Word: junta
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...First Lady Laura Bush rarely speaks out strongly on foreign affairs. One exception: Burma. She has been a consistent critic of the military junta and a supporter of jailed opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. In May, she worked with 16 women Senators to draft and sign a letter to U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, calling for the U.N. to pressure the Burmese regime to release Suu Kyi. The following month, Mrs. Bush wrote an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, lamenting the fact that Suu Kyi was spending her 62nd birthday while under house arrest...
...cracking down on peaceful demonstrators, and coolly ignoring any international criticism that might follow. Both skills have been on full display in recent weeks, as anger over high fuel prices drove a few courageous people onto the streets, only to be met with the expected heavy hand. If the junta has one bedrock policy, it's to prevent any repetition of the 1988 uprising that came so close to overthrowing decades of army rule. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer once remarked sagely that progress in Burma is like glue flowing up a hill. Yet it's important to understand that...
...Then there's the economy, one of the poorest in the world. After 30 years of self-imposed isolation and ruinous quasi-socialist policies, the junta reversed course in the early 1990s, privatizing businesses, welcoming foreign trade and investment, and seeking international aid. But the West began to impose debilitating sanctions, and the threat of boycotts kept most international companies away. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were prevented from helping. Around the same time the Burmese discovered a treasure trove of natural gas, worth hundreds of billions of dollars, sitting offshore. The net result? A Burmese regime...
...taken an ironic twist for the now 43-year-old politician. The upcoming polls are the handiwork of the very military whose overthrow spurred Abhisit's political passions more than three decades ago. After deposing Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a bloodless army coup last September, Thailand's ruling junta promised to restore democracy by the end of this year. Now that the new constitution overseen by the generals has won a 58% approval rating in a referendum on Aug. 19, the junta appears committed to carrying out its pledge to hold elections by year's end. But Thaksin...
...Complicating matters is Thailand's perennial wild card: the military. Shortly after seizing power, coup leader General Sonthi Boonyaratglin reiterated that he had no interest in remaining in politics after elections were held. Earlier this summer, however, a junta aide hinted that perhaps Sonthi might throw his hat in the ring. The general hasn't committed so far. Still, after casting his yes vote in the constitutional referendum in the province of Lop Buri, Sonthi did let slip that if he were to run, this military stronghold where he was once posted as major-general would be the place...