Showing 1 - 10 of 31
Rethink how we tackle gambling
News, Editorial, Published on 21/05/2023
» Addiction to gambling -- a quiet, subtle affliction -- has long been a festering issue in Thailand. In pursuit of a quick fortune, many end up trapped in the vicious grip of gambling. Despite strict laws, gambling remains a rampant problem affecting multiple facets of society.
Does govt fear 'fake news', or the truth?
Oped, Wasant Techawongtham, Published on 12/06/2021
» Fake news is the virus of the internet. It grabs your attention and you tend to share it among your circle of friends, and some of your friends will do the same. Before long, it goes viral.
The battle between Big Tech and the free press
Oped, Published on 10/04/2021
» Worldwide, the free press is waging a battle for survival against Facebook and Google. Besides being gushing firehoses of Covid disinformation and QAnon conspiracies, Google and Facebook have been dangerously undermining the financial stability of media outlets all over the world.
When vaccination is a 'crime'
Oped, Peter Singer, Published on 10/03/2021
» On Dec 29 last year, Hasan Gokal, the medical director of the Covid-19 response team in Harris County, Texas (which includes Houston, the fourth-largest city in the United States by population), was supervising the administration of the Moderna vaccine, mostly to emergency workers. The vaccine comes in vials containing 11 doses. A vial, once opened, expires in six hours and unused vaccine must then be thrown away.
Asean's declining common denominator
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 05/03/2021
» Asean is stuck deeper than ever between a rock and a hard place in view of its political impotence in dealing with the Myanmar armed forces' power grab on Feb 1. In an informal meeting online among its foreign ministers earlier this week, Asean not only failed to come up with common ground to broker a way forward away from the mounting bloodshed in Myanmar but displayed fundamental differences that have lowered the organisation's common denominator to new depths. The implications from Asean's sagging stance is that the pushback against Myanmar's military takeover must be carried out mainly by domestic political forces in the absence of regional effectiveness and with the limitations of global sanctions.
Honouring Assange, who is (almost) free at last
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/01/2021
» On Monday morning, a British judge finally rejected the US attempt to extradite WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and jail him forever (or at least for 175 years in a high-security 'supermax' prison) on the grounds that he is, as Joe Biden once called him, a "high-tech terrorist".
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.
Beware the cyber warriors
News, Editorial, Published on 17/05/2018
» Recently, our authorities have admitted that Thailand needs to improve cyber security standards against hackers. Yet the government over the past four years has mainly hunted down other groups of "violators" -- political dissidents and lese majeste offenders.
Update the computer law
News, Editorial, Published on 18/04/2018
» If events over the past two weeks do not convince the government to write an actual law covering computer fraud, maybe nothing will. The first unfortunate event was to threaten a Chiang Mai magazine editor with a computer crime charge over something that had nothing to do with computers (or crime, come to that). The second was the reluctant admission by the country's second mobile phone company of security misbehaviour, putting tens of thousands of customers at risk. That is not a crime.
Winnie Mandela: A lifetime of struggle and scandal
News, Christopher Torchia, Published on 04/04/2018
» Even the name given to Winnie Madikizela-Mandela at birth -- Nomzamo, "one who undergoes trials" -- foretold a life of struggle.