Thailand

Marion Gunn Jenkins, a retired teacher who worked for the Office of War Information in Washington and China during World War II, died of heart disease Saturday at Roland Park Place. The Guilford resident was 85. During the war, Mrs. Jenkins also served as the charge d'affaires at a U.S. consulate in China. After the communist regime forced her to leave China, she and her husband, Cyrus Felix Jenkins, an American oil company executive, relocated to Thailand, where she taught Latin and Asian history at the International School of Bangkok for 15 years.

LAMPANG, Thailand -- Not so long ago, Motala eked out the hardscrabble, unassuming life that hundreds of other elephants here do -- haul logs, forage for food, go to sleep, wake up and do it all over again.Nowadays, her name elicits from any Thai a solemn nod. That's what a land mine, two surgeries and the media horde will do.People here know Motala as the beast that lost one foot, and her innocence, with one misstep in the jungle. Soon, they may know her as the symbol for Thailand's effort to cleanse its soil of land mines.

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.

Veera Satarak left a job building golf courses in his native Thailand a little more than a year ago to give his 15-year-old daughter, Walailak, more of an opportunity in the United States. The Sataraks were not necessarily seeking a better lifestyle or improved education. They were looking for more chances for their daughter to play competitive golf.The elder Satarak and his wife each work separate 40-hour shifts as cooks at an Asian restaurant near their new home in Paramount, Calif., to help support Walailak's dream of becoming a professional golfer.

A headline in yesterday's editions incorrectly characterized the results of an AIDS drug trial in Thailand. The trial was completed, not cut short.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 2/20/98

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Aboard a wooden rice barge chugging up Bangkok's Chao Praya River, Alex Melamid, a New York-based Russian artist, solemnly informs the assembled guests that modern painting has reached an impasse.Art has nothing left to say, he says, and so: "We must now employ other species to do our work." He sketches out plans for an art school for elephants and concludes, "I would like to see elephant art everywhere."Next, an earnest young New Yorker billed as a specialist on "inter-species art" lauds the use by elephants' of "tertiary color somewhat like Gauguin" and their "complex use of negative space."

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.

WITHOUT the International Monetary Fund, the Asian financial crisis would go deeper and spread further. It is impossible to be totally secure that it will not provoke recession here. But thanks to IMF rescue operations totaling more than $100 billion in Thailand, Indonesia, South Korea and the Philippines, these countries are reforming financial markets and opening up to the world. And at least in Thailand, the corner appears to have been turned.Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan and others have been crisscrossing Capitol Hill to sell the administration request for an $18 billion supplemental appropriation for the IMF this budget year.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The search for American country-western music in the Orient begins on Cowboy Alley, a neon strip of girlie bars saturated with Old West cliches. The names say it all. Lucky Star, Apache, Long Gun, Country Roads I and II. Inside, longhorn skulls, branding irons, saddles, lassos and stirrups adorn the walls.The petite Thai "waitresses" are like Dolly Parton without the bust or rhinestones or Southern accent. They sweat stoically in the tropical heat, parading around in knee-length boots, frilly skirts, embroidered shirts and bolo ties.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- When Thailand's government fell in November and haggling politicians could not decide on a new prime minister, the palace's royal doctor prescribed some medicine that jarred Thais even worse than the country's collapsing economy.King Bhumibol Adulyadej was in the hospital, worried sick by the bickering in a moment of national crisis, the doctor said.The canard worked. Within hours, the politicians had closed in on a deal, and the king miraculously had recovered.It would be difficult to imagine such an antidote working in Britain or other countries where monarchies are under siege.

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.

On April 14, 2008, DANIEL L. JACKSON; died suddenly in Phuket, Thailand, where he lived the last six years. Mr. Jackson wasraised in Baltimore. Beloved son of Mae L. Jackson; loving husband of Kesorn Jackson and father of Nikki Jackson. Services were held in Phuket, Thailand on April 18.

Documenting a subculture rarely seen by Westerners, local photographer Betty Rosen has returned from her recent trip to Thailand with more than 100 striking portraits of transgendered exotic dancers. Rosen's empathy and compassion for her subjects whom she met at a nightclub in the southeastern city of Phuket is clear in the large-scale ink-jet photographs on view at C. Grimaldis Gallery. But as a spectator, Rosenberg did not participate in the way of life her pictures describe. Consequently, they do not have quite the moral authority of, say, Nan Goldin's impassioned visual diaries of New York's East Village scene during the 1970s, or Larry Clark's spaced-out narratives of dysfunctional Midwestern youth.

Are there any countries where the dollar is doing well and travel is still a good value? Despite the dollar's loss in value, especially against the euro and the British pound, there are a few places where our currency still has muscle. Experts at hot wire.com and orbitz.com agree on these two destinations, where exchange rates are favorable and prices are low: Thailand and Argentina. Barbara Messing, Hotwire's travel expert, says you can still get a $12 steak dinner and an $8 bottle of wine in Buenos Aires, Argentina, a cosmopolitan city that often reminds visitors of Paris - there are long boulevards, scenic parks and great shopping.

While many of his friends were attending classes this year at Clarksville Middle School, Kevin McDuffie was roaming an elephant sanctuary in the mountains of Thailand. The 13-year-old's adventures were documented on the Nickelodeon television show Nick News Adventure: If I Could Talk To The Elephants, which aired July 22. Kevin, who lives in Clarksville, joined five other youngsters and veteran broadcast journalist Linda Ellerbee for a week in the sanctuary, where the youths learned to feed, bathe, ride, clean up after and, most important, to communicate with the animals.

By defiantly licensing generic versions of patented medicines, Thailand late last year and Brazil a few weeks ago have severely tested global health policy and the global trade system itself. A functional system would strike a judicious balance between the interests of drug companies, whose patents compensate them for the large investments required to develop lifesaving medicines, and the imperative to make them available to the world's poor. Instead, today we have a dysfunctional battle between pharmaceutical giants and governments of developing countries, each side claiming to champion the world's health needs and accusing the other of exploitation.

Imagine that you are an inventor and the government steals your highly lucrative idea. The next day, you are informed that the government plans to mass-produce your invention and give it away for free. If you're lucky, they'll give you a pittance for your efforts. This is what happens, with increasing regularity, to the manufacturers of lifesaving medicines. The most recent example occurred in Thailand when the military-appointed government issued "compulsory licenses" to obtain two drugs.

Marion Gunn Jenkins, a retired teacher who worked for the Office of War Information in Washington and China during World War II, died of heart disease Saturday at Roland Park Place. The Guilford resident was 85. During the war, Mrs. Jenkins also served as the charge d'affaires at a U.S. consulate in China. After the communist regime forced her to leave China, she and her husband, Cyrus Felix Jenkins, an American oil company executive, relocated to Thailand, where she taught Latin and Asian history at the International School of Bangkok for 15 years.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- In the end, the military coup that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was fitting for this largely Buddhist nation. Not a shot was fired. As government overthrows go, this one was about as nonviolent as a country can get. Yesterday, women offered roses to many of the hundreds of young soldiers who patrolled the streets in their green khaki uniforms. Outside Government House, the official residence of the deposed Thaksin, curious onlookers gathered at the gates to take pictures with cell phones and digital cameras.

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Thai military forces launched a coup against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra late yesterday, declaring martial law nationwide and seizing control of television stations as tanks and armed soldiers surrounded the prime minister's residence. Retired Lt. Gen. Prapart Sakuntanak, a spokesman for coup organizers, addressed a stunned nation on television, explaining that the revolt was necessary because Thaksin's government had divided the country and corruption was rampant.