As the International Herald Tribune reports, the country’s “sleek and modern Suvarnabhumi Airport, which opened to great fanfare in September … has become a national embarrassment with widely publicized problems that include cracks on the taxiways, a shortage of toilets, dozens of design flaws and a long list of corruption allegations”.

In The Straits Times, Tortrakul Yoma, Thailand’s new director of airports, “estimates that up to 30 per cent of the US $4 billion spent on the project may have been skimmed off by politicians”. The airport is “a monument to massive corruption unrivalled by any other local project”, agrees The Nation.

“The problems,” according to ABC, “have exposed not just cracks in the runways, but a corrupt corporate culture, where bribes and dodgy contracts and construction shortcuts are the norm.”