Showing 11 - 12 of 12
Pipe dreaming
Spectrum, Published on 19/08/2012
» Early on in Steven Martin's prodigiously researched and at times painfully honest memoir Opium Fiend: 21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction, he explains his nostalgia for opium's past. The way he sees it, the historic substance _ a 2000 Vanity Fair article by Nick Tosches referred to it as a "medicine and holy panacea older than any known god" _ suffered an ignoble decline in the face of post-colonial globalisation.
Is it 'Alien' or 'Avatar' in Kaeng Krachan?
Spectrum, Supara Janchitfah, Published on 19/02/2012
» Last July the mysterious crashes of three military helicopters in the space of a couple of weeks riveted the country's focus on Kaeng Krachan National Park, the nation's largest in Phetchaburi province. Much less attention was given to another dramatic series of events around the same time affecting ethnic Karen-Thai inside the park. These culminated in raids by park officials in which a total of 90 of their homes and rice barns were burned down. The ethnic Karen and their advocates say the National Parks, Wildlife and Plants Conservation Department is conducting a campaign to drive them out of the park.