and Cambodia, where I knew I wouldn't have the type of round-the-clock access I'm used to in the U.S. I was surprised by how much I could do, but quickly got frustrated when I couldn't do more.

Such frustration doesn't come cheap. Prices for the Pixel start at $1,299, just $200 less than a MacBook with a comparable screen and the ability to do much more offline. A higher-end Pixel with cellular access costs $150 more than the basic model and is scheduled to start shipping Monday.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/04/03/review_google_laptop_impressive_but_not_for_all/feed/ 0 New Thai campaign ad appeals to transgender voters http://www.salon.com/2013/02/06/tk_5_partner_2/ http://www.salon.com/2013/02/06/tk_5_partner_2/#comments Wed, 06 Feb 2013 16:22:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13192370 Global Post Is there a hidden, transgender voting bloc ripe for a political awakening?

At least one Thai politician seems to think so.

"Our modern world increasingly accepts varied genders... Bangkok must be a city that understands sexual differences, not just accepting different lifestyles ... it must be a friend to every difference."

So goes the latest campaign ad for Pongsapat Pongcharoen, a U.S.-educated police general. Polls suggest he'll soon become Bangkok's next governor.

Slick, minimal and set to a twinkly backbeat, the video showcases a stream of cheerful faces. Many of them belong to "kathoeys," male-to-female transgender Thais more commonly known by a cheaper term: ladyboys.

Is this the dawn of a new trend: courting the transgender vote?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/02/06/tk_5_partner_2/feed/ 0 Immigration, yes. Indentured serfdom, no http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/immigration_yes_indentured_serfdom_no/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/immigration_yes_indentured_serfdom_no/#comments Wed, 30 Jan 2013 00:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13184988 The outlines of a bipartisan plan for immigration reform have been announced by a group of senators. While most of its provisions are reasonable -- a path to citizenship for most illegal immigrants, increased skilled immigration and increased law enforcement -- one provision stinks to high heaven and should be rejected by Americans of left, right and center. That provision is a massive, special-interest-driven expansion of indentured servitude in the United States, in the form of a new “guest-worker program.” (President Obama, while hailing the plan in general on Tuesday, has not weighed in on the specifics of the guest-worker program.)

Indentured servitude or contract labor, like slavery, is a form of unfree labor. Unfortunately, the U.S., having abolished slavery, still has pockets of indentured servant labor. Whether relatively well-paid, like many highly educated H-1B workers, or poorly paid, like many H-2A agricultural workers, indentured servants are, in effect, indentured serfs. Because their presence in the U.S. is dependent on their employment by a particular employer, they cannot quit and are motivated to appease their employer, no matter how brutally they are exploited. If they protest maltreatment, they can be fired and forced to return to their home countries.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/30/immigration_yes_indentured_serfdom_no/feed/ 14 Income inequality in the U.S. rivals that of developing nations http://www.salon.com/2013/01/17/income_inequality_in_the_u_s_rivals_that_of_developing_nations/ http://www.salon.com/2013/01/17/income_inequality_in_the_u_s_rivals_that_of_developing_nations/#comments Thu, 17 Jan 2013 23:10:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13174035 Global Post

The distance from Bridgeport, Connecticut to  Bangkok, Thailand is 8,639 miles. But then, it depends what one means by the word “distance.”As we discovered in the first installment of this GlobalPost Special Report, by some measures there is not much distance at all.

Take the Gini Index, the scale that economists use to measure income equality, with zero equaling perfect equality and 1 representing absolute inequality in which one person owns everything. Thailand, where Bangkok is the bustling capital city of one of Southeast Asia’s fast growing “Tiger economies,” comes in at .536. The Bridgeport area — Fairfield County — is slightly worse at .539. The two places fall very close in their ranking on the Gini Index as highly unequal.

Put more simply, these are cities where you can move, often within minutes, between the wrenching poverty of the dispossessed and the opulence of the super-rich. The physical distance between rich and poor in these places is small. But for the people who live in Bangkok and Bridgeport, traveling from the lower economic rungs to the higher ones is extremely difficult.

That has long been true in the developing world. And in America, which has long lived with the idea of mobility and a belief that all have a shot at the American Dream, it is increasingly difficult, as new economic research reveals.

To explore these issues of global income inequality and its cost, GlobalPost begins today a series of reports by more than 20 reporters, photographers and videographers from every corner of the world. The result of more than six months of reporting and data analysis, the Special Report seeks to match and compare American metropolitan areas with foreign countries that have similar levels of income inequality.

For me, the assignment was to return home to Fairfield Country, Connecticut, where I grew up, and explore how the death of industry in Bridgeport has cost good jobs and how US government tax policy over at least two decades has favored the rich, particularly hedge fund managers in the tony town of Greenwich. The result has been vast income inequality.

On the other side of the world, GlobalPost senior correspondent Patrick Winn explored Bangkok with its similar level of income inequality in the Gini Index. Winn has lived and worked in Bangkok for the last four years, and his reporting for this project takes readers from the city’s infamous slums to its equally infamous glitzy shopping district where the rich search out world-class bargains on Gucci and Prada.

The journey between Bridgeport and Bangkok was captured in a GlobalPost Special Report video segment titled “The Distance Between Rich and Poor.” It was shot by the award-winning photojournalist Ed Kashi who followed Winn and me through the cities we consider our own.

In both of these places, the top 5 percent of the population controls over 60 percent of income. That translates, in Bridgeport’s case, to a median income for that top 5 percent of over $685,000 a year, while the bottom 20 percent, clustered primarily in dismal slums like Bridgeport’s East End, take home about $15,000, US Census bureau figures show.

For those who live on either side of this divide — in either country — there is a profound lack of identification with the other world. A profound distance. “I don’t think of it [Bridgeport] at all,” said Karen Schiff, a well-dressed young woman heading home from Greenwich train station from her job in New York. “I don’t think I’ve ever even met someone from there — maybe I drove through, I don’t know.”

Clara Bing, a Bridgeport native who commutes to affluent Greenwich each day to work at a dry cleaning business, said she is not surprised people feel little responsibility for their poorer neighbors. “As long as we go home at night, I guess, it’s okay. It’s like we’re invisible,” she said.

Vast economic disparity is often associated with developing nations sacrificing social goals in order to emphasize growth and move up in global rankings. In Thailand, the boom years of the 1980s and 1990s saw Thailand’s per capita income — the average annual pay a person takes home — soar from $680 to nearly $5,000, making it an “upper middle income” country in the parlance of global development experts.

Thailand has 47,000 millionaires today, many of them holding the reigns of political power. The concentration of wealth in the hands of a few has touched off a backlash. The so-called “Red Shirt” movement has clashed violently with government forces, contending that the poor are deliberately exploited by a corrupt elite. Its rallies have calmed of late, but outrage over song matratan — i.e. “double standards” — is now a feature of the Thai political debate.

In America, such disparities evoke memories of the so-called “Gilded Age,” the period between the 1880s and 1920s of westward expansion, massive immigration and tycoons like Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan and John D. Rockefeller. The great divide of that age, with its strikebreaking massacres, slum epidemics and child labor, launched the career of Republican Teddy Roosevelt’s progressive reform movement and, after the Great Depression a generation later, his Democratic cousin Franklin Delano’s New Deal.

Income disparity dropped markedly during the years that followed World War II, only to begin widening again about 1968. Until the 2008 financial crisis, the stagnation of middle and lower class incomes in the US were masked by asset bubbles and cheap credit. Only recently, as the housing collapse and banking crisis pulled back the curtains, has income disparity become a topic for polite conversation in US political campaigns.

"We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by,” said President Obama in his 2012 State of the Union address. “Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules."

It’s not always so polite, of course. Two very different political movements, the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street, both sprung up, in part, out of anger over the stagnating prospects of the US middle class. The Tea Party stresses “inequality of opportunity” and believes pro-growth policies and an unbridled free markets will lift all boats. The left sees that as discredited and wants a tax code that reverses the inequality gap.

The focus on growth has come under new pressure from studies showing that America’s vaunted ability to create pathways to success may be flagging. Multiple studies, most recently by the Pew Center for the States, show that those born poor or in the lower middle class in America are far less likely than popularly imagined to “make it.” “Only 4 percent of those raised in the bottom quintile make it all the way to the top as adults, confirming that the ‘rags-to-riches’ story is more often found in Hollywood than in reality,” the report said.

The study found that richer people have a greater chance of moving up in American society, but that the vast majority will remain in the same income category. With studies challenging such a central component of the American Dream as social mobility, experts say, it should not be surprising that people are angry.

“Workers’ share of the pie is falling with inequality reaching levels similar to 100 years ago,” said Harvard economist Kenneth Rogoff, co-author of what many believe to be the definitive book on the 2008 crisis. “The status quo has to be vulnerable.”

 

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2013/01/17/income_inequality_in_the_u_s_rivals_that_of_developing_nations/feed/ 10 Weird news: Elephant dung coffee fetches $50 a cup http://www.salon.com/2012/12/07/weird_news_elephant_dung_coffee_fetches_50_a_cup/ http://www.salon.com/2012/12/07/weird_news_elephant_dung_coffee_fetches_50_a_cup/#comments Fri, 07 Dec 2012 22:57:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13118837 GOLDEN TRIANGLE, Thailand (AP) -- In the lush hills of northern Thailand, a herd of 20 elephants is excreting some of the world's most expensive coffee.

Trumpeted as earthy in flavor and smooth on the palate, the exotic new brew is made from beans eaten by Thai elephants and plucked a day later from their dung. A gut reaction inside the elephant creates what its founder calls the coffee's unique taste.

Stomach turning or oddly alluring, this is not just one of the world's most unusual specialty coffees. At $1,100 per kilogram ($500 per pound), it's also among the world's priciest.

For now, only the wealthy or well-traveled have access to the cuppa, which is called Black Ivory Coffee. It was launched last month at a few luxury hotels in remote corners of the world -- first in northern Thailand, then the Maldives and now Abu Dhabi - with the price tag of about $50 a serving.

The Associated Press traveled to the coffee's production site in the Golden Triangle, an area historically known for producing drugs more potent than coffee, to see the jumbo baristas at work. And to sip the finished product from a dainty demitasse.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/07/weird_news_elephant_dung_coffee_fetches_50_a_cup/feed/ 3 Does turkey really make you sleepy? http://www.salon.com/2012/11/22/does_turkey_really_make_you_sleepy/ http://www.salon.com/2012/11/22/does_turkey_really_make_you_sleepy/#comments Thu, 22 Nov 2012 18:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13105471 Scientific American After Thanksgiving dinner, many people start to feel a little drowsy. Turkey typically gets the blame. It supposedly contains high levels of tryptophan, an amino acid that is sold in a purified form to help people fall asleep.

But turkey contains about the same amount of tryptophan as chicken, beef and other meats.

If Thanksgiving drowsiness is not about the main course, what is responsible? It may have more to do with the side dishes.

To understand, we first need to digest a little food chemistry.

To start, we get tryptophan and other essential amino acids from all the protein in our diet, not just from meat. These amino acids swim through the bloodstream, nourishing our cells.

Brain cells convert tryptophan into a chemical called serotonin. This neurotransmitter helps regulate sleep and appetite and high levels of serotonin are associated with calm and relaxation.

But tryptophan and other amino acids can’t access brain cells on their own—instead, teams of proteins transport amino acids across the blood-brain barrier.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/11/22/does_turkey_really_make_you_sleepy/feed/ 5 Are expats America’s laziest voters? http://www.salon.com/2012/10/09/are_expats_americas_laziest_voters/ http://www.salon.com/2012/10/09/are_expats_americas_laziest_voters/#comments Tue, 09 Oct 2012 16:28:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=13034699 Global Post BANGKOK, Thailand — There is no variety of American voter quite so unreliable as expatriates. They vote far less frequently than even teenagers and high-school dropouts. When it comes to campaign contributions, they donate less than 1 percent of the total haul.

Compounding their low turnout rate — a scant 7 percent in the 2008 U.S. presidential race, according to the non-partisan Overseas Vote Foundation — is the mystery surrounding their voting habits. Do most Americans living abroad skew towards Democrats or Republicans? No one knows for sure. In U.S. politics, a field dissected at the molecular level by highly paid strategists, the data is conspicuously absent.

“Across all expatriates, how many get the ballot and how many mail it back in, yes, that number might surprise some people as being insufficient,” said Ross Feingold, 38, the Hong Kong–based Asia chair of Republicans Abroad. “But we do have people who go to extraordinary efforts to their ballot in.”

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/10/09/are_expats_americas_laziest_voters/feed/ 15 World’s best places to get high http://www.salon.com/2012/08/13/worlds_best_drug_laws_salpart/ http://www.salon.com/2012/08/13/worlds_best_drug_laws_salpart/#comments Mon, 13 Aug 2012 03:00:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12978271 What are the best countries to call home if you take drugs? It’s a simple question on the surface, but one fraught with complexities. For many people, the best country in the world might be one that has successfully managed to prevent drugs from being available to its citizens. But since such a place doesn't exist, and never will — not even within the walls of a prison — this list considers the question from the perspective of harm reduction.
the fix
Penalizing drug users for their habits does little to curb levels of use or improve the lot of addicts; the mushrooming HIV crisis in punitive Russia is a perfect example. So where are people who use drugs least likely to end up in harsh criminal justice systems? Where can users access their drugs of choice without having to take risks in dangerous environments? And where can they get on with their lives without stigma, secrecy and shame — whether or not they ultimately decide to get clean?

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/08/13/worlds_best_drug_laws_salpart/feed/ 5 Did slaves catch your seafood? http://www.salon.com/2012/05/21/did_slaves_catch_your_seafood/ http://www.salon.com/2012/05/21/did_slaves_catch_your_seafood/#comments Mon, 21 May 2012 14:26:00 +0000 http://www.origin.railrode.net/?p=12923799 PREY VENG, Cambodia, and SAMUT SAKHON, Thailand — In the sun-baked flatlands of Cambodia, where dust stings the eyes and chokes the pores, there is a tiny clapboard house on cement stilts. It is home to three generations of runaway slaves.

Global PostThe man of the house, Sokha, recently returned after nearly two years in captivity. His home is just as he left it: barren with a few dirty pillows passing for furniture. Slivers of daylight glow through cracks in the walls. The family’s most valuable possession, a sow, waddles and snorts beneath the elevated floorboards.

Before his December escape, Sokha (a pseudonym) was the property of a deep-sea trawler captain. The 39-year-old Cambodian, his teenage son and two young nephews were purchased for roughly $650, he said, each through brokers promising under-the-table jobs in a fish cannery.

There was no cannery. They were instead smuggled to a pier in neighboring Thailand, where they were shoved aboard a wooden vessel that motored into a lawless sea. His uncle had fallen for the same scam five years prior and escaped to warn the others. But Sokha told his son, then just 16, that this venture would turn out differently. He was wrong.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2012/05/21/did_slaves_catch_your_seafood/feed/ 5 Terrorism at a Thai brothel http://www.salon.com/2011/09/23/terrorism_thailand_brothels/ http://www.salon.com/2011/09/23/terrorism_thailand_brothels/#comments Fri, 23 Sep 2011 13:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2011/09/23/terrorism_thailand_brothels BANGKOK, Thailand -- There are no battlefield guarantees in Asia's bloodiest Islamic insurgency, a jihad in Thailand's tropical south that has ended nearly 5,000 lives.

But there are a few rules of thumb. In their self-proclaimed "holy war" to carve out the world's newest Muslim state on the Thai-Malaysia border, jihadis consider soldiers, cops, Buddhist monks, government teachers and their Muslim collaborators as fair game. Backpackers partying just a short distance up the coast are left alone.

But less mercy is offered to a different sort of tourist: Malaysian men, many fellow Muslims, border-hopping into insurgents' turf for paid sex. Now, after a bloody Sunday night bombing spree in their favored brothel town, Malaysia's government is warning its men to stay away.

Shortly after sunset on Sept. 18, in the gritty Thai border town of Su-Ngai Golok, a series of explosions erupted on a busy lane lined with hotels, food stalls and karaoke joints.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/09/23/terrorism_thailand_brothels/feed/ 4 Turistas, go home: Americans in trouble abroad http://www.salon.com/2011/05/26/americans_abroad_in_trouble_slide_show/ http://www.salon.com/2011/05/26/americans_abroad_in_trouble_slide_show/#comments Thu, 26 May 2011 12:01:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/feature/2011/05/26/americans_abroad_in_trouble_slide_show "The Hangover Part II" premieres this weekend, promising wild and raunchy adventures as Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis, Ed Helms and that other guy once again face the consequences from a crazy night they can't remember. "The Hangover" sequel features a couple of characteristics that distinguish it from the original: There is a monkey instead of a baby, Stu has a face tattoo instead of a missing tooth, and Bradley Cooper's hair is more tussled.

More important: This time the guys wake up in Bangkok the day before Stu's wedding, a location that is presented as some sort of wacky alternative to their previous Las Vegas excursion. If these guys had watched any movie about Americans partying too hard in foreign countries, they'd know that Thailand is literally the worst place in the world to do this.

With that in mind, we created a list of films featuring stupid American tourists getting into hot water abroad. We can only hope one of these guys has seen "Brokedown Palace"; otherwise "The Hangover II" may take a much darker turn than its predecessor.

Of course, we didn't have space for every movie, so leave your favorite American-in-a-foreign-country thriller in the comments.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/05/26/americans_abroad_in_trouble_slide_show/feed/ 22 Why don’t Cannes films win Oscars? http://www.salon.com/2011/03/02/king_vs_boonmee/ http://www.salon.com/2011/03/02/king_vs_boonmee/#comments Wed, 02 Mar 2011 02:02:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/andrew_ohehir/2011/03/01/king_vs_boonmee What does feel-good Oscar winner "The King's Speech" have in common with a movie from Thailand called "Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives," which opens this week in New York and Los Angeles? I could make stuff up -- they both fit the definition of a narrative feature film, they're about the same length, and the writers of both films were educated at American universities -- but we're not getting any six degrees of Kevin Bacon here. While it's true that both movies feature members of the royal family, in only one of them do we witness a princess copulating with a catfish. ("The King's Speech" is a pretty good movie and all, but just a bit lacking on the aquatic bestiality front.)

Seriously, the real answer is almost nothing. Except that these two films are the most recent winners of the two most prestigious awards in international cinema -- the only ones that teenagers with movie cameras from Borneo to Omaha bother to fantasize about -- and the distance between them offers us a portrait of the diversity, and perhaps the schizophrenia, of global movie culture.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2011/03/02/king_vs_boonmee/feed/ 17 At least 15,000 Myanmar refugees enter Thailand http://www.salon.com/2010/11/08/as_myanmar_election_3/ http://www.salon.com/2010/11/08/as_myanmar_election_3/#comments Mon, 08 Nov 2010 19:05:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/11/08/as_myanmar_election_3 Mothers carrying babies and grown men hoisting elders on their backs fled Myanmar with 15,000 countrymen Monday as ethnic rebels clashed with government troops a day after an election widely considered a sham to cement military power.

Fighting raged at key points on the Thai border, wounding at least 10 people on both sides of the frontier as stray shots fell into Thai territory.

The clashes underlined Myanmar's vulnerability to unrest even as it passes through a key stage of the ruling junta's self-proclaimed "road map to democracy." The country has been ruled by the military near-continuously since 1962, and rebellions by its ethnic minorities predate its independence from Britain in 1948.

In the heaviest clashes, Karen rebels reportedly seized a police station and post office Sunday in the Myanmar border town of Myawaddy. Sporadic gun and mortar fire continued into Monday afternoon. More fighting broke out further south for one hour Monday at the Three Pagodas Pass, said local Thai official Chamras Jungnoi, but there was no word on any casualties.

Thai officials said late Monday that fighting had quieted and government troops had regained control of Myawaddy.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/11/08/as_myanmar_election_3/feed/ 1 10,000 flee possible civil war in Myanmar http://www.salon.com/2010/11/08/as_myanmar_election_2/ http://www.salon.com/2010/11/08/as_myanmar_election_2/#comments Mon, 08 Nov 2010 14:05:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/11/08/as_myanmar_election_2 Fighting between ethnic rebels and Myanmar government troops has sent at least 10,000 refugees fleeing into Thailand after a widely criticized election expected to usher in a parliament sympathetic to the military regime.

Fighting raged Monday at key points on the frontier with Thailand, leaving at least 10 people wounded on both sides of the frontier.

In the heaviest clashes, Karen rebels reportedly seized a police station and post office Sunday in the Myanmar border town of Myawaddy. Sporadic gun and mortar fire continued into Monday afternoon. More fighting broke out further south for one hour Monday at the Three Pagodas Pass, said local Thai official Chamras Jungnoi, but there was no word on any casualties.

Groups from Myanmar's ethnic minorities who make up some 40 percent of the population had warned in recent days that civil war could erupt if the military tries to impose its highly centralized constitution and deprive them of rights.

"There have been at least 10,000 refugees who have fled to Thailand," said Col. Wannatip Wongwai, commander of Thailand's Third Army Region responsible for security in the area. He said Myanmar government troops appeared to have retaken control of Myawaddy, and the rebels of the Democratic Karen Buddhist Army held just a few positions on the outskirts of the town.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/11/08/as_myanmar_election_2/feed/ 1 Home? Or further into mystery? http://www.salon.com/2010/08/26/which_direction/ http://www.salon.com/2010/08/26/which_direction/#comments Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:20:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/life/since_you_asked//2010/08/25/which_direction Dear Cary,

My question, in short, is this: If you could do anything, or go anywhere, what would you do?

I'm in this position, but it's not all great. What's that saying? "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose."

I'm almost 30. I spent much of my 20s in depression, and then I worked my butt off for some time in therapy, and I feel I'm on top of it. I'm not depressed anymore. That's a nice feeling. But because of how much energy and focus that took, I haven't spent my 20s doing much else. No career to speak of, just a list of temp jobs and weird detours that I would stay in long enough to get OK enough at, before leaving.

Last year, I decided to finally go overseas, something I've wanted to do since I was in my early 20s, but which my depression defeated me on every year until my 28th. Not only that, but it seemed that every time I was about to take the leap, a relationship or a financial or family situation would leap up and stop me. But I was determined this time: I was going.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/08/26/which_direction/feed/ 34 Best of Cannes: “Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives” http://www.salon.com/2010/05/22/uncle_bonghit/ http://www.salon.com/2010/05/22/uncle_bonghit/#comments Sat, 22 May 2010 20:45:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2010/05/22/uncle_bonghit CANNES, France -- Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul (out of pity, he lets Western journalists call him Joe) is definitely an acquired taste, but quite a few film critics seem to have acquired it. Apichatpong doesn't exactly tell stories, although he isn't a purely non-narrative filmmaker either. He takes fragments of stories and sets them adrift on his own stream of luscious images, and like a kid releasing boats made of leaves and twigs, he's not overly concerned about where they end up. His previous works, including "Syndromes and a Century" and "Tropical Malady," blend a bunch of seemingly incompatible ingredients: European-style love stories, Thai ghost stories and folktales, Theravada Buddhism, art-school experimentalism (he attended the School of the Art Institute of Chicago), the flat and artless affect of 1970s Asian TV.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/05/22/uncle_bonghit/feed/ 5 Bangkok in flames after army storms protest camp http://www.salon.com/2010/05/19/as_thailand_politics_7/ http://www.salon.com/2010/05/19/as_thailand_politics_7/#comments Wed, 19 May 2010 21:36:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/05/19/as_thailand_politics_7 Buildings blazed across central Bangkok early Thursday, torched by rioters after army troops routed anti-government protesters to end a two-month siege -- Thailand's deadliest political violence in nearly 20 years.

The government quelled most of the violence in Bangkok but not the underlying political divisions that caused it, and unrest spread to northern parts of Thailand.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva imposed a nighttime curfew in the capital and 23 other provinces and said his government would restore calm. Although leaders of the Red Shirt demonstrators surrendered, sporadic clashes between troops and remaining protesters continued well after dark.

Bangkok's skyline was blotted by black smoke from more than two dozen buildings set ablaze -- including Thailand's stock exchange, main power company, banks, a movie theater and one of Asia's largest shopping malls.

At least six people were killed in clashes that followed the army's storming of the protest camp Wednesday. Witnesses said another six to eight bodies were in a temple where hundreds of demonstrators, including women and children, had sought sanctuary.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/05/19/as_thailand_politics_7/feed/ 5 Curfew comes into force in Bangkok http://www.salon.com/2010/05/19/as_thailand_politics_6/ http://www.salon.com/2010/05/19/as_thailand_politics_6/#comments Wed, 19 May 2010 13:17:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/05/19/as_thailand_politics_6 A night curfew has come into force in Bangkok, the first declared in the Thai capital since 1992.

The 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew was enforced Wednesday following an army assault on the anti-government protesters.

At least six people have been killed and nearly 60 injured in clashes.

The last such curfew was declared in 1992, when the army killed dozens of pro-democracy demonstrators seeking the ouster of a military-backed government.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

BANGKOK (AP) -- Downtown Bangkok became a flaming battleground Wednesday as an army assault forced anti-government protest leaders to surrender, enraging followers who shot grenades and set fire to landmark buildings, cloaking the skyline in black smoke.

Using live ammunition, troops dispersed thousands of Red Shirt protesters who had been camped in the capital's premier shopping and residential district for weeks. Five protesters and an Italian news photographer were killed in the ensuing gunbattles and about 60 wounded.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/05/19/as_thailand_politics_6/feed/ 2 Thai protesters take on army with crude weapons http://www.salon.com/2010/05/18/as_thailand_sticks_and_stones/ http://www.salon.com/2010/05/18/as_thailand_sticks_and_stones/#comments Tue, 18 May 2010 19:15:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/05/18/as_thailand_sticks_and_stones Red Shirt protester Sakhorn Iamsri strides the front line with a slingshot hanging from his jeans pocket.

If the walnut-sized stones he shoots fail to hurt the Thai soldiers gathered behind sandbag bunkers, Sakhorn and his comrades have an arsenal to fall back on: firecrackers shot from metal pipes, Red Bull bottles brimming with glass shards, Molotov cocktails, burning tires and other weapons fashioned with ingenuity and scrap.

If it sounds like a David and Goliath fight, in most cases it is.

A ragtag army of Red Shirt anti-government protesters has spread out in central Bangkok, shouting obscenities at troops and attacking them with rudimentary weapons. Often, it seems that some of the demonstrators treated the fighting like a game of paintball. But for many, the price for losing was death.

Troops -- including sharpshooters positioned on high buildings -- have used live ammunition, rubber bullets and tear gas. Since the violence flared on May 14, 38 protesters were killed by gunfire and 313 wounded in violence that turned parts of Bangkok, a city known for its crime-free nightlife, into deserted wastelands. One soldier from the government side has died.

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]]> http://www.salon.com/2010/05/18/as_thailand_sticks_and_stones/feed/ 3 Thai troops fire at rioting protesters in capital http://www.salon.com/2010/05/14/as_thailand_politics_4/ http://www.salon.com/2010/05/14/as_thailand_politics_4/#comments Fri, 14 May 2010 14:54:00 +0000 http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2010/05/14/as_thailand_politics_4 Thai troops fired bullets at anti-government protesters and explosions thundered in the heart of Bangkok on Friday as an army push to clear the streets and end a two-month political standoff sparked clashes that have killed five and wounded 81.

As night fell, booming explosions and the sound of gunfire rattled around major intersections in the central business district. Local TV reported that several grenades hit a shopping center and elevated-rail station. Plumes of black smoke hung over the neighborhood as tires burned in eerily empty streets while onlookers ducked for cover.

Among those wounded were two Thai journalists and a Canadian reporter, who was in a serious condition.

With security deteriorating and hopes of a peaceful resolution to the standoff increasingly unlikely, what was once one of Southeast Asia's most stable democracies and magnets of foreign investment has been thrust deep into political uncertainty. The crisis threatens its stability, economy and already-decimated tourism industry.

Violence escalated after a rogue army general regarded as a military adviser to the Red Shirt protesters was shot in the head Thursday evening, possibly by a sniper. A doctor said Maj. Gen. Khattiya Sawasdiphol was still in a coma Friday and he could "die at any moment."

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