BANGKOK, Thailand — It was Constitution Day in Thailand on Dec. 10, and because it fell on a Sunday this year, banks, schools and offices stayed shut Monday for a holiday, ostensibly to reflect on the charter’s importance. There’s just one problem: Thailand hasn’t got a constitution any more. The much-lauded 1997 constitution, the 16th since the end of absolute monarchy in 1932, was torn up and thrown in the trash can when the army staged its coup on Sept. 19. The generals who stepped in to rescue the country from what they claimed was an increasingly despotic, divisive and [...]
BANGKOK, Thailand — Cambodia is on the verge of attracting the attention of business news writers instead of the horror headlines that for so long marked reporting about the Southeast Asian country. Instead of horrendous stories of the murderous and bizarre Khmer Rouge regime that bludgeoned the place back into the dark ages, the news out of Cambodia is set to focus on oil and gas production and refineries and port development. It should be a time for happy anticipation by the international institutions and NGOs that have propped up the country for years. But instead there is trepidation that [...]
Just a single sentence among the many tens of thousands uttered in Hanoi this past week by 14,000 delegates and their retinues sums up the futility of APEC, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum: “One of the major outcomes that is anticipated from the leaders’ meeting will be the Hanoi Action Plan to implement the Busan roadmap to achieve the Bogor goals,” said Vietnam’s Vice-Minister for Foreign Affairs, Le Cong Phung, at the start of the week-long jamboree. Busan was the South Koreans’ turn at staging the event last year. Bogor was Indonesia’s contribution back in 1994. The political and business [...]
