Showing 1 - 10 of 279
Reflect, respect and celebrate
Oped, Angela Macdonald, Published on 26/01/2026
» Australia Day 2026 is an opportunity to reflect on our nation, history and achievements. We are grateful to celebrate this occasion with our colleagues, partners and friends here in Thailand, a country with whom Australia shares a long and enduring partnership, and a country close to Australians' hearts.
Three shocks that shook us in 2025
Oped, Yanis Varoufakis, Published on 24/12/2025
» This was the year that the remaining pillars of the late-20th-century order were shattered, exposing the hollow core of what passed for a global system. Three blows sufficed.
Baht headache
Oped, Postbag, Published on 18/12/2025
» Re: "BoT cracks down on surging baht", (Business, Dec 17). While the baht's currency strength is an ever-more concerning issue, as pointed out numerous times, what is rarely mentioned is the likely excess Thai foreign reserves, nearing an astonishing US$270 billion.
A lesson in geoengineering for grown-ups
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/12/2025
» A few days ago the European Union's Earth Observation programme, "Copernicus", made a special announcement at the end of its monthly report on the state of the climate. It said that the average global temperature for the past three years (2023-2025) has been 1.5 degrees Celsius above the pre-industrial level. That's the level we were warned that we must never exceed.
The treacherous sycophancy of the populists
Oped, Michael Burleigh, Published on 15/12/2025
» Until a few days ago, it had never crossed my mind that people across Europe -- including Londoners like me -- were living in a strife‑afflicted hell hole, "suffocated" by regulations, stripped of political liberties, and bound for "civilisational erasure". So, it was with some surprise that I read this assessment in the new US National Security Strategy -- a document that echoes pseudo‑intellectual propaganda more than resembling any serious foreign‑policy analysis.
Socialism's novel brand of nomenclature
Oped, John J Metzler, Published on 18/11/2025
» On Nov 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall collapsed. On a very ordinary night, thousands of East Germans started crossing the dividing barrier between the communist East and capitalist West Berlin after the East German regime had suddenly opened tightly controlled border crossings. In a matter of hours, history was made. Throngs of people soon swamped the Wall and then started smashing the hated communist barrier into concrete rubble.
Adam Smith and the moral economy we have lost
Oped, Antara Haldar, Published on 12/11/2025
» With the 250th anniversary of The Wealth of Nations approaching next year, the world is gearing up to honour Adam Smith. But which Smith should be recognised? The hard-nosed "founding father" of modern economics, or the philosopher who wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments? Scholars have wrestled with this question, a riddle known as "Das Adam Smith Problem", for centuries, because it concerns not just dualities within Smith's thought, but also our own uneasy relationship with morality and markets.
Legal hurdles after same-sex marriage
Oped, Vitit Muntarbhorn, Published on 06/11/2025
» With the great news of the same-sex marriage law in Thailand comes another question -- how to facilitate the lives of couples, especially when one of them is not a Thai national. Two lingering and nagging issues concern the acquisition of nationality and the channels for adopting a child.
Can Trump achieve eternal peace in Gaza?
Oped, Joschka Fischer, Published on 30/10/2025
» Past wars in the Middle East have not only brought immense human suffering but also created new paths toward peace. The same holds for the war in and around Gaza. Israel and the United States have significantly, and perhaps decisively, weakened the so-called Axis of Resistance -- led, financed, and armed by Iran -- and Iran's nuclear programme. The leaders of Hezbollah (in Lebanon) and Hamas (in Gaza) have been eliminated, and the Assad regime in Syria has been overthrown. The Middle East is now a different place, and Iran and its Axis of Resistance are among the biggest losers.
The time I really put my foot in it
Oped, Roger Crutchley, Published on 19/10/2025
» A half-hearted spring-cleaning session at home during the week came to a welcome halt when I unearthed a couple of my father's wartime RAF books under a pile of disintegrating paperbacks. The Air Ministry books, published more than 80 years ago, always serve as a reminder of when as a kid I made a faux pas of embarrassing proportions.