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same battle again and again.
• "Thais have never learned about democracy, never really compared democracy with dictatorship to see which is better," he says. "They just look at what's in front of them and see a hero, but a hero never lasts long."
• A military man has led Thailand for 54 of the 82 years since the Southeast Asian country ended absolute monarchy in 1932. It continues to bounce between coups and fragile democratic governments despite numerous advantages over many of its neighbors normally regarded as conducive to liberal democracy, including a vibrant economy, no rigid class structure and virtually no war on its soil in almost 250 years. This while once power-grabbing militaries have returned to their barracks in South Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, the Philippines -- even Myanmar to some extent.
• ___

• WASHINGTON (AP) -- Citing "significant and chronic system failures" in the nation's health system for veterans, a review ordered by President Barack Obama portrays the Department of Veterans Affairs as a struggling agency battling a corrosive culture of distrust, lacking in resources and ill-prepared to deal with an influx of new and older veterans with a range of medical and mental health care needs.
• The scathing report by deputy White House chief of staff Rob Nabors says the Veterans Health Administration, the VA sub agency that provides health care to about 8.8 million veterans a year, has systematically ignored warnings about its deficiencies and must be fundamentally restructured.
• Obama ordered the review last month in a response to widespread reports of long delays for treatment and medical appointments and of veterans dying while on waiting lists. But Nabors' report goes far beyond the lengthy waits and manipulated schedules raised by whistleblowers and chronicled in past internal and congressional investigations.
• The review offers a series of recommendations, including a need for more doctors, nurses and trained administrative staff -- proposals that are likely to face skepticism among some congressional Republicans who have blamed the VA's problems on mismanagement, not lack of resources.
• "We know that unacceptable, systemic problems and cultural issues within our health system prevent veterans from receiving timely care," Acting VA Secretary Sloan Gibson said in a statement following an Oval Office meeting Friday with Obama and Nabors. "We can and must solve these problems as we work to earn

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