NEWS
By Paul Watson and Charles McDermid | November 27, 2008
BANGKOK, Thailand - Thai authorities shut down Bangkok's second airport today after it was overrun by anti-government protesters, completely cutting off the capital from air traffic as the prime minister rejected their demands to resign, deepening the country's crisis. Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat says his government will keep functioning despite demands by the army chief and demonstrators that he call new elections to resolve the political crisis. "I reassure the people that this government, which is legitimate and came from elections, will keep functioning until the end," Somchai said in a nationally televised speech yesterday.
NEWS
By New York Times News Service | January 1, 2007
BANGKOK, Thailand --At least six small bombs exploded around Bangkok yesterday, killing two people and wounding more than 20 in a city that remains under martial law after a coup three months ago. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks. Two more bombs went off moments later near a downtown mall, wounding eight people, including six foreigners, police said. New Year's celebrations were officially canceled in Bangkok and the northern city of Chiang Mai. But when midnight struck, cheers went up in Bangkok and the sky was filled with fireworks.
NEWS
August 20, 2006
"I am so very sorry for what happened to JonBenet. . . . Her death was an accident." John Mark Carr Carr told reporters in Bangkok, Thailand, where he was arrested last week, that he was with JonBenet Ramsey when she died in December 1996. But the district attorney in Boulder, Colo., where the 6-year-old girl was killed, warned the public not to "jump to conclusions" in the case.
NEWS
By Glenn McNatt | January 28, 2003
Michael Lang grew up in the 1950s fascinated by the cool guys with slicked-back hair and cigarettes dangling from their lips who hung out at Benny Kitt's pool hall in West Baltimore. Lang wasn't one of them, but as a teen-ager he found a way into their world through his camera - an old Leica with a fast lens that allowed him to take moody, atmospheric, film noir-like photographs of the characters he encountered in Benny's dark, smoky interior. The photographs went into a box and stayed there until 1995, when Lang, by then a research scientist at the National Institutes of Health, looked at them again and realized he had unwittingly captured a pungent and historically important slice of Baltimore's storied past.
NEWS
By Ellen Goodman | January 20, 2003
BOSTON - There was a moment last month when the Bush administration overturned Roe vs. Wade. You may not have noticed because it happened in Bangkok - out of sight, out of media mind. Our government went there to try to deep-six a U.N. agreement on family planning. After one of our delegates promoted abstinence-only education, after another warned of the risks of condoms, after a third shared her personal success story using the rhythm method, Assistant Secretary of State Gene Dewey took the podium.
NEWS
By Joshua Kurlantzick | April 21, 2000
BANGKOK -- A Thai king pondered building it in the 17th century. A European power began construction and then abandoned it in the 1800s. Politicians debated its merits throughout the 20th century. For more than 300 years, monarchs, dictators and engineers have considered digging a canal across southern Thailand to link the South China Sea with the Indian Ocean. Such a project would drastically reshape maritime trade -- and deter piracy. The scheme has moved closer to implementation with the release of a $4 million multiyear study by a Tokyo-based foundation.
NEWS
By Rosalie Falter | February 13, 2000
THINGS ARE the same in Bangkok, Thailand, as they are back home, yet very different, I thought as I looked down from the porch of an apartment there every morning for the past month during vacation. Below I could see children going off to school dressed in uniforms of navy skirt and slacks, sun-bleached white shirts and blouses. Off to the side, an electric "sky train" quietly shuttled men and women to their jobs. Barking dogs, the buzzing sound of motorcycles and the honking of cars punctuated the air. Some houses had television antennas on the roofs, and there were partially constructed buildings waiting to be completed.
NEWS
By Justin Pritchard | January 3, 2000
BANGKOK, Thailand -- On the wrong street at the wrong time of day, the air here is an intoxicating elixir of exhaust and soot suspended in tropical torpor. And then there are the really bad blocks. Like Ploenchit Road, near the intersection where Mater Dei School sits cater-corner to the Central department store. During rush hour, Thais who scurry through this stretch press white cloths to their mouths in a gasping effort to filter the caustic swirl. Tourists eye the block as if entering an alley where surely something foul lurks.
NEWS
By NEW YORK TIMES NEWS SERVICE | December 6, 1999
BANGKOK, Thailand -- It's clean, it's fast, it's punctual, and it offers a breathtaking view of some of the world's most spectacular traffic jams.It is the long-delayed Skytrain, a 16-mile, $1.7 billion elevated rail system that opened for business yesterday, snaking above a city that -- like so many others in Asia -- is strangling on its own traffic.Called "the train that floats in the air" in Thai, it is a small start to the city's 180-mile mass transit master plan.The privately financed rail system is Bangkok's most ambitious attempt to deal with the near gridlock that is sometimes described as its defining landmark.
NEWS
By Peter Eng | August 29, 1998
CHIANG MAI, Thailand -- At the five main gates of Chiang Mai's old city, people gathered recently for an ancient ceremony called Inthakin. Buddhist monks in saffron robes chanted as people offered flowers, incense and candles to ask for rain and bountiful crops.But the raucous traffic jams around the gates muffled the chants, and the fumes from cars and motorbikes overpowered the sweet smell of incense.Chiang Mai, former capital of the Lanna Thai Kingdom, celebrated its 702nd birthday this year.