Showing 1 - 10 of 12
The costs of no control
News, Editorial, Published on 16/04/2025
» The collapse of the State Audit Office (SAO) building in the March 28 earthquake continues to uncover the rot within the construction industry.
Arizona aspires to be chip off the Taiwanese block
Oped, Pinelopi Koujianou Goldberg, Published on 21/09/2024
» Contrary to expectations, the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) semiconductor plant in Arizona is reportedly on track to meet its 2025 production targets. This announcement poses a challenge to the many observers who predicted that the effort to bring chip manufacturing back to the United States would fail. What went right this time?
Train plan needs detail
News, Editorial, Published on 26/08/2024
» Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra has floated an idea for the government to take over private electric train projects in the country and set a flat fare of 20 baht across all routes, a plan which aligns with a Pheu Thai Party campaign promise.
OpenAI's Q* is alarming for a different reason
News, Parmy Olson, Published on 05/12/2023
» When news stories emerged last week that OpenAI had been working on a new AI model called Q* (pronounced "q star"), some suggested this was a major step toward powerful, humanlike artificial intelligence that could one day go rogue.
Thailand's place in Big Pharma
Oped, Pasu Decharin, Published on 30/07/2021
» Names of medicines, vaccines and pharmaceutical companies have seeped into daily conversations. In the past, people cared so little about exact names of vaccines, injections or pills that they were given, not to mention details of manufacturer or even their locations. That has all changed thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, which has triggered a shift in medication-taking behaviours. Names of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, most of which are concentrated in the United States, followed by China, Japan, and European countries, have become more widely known, with the most familiar being Roche, Novartis, Merck, and Bristol Myers Squibb.
Confronting a new era of supply chain volatility
Oped, Sri Rajan, Raymond Tsang and Gerry Mattios, Published on 08/04/2021
» As Covid-19 threw fragile global supply chains into disarray, many companies were stunned by their own vulnerability. The risk of depending on a supply base that is concentrated in one geographic region has been increasing over the past 30 years, but the pandemic quickly demonstrated how much chaos and pain one unexpected event could inflict.
Bus commuters won't gain from BMTA rehab
Oped, Sirinya Wattanasukchai, Published on 24/06/2020
» The Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) is getting serious about rehabilitation, proposing a slew of plans in a scheme akin to that adopted for Thai Airways (THAI) to help the loss-ridden agency turn itself around.
The Great Dying, the Little Ice Age, and little old us
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 06/02/2019
» The Black Death killed about 30% of the European population in a few years in the middle of the 14th century. A century and a half later the native people of the Americas were hit by half a dozen plagues as bad as the Black Death, one after another, and 95% of them died. The plagues of the "Great Dying" had much less terrifying names like measles, influenza, diphtheria and smallpox, but they were just as efficient at killing.
Lessons to be learnt from India's debt-ridden projects
News, Andy Mukherjee, Published on 18/09/2018
» It was as a newspaper-office intern in New Delhi in 1992 that I witnessed the birth of India's homegrown belt-and-road initiative. The programme was midwifed by an up-and-coming lender that few had then heard of: Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services Ltd.
What a trade war means for Southeast Asia
News, Pavida Pananond, Published on 17/08/2018
» Although it's still early days in the so-called "trade war" between the United States and China, its knock-on effects are already palpable. Both sides have accused each other of unfair trade practices, and both have imposed a series of tit-for-tat tariffs and other protectionist measures that could lead to a runaway retaliatory logic and spiral beyond anyone's control.