Showing 11 - 20 of 23
For Belarusian troupe, show must go on despite dangers
Spectrum, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Published on 19/08/2012
» Thespians of the Belarus Free Theatre have been beaten, arrested and harassed by authorities. And husband-and-wife co-directors Nicolai Khalezin and Natalia Kaliada, as they explained to Spectrum last week while on a visit to Bangkok, are now forced to live in exile, facing prison sentences if they return home. Within Belarus _ their large landlocked country of just under 10 million people, bordered by Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania _ the actors continue to perform in secret and at great risk to themselves and their audiences.
Dragons & butterflies, an inmate finds inner peace
Spectrum, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Published on 13/05/2012
» South African Alexander Krebs, known to friends and family as "Shani", arrived in Bangkok in April 1994 on a 10 day holiday. He was 34 at the time and writing a novel, but was also a 15-year-long drug addict who had a sporadic wild streak in him and had just broken up with his fiancee. His family thought the time away would do him good.
For-profit business model sees citizens reap dividends
Spectrum, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Published on 03/06/2012
» In Yangon an organisation, FXB Myanmar, gives vocational training and business opportunities to HIV-positive workers and women rescued from the Thai sex industry. A manufacturer of affordable foot pumps for irrigation, Proximity Designs, has a network of distribution channels to upcountry farmers that NGOs and government organisations envy. BusinessKind-Myanmar sells low-cost mosquito netting in malarial and dengue fever regions, and half of its work force is also HIV-positive. Myanmar Business Executives provides low-interest microcredit and networking outlets to needy individuals and organisations.
Reaching out to the people languishing in nowhere land
Spectrum, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Published on 10/06/2012
» Fongchan Suksaneh says she was in a "quasi-stateless" situation for 25 years and applied numerous times for citizenship, before finally receiving it following promulgation of the fourth Nationality Act in 2008. "I was told many times, 'We don't need people like you. Go to a different country!' ... I wasn't considered a Thai person even though I couldn't tell the difference myself."
Voices of the silent
Spectrum, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Published on 11/03/2012
» Last Thursday was International Women's Day, an occasion that for a century has served for people to demand greater civil rights, representation and equality; to honour wives, mothers and girlfriends and the accomplishments of women; to call for an end to global hunger and poverty; and, increasingly, to highlight the plight of refugees and the displaced.
These guys oughta be locked up! Cage fighting hits town
Spectrum, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Published on 25/03/2012
» In last weekend's main event, Arnaud ''The Game'' Lepont was losing, staggering on unsteady legs as his opponent landed kick after blow and at one point had him in a choke hold. Krysztof ''Haja'' Hajtalowicz, a Polish master of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, had a 10cm height advantage and far greater reach. A blow to the face had split the Frenchman's lower lip, and blood poured from his mouth.
Muay Thai strikes for Olympic glory
Spectrum, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Published on 08/04/2012
» An eventful week for combat sports in Thailand culminated on Tuesday night at Lat Phrao's Bangkok Convention Centre with a showcase of muay Thai, Thailand's traditional martial art, for an international audience.
Supporters knocked for a loop by MMA ban
Spectrum, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Published on 08/04/2012
» Less than a week before muay Thai's application to the IOC and World Games, and a few days after Spectrum reported on a high-profile local mixed martial arts (MMA) competition, MMA was banned in Thailand by the Sports Authority of Thailand (SAT) on the grounds that it was hurting the image of muay Thai. MMA is a discipline fought in an octagonal cage using any number of fighting and grappling techniques. To hone stand-up combat techniques, many international competitors train in muay Thai, and for years MMA fighters have been coming to train in the Kingdom.
For African footballers, the grass is greener in Thailand
Spectrum, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Published on 15/04/2012
» The Thai Premier League _ boosted by increasing sponsorship, popular support and financial backing from politicians and corporate millionaire chairmen _ is on the rise. TPL champions Buriram United defeated the top teams of the Japanese and Chinese leagues in its first two Asian Champions League matches last month, an achievement unimaginable a few years ago.
A mercenary's tale
Spectrum, Ezra Kyrill Erker, Published on 06/05/2012
» Peter Slade was once in prison for five years on charges of murder, conspiracy to commit another murder and attempting to overthrow a foreign government _ partly a victim, he says, of a corrupt Australian judicial system. He fought in the Vietnam War, was a security contractor in 1973 Rhodesia, a debt collector at home in Melbourne and as far afield as Nigeria, and arrived in reconstruction-era Cambodia and Iraq without connections but a desire to start anew, in stints that would last some seven years each. He witnessed first-hand the Bangkok coup that killed journalists Neil Davis and Bill Latch in 1985 and was on the beach in Patong the morning the tsunami struck Phuket in 2004.