Soros hits back at critics

Soros does not see eye-to-eye with his critics

Even in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, the billionaire financier George Soros cannot escape his critics.

He has once again become the target of anti-globalisation protestors as he joined the world's political and corporate elite for this year's World Economic Forum.

We regard Mr Soros as a Dracula - he sucks blood from the poor

Weng Tojirakarn, Bangkok

But his attackers were not the demonstrators who converged on the town to target the main summit and had their protests quashed by a huge security operation.

Instead they came from Brazil and Thailand.

On Sunday, Mr Soros took part in an internet debate with participants in an anti-Davos conference in Brazil, which quickly degenerated into insults.

He was called a "hypocrite and a monster" by an Argentinian activist.

Thai trip cancelled

And on Monday he said that he had been forced to cancel a visit to Thailand, after protestors threatened to pelt him with rotten eggs and excrement.

"I have got a bad cold... and I think I am not in good shape to take eggs and so on," he told reporters.

The financier was due to address business leaders on Thursday at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand.

But on Monday, a group of protestors went to the club asking it to cancel the event.

They denounced Soros for "trampling on Thai dignity" and for starting the 1997 collapse of the Thai Baht, which triggered the devastation of economies across Asia.

'Absolute nonsense'

Mr Soros vigorously denies these accusations, saying that at the time of the Thai financial crisis, he had been buying the currency, not selling it.

"No, this is absolute nonsense," he told the BBC.

"Even if I had been part of the attack I would not feel any responsibility because that is the way markets work,"

"If you don't like it, you have to change the rules," he added.