Showing 1 - 10 of 42
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.
UN picks rights council members with bad records
Oped, John J Metzler, Published on 23/10/2025
» In a ritual of near-farcical folly, the UN General Assembly has elected 14 new members to join the Geneva-based Human Rights Council on Oct 15.
Why is North Korea courting Russian tourists?
Oped, Saahil Menon, Published on 13/08/2025
» Hoping to replenish state coffers with much-needed foreign exchange reserves and offset the sharp post-Covid decline in Chinese tour groups, the Hermit Kingdom has set its sights on inquisitive holiday-makers from an ideologically aligned Russia.
Can the 30-baht health scheme survive?
Oped, Philip J Cunningham, Published on 19/06/2025
» I recently met Dr Jadej Thammatacharee, secretary-general of the National Health Security Office (NHSO), at the home of a mutual friend to ask questions, of which I had many, about the so-called 30-baht scheme -- also known as the "gold card" scheme.
Breaking the silence over North Korea
Oped, John J Metzler, Published on 29/05/2025
» Speaking out to break the information barrier inside the North Korean dictatorship is in itself nothing new, and usually quickly forgotten. North Korean exiles, friendly governments, and humanitarian organisations periodically raise the oft-forsaken banner of human rights, only to be confronted by realpolitik through another round of North Korean missile launches or nuclear proliferation.
Venezuela's fall deepens under Maduro's rule
Oped, John J Metzler, Published on 15/05/2025
» What was akin to a celebration of global dictators and political rogues, Venezuela's Marxist dictator, Nicholas Maduro, visited Moscow to join Vladimir Putin in celebrating Russia's May 9 Victory Day Parade, the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union's triumph over Nazi Germany. Mr Putin's pantheon included communist China's leader Xi Jinping and Brazil's President Lula da Silva, among others.
Indonesia leads Asean into Brics+
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 17/01/2025
» As the new year gets underway with the looming re-inauguration of United States President Donald J Trump, countries and entire regions are having to manoeuvre and realign in view of an accelerated breakdown of the post-Second World War rules-based liberal international order.
Party-pooping haze
Oped, Postbag, Published on 11/01/2025
» Re: "PM2.5 tipped to worsen until Monday", (BP, Jan 10).
Trump's tariff blackmail boosts Brics
Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/12/2024
» Even before officially taking office, United States President-elect Donald J Trump is shaking up the international system with drama and fanfare unlike any other major leader in recent memory. His most recent outburst to slap 100% tariffs on the "Brics" countries -- Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, as well as Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates -- is a case in point. While it will coerce developing economies to think twice about the cost of going their own way, this tariff blackmail and others like it also risk pushing smaller countries away from the US to other rival big powers, particularly China.
Middle Kingdom and 'boomerang effect'
Oped, Kasit Piromya, Published on 25/10/2024
» President Xi Jinping, on the eve of assuming the supreme leadership of China, came forward with the notion that China, the Middle Kingdom, lost its grandeur and supremacy in the middle of the 19th century to Western influence and encroachment, as well as the Japanese and island kingdoms that essentially acted as imperial Western powers inflicting military defeats against the massive but inadequate Chinese forces.