Showing 31 - 40 of 43
Thailand gets ready to take Asean chair
News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 13/11/2018
» A decade after living through the devastating experience of the 2009 Asean summit, the kingdom will have another chance to regain its regional leadership and reputation. Singapore will pass the baton to Thailand on Nov 15 as the Asean chair. Although the official role will kick off in January, Bangkok will get the ball rolling immediately.
Vietnam's star rises, as does one of its leaders
News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 16/10/2018
» At the outset, three important characteristics of Vietnam must be recognised.
US, EU must tread carefully over Cambodia
News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 25/09/2018
» The US and EU must not commit the same mistakes in Cambodia that they made in Thailand. Efforts to pressure strongman Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to follow their suggested paths will not work. Worse still, they could have serious adverse effects, as the country's domestic and external conditions are very different and unique.
10 ways to maintain Hun Sen's 'barami'
News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 11/09/2018
» In the past election spin, it was about barami (charisma). When Hun Sen entered politics in the mid-1970s, nobody thought he would have the staying power to last so long. Thirty-three years ago, he was the world's youngest prime minister. Today, he is still around having outlasted every other world leader to rank as longest-reigning prime minister.
Making sense of Jokowi's second term bid
News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 14/08/2018
» Do not let the state-of-the-art Soekarno-Hatta International Airport Terminal 3 and the slogan "Energy of Asia" for this month's Asian Games fool you about Indonesia's place in the world. It is just the beginning.
Hun Sen plays global politics with election
News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 31/07/2018
» The international community, through the United Nations, helped Cambodia to organise its first and only "free and fair" elections in 1993. It was a wonderful moment for a country emerging from civil war, which has confidently moved forward ever since. Cambodia has been very much on its own, with up and down political contours. This past Sunday, Cambodia held its sixth election, with the Cambodian People's Party winning the majority of seats.
Random thoughts from Trump's nation
News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 26/06/2018
» 'Iknow Bruce Lee. Aargh...aargh...aargh…!," screamed a black driver in front of me at the intersection near the Marriott Hotel in Rockville, Maryland.
Trump-Kim meet a gift for Southeast Asia
News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 19/06/2018
» All the hullabaloo surrounding the historic Trump-Kim summit in Singapore must be discarded if one wants to seriously assess the overall ripple effects, in particular, the four-point statement. For the region, at least for now, the tight knot of a nuclear war has been untied. After all, President Donald Trump gave his personal assurance of this after he returned to the United States from his meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. That is good for Southeast Asia as a whole. If there is a war, the region's progress would be badly undermined as much as, if not more, than those of the two protagonists. The US provides a marketplace and the Korean Peninsula remains the last stronghold of long-awaited peace and stability.
Baloney by any other name is still baloney
News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 29/05/2018
» It does not take long to find commonalities between US President Donald Trump's lies and Thai politics' platefuls of baloney. The same logic holds true for Mr Trump's war on the "deep state" and the outcry in Thailand over a "third hand" pulling the strings behind political happenings.
Fighting chance for Malaysian opposition
News, Kavi Chongkittavorn, Published on 08/05/2018
» It would be hard these days to say anything about Malaysian politics without the risk of being branded as "fake news". But tomorrow 14,940,624 voters will have the last say, as they are expected to cast ballots at 8,989 polling centres throughout the country. Fake news aside, they will decide who is the real prime minister. After all, the leading contestants are both former and current Malaysian prime ministers, both of whom belonged to the same party, Barisan Nasional (the National Front), which has retained power for the past 61 years.