Showing 201 - 210 of 211
Bringing insurgency to an end will be a long, hard slog
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 01/03/2013
» The media hype in Bangkok surrounding Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra's recent meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak in Putrajaya sounded as if peace was at hand in Thailand's restive southernmost border provinces where a deadly Malay-Muslim insurgency has festered for almost a decade.
Democrats risk political oblivion in city poll
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 08/02/2013
» Over the past decade, Bangkok's governor race has provided telling implications for national politics. The winner, in that time, has come from the opposition party in national politics. In other words, the largest national winning party lost in Bangkok consecutively in 2004, 2008 and 2009. This time, ahead of the March 3 poll, the Bangkok governor race is yielding counterintuitive poll numbers that may portend a pattern for the next national election due by 2015.
Thailand's superpower courtship
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 19/11/2012
» Whether it comes out of Bangkok or Washington, foreign policy ultimately derives from domestic politics. Long after United States President Barack Obama leaves Bangkok on this round of shuttle visits to three mainland Southeast Asian nations as part of his East Asia Summit (EAS) tour, Thailand's foreign relations will still be stuck and able to find traction only at the margins without much forward direction from the middle until the country's domestic tension and turmoil find a lasting political settlement and a new equilibrium.
US poll has huge implications for Thailand
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 02/11/2012
» Few spectacles capture world attention like the United States presidential election.
Cultivating the major powers
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 26/10/2012
» Among the countries of Southeast Asia, Thailand holds special and resilient relationships with all of the major powers that are the region's movers and shakers.
Many more checks but far fewer balances
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 20/07/2012
» The Constitution Court's verdict last Friday to dismiss petitions against the legislature for drafting a bill that would amend the charter has defused tensions and averted another round of street demonstrations in the near term.
What next after judicial deja vu?
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 13/07/2012
» The sense of deja vu that pervades Thailand's political landscape in the lead-up to the Constitution Court's decision Friday on whether the lower house has violated the charter by trying to amend it harbours short- and longer-term implications.
The politics of the Nasa controversy
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 03/07/2012
» Thai quipsters have put it aptly _ it is now easier for the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) to go to the Moon than to come to Thailand, now that the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has opted for parliamentary debate instead of a cabinet resolution.
Deprivation to deliverance in Myanmar
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 20/04/2012
» The opposition National League for Democracy's virtual sweep of 43 out of 44 MP seats in Myanmar's recent by-elections was a long time coming.
Don't just keep relying on luck
News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 17/02/2012
» Faraway tensions from the precarious brinkmanship in the Middle East have reached Thai soil with the apparent terrorist bungle in central Bangkok. The government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra continues to deny international terrorist presence in Thailand, but the weight of evidence increasingly points to the contrary. Thailand is a soft target among third-country theatres of operation. Unless the Thai authorities beef up their security measures and conduct deft diplomacy in the near term, the risk of this easygoing country degenerating from a transit point for illicit crimes to an outright staging ground of international terrorist violence will grow.