TOM PLATE WRITES — Watch Thailand carefully. It may be that the only major element in the country that truly understands one-person, one-vote democracy is the Pheu Thai Party and its former elected Prime Ministers Thaksin (2001-2006) and younger sister Yingluck Shinawatra (2011-2014). Their political formula is simplicity itself: get…
DYLAN RAMOS WRITES— On Monday, October 2nd, the leader of Thailand’s military junta, General Prayut Chan-o-cha, came to Washingto to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump. While the president was honoring yet another authoritarian leader with an invitation to the White House, the junta’s Attorney General was charging former Prime…
BANGKOK — The commander of the Thai Army has charged former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra with lese majeste for allegedly defaming the monarchy in a recent interview with a foreign news agency. Gen. Udomdet Sitabutr assigned an officer from the staff judge advocate corps to file the charge on his…
Asia Media International Founder Tom Plate writes in his syndicated column: History never comes to a halt but snakes its way into the future as it wishes – often in unexpected and sometimes tragic ways. Whether via revolution or counter-revolution, any abrupt change in citizen participation and political structure will…
ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – The famed Land of Smiles could be mistaken for the Land of Scowls as the color-coded political strife continues. On November 3, junta leader and present Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-ocha prescribed a Thaksin-detox for the media to remedy Thailand’s conflict. […]
THAILAND’S LEASDING ENGLISH LANGUAGE NEWSPAPER BANGKOK POST REPORTS: “A former MP has filed a lese majeste complaint against Thaksin Shinawatra and two other people, as well as Matichon Plc, in connection with a translated book. ‘Jub Khao Kui Thaksin Shinawatra’ has been available in the local market for more than…
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST TOM PLATE WRITES (7 May) — More than almost any political crisis on the face of the earth today – more than in Russia, Ukraine and Crimea; even more, in a way, than in dreadfully miserable Syria – it is the crisis in Thailand that seems so sad.…
In December 2010, in his exile home in Emirate Hills, a suburb of Dubai, former Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra sat down with American journalist Tom Plate for an exclusive series of five two-hour interviews that became the basis of the controversial book “Conversations with Thaksin” (Marshall Cavendish Singapore, 2011).…
TOM PLATE WRITES IN HIS INTERNATIONALLY SYNDICATED COLUMN: – A country of beauty is in danger of turning into a beast. The Kingdom of Thailand, the land of the smiling people, the gorgeous countryside and a storied history as the once-upon-a-time Siam, now has a severe case of the political…
It seems that Thaksin the Educator – a man reviled at home as a virtual political anti-Christ – has become something of a star celebrity everywhere else but in Thailand. This appears to be especially true among university students, by nature intellectually curious and open-minded. Fresh off of his recent…
