Showing 1 - 10 of 323
Countering the fallacy of the buffer zone
Oped, Daoud Kuttab, Published on 10/04/2026
» Territorial buffers rarely, if ever, deliver the peace and security their advocates promise. After the collapse of the USSR, Ukraine was seen as a neutral cordon between Russia and Nato. Instead, it became a zone of increasingly fierce geopolitical contention, followed by open war.
Laws must unlock food waste value
News, Chanisara Dumkum & Theerat Dejitikul, Published on 08/04/2026
» Thailand has been throwing away food on a massive scale. Yet much of what ends up in the bin could have been used to feed people, animals, or even generate energy. The question is what needs to be done. To find a proper solution, we must acknowledge a hard fact: waste is not the problem in itself. The real issue lies in the system that manages it.
Fanatics, an obsessive, and a belligerent fool
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 07/04/2026
» We don't have to look very far to find a useful historical analogy for the current crisis in the Middle East. In 1967, Egypt closed the Strait of Tiran to Israeli ships, and Israel replied with a surprise air attack that destroyed almost the entire Egyptian air force on the ground.
Iran war: One miscalculation after another
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 24/03/2026
» Still not four full weeks into the war, and already Donald Trump's "short-term excursion" -- decapitate the Iranian regime with a surprise attack and impose harsh terms on the defeated survivors -- has morphed into a global economic crisis and a region-wide war that could destroy the wealth of all the countries on both sides of the Gulf. At the very least.
News bulletins are going 'off-ramp'
Roger Crutchley, Published on 22/03/2026
» An expression that is being used with increasing frequency in recent news reports, particularly concerning the goings on in the Middle East, is "off-ramp". Switch on the TV and it won't be long before a "talking head" will be authoritatively discussing "off-ramp" opportunities.
War hits wallets
Postbag, Published on 21/03/2026
» Re: "The Iran war's lasting energy shock", (Opinion, March 20).
The fire this time is for US climate science
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/03/2026
» In 1953 Ray Bradbury, an American writer, published a book entitled simply Fahrenheit 451. It was a novel about an American fireman in a not-too-distant future who realised that he was doing his job all wrong -- because his job was to burn books, which were banned in that future America. (451°F is the temperature at which paper catches fire.)
Echoes ignored
Oped, Postbag, Published on 13/03/2026
» Re: "With Iran war, US is alone", (World, March 6). The Deputy Director of the German Marshall Fund, Kristina Kausch, is upset that US President Donald Trump has not sought the world's approval in his quest to destroy Iran's military abilities and for the removal of its genocidal dictatorship. One which screams daily: "Death to Israel" and "Death to America". (Time Off, Bangkok Post, March 8).
The perils of creating a power vacuum in Iran
Oped, Stephen Holmes, Published on 05/03/2026
» Critics of the attack on Iran by the United States and Israel point out that US President Donald Trump has no plan for what comes next. And they are not wrong: when Mr Trump boasts that he can resolve wars in a single day, he merely exposes the limits of his attention span. But the real problem is not the shortness of Mr Trump's time horizon; it's the narrowness of his threat perception.