Showing 1 - 10 of 22
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.
Independence muted
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 09/12/2018
» The famously annoyable general prime minister was annoyed last week. The country's two largest political parties politely RSVP'd his invitation to a prayer meeting but declined because of the raucous nature of the worship.
Inching towards legalisation
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 26/08/2018
» Getting a sensible new law into the books is an extremely difficult task. But it's lightning compared with getting sensible changes to your great-grandfather's laws still on the books "because that's how we've always done it".
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.
It's the corruption, stupid
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 27/05/2018
» After promising the nation a Mercedes Benz C-500 of an anti-regime protest, activists produced a three-owner 2007 Toyota Corolla gathering. It impressed and struck fear into the hearts of, well, no one.
Data security a foreign concept
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 22/04/2018
» You'd think that just about the worst thing that could happen in today's charged smartphone-internet intersection is the theft of many thousands of the most important identification documents and personal details of mobile phone owners. But you'd be wrong.
Islamic State, keep out
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 27/11/2016
» The most intriguing story of the week was the suggestion that Thai Muslims had been caught out in supporting the Islamic State (IS). It was intriguing because while the neighbours have often been involved directly in international terrorism, and still are, no Thai ever has been linked to the post-9/11 groups championed by Osama bin Laden, his progeny or their many copycats.
The big issue: Fighting war, talking peace
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 04/09/2016
» Separatists in the deep South tried to have it both ways last week, thankfully failing (mostly) on one score but arguably pushing ahead on the second, long-range part of the strategy.
The big issue: The US-Thai nexus
Alan Dawson, Published on 17/07/2016
» The Law of the Sea Tribunal demolished China’s claims about the nine-dash line, historical ownership and even — this one is quite out of the blue for everyone involved — the claim that rocks, outcroppings and shoals are "islands" that can belong to a country.
The big issue: The long and tortuous road
Alan Dawson, Published on 19/06/2016
» Torture is probably more like the weather than anything else around. It is, as US editorialist Charles Dudley Warner wrote (Mark Twain repeated it), "a matter about which a great deal is said and very little done".