Learning from Fukushima 2011

Nirmal Ghosh looks at the increasingly sceptical view towards nuclear power in Japan

By Nirmal Ghosh
Thailand Correspondent
nirmal@sph.com.sg

 

James Lovelock was never far from my mind in Japan last week.

The originator of the Gaia hypothesis which maintains that the Earth is a living self-regulating organism a few years ago came to the conclusion that human beings are incapable of or do not want to adapt to mitigate global warming.

Therefore, given that we want business as usual, we need energy – and more of it given the growing needs of countries like India and China.

20 Days Later

Nirmal Ghosh visits the coast of north-east Japan

By Nirmal Ghosh
Thailand Correspondent
nirmal@sph.com.sg

 

Day 1 : Inhabitants of the coastal village of Kiri Kiri near Kamaishi, thought their huge thick concrete tsunami dyke would protect them. But no one ever imagined the size of the tsunami that on March 11, came roaring into the small bay through a narrow gap in the hills that ring it.

The house deposited on the tsunami dyke by the retreating water. -- ST PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH 

The tsunami passed right over the wall and

Thai PM hopes polls will help reconciliation

Nirmal Ghosh attends a dinner where Thai PM Abhisit Vejjajiva addressed his concern for the 'silent majority'

By Nirmal Ghosh
Thailand Correspondent
nirmal@sph.com.sg

 

"IT IS time for Thailand to move forward," Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said on Monday night in his annual address to the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT).

But it was also clear that the shadow of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra will loom large over the polls, which are expected in late June or early July.

In a swipe at Mr Thaksin who mentors the opposition Puea Thai party and has fomented the anti-establishment "Red Shirt" movement, Mr Abhisit said: "I can’t think of another election with such a clear choice – what the Democrat Party stands for and what

The inner strength of the Japanese

Lyn Chan on the quiet resilience of the Japanese in the face of natural disasters

By Lyn Chan
Deputy Online Editor
lynchan@sph.com.sg

 

I love Tokyo. It's a pilgrimage I look forward to every year. I love the city for its culture, its food, its cleanliness, its organisation, its sense of aesthetics... the list doesn't stop.

I also like how the Japanese are so polite. Some may argue that as a tourist visiting the country for spurts of time, I do not experience the bleaker side of life that is inevitable in every society. Perhaps so, but I still rate the courtesy extended to me more constant than say, in Singapore or France.

My cousin F tells me that the courteous aspect

Women’s way in the World

Nirmal Ghosh on the 100th International Women’s Day

By Nirmal Ghosh
Thailand Correspondent
nirmal@sph.com.sg

 

I returned a few minutes ago from a brief but effective event at UNESCAP in Bangkok, celebrating 100 years of International Women’s Day.

It was effective because it featured several young women telling their personal stories.

Each, in some cases after struggling through hardships and handicaps hard to imagine for an average middle class person in a developed country, has risen above her challenges to become an agent of change.

Concert fever heats up Jakarta

Zubaidah Nazeer talks about the reasons concerts are becoming more popular in Indonesia

By Zubaidah Nazeer
Indonesian correspondent
zubaidah@sph.com.sg

 

IN JAKARTA

Within a span of 10 days last month, three big international acts performed in Jakarta - Deftones, Janet Jackson and Iron Maiden. The Iron Maiden concert was a sold-out, and the other two attracted near-capacity crowds.

Indeed, after a dismal few years, the concert scene here has seen a major turnaround. At the rate concert slots are being booked up, concert promoters and music fans are saying that 2011 is quickly shaping up to be one of the golden years for the industry.

Banding together on Internet sexual predators

Nirmal Ghosh meets officials who work behind the scenes to protect young ones from Internet monsters

By Nirmal Ghosh
Thailand Correspondent
nirmal@sph.com.sg

 

THAI and Canadian police are meeting in Bangkok this week to share technical tools and forge links to fight the targeting of children by sexual predators through the Internet.

Most of the three-day workshop hosted by Plan International - a UK-based child protection group - is held behind closed doors because of the discussion of sensitive technical details like the application of tracking software, and evidence-gathering.

Canada’s police have been pioneers in the field of protection of children against ICT-enabled crimes. ICT - information and communication technology – spans both the Internet and the mobile phone, both of which are now converging

Meanwhile, the sun still shines

Nirmal Ghosh on the world’s largest solar project

By Nirmal Ghosh
Thailand Correspondent
nirmal@sph.com.sg

 

While troops face each other off on the Thai-Cambodian border, Malay Muslim militants in the far south step up attacks on security forces, an election is plotted in Bangkok, and a revolution boils in Libya, the sun shines implacably in central Thailand where on a open plain, workers toil to mount solar panels – half a million of them.

My report on the Lopburi Solar Project is in the print edition of The Straits Times today. I was intrigued that it was the largest in the world (at least for thin film

Stones, Flags and Guns

Nirmal Ghosh hears two experts talk about the recent violent Thailand-Cambodia dispute

By Nirmal Ghosh
Thailand Correspondent
nirmal@sph.com.sg

 

Professor Thongchai Winichakul, professor of history at the University of Madison in Wisconsin, USA; and Chris Baker, author of numerous books and papers on Thailand, spoke at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) on Tuesday evening.

It was on the broad theme of "How competing visions of Thailand are shaping events from Preah Vihear to Rajdomnoen".

Audio 1: Professor Thongchai Winichakul

Why the world spotlight on food matters to S'pore

Jessica Cheam on why Singapore should join the International Fund for Agricultural Development

By Jessica Cheam
Environment Correspondent
jcheam@sph.com.sg

 

IN ROME

WHEN I left Singapore last week to attend a conference on food security in Rome, world food prices made Page 1 headlines. World Bank chief Robert Zoellick had warned that global food prices have reached "dangerous levels", adding that the impact will complicate fragile political and social conditions in the Middle East and Central Asia.

Fresh World Bank data showed higher food prices – mainly for wheat, maize, sugars and edible oils - have pushed 44 million more people in developing countries into extreme poverty since June 2010. Climate-related disasters and commodity speculation have been fingered as key reasons why