Showing 1 - 10 of 196
Stop press intimidation
News, Editorial, Published on 02/01/2018
» The Thai Journalists Association wound up the year by issuing a depressing statement. It rated 2017 as yet another year where the free press was regulated and intimidated by the military government. The TJA said the regime hinders the media by restricting freedom of expression. And it says this causes public harm by not allowing examination and by barring criticism of the junta, collectively and individually.
Use law to fix tainted image
News, Editorial, Published on 01/03/2018
» The derogatory comment by Gambian minister Hamat Bah, who referred to Thailand as a sex tourism destination, really is a national embarrassment.
Public lose the airwaves
News, Editorial, Published on 13/03/2018
» The junta is poised to "reset" the regulatory body that makes all the key decisions about radio, TV and mobile phones. Secret meetings of selectors have narrowed a field of 86 applicants down to 14 short-list candidates. From that final list, the National Legislative Assembly will soon vote on which seven are best qualified to sit on the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC). There will be winners but more importantly, there will be so many losers.
PM must calm public fears
News, Editorial, Published on 28/03/2018
» The capricious responses by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha about the general election, now expected next February, have sown confusion and caused consternation among the public.
Update the computer law
News, Editorial, Published on 18/04/2018
» If events over the past two weeks do not convince the government to write an actual law covering computer fraud, maybe nothing will. The first unfortunate event was to threaten a Chiang Mai magazine editor with a computer crime charge over something that had nothing to do with computers (or crime, come to that). The second was the reluctant admission by the country's second mobile phone company of security misbehaviour, putting tens of thousands of customers at risk. That is not a crime.
A swinish proposal
News, Editorial, Published on 23/04/2018
» At a meeting earlier this month in Washington, the US government asked its Thai counterparts to do something they have never done, and should not do. In brief, the US delegation to bilateral trade talks asked Thailand to legalise a drug and put it in animal feed. The drug, ractopamine, is banned in 160 countries including Thailand. The back story to this disappointing US chicanery is that if Thailand legalises and allows Thai farmers to use ractopamine, Washington will then demand the end of the Thai ban on US pork.
Minister flunks test
News, Editorial, Published on 23/06/2018
» Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin has been barking up the wrong tree. In making his recent demands to the organiser of the 2018 Programme for International Student Assessment (Pisa), the minister seemed more anxious about the rankings of Thai students in the eyes of the world than their actual academic improvement.
Volunteers and success
News, Editorial, Published on 04/07/2018
» The successful search and the coming rescue of the Wild Boar football team is one of our finest moments. The 12 boys and coach were found and then broadcast on video to the nation by skilled and tenacious divers who refused to take a step or stroke backwards for 10 agonising days. They are heroes. So are the hundreds, Thai and foreigner, who supported them directly, as are the thousands who backed them actively.
No need for new ministry
News, Editorial, Published on 07/07/2018
» The cabinet this week seemed to know where the problems with Thailand's higher education institutes lie. But they have not pressed the right button in approving a proposal to set up a new ministry of higher education, innovation, research and science.
Suu Kyi must free journos
News, Editorial, Published on 16/07/2018
» No country and leader in modern times has risen to the top and plunged to the bottom of world respect so quickly. In just a year, Aung San Suu Kyi and Myanmar have gone from respect to disfavour in most of the world. Last August, the country started an ethnic cleansing campaign against its Rohingya minority that even a UN official called genocide. Now, it has sunk lower with the prosecution of two men for a crime that really has to be called "news reporting while Burmese".