Thai Story

In December 2011, members of the Anonymous hacktivist group penetrated the computer systems of Texas-based “global intelligence company” Stratfor and accessed more than five million e-mails. Over the past year, these e-mails have been published in batches by WikiLeaks, and several sensitive discussions relevant to Thailand are now available online. Stratfor likes to give the impression that is…

It’s time the truth is told about an archaic, elitist and secretive institution that is increasingly out of touch with reality and badly failing the people of 21st century Thailand. I am referring, of course, to the FCCT. The once-proud Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand has been in decline for decades: its antiquated website boasts of “the good…

In a previous article three months ago, I shared some intriguing audio files from “The Landon Chronicles”, the recorded reminiscences of Kenneth Landon, who was the U.S. State Department’s top Thailand expert in the 1940s and 1950s, and his wife Margaret, author of the famous book Anna and the King of Siam. I’m still going through the…

In 1998, the BBC broadcast a two-part documentary on Thailand’s royal family, entitled The Royal Court of Thailand. Unlike the previous BBC documentary on the subject, Soul of a Nation, broadcast in 1980, it was a balanced and sometimes critical view of the monarchy. A very interesting article by British academic Roger Kershaw that reviews the documentary…

Jim Pollard, a sub-editor at The Nation newspaper and associate director for programmes at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand, has responded to the article I published yesterday, The Foreign Media are Failing Thailand. His comments are below, and afterwards I add a response of my own. Jim’s comments are reproduced verbatim, but in the original…