Showing 1 - 10 of 30
Early education transforms lives
Oped, Justin van Fleet & Pia Rebello Britto, Published on 09/12/2025
» The leaders' declaration adopted at the end of the recent G20 summit in South Africa reaffirmed the group's commitment to tackling some of the world's most pressing challenges, from inequality and long-running conflicts to AI and climate change. It also marked a historic milestone: for the first time, the G20 identified education as one of its top global priorities.
Floods 'a recurring nightmare'
Oped, George G van der Meulen & Chamniern Vorratnchaiphan, Published on 16/09/2025
» Thailand has faced floods for more than a century. Some years are worse than others, but the pattern is consistent. The catastrophic 2011 floods remain the most painful reminder: according to the World Bank, they caused US$46.5 billion (1.5 trillion baht) in economic losses, displaced 13 million people, and claimed approximately 800 lives. Much of the country's industrial heartland was submerged for months, severely impacting global supply chains.
The scramble for the world's critical minerals
Oped, Rabah Arezki & Rick van der Ploeg, Published on 07/08/2025
» The world's superpowers have developed a seemingly insatiable appetite for the critical minerals that are essential to the ongoing energy and digital transitions, including rare-earth metals (for semiconductors), cobalt (for batteries), and uranium (for nuclear reactors). The International Energy Agency forecasts that demand for these minerals will more than quadruple by 2040 for use in clean-energy technologies alone. But, in their race to control these vital resources, China, Europe, and the United States risk causing serious harm to the countries that possess them.
The 'living happily ever after' rule is for everyone
Oped, Steve Ammidown, Published on 14/02/2025
» The romance genre has a single set-in-stone rule: The main characters of the story will end up happily in a relationship. The HEA (Happily Ever After) or the HFN (Happy for Now) is the expectation of every reader who picks up a romance novel in the same way a mystery reader waits for a big twisty reveal or a fantasy reader anticipates strange and arcane magic.
Prosperity needs a healthy planet
News, Axel van Trotsenburg, Published on 30/10/2024
» Progress on poverty reduction has slowed almost to a standstill in recent years. With nearly 700 million people still living on less than US$2.15 (73 baht) per day, the world is far from the goal of eradicating extreme poverty by 2030. At the current pace, it will take at least three decades to reach this target and more than a century to lift everyone above the poverty line of $6.85 per day used for upper-middle-income countries. Today, 44% of the global population falls below this threshold.
Progress lies beyond pre-coup order
News, Laetitia van den Assum and Kobsak Chutikul, Published on 07/10/2024
» From Tuesday until Friday, Laos will host a summit of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) leaders. The event will also bring Asean partners from around the world to the capital Vientiane. Its agenda will be weighed down by complex and potentially divisive issues. One of them is the situation in Myanmar, which has been on the agenda since April 2021.
The rise of consumer cryptocurrency
News, Steve Kaczynski and Scott Duke Kominers, Published on 26/02/2024
» Since its inception with the launch of Bitcoin in 2008, blockchain technology has gone through numerous cycles of public attention. Over time, growing interest and investment in the best-known cryptocurrencies has led to greater acceptance, as highlighted by the US Securities and Exchange Commission's approval of a spot Bitcoin ETF (exchange-traded fund) in January. While blockchains and their associated "crypto" assets have yet to be adopted by a truly broad base of consumers, that is starting to change, owing to a shift in how these technologies are being used.
Asean should back a new Myanmar
Oped, Laetitia van den Assum and Kobsak Chutikul, Published on 24/01/2024
» On Jan 28-29, Asean's foreign ministers will meet in historic Luang Prabang, until 1975 the capital of Laos, their host country. It will be their first meeting since Laos took over Asean's rotating chairmanship from Indonesia at the beginning of the year.
Vulnerable states need funding
Oped, Ken Ofori-Atta & Axel van Trotsenburg, Published on 13/09/2023
» Amid an escalating climate emergency and a global debt crisis, calls for a new "fit for climate" global financial architecture are growing louder throughout the developing world.
Repatriation needs right conditions
Oped, Laetitia van den Assum and Kobsak Chutikul, Published on 27/03/2023
» Early this month, news broke about plans of Myanmar's military regime to start repatriating some 1,000 Rohingya refugees from Bangladesh to Myanmar's Rakhine State. Myanmar's generals are in a hurry. Reportedly, they want to start repatriation by mid-next month, during Ramadan. The choice of that date is no coincidence.