Showing 1 - 10 of 11
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".
A walk in the Park
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 24/06/2018
» So the latest unchangeable, confirmed, guaranteed date of the 2015 Thailand general election isn't "definitely in February" after all, but some time in the next 371 days. To put it another way, voting will be, in the words of the country's official political cartographer, "early in 2019", or by Sunday, June 30.
Searching for sanity
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 28/05/2017
» It now is pretty much confirmed by all available sources that the world is nuts. Last week was just more proof piling up.
You've been gouged
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 05/02/2017
» How can we fleece you? Let me count the ways. That probably wasn't an unusual week, just a more transparent one.
The Fakebook Diaries
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 01/01/2017
» Around 15 million or so people noticed last Tuesday that there was no bomb or large explosion anywhere in Bangkok. None of those people worked for Facebook, which is OK, but after the "explosion", people who work for Facebook insisted there was, actually, an explosion.
The big issue: The terrorists who didn’t
Alan Dawson, Published on 27/03/2016
» The suicide bombs at Belgium brought heightened alert to Bangkok’s airports and embassies, while police on overtime patrolled tourist-friendly areas of the country, just in case.
The big issue: Let them eat what?
Alan Dawson, Published on 24/05/2015
» Like most explosive crises, the new boat people crisis grew almost imperceptibly and then, suddenly, dominated the front pages of the world. Many knew it was coming, but hoped it wouldn’t.
The big issue: Sparing country [redacted]
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 14/12/2014
» In 2002, in the wake of the 9/11 terrorism and US military pushback, the CIA opened a secret facility in central Thailand. The agency brought two high-level al-Qaeda operatives, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, to the site and launched a new programme of "enhanced interrogation" techniques on them including physical assault and waterboarding, distressing many US officials.
THE BIG ISSUE: Finally, a Mr Big
Alan Dawson, Published on 28/09/2013
» There are, basically, two kinds of police - the honest kind and the other kind. As a result, there are two kinds of drug raids, the hopeful kind and the successful kind.
US report details post-9/11 torture in Thailand
Alan Dawson, Published on 22/04/2013
» A report by a bipartisan US task force on interrogation and torture of al-Qaeda suspects after the Sept 11 attacks presents the most complete picture yet of Thailand's covert role in the process.