BANGKOK – Paetongtarn Shinawatra has been elected Thailand’s next prime minister, a dramatic and unexpected shift in national leadership that consolidates the family clan’s hold on politics but won’t necessarily stabilize them.   Parliament voted overwhelmingly in favor – with 319 for, 145 against and 27 abstaining – of the 37-year-old political novice and loyal […]

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BANGKOK – A Thai court has ruled Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin breached ethical standards in his appointment of a convicted felon to his Cabinet, knocking the embattled premier from power after less than a year in office and thrusting Thai politics back into relative chaos. The Constitutional Court judged Srettha’s appointment of Phichit Chuenban, jailed […]

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In a lurch backward for Thai democracy,  a court ruled today to dissolve the opposition Move Forward party for campaigning against a severe royal insult law, which the nine-judge panel ruled violated election laws and was tantamount to attempting to overthrow the constitutional monarchy. The unanimous ruling will ban the party’s top executives from politics […]

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BANGKOK – Two years after a military-led government decriminalized cannabis, Thailand’s elected civilian leader announced he will end its recreational use in December, shut thousands of licensed weed shops and punish those involved with marijuana unless for medical use. The sudden reversal threatens the popularity of an already squabbling coalition government elected as voters’ second […]

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BANGKOK – Washington has expanded into Bangkok’s satellite and cybersecurity, with the US training Thailand’s military in “Space Situational Awareness” for the first time during the recently completed Cobra Gold wargames. China’s Huawei, meanwhile, has partnered with Thailand’s National Cyber Security Agency (NCSA), which is responsible for combatting “cyber threats” to this Southeast Asian nation’s […]

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A judge in Nakhon Ratchasima province found whistleblower Chutima Sidasathian not guilty today of three charges of criminal defamation.  In her ruling, the judge said Chutima was entitled to make genuine criticism of local administrators. Onlookers saw the judge’s comments as a sweeping endorsement of the right to freedom of expression in Thailand. Speaking after […]

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BANGKOK – Thailand hopes China will help build a US$2.8 billion, east-west highway and railway “Land Bridge” across the kingdom, linking the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Thailand as a short-cut for oil and other international cargo currently sailing further south via Singapore and the Malacca Strait. Inland southern China could then also use existing […]

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BANGKOK – Buddhist-majority Thailand’s new prime minister flew to Palestinian-friendly Malaysia and reached out to other Muslim nations amid hopes for the release of 18 impoverished Thai laborers held by Hamas, who already slaughtered 29 of them during its assault in Israel. Weeping families in bleak rural Thai villages said their ill-fated relatives went to […]

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BANGKOK – China’s navy quietly sailed into the shallow, energy-rich Gulf of Thailand earlier this month for Blue Strike 2023, a joint naval exercise to increase Beijing’s influence with Thailand’s newly elected, military-backed civilian government. Meanwhile, in his first political foray onto the international stage, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin flew to New York and attended […]

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BANGKOK – Topsy-turvy Thailand finally has a new government, a largely pre-ordained configuration built in the name of national reconciliation that nominally unites old foes while perilously pushing a potent new progressive force to the opposition sidelines. To announce the historic reset, coup-toppled and criminally convicted ex-premier Thaksin Shinawatra dramatically returned to the kingdom today […]

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BANGKOK – In a largely preordained vote against the popular will, Move Forward Party (MFP) leader Pita Limjaroenrat failed on July 13 to win enough parliamentary votes to become Thailand’s next and arguably first progressive prime minister. The military-appointed, 249-member Senate and lower house parliamentarians aligned with the outgoing conservative coalition led by coup-maker General […]

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BANGKOK – Job opening: Prime Minister of Thailand. Must be able to end the kingdom’s cycle of coups by satisfying the demands of a putsch-prone, politically empowered military. Must be able to seduce junta-appointed senators into supporting the next government, and continue capitalist Thailand’s delicate balancing of relations with the US and China. Unfortunately for […]

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BANGKOK _ Pita Limjaroenrat is deliberately entering a political minefield, littered with politicians and governments which failed. Wealthy Pita’s resounding victory in Sunday’s nationwide election to try and become Thailand’s youngest prime minister was a vivid rejection by a large swath of Thai society against the military’s political domination and coups. Pita, 42, is now […]

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BANGKOK – Thai voters overwhelmingly selected the Move Forward and Peua Thai opposition parties at Sunday’s (May 14) highly anticipated election, a popular call for change over continuity that may or may not result in a smooth political transition after nearly a decade of military-aligned rule. Move Forward, the reincarnation of the banned Future Forward […]

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BANGKOK – A dynastic daughter of the billionaire, anti-coup Shinawatra family is leading certain opinion polls to become prime minister after Sunday’s (May 14) nationwide elections. But her potential victory is far from assured due to an unelected, military-appointed Senate that will have a 250-seat vote on the kingdom’s next leader. Paetongtarn Shinawatra, 36 and […]

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Clearly, self-awareness isn’t Prayut Chan-ocha’s forte as the Thai prime minister warns of a “black hole of conflict” in what was once one of Southeast Asia’s most promising economies. The conflict about which Prayut warns is assured if voters support opposition groups in Sunday’s general election, or so he claims. Yet many economists agree that […]

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BAN RAK THAI – Rotting weapons, faded battlefield photos, and rough-sketched jungle maps from defeated, anti-communist, US-equipped Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) guerrillas are cherished in this northern border village. The KMT and China stopped killing each other decades ago. Today, the KMT’s descendants graciously serve China’s fun-seeking tourists, sheltering them in cozy, Chinese-themed hotels and quenching […]

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The ghost of elections past hangs uneasily over the upcoming electoral contest in Thailand, waged on a battleground of big-spending promises. If the military-proxy parties are nudged from power, will this finally settle the country back on a course of stable electoral democracy that was undermined by the 2006 and 2014 military coups? Or will […]

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In June 2022, the Thai government took the bold step of decriminalizing the production, sale and personal use of cannabis. Huge consequences have followed, and other Asian countries should take notice. An extensive, largely unregulated industry has quickly emerged, surprising many observers. Specialized retail outlets selling cannabis products have proliferated in large cities. Their number […]

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BANGKOK – More than 3,800 US troops led 30 countries’ forces and observers through Cobra Gold, the Pentagon’s biggest Asian military exercise, which came to a live-fire drill end on March 10. The 42nd iteration of Exercise Cobra Gold is robust again after dwindling for three years during Covid’s spread. Reports indicate the US sent […]

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