Showing 1-10 of 18 results
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The death of vote-buying
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 25/11/2018
» The government announced a brand new and unexpected Big Welfare Aid Programme (BWAP). Cynics, sceptics, anti-regime critics and even honest people wondered if the sudden decision to help the least-advantaged Thais just possibly has something to do with that other government programme -- so tantalisingly unspecified -- of an election that for the fourth year in a row has been pencilled in for, in the highly familiar phrase used by the general prime minister, "next year".
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Safety last
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 15/07/2018
» The government can't prevent boys from being naughty any more than it can prevent squalls in an open sea. However, the government could have prevented two of the most deadly events to have captivated local and global attention recently.
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Vale of Tiers
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 23/07/2017
» It was a great trial. But rather than prime the pumps for a lift out of the basement, it actually illustrates why Thailand is stuck at that Tier 2 (Watch List) level on the US State Department's Trafficking in Persons (TIP) list that obsesses the general prime minister and millions more including the media.
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Revenge of the kamnan
News, Alan Dawson, Published on 22/01/2017
» It had been 975 days since the military regime did anything to justify the coup d'etat that was needed specifically to bring happiness back to the people by national reconciliation. So the general prime minister named a 98-man, three tier committee of otherwise unemployed two-, three- and four-starred green shirts to draw daily allowances and proceed to bring about unity.
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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".
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The big issue: The war on Songkran
Alan Dawson, Published on 20/03/2016
» As predictable as an April 13-15 holiday, as certain as the groans of, "Oh, not Songkran again", as inevitable as the run on water guns at the toy kiosks, here come the Fun Police to try to shut down the Thai New Year or, even better in their view, make it miserable.
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The big issue: Sacred space
Alan Dawson, Published on 24/01/2016
» Muang district of Pattani is one of Thailand’s loveliest provincial capitals, and of course one of its least visited, what with the inconvenient war and all.
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The big issue: Appearing for the disappeared
Alan Dawson, Published on 27/12/2015
» On March 12, 2004, five policemen pulled Somchai Neelapaijit from his car in Bangkok, and he never was seen in public since. His wife Angkhana has kept the case alive, and authorities have made some attempts to resolve what the prime minister of the day called a “complicated case” involving official violence.
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The big issue: A degree of intervention
Alan Dawson, Published on 09/08/2015
» There was a certain air of mystery about the publication of this year’s United States human trafficking report which now has been mostly solved.
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The big issue: Fight or flight
Alan Dawson, Published on 22/02/2015
» Thailand has once again strutted into the Guinness World Records. Everyone knows "world's longest kiss" (58 hours 35 minutes, 58 seconds) is cool and "most people in a seven-minute hula-hooping session" (4,483 young and young-at-heart) is awesome and "most Santa's elves in one place" (Bangkok, 700) is inspiring.
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