Showing 1 - 10 of 19
Weighing in on trucks
Oped, Editorial, Published on 17/11/2023
» The outcome of the Royal Thai Police's probe into an overloaded lorry that caused a roadworks cover to collapse on Sukhumvit Road last week is simply a letdown. Instead of helping combat bribery in the transport sector, the probe has only raised more doubts over the integrity of the police.
Under the weather
Oped, Editorial, Published on 07/10/2023
» The collapse of a fabric roof at Indoor Stadium Huamark has stoked fears about the safety of operating in public buildings.
Can democracy survive the polycrisis?
Oped, George Soros, Published on 16/06/2023
» We are living in troubled times. Too much is happening too fast. People are confused. The Columbia University economic historian Adam Tooze has, indeed, popularised a word for it. He calls it a "polycrisis".
Potential tricks and results in Thai poll
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 12/05/2023
» The fundamental risk in Thailand's election this Sunday is that ruling incumbents, spearheaded by coup-maker-cum-prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and underpinned by the powers-that-be, are headed for a big loss. Yet they are unlikely to go away without distortion, subversion, and confrontation, as has been the case in the recent past. Unless the poll results are clear and unassailable, it is likely that more funny business will be put in motion after the election.
Public safety off the beam
Oped, Editorial, Published on 04/08/2022
» A falling bridge beam that hit three vehicles and caused two deaths on Sunday night attests to the sad fact of poor public-safety standards in this country.
What's next for Ukraine as the siege goes on?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 26/03/2022
» Russian troops are stalled for the third week outside most of the major cities of eastern and central Ukraine, but they have failed to surround and cut off any of them except Mariupol, the big port on the Black Sea that has become the Ukrainian "Stalingrad". Indeed, Ukrainian counter-attacks are driving the Russians back some distance in a few places.
Politics of exclusion must end
Oped, Published on 22/10/2020
» As we approach the November general election, it is essential that we learn from the tragic mistakes in our history if the present peace and reform process is to succeed. During the hasty countdown to independence in 1948, a non-inclusive Panglong conference took place and, subsequently, not all parties contested elections to a constituent assembly that drew up the country's new constitution. Our newly formed state thus became independent without solving vital political and ethnic issues. Within a year unrest and conflict had broken out across the country.
Bureaucratic reform key to Thai future
Oped, Somkiat Tangkitvanich, Published on 14/10/2020
» If our nation state were a computer, the bureaucracy would be an operating system too outdated to keep up with the magnitude of Thailand's modern-day challenges.
Don't politicise the Hagia Sophia
News, Editorial, Published on 19/07/2020
» After it was designated as a museum in 1936 by the founder of modern Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Hagia Sophia took on a different meaning. It wasn't just a place of worship as it had been under the Byzantines and the Ottomans. It became a meeting place for people of different faiths but held by no religion in particular. It was a place where laymen, leaders, popes and presidents met to marvel at the grandeur of its domed roof, which has seen empires come and go over its long history.
Bridge wrecks in waiting
News, Editorial, Published on 07/10/2019
» The collapse of a bridge into a harbour in northeastern Taiwan, which killed six people last Tuesday, should serve as a lesson for many countries, including Thailand, about the need to adopt precautionary and effective maintenance measures to prevent such tragic incidents.