During a recent interview with Axios, an American news organisation, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Imran Khan deflected questions and refused to acknowledge widespread repression and human rights abuses of the minority Uighur Muslims in the Xinjiang region of Western China. Human rights groups have long accused Chinese authorities of detaining, torturing, and forcibly sterilising more than a million Uighurs being held in camps across the region.
Alarming orders from Myanmar’s Posts and Telecommunications Department (PTD) back in June warned that senior executives of major telecommunications firms in the country would not be allowed to leave the country without the permission of the military junta. In pursuit of the junta’s goals of creating a digital surveillance state, telecom companies were told that they had until July 5 to implement technology on their systems that would allow government authorities to spy on calls, messages, and web traffic, as well as to track the whereabouts of users.
The Thai government had to have seen the data. The United Nations put together a socio-economic impact assessment of Covid-19 in Thailand back in October of last year. It warned of glaring threats to the most at-risk populations – migrant workers, the elderly, the urban poor, informal workers and more. Just one of many vulnerability assessments, it was prepared in partnership with the National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC). Officials should have been prepared for the worst and responded early, but sadly they didn’t.
June 19 marked the 30th anniversary of the disappearance of Thanong Po-Arn, a prominent critic of the 1991 military coup that was led by General Suchinda Kraprayoon. Thanong was head of the Labour Congress of Thailand, the largest labour organisation in the country, as well as deputy chairman of the International Council of Free Trade Unions. Prior to his disappearance, he received anonymous death threats, telling his family: “If for three days I don’t contact you, that means I have been arrested; if it’s more than seven days, that means I have already died.
As Thailand fights the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, it is also fighting on a related front: what it terms a proliferation of fake news that is causing confusion among the public. The latter is seen as another covert attempt to limit the freedom of expression and media freedom in the kingdom. Recently, Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan ordered the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society and related agencies, including the Anti-Fake News Centre, the Ministry of Justice, and the Royal Thai police to take legal action.
For most of its existence, the Quad has been conceptualized as an informal entity with objectives primarily aimed at containing China and maintaining the long-standing rules-based international order. For India, Japan, Australia, and the United States these interests are firmly rooted in the implementation of a cohesive, salient Indo-Pacific policy.
With a crisis raging in the African Congo, the then-UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld set off in 1961 to broker a ceasefire with Moise Tshombe, the leader of the secessionist State of Katanga. Yet Hammarskjöld tragically died after the DC-6 carrying him to the talks crashed in Northern Rhodesia, or what is now Zambia. Although peace in the Congo escaped him, the Swedish economist is widely considered the best diplomat to ever hold the office.
Thailand is the world’s most unequal country. Deep, persistent inequality is represented across several sectors of the nation’s economy, including agriculture. According to Protection International, while 57% of Thai farmland is publicly owned, 43% is privately owned and 90% of this land – or more than 127 million rai – is owned by just 50 individuals. Half of land in Thailand is used for agriculture and a third of the workforce are employed as farmers.
The ongoing crisis in Myanmar has exacerbated concerns about ASEAN’s relevance and competence to police crises within its member states. As of May 27, 828 people have been killed so far in Myanmar since February 1 according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP), and more than 4,300 people are currently being detained. The crisis has seen the first indication that it has become a regional problem, with people fleeing violence into neighboring Thailand and India.
Historically, May is a turbulent month for Thailand. It’s the season for coups and crackdowns, usually headed by the military. May 1992 and May 2014 are extraordinary periods in contemporary Thai history – one far more insidious than the other. Chronologically speaking, 1992 was a chaotic year. It would see two major elections, several prime ministers and governments, mass protests and public demonstrations on the streets of Bangkok.