• OPINION

  Shifting political tides portend turmoil

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/01/2012

  » Thailand has arrived at the outset of 2012 more bruised and battered compared to its previous bouts of political instability, characterised by several years of protests and violence and then capped recently by the floods.

• OPINION

  The implications of Burma's progress

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 13/01/2012

  » Watching Burma's ongoing progress towards democratic reforms and political dialogue from afar is like seeing sprinkling rain turning into a light downpour after a long drought over two decades. It is a spectacular and stunning sight thus far, partly because the long drought stirred pent-up demands and grievances for ways forward.

• OPINION

  Just whose land is Thailand?

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 03/02/2012

  » The Nitirat campaign to amend Article 112 of the Criminal Code, commonly known as the lese majeste law, has generated a political tempest.

• OPINION

  Don't just keep relying on luck

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 17/02/2012

  » Faraway tensions from the precarious brinkmanship in the Middle East have reached Thai soil with the apparent terrorist bungle in central Bangkok. The government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra continues to deny international terrorist presence in Thailand, but the weight of evidence increasingly points to the contrary. Thailand is a soft target among third-country theatres of operation. Unless the Thai authorities beef up their security measures and conduct deft diplomacy in the near term, the risk of this easygoing country degenerating from a transit point for illicit crimes to an outright staging ground of international terrorist violence will grow.

• OPINION

  Uneasy truce and elusive reconciliation

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 30/03/2012

  » After the post-coup years of conflict and turmoil, Thailand at last has reached uneasy terms of a truce, which will be necessary for long-term reconciliation and the way forward. To take the remaining steps towards the hitherto elusive reconciliation will require more concessions from the main parties involved. The danger going forward is that what appear like huge concessions now may well turn out later to be too little, too late.

• OPINION

  Deprivation to deliverance in Myanmar

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 20/04/2012

  » The opposition National League for Democracy's virtual sweep of 43 out of 44 MP seats in Myanmar's recent by-elections was a long time coming.

• OPINION

  Euro-style integration not the way forward for East Asia

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 31/05/2012

  » Not so long ago, it was popular for university students in these parts to write term papers on comparisons between the economic integration of the European Union and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations' economic cooperation after the formation of the Asean Free Trade Area in 1992. Such interest in this European-Asean parallel has dried up following the global financial crisis that convulsed the United States and other Western economies in 2007-08 and the spiralling crisis of the euro, the EU's main currency.

• OPINION

  After Europe, Suu Kyi faces tough challenge

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 15/06/2012

  » Less than two weeks after her spectacular visit to Bangkok and surrounding provinces under the aegis of the World Economic Forum, Aung San Suu Kyi has embarked on a long-awaited whirlwind tour of western Europe. From Geneva to Oslo and Bergen, and from Dublin to London and Paris, she is deservedly expected to be feted like a rock star of international politics by European leaders who have been her longtime supporters through thick and thin while she spent years in the political wilderness.

• OPINION

  The politics of the Nasa controversy

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 03/07/2012

  » Thai quipsters have put it aptly _ it is now easier for the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa) to go to the Moon than to come to Thailand, now that the government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has opted for parliamentary debate instead of a cabinet resolution.

• OPINION

  Asean turns 45 in precarious times

  News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 10/08/2012

  » For the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, turning 45 is hard to do. Its perennial and cliched crossroads may soon become a precipice unless remedial collective action among the group is taken to repair recent setbacks ahead of its summit in November.

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