Geographical Setting, Thai Politics and Historical Background 1. Geographical Setting The Royal Kingdom of Thailand, previously known as Siam, is a key country on the mainland of Southeast Asia. It is estimated that it has an area of approximately 200,000 square miles, which makes it about the size of Texas. Thailand shares boundaries with Burma on the west and north, Laos on the east and Malaysia on the south. The Gulf of Thailand lies to the south. Thailand is divided into four major geographic regions: the Central, North, South and Northeast. The main feature of the Northeast region, which we are chiefly concerned with here, is a large plateau which rises about 1,000 feet above the Central plains. It covers about one third of the country. Droughts in the dry season and floods in the wet season cause poverty in this region. Irrigation and flood control projects on the Mekong River may help to bring a better agricultural life to the region. Thai society is mostly rural in nature. The resources come largely from the valleys and plains of the North, Northeast, South and Central regions. The religion of Thailand is Buddhism of the Theravad branch. More than ninety percent of the people are Buddhist. Religious freedom, however, exists in the country. 2. Thai Politics and Historical Background Thai history began when certain people began to migrate southward from southern China between the seventh and thirteenth centuries. At that time, Southern China was still occupied by the Mongols under Kublai Khan's rule. In the thirteenth century Thailand developed a kingdom, the capital of which was at Sukothai in the north. Around the middle of the fourteenth century, the capital was moved to Ayuthaya on the right bank of the Chao Phraya River, not far from Bangkok. For the first time Thai had some contacts with the Western countries; first with Portugal, then France, and also with other Southeast Asian countries. Ayuthaya existed until the end of the eighteenth century. In 1768, Burmese troops from the west completely destroyed Ayuthaya. Later, General Phraya Taksin was able to reorganize the Thai troops and push the Burmese out of the country. He established a new capital on the right bank of the Chao Phraya River, a few miles north of the Gulf of Siam. In 1782, the new Chakkri dynasty was founded by King Rama I. He moved the capital across the river to its present location at Bangkok. Thai relations with both neighbors and western countries became increasingly fruitful. However, when Indochina was overrun by the French and Burma was occupied by the British in the late nineteenth century, Thailand faced the threat of coming under the domination of these European powers. But Thailand was able to thwart these European pressures through a number of steps. One of these involved the modernization of the kingdom. This modernization effort began with the reign of King Mongkut in 1851. King Mongkut (King Rama IV) concentrated on the modernization and westernization of the nation. He and his successors (King Chulalongkorn, Rama V, and King Wachirawood, Rama VI) saw the challenge facing Thailand. Under King Rama IV (1851-1868), Thailand began adjusting itself to the world as governed by the Western powers. Thailand managed to avoid becoming a colony of the West by modernizing its education, by making trade agreements with the West, and by playing France off against Great Britain. This trend was continued by King Rama V, or King Chulalongkorn (1866-1910), who was responsible for introducing the liberal spirit of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. When he began his regime, Thailand was a typical Southeastern Asian country with a heavy-handed bureaucracy and many feudal patterns. At his death, Thailand was a financially secure state with a developing communications system and the beginning of an effective army and administration. His greatest contribution was to abolish slavery in Thailand. Under King Rama VI (1910-1925), the Thai were introduced to more of the social customs of the West. The intelligentsia developed a sense of nationalism under his leadership. Also, codification of the laws was begun during his regime. Thailand took the side of the Allies during the First World War and sent expeditionary forces and a small flying corps to France. As a result, Thailand has a position from which to negotiate during the Versailles Conference. With that as a basis, by 1925 Thailand had signed new treaties with all the powers that were involved. The treaties set a date for the termination of all legal and fiscal limitations which the European powers had sought to impose on Thailand. 3. Present Thai Government and Politics King Prachathipok (King Rama VII), King Rama VI's successor and brother, was not as forceful or strong-willed as his older brother. Policy during his regime was almost entirely determined by the group of the princes advising the monarch. It has been said that he wanted to give his country a constitution, but his advisors prevented him from doing so. Several factors, however, now indicated that a greater change might be coming. Among them were a decrease in the psychological strength of the monarchy, the development of confidence and professional skill among the military officers, financial difficulties and the resentment by the military of the king's private army. On June 24, 1932, a revolutionary group delivered an ultimatum to the king. Calling themselves the People's Party, the group, composed of military and civil officers, demanded that the king accept a constitution or be replaced by another prince. The leader of this group was Dr. Pridi Phanomyong, a young lawyer who had studied law in Paris. Though only thirty years old at the time, Pridi was regarded as the brains behind the coup. Colonel Phahon Phol Payuhasena led the conservative element of the party consisting of Army and Navy officers. The king yielded to this group, and the day of the absolute monarchy were over. Thailand was to seek its future in constitutional government presided over by a nominal monarch. In 1933, Colonel Phahon led his conservatives in a coup against the Royalists and was elected Prime Minister. In 1938, Phibun, Colonel Phahon's protege, became Prime Minister. During World War II, the Phibun government made an alliance with Japan. But Pridi, working with the United States Office of Strategic Services (OSS), led the Free Thai Movement. This group supplied and trained some 30,000 men who were prepared to invade Japan whenever the United States gave the word. As a result of Phibun's unpopular alliance with Japan, Pridi was able to speed the downfall of the Phibun government and to install Nai Khaung Apaiwong as Prime Minister. In 1947, King Ananda Thamahidon (Rama VIII) died mysteriously (he had succeeded to the throne in 1935 when King Rama VII abdicated) while Pridi was the Prime Minister. In the tension that followed, Phibun again became Prime Minister. In February of 1949, Pridi's attempt at a coup d'etat was crushed by the Army. The last such coup took place in 1958 when Field Marshal Sarit Thanarat took power and announced the drafting of a new constitution more suitable for the Thai people. After Field Marshal Sarit's death in December 1963, the leadership of the ruling group passed to his Deputy Prime Minister, Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn. He reiterated Field Marshal Sarit's assurances that elections to parliament would take place. In February 1969, the Constituent Assembly approved Thailand's present constitution, and it was promulgated by the King on June 20, 1968. A general election was held on February 10, 1968. It resulted in a victory for the forces of Field Marshal Thanom, who continued in office as Prime Minister. In 1973, when Field Marshal Thanom Kittikachorn resigned under the pressure of massive student demonstrations, Professor Sanya Thammasak, Thammasat University Rector was appointed as Interim Prime Minister. Thailand returned to a civilian government and in January 1975 had national general elections. M. L. Kukrit Pramoj, of the right wing of the Social Action Party (SAP) was elected Prime Minster. Later on, his brother M. L. Seni Pramoj replaced him but was ousted in 1976 by Admiral Sa-Ngad Chaloryu with the National Administrative Reform Council. The junta appointed Thanin Kraivichien, a Supreme Court justice, as new Premier and also appointed a 340 member National Assembly, 110 of them military officers. After three years of civilian government ended with a military coup on October 6, 1976 Thailand reverted to military rule. The military in 1977, ousted Thanin as "weak", replacing him with an army General, Kriangsak Chamanan. The later resigned from the Premiership in 1980. The National Assembly elected General Prem Tinsulanon Prime Minister. There were a few coups during his premiership. One occurred on April 3, 1981. It was a military coup against the Prem government, but it failed. A general election on April 18, 1983, resulted in a new coalition government being formed, with Prem continuing as Prime Minister. Another coup attempt on September 9, 1985, was crushed by loyal troops after 10 hours of fighting in Bangkok. Politically speaking, it should be noted that Thailand has been mainly ruled by the military since the 1932 coup, even though steady efforts for constitutional rule have been made. The basic ruling structure, however, remains remarkably stable under three major groups, the Army Generals, top bureaucrats (technocrats) and entrepreneurs (business-financial leaders). They are mutually supportive of each other and continue to dominate Thai politics. Since an abortive coup in September 9, 1985, General Prem, who has been in office since 1980, dissolved the Thai House of Representatives on April 29, 1988, apparently to avoid a non-confidence vote. He faced a national election on July 24, 1988. A national general election on July 24, 1988, won General Chatichai Choonhavan, a retired army major general and a wealthy businessman, head of Thai Nation Party the office of Prime Minister.9 His political party won most of the votes to have the Prime Minister directly elected rather than nominated. Under the current Thai constitution, however, after general elections, the major parties select a prime ministerial candidate, who does not have to be a member of Parliament. General Prem Tinsulnanonda, the former Prime Minister with the longest tenure in Thai political history turned down offers to return to his post for another term. The end of my rewritten paper..... To bring you up to date about the present political condition of Thai government.....and to answer your major questions.... How do you view the present political condition of the Thai governent? What are some of the domestic issues Thailand needs to tackle in order to move into the the 21st century? And other questions you may have , adding it to my informations for you, I would like to excerpt the following is a well-written account of the events of the Black May and events leading to them. See the entire article "The Course of Corruption", by Stan Sesser URL; http://www.mojones.com/MOTHER_JONES/MJ93/sesser.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Thailand's experiences with the democratic process have been uneven. Since 1932, when a coup against the country's seven-hundred-year-old absolute monarchy stripped the king of all but behind-the-scenes influence, Thailand has seen eighteen military coups (one more than the number of general elections), and military strongmen have ruled for forty-eight of sixty years. In early 1990 Chatichai, the golf enthusiast--himself a former general but at that point the democratically elected prime minister--bragged that he had set a new record of one year and seven months in office, "the longest democratically elected government in Thailand's history." Chatichai presided over a period of unprecedented growth, with the economy expanding by double digits and per capita income rising to $1,420 in 1990, almost double what it had been five years before. But this economic boom only exacerbated Bangkok's problems as a city of traffic jams, health-threatening air pollution, and untreated sewage, whose stench assaults visitors from canals, sewer gratings, and sometimes even the bathroom drains of luxury hotel rooms. Antiquated buses still spew clouds of black smoke on hapless pedestrians. Swarms of motorcycles roar down the streets and sidewalks, turning walking into a game of Russian roulette. Police directing traffic wear gas masks, and forty percent have been treated for respiratory problems. During the summer monsoon season, when the streets routinely flood, the evening rush hour can last as late as midnight. On one particularly bad day last summer, city officials issued an advisory urging motorists to carry food, water, and containers to use as toilets. But the Chatichai administration's crucial failing lay in its corruption. "The Thai word for taking a bribe out of a program is the same as to eat," said Suphat Hasuwanakit, a medical student who heads the Student Federation of Thailand. "They said that Chatichai had a 'buffet cabinet,' because everyone was eating." Like previous administrations, Chatichai's government maximized corruption by dividing responsibility for any project among a multitude of agencies. Several expressway and mass-transit projects were on the drawing board for years, each the pet of a different government agency. In 1991 a consultant discovered that the agencies had never coordinated the projects, so that no provisions had been made to transfer people >From cars to mass transit, or from one elevated rail system to another. When he superimposed the projects on a map of Bangkok, he found that seven of them would cross at a point near the Royal Palace, necessitating structures 108 feet tall. Anxious about damage to tourism, the Chatichai administration also refused to acknowledge the AIDS epidemic. As many as half a million Thais are now HIV-positive, and by the year 2000, unless government programs are effective, the number will rise to somewhere between two and four million, half of them women. Half of Thai men don't use condoms, and 95 percent of those over twenty-one have slept with a prostitute. Surveys of brothels show an overall HIV infection rate of 22 percent, rising as high as 72 percent in Chiang Mai, the largest city in the North. With a per-capita public-health expenditure of twenty-five dollars, the Thai government says it can only treat four hundred AIDS patients a year. The rampant corruption and widespread feeling that Thailand's problems were spinning out of control helps explain why a February 23, 1991, coup against Chatichai drew little opposition. General Suchinda Kraprayoon managed to take control of the government in broad daylight, without a shot being fired or a tank in the streets. Shoppers jammed the stores in Bangkok as usual, and the only arrests consisted of fifteen students gathered for a protest rally. To many, Suchinda's coup against Chatichai represented not so much the military overthrow of a democratic government as two political factions competing for spoils. "When those guys in green staged their coup in February 1991, they weren't overthrowing democracy," said the Western military officer. "They were overthrowing a competing business system." The change of government, as one senior Western diplomat put it at the time, "merely changes the direction of the flow of the money. . . . [Before the coup] the politicians were getting a lot more of it and the military was getting a lot less." An intelligent and urbane man, General Suchinda had headed a Thai contingent in the Vietnam War and served as assistant Thai defense attache in Washington. As the top graduate from Chulachomklao Military Academy in 1958, he was the leader of Class Five, the fifth class to graduate since the academy reorganized along the lines of West Point. In Thailand, loyalty to friends and family is paramount, and the members of Class Five stuck tightly together. Largely because of Suchinda's skill, they have succeeded more than any other class in filling top positions and--the supreme mark of success in the Thai military--participating in profitable business deals. By the time of Suchinda's coup, at least 62 of the 138 Class Five graduates held the rank of general. General Suchinda's first major move after his overthrow of the Chatichai government brought him a chorus of praise. He appointed as interim prime minister a respected former diplomat, Anand Panyarachun, and he pledged to hold parliamentary elections in a year, after the writing of a new constitution. Anand, one of the few Thai leaders with no military connections, had spent twenty-three years in diplomatic service. With his upper-class origins, his Cambridge education, and his impeccable command of British English, he appears every inch the polished Anglophile aristocrat. Despite military control, Anand presided over what some analysts have called the best government Thailand ever had. He pushed through economic liberalization measures, instituted a value-added tax, began the first serious work on the crises of AIDS and lack of infrastructure, and even stood up to the military by vetoing some arms purchases. "Anand got through Parliament two hundred laws in nine months, quite a feat compared to Chatichai, who had about seventeen in two years," says Sumet Jumsai, a Bangkok architect who chaired a group of advisers to Chatichai on social and urban issues. Why Suchinda should have appointed such a forceful, intelligent, independent figure as prime minister is an important question. Speculation revolves around two possibilities. First, the military had as much to lose as anyone if Thailand didn't regain the confidence of international investors, who prize stability. Second, Suchinda might have been trying to head off criticism as a boost to his own secret plans to become prime minister. Suchinda appointed a Parliament with a majority of current and retired military officers and named Class Five graduates or their allies to every key position in the armed forces. And despite Anand's attempts to intercede, the junta produced a new constitution that gave it the power to appoint the upper house of Parliament, which in turn could vote to dismiss a government. This constitution also allowed the prime minister to be someone other than an elected member of Parliament. Suchinda repeatedly assured the nation that he had no interest in becoming prime minister. "My political philosophy is never to become involved in politics--always, unconditionally, period," he said in November 1991. Meanwhile, the political parties allied with the junta prepared for the March 1992 parliamentary election with their usual campaign of vote buying and strong-arm tactics in rural areas, which account for three-quarters of the population. As expected, the parties allied with the junta dominated the rural voting, winning a majority of seats in Parliament and thereby gaining the right to name the next prime minister. But the big surprise of the election occurred in Bangkok, where voters decisively split from the rest of the country. Bangkok voters gave thirty-two of their thirty-five parliamentary seats to the party of Chamlong Srimuang, an ascetic ex-general who had served as governor of Bangkok since 1985. Displaying the unusual traits of hard work and dedication, Chamlong had risen to the rank of general in the army, even though as a cadet he'd been disciplined for criticizing mismanagement and corruption. Chamlong practices sexual abstinence, eats one meal a day, drinks only water, and sleeps on a thin mat, in accordance with the precepts of the controversial Buddhist sect he belongs to. "I want to reduce my desire little by little," Chamlong said. "To eat less, spend less, work harder, donate what I save to the public. This is the way we can end corruption; if everyone followed this philosophy, no one could be corrupt. I told the people I'm going to do this until the end of my life." Chamlong does have his share of critics. "Chamlong as governor never listened to anyone," said Sulak Sivaraksa, Thailand's leading dissident. "In the media he's humble, simple living, get up at four in the morning and wash dishes himself--it is a wonderful image. Only on the inside would you know how dictatorial he was." But most Bangkokians were enamored of Chamlong, the Mr. Clean who donated his salary back to the people and swept the city of corruption. Chamlong's reputation for uncompromising honesty made him a powerful leader of those pressing for democracy, but the military still might have prevailed if Suchinda had not launched a transparent plot to become prime minister. On March 25, 1992, the parliamentary majority named as prime minister a wealthy businessman and politician from northern Thailand. Within hours the U.S. State Department announced suspicions that he was involved in drug trafficking. Suchinda immediately offered to save his country's reputation by taking the job himself. On April 7, saying, "I have sacrificed myself for this matter," Suchinda announced he would resign his military post and become prime minister. To make matters worse, he included in his cabinet three ministers from the former Chatichai administration whom his own investigating panel had found to be "unusually rich"--in other words, corrupt. "People were upset not because the army was powerful, but because we began to feel we had no options," said Ammar Siamwalla of the Thailand Development Research Institute. "There was a contemptuous tone in the way [Suchinda] talked: 'Look, I've got the power; you don't screw around with me.'" Although Thailand's growing middle class and its aggressive, forward- looking business community had been finding military control increasingly oppressive, it was Suchinda's apparent contempt rather than a sudden yearning for democracy that made demonstrators take to the streets of Bangkok in April and early May. On May 4 Chamlong, who has a flair for the dramatic, told a rally of forty thousand protesters that he would go on a hunger strike until Suchinda stepped down. His audience was moved, and their faith wasn't shaken when five days later Chamlong told another rally that he would start eating again, because he had been persuaded that he could contribute more through leadership than death. On May 17, when it became clear that Suchinda would make no concession, Chamlong addressed an estimated two hundred thousand people. Calling for Suchinda's resignation, Chamlong urged the protesters to march to the prime minister's office about a mile away. Halfway along the route, police stopped the marchers with barbed-wire barricades and sprayed them with fetid water from a nearby canal. The confrontations escalated, and the following afternoon Chamlong and other demonstrators were lying on the street to avoid a hail of bullets. In an act as courageous as it was dramatic, Chamlong stood up and shouted at the approaching soldiers: "Major General Chamlong Srimuang is here! Don't shoot the people!" Chamlong was dragged away in handcuffs, and his words went unheeded--at least fifty-two people died in the next three days. This conflict differed from anything Thailand had previously seen. The bulk of the demonstrators were business people, the emerging middle class, and low-income workers. The protesters were nicknamed "the yuppie brigade" and "the mobile phone mob" because of the vital communication role played by cellular phones. The Far Eastern Economic Review reported that one of the men trying to shield Chamlong from the soldiers "was the scion of a sugar-refining dynasty. The next day, a property developer called his banker to ask where he could buy guns." Many protesters were military opponents rather than democracy advocates; they felt that the armed forces not only controlled the levers of government and had horned in on business, but that Suchinda's power grab threatened the economic stability of Thailand itself. The students who had spearheaded previous Thai protests were less conspicuous this time. "The current generation of students has been bought off by economic success," said a leading academic. The other factor distinguishing these protests was the extraordinary brutality with which the military reacted. Instead of tear gas or rubber bullets, officers passed out live ammunition. Class Five leaders, not trusting the loyalty of the Bangkok-based soldiers, brought in their own troops from the Burmese and Cambodian borders. Dr. Weng Tojirakara, a dermatologist and one of the leaders of the Confederation for Democracy, recalled the events of the May massacre: "On Sunday night and Monday morning I stood on the roof of a Volkswagen van. We told people to speak to the soldiers politely, to tell them, 'We are Thai people; we are not the enemy; we have no weapons.' Every time the soldiers stopped shooting, people brought them food and water and put flowers into their guns. But the commanders knew their psychology. They changed the soldiers every three hours. They told the new troops they were fighting Communists, those who burn down buildings, who loot, who are against Buddhism." According to several accounts, plainclothes provocateurs from the military and police, attempting to spur the soldiers into action, smashed government vehicles, set fire to buses, and burned down buildings. As army sharpshooters stood on rooftops picking off protest leaders, soldiers rampaged through the streets brutalizing demonstrators. Doctors treating the injured were kicked and threatened; troops stormed the Royal Hotel, where protesters had taken shelter, and beat many of them with rifle butts in front of journalists and television cameras. Most of the dead and injured were shot from behind as they attempted to run away. Others were apparently executed. "I have in my desk autopsies of six people to confirm they were shot at point-blank range," said a police officer who spoke on condition of anonymity. Rumors swept Bangkok about the fate of more than two hundred missing people, including reports of mass graves and the dropping of bodies from helicopters along the Thai-Burmese border. For three days, as soldiers beat, arrested, and shot demonstrators, Thais had one question: Why doesn't the king intercede? Even in the Western press, articles about King Bhumibol Adulyadej, Rama IX of the Chakri dynasty, attach the word "revered" to his name so frequently that it is practically part of his title. The sixty- five-year-old king, born in America while his father was studying at Harvard, and educated in Switzerland, dedicates himself to projects benefiting Thailand's impoverished rural population. A jazz buff and composer, Bhumibol appears to be a hard-working, modest man with little ego and scant interest in the trappings of monarchy. "I'm impressed by his simplicity," said Sumet Tantivejkul, who as head of the Royal Development Project Board sees the king frequently. "When I first met him, he was sitting on the floor the Thai way in a room with no chairs, with maps spread out in front of him. In eleven years, I've only seen him wear three or four trousers and sport coats. His watch is very cheap, not a Rolex, and he wears the cheapest sport shoes. He's really happy when he goes to visit rural areas. He wears old trousers and a very old shirt, and he sits on the ground with the people, even in a muddy field. He drinks the water people give to him, water that I won't touch." The modest behavior of the king is at odds with the status accorded the monarchy. When a member of the royal family goes anywhere by car, the police close down the road, even if it's the expressway leading to the airport. Thais sink to the ground in the royal family's presence and approach the king on hands and knees. In several past crises, the king has wielded enormous power. In 1973 he supported the rebellious students who emerged victorious. In 1976 he backed a military coup that overthrew the civilian government, and in 1981 he gave refuge to a capable prime minister, General Prem Tinsulanonda, against a military coup that quickly collapsed. When the king finally acted to end the May massacre after three days of silence, both the demonstrations and the military repression stopped almost as quickly as if he had turned off a switch. In a striking departure from the past, when the king had worked only behind the scenes, Thais saw an extraordinary televised event: Suchinda and Chamlong--the latter taken from prison and wearing his usual blue farmer's shirt--crawling into a room of the Royal Palace on their hands and knees to be lectured by the king. "We are fighting in our own house," Bhumibol told them. "It's useless to live on burned ruins. . . . I ask you not to confront each other, but to work together to end the current violence." No one knows why the king waited three days to act. Because he had no legal power to intervene, he may have been waiting until he was sure he could win. Much speculation has centered on the role played by the king's most influential adviser, General Prem, the former army commander-in-chief and prime minister to whom the king had given refuge in 1981. Rumor had it that Prem put together enough dissident troops to force Suchinda to yield to the king. Suchinda emerged from the May massacre so discredited that he clearly had to step down as prime minister. But before resigning May 24, he granted himself and other government officials amnesty through a decree signed by the king, probably as part of a deal under which he would exit voluntarily. The next day, pro-military parties in Parliament passed the reforms demonstrators had demanded, curtailing the power of the military-appointed Senate and specifying that future prime ministers would have to be elected members of Parliament. On May 28 the military parties chose as the next prime minister Air Force Chief Marshal Somboon Rahong, the head of one of the military parties in Parliament and a close associate of Suchinda and his Class Five colleagues. Once more democracy in Thailand appeared doomed. But although Parliament votes for a prime minister, the appointment isn't official until the Speaker of the House submits a name for the king's approval. Somboon, who said that palace officials had twice confirmed that the king would approve his nomination, threw a party at his house for the June 10 announcement, complete with a buffet table for three hundred guests, huge bouquets of flowers, and glossy brochures extolling his career. Guests crowded around Somboon as he took the call from the Speaker of the House. But the speaker dropped a bombshell: the name on the king's decree for prime minister was not Somboon but Anand Panyarachun, the white knight who had governed so skillfully following Suchinda's 1991 coup. As an ashen Somboon hung up the phone, someone shouted, "Anand is it," and journalists at the party burst into cheers. The irony-- that Somboon was an elected member of Parliament, a key demand of democracy demonstrators, while Anand was not--was lost on a celebrating nation. .....End of the passages selected and copied from the above source.... Former FM Chuan was elected on the national election prior to the present governent of FM , Khun Banharn Silapa-Achar....is the leader of the opposition party now. To sum up in Thai politics, in most cases, a Thai political party comes into power through an election or by a Coup(sudden revolt)against the ruling party. Thailand has several major political parties and a number of smaller parties. Citizens who are at least 18 years old may vote if they can read and write. Thailand today is one of the most prosperous nations in SEA...but she faces mnay serious problems...politically,economically and socially... Poverty....in my personal observation is the main economical dificulty that Thailand will face.... Since Thailand is an agriculture and rural by nature...Poverty, however, in most cases, the problem I personally view as the problem stems from a a very regressive somestic economy. This has caused the rich , the small groups, to get richer and the poor , the major groups, to get more poorer... Something needs to be done how help those who have been living in poverty, to stop the tragic death of people who are poverty stricken... As to the question of ....what is the quality of news in Thailand? Well,...the fact is...Thailand has approximately 50 daily major newspapers, about 20 of which are pulished in Thai, and the rest are in Chinese or English....Telegraph and telephone systems link the principal cities. The nation, however,has 4-7 major stations networks and more than 200 radio stations. The government owns ,operates and controls all the TV and radios stations. Well,...I've hoped that the above informations will be helpful to your paper... you may quote and use my information freely on your school paper work... Regards; Char Karnchanapee 5/18/96 PS...I rewrote my original paper when I prepared it for my class ...and is divided into 3 small short parts for you....you can use it entirely for your paper if you like and or add some comments to it as your Thailand profile ....