PAVIN CHACHAVALPONGPUN WRITES – Thailand has become a “forgotten kingdom.” Despite a myriad of domestic troubles, ranging from the growing absolutist monarchic power, the remaining authoritarian rule, the highly politicized judiciaries, to the heightened legal harassments against pro-democracy youths, Thailand is virtually free from international pressure and sanctions. Even its…
Tag: Thaksin Shinawatra
THAILAND: THOSE ‘ANNOYING’ COLLEGE AND HIGH SCHOOL PROTESTERS
ALYSSA MONTALVO WRITES — It’s scarcely big news that the political culture of Thailand is heavily influenced by the monarchy. And because of this – and the alliance between the extensive Thai military and Crown, one of the world’s longest running monarchies – issues of basic human rights and equity…
LOS ANGELES: ASIA MEDIA EDITOR HEADING FOR GRADUATE SCHOOL WINS AWARD
Asia Media International’s first annual Thaksin and Yingluck Shinawatra Graduate School Fellowship has been awarded to Zhi Jiao Danielle Goh, described by AMI Founder and President Clinical Prof. Tom Plate as “our most outstanding Asia Media student staffer over the past two years.” Zhi Jiao Danielle Goh, born in Singapore,…
THAILAND: WHY LOYALTY TO THAKSIN REMAINS SO STRONG
KHON KAEN, THAILAND — When business started to sag a year ago at the shoe factory where she and her husband work, Nui Kalathai began to borrow money from relatives in her village in Khon Kaen, one of the largest provinces in Thailand’s northeastern plateau. She has been careful to…
THAILAND: Free and Fair Elections? Not So Fast – OR TOO SLOW?
ROBERT BORN WRITES– Sunday, March 24, marked the first time in five years that the Thai government allowed an election years after promising one. In 2014, a military coup removed the government of former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s party–then headed by Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra. Since then, the military junta…
THAILAND: THE TRIAL OF YINGLUCK
KATRINA CROSBY WRITES- Thailand’s political stability may be rocked in the upcoming week. With the trial of former Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra awaiting its final verdict, the nation’s Supreme Court decision could lead to to a divisive emergence of the current political forces swirling under the surface of this otherwise…
BEIJING: THE QUESTION OF CHINA’S IMAGE
TOM PLATE WRITES – I have been traveling to Asia and writing about it in various newspapers and journals for two decades, and I have visited China enough times to know it closely. My observation about China is substantially different from most of the written accounts I read or video-view…
THAILAND: WARNINGS FROM FORMER ELECTED PRIME MINISTER THAKSIN
THE INDEPENDENT NEWS SITE ASIAN CORRESPONDENT WRITES – Thailand’s former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has criticized attempts by the ruling military junta to push forward a constitution, calling it “crazy” and part of a strategy to avoid a long overdue election. Speaking to the Financial Times in Singapore recently, the…
THAILAND: History is ‘Rewritten’ by the Victors
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: Generals Should Defend But Not Rule Their Countries
“The United States is an Asian-Pacific nation, and we take our enduring interests there very seriously. We know that America’s security and prosperity are closely and increasingly linked to the Asia-Pacific.” So spoke John Kerry, that peripatetic American diplomat. And so finally, if but for one excellent speech, the secretary…
THAILAND: A Clean Sweep
ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – A Yellow-shirt “boy’s club” has Thailand’s Prime Minister, Yingluck Shinawatra, in its cross hairs. Democrat party leaders and public spokespersons air Yingluck’s dirty laundry as a further attempt to delegitimize her and undermine the February 2nd snap election. Khao Sod daily newspaper released a video of Somchai…
THAILAND: Might Equals Right?
ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – Thailand’s Democrat Party leaders are using momentum from the country’s current protests to further their own, longstanding cause: The overthrow of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinowatra and the dominant Pheu Thai Party. Protests first erupted between royalists (locally coined as “yellow shirts”) and those loyal to Thaksin (the…
THAILAND: Political Trend Alert – Red is Out
ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – Donning a “Red shirt” may soon be a political faux pas due to the highly contested Amnesty bill before Parliament. After 2010’s violent political strife, Thailand finds itself navigating the retributive versus restorative justice debate. Deep political rifts between the Red and Yellow shirts have done…
THAILAND: Did I Hear That Right?
ELIZABETH NAAI WRITES – It seems as if George Orwell’s 1984 has become a reality in this technological age — anyone could be listening or doctoring conversations. Two weeks after Yuthasak Sasiprapa was appointed Deputy Defense Minister, a YouTube clip was released on July 6 of two voices: one allegedly…
SINGAPORE: Book on UN Secretary General Reviewed
On 5 January The Straits Times of Singapore published as its lead opinion essay a review of ‘Conversations with Ban Ki-moon,” the new book on the United Nations Secretary General that is featured as part of the ‘Giants of Asia’ series. The reviewer Asas Latif, a visiting research fellow at…
THAILAND: Thaksin — On the University Lecture Tour!
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…