Showing 1 - 10 of 47
Commission on a mission
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 17/03/2019
» "The Election Commission shall announce the result of the election", and there really hasn't been any more vast difference between the EC and the members of the public. It's not even supposed to be a worry. But everyone's worrying about the scraping of all the foreign votes and the vital gathering of all today's advance votes and the really major assembling next week of every one-person-one-vote.
Scum of the Earth
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 24/02/2019
» At the Bangkok Post Forum on Feb 7, Future Forward Party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit said it would be splendid if Thailand had green shirts with four stars who favour democracy. He called for a review (English translation: cancellation) of the recent, 2.3 billion-baht purchase of 14 more Chinese main battle tanks. Oh, and Thailand should halt conscription.
Do something!
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 03/02/2019
» Admit it, Bangkokians. You like your vicarious danger. It could be because Bangkok hasn't the regrettably typical dangers of many cities. There are no cyclones, big earthquakes, volcanoes. So when world-class pollution hits, Bangkok folks are extraordinarily concerned but they also exhibit a weird, well, pride.
Fairness needs to be ensured
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 27/01/2019
» In sports, as in politics, they call it a "tilted playing field". One or many tiny modifications to the game area give advantages that don't absolutely guarantee that the home team wins, but help to make it more likely.
The death of vote-buying
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 25/11/2018
» The government announced a brand new and unexpected Big Welfare Aid Programme (BWAP). Cynics, sceptics, anti-regime critics and even honest people wondered if the sudden decision to help the least-advantaged Thais just possibly has something to do with that other government programme -- so tantalisingly unspecified -- of an election that for the fourth year in a row has been pencilled in for, in the highly familiar phrase used by the general prime minister, "next year".
Two hats not good
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 07/10/2018
» When Bangkok got too noisy because of all the criticism about cabinet ministers taking advantage by openly playing politics unfairly, the general prime minister escaped to the North on another scrupulously non-political trip to give away money and be photographed with every local personality and housewife within 20 kilometres.
Devout groupies and a band of terrorists
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 23/09/2018
» After a very organised group of terrorists hijacked the Kuwait Airways jumbo jet Flight 422 from Bangkok to Kuwait City for 16 days and killed two of their hostages in April of 1988, there was an investigation.
Promises, promises
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 19/08/2018
» The general prime minister is off to the South this week. The trip to Chumphon has been planned for a while, so the irony is coincidental.
T-Minus 195
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 12/08/2018
» The founder and chairman of Asia's only military kratocracy passed a milestone last Tuesday. Gen (Ret) Prayut has now been in office four years and 82 days, more than half the time of the general he had hoped was his mentor, the leader of the 1980s, Gen Prem Tinsulanonda.
Censors without borders
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 17/06/2018
» US President Donald Trump announced last Thursday that the North Korean nuclear threat is over, and that "fake news" is thus the No.1 threat. The men of Asia's only remaining military regime nodded.