Showing 1 - 7 of 7
Thailand's judiciary faces challenges
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 24/05/2024
» Thailand appears to be a country of 70 million, ultimately ruled by an unelected few. This sobering reality was on display when two connected groups of top generals seized power from democratically elected governments in September 2006 and May 2014. Unlike these blatant military coups over the past two decades, at issue now is the power and role of the judiciary. While Thailand has another democratically elected civilian government under Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin, the question that needs to be asked is whether the country is effectively under judicial rule.
US presidential poll and implications
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/11/2020
» It is surprisingly unsurprising. Contrary to most polls and pundits, incumbent United States President Donald J Trump did not lose by a landslide in the presidential election this week. The final results are so close that both candidates, Mr Trump and Democratic Party rival Joe Biden, have claimed victory. Despite ongoing rancour and acrimony until the next US president is sworn in next January, several outcomes and implications are already clear.
Is the Indo-Pacific eclipsing Asia-Pacific?
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 02/08/2019
» Thailand and the smaller states in its neighbourhood will miss the Asia-Pacific era. It is not as if the Asia-Pacific has gone away or disappeared in any sense. But its role as a cradle of prosperity linking larger and small economies around the Pacific Rim may have passed its peak. In its place is the Indo-Pacific, which thus far lacks a trade-liberalisation and economic growth component so integral to the Asia-Pacific.
Thailand counts down to final, fond October
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/10/2017
» For the past four decades, the month of October has carried certain meanings and implications associated with a left-leaning student-led civil society uprising that overthrew a military dictatorship and a right-wing military-led suppression that crushed mostly university students and chased them into the jungle to join the local communist party.
'Zbig': Renowned geopolitical maestro
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 30/05/2017
» Last week's death of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the renowned thinker, writer and practitioner of geopolitics throughout the Cold War and onetime national security adviser to former US president Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s, has elicited generally positive global reviews and assessments of his achievements. He died on Friday at the age of 89.
How not to organise our education timetable
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 12/06/2015
» A new discussion by the Council of University Presidents of Thailand to revert academic schedules back to the old system is instructive on three levels that expose the fundamental weaknesses of Thai education, the sobering reality of the Asean Economic Community, and the top-down, patronising attitude of government over the governed.
Changing our education timetable is a really dumb idea
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 27/09/2013
» It has become a cliche to say that Thailand's education system needs an overhaul. From the coloured political divide and industrial upgrading to broader economic competitiveness, it is said that education is the root cause of the country's political and socio-economic ills. This is not untrue. Symptomatic of these education woes and defects are the confusion and contradictions among bureaucrats and administrators over the timetable for the next school year. Thai kids are not only being taught poorly but they are not even sure when to go to school again after the summer recess.