The Straits Times Blogs - Nirmal Ghosh

Jackie Chan's positive vibration

2009-11-10T06:34:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh meets the energetic martial arts star in Bangkok.

IN BANGKOK

IF YOU were ever left in any doubt from his movies that Jackie Chan is a bundle of energy, that doubt is removed the moment you encounter him in person.

Jackie Chan arrived at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) in Bangkok like a whirlwind on Monday evening.

Sitting at the top table he attacked a bowl of nuts, refused all other food and stuck to water. When it was suggested that the event start, he clapped his hands together and said "Yes, I like to work!"

At the podium he delivered short introductory remarks, and then clearly couldn't stand sitting in one place any longer. He leaped up and stood behind the table, only occasionally sitting for a few seconds after he had delivered a long answer to a question.

Most of the time he was prowling passionately behind the microphones, gesticulating excitedly, talking fast, sometimes groping for the right word, his spirit and humour filling the room and drawing an enthusiastic response from the delighted audience.

An impassioned Jackie Chan at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand during his talk. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh

He was in Bangkok and at the FCCT, courtesy the International Peace Foundation's "Bridges" dialogues pogramme. Chan is widely known for his philanthropic work for a range of causes, from disaster relief to handicapped children to endangered wildlife. Among other things, his donations have helped build 24 schools in China.

And when he speaks of his causes, he does so with an unmistakable and infectious passion and commitment.

I remembered the public service announcements (PSAs) he had done some years ago for tiger conservation. His message was "When the buying stops, the killing will too." The message was aimed at the Chinese market which has largely been responsible for the decimation of wild tigers for their body parts, believed to have medicinal properties.

That's all "baloney" said Chan, when I asked him what thoughts he had on the subject.

And he launched into an impassioned diatribe, best related in his own inimitable style:

"After that I not only protect tigers, I protect rhinos, sharks, everything... through the tiger thing I learned so many things. So many nonsense going on, old traditional things, tiger bone helping people do this, bear gall helping people do that. All baloney.
"Really, it's all bad business people speaking nonsense, saying you take this you take that... New technology ten times better than the tiger bone. I always tell the Chinese people, don't trust the old things. It's not like the pig..." (he breaks into Cantonese and looks around for a helpful translation)
"You use the pig leg and you run faster. That's baloney. Because the Chinese still follow this old traditions. We have to speak out these kind of things... this nonsense."

Jackie Chan is an ambassador for United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef). The audience listened in silence to his tale of a six year old girl from a poor family who could barely see, but hadn't the courage to tell her parents, living in fear and enduring beatings for two years at home for not being able to perform at school and at her homework.

All she needed was a pair of corrective glasses, he said, outlining how he got celebrities together and donated funds and organized a drive to get the spectacles for thousands of visually challenged children. Jackie Chan himself donated US$ 2 million.

"I travel around the world, I see so many unfair things," he said, talking repeatedly of how he wants to be a superman and help all the people who need help.

"Peace, in this moment right now, is very important. We have a natural disaster every single day. We try to protect trees, we try to protect the sea, the fish, but people still do the underwater dynamite. Boom! Do you know how many fish die? Boom! One boom, I don't know how many... trillions. I want to be a superman, I want to suck all the weapons out, no weapons at all."

He sat at the end of that, with a heavy sigh: "Just sometimes I see these kinds of things, really really sad."

"When I was young I always asked why, why, why. So at the end I not ask why any more, I just do it," he continued.

"I know that everybody has a good heart, but sometimes you just don't have time to do something. Ok now you have ten dollars, you want to do something. I am willing to become a bridge, I have my foundation, come on, donate to me. I will do it. I am willing to do it."

'Obama gets Asia story'

2009-11-09T09:35:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh listens to Mahbubani speak on the rise of Asia.

BANGKOK

FORMER Singapore Ambassador to the United Nations Kishore Mahbubani – whose writings on Asia have placed him on the world’s geopolitical lecture circuit — recently spoke at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT).

The timing was good; the APEC summit in Singapore is around the corner, and US President Barack Obama will be attending — and also meeting with ASEAN leaders in Singapore.

The APEC forum started its meetings over the weekend, with the summit to be held this week.

Always engaging and provocative, Mr Mahbubani began writing about the rise of Asia well before it was fashionable.

Five years ago he quit Singapore's foreign service, and is now Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, which draws students from across over 50 countries.

His latest book is titled The New Asian Hemisphere: The Irresistible Shift of Global Power to the East. The title of Mr Mahbubani’s talk was 'Why the West fails to understand the rise of the East'.

What the world is witnessing, is not so much the rise of Asia but the return of Asia, he said. It is an important distinction.

'From the year one to the year 1820 the two largest economies in the world were consistently China and India, so if by 2050 or probably earlier as Goldman Sachs predicts the four largest economies in the world will be China, India, the USA and Japan, that is not a deviation from the norm," he said.

"That is a return to a 2000 year norm that vastly overrides the last 200 year norm."

Mr Mahbubani also criticized the western media, which he said even in its most upbeat assessments of Asia, always managed to slip in a caveat or two. This reflected a wider intellectual resistance to the power shift, he said.

"The return of Asia is by far the biggest story in the world. But I've been amazed at the amount of resistance to accepting this reality.

"And I've come to the conclusion that there's a very deep psychological resistance in many leading western minds to even conceiving of the possibility of a world that is so different to the 19th and 20th centuries."

He qualified that remark though, by observing that the response varied, from the US to Europe and also within Europe.

He was optimistic about the difference the election of President Barack Obama has made to the US's global image – and what it will do for ties with Asia.

"Anything that shakes the American intellectual belief that the world will continue to revolve around America as the centre of the universe is an idea that is very difficult for Americans to accept," he said.

But he stressed in the context of the APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Singapore: "I think Obama understands the importance of the Pacific."

"I suspect given his background... he has a different sense of where the centre of geography of the world is.

"I think Obama gets the Asia story right, and I am confident that his participation in these meetings plus his visits to several Asian countries will result in improvement in US relations with Asia."

On the US's engagement with Asean he said part of the reason for Washington's closer involvement could be to match China’s influence.

"If China is improving its ties in leaps and bounds with the Asean countries, it is not in America’s interest to be left behind," he said.

Read more about the current Apec meeting in Singapore:
Apec is as good as FTA
Hu to visit Singapore

Twilight of an Exile

2009-10-13T22:14:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh meets the once-notorious Chin Peng.

IN BANGKOK

THE big old man in a wheelchair did not look like someone whose name once inspired loyalty, fear, or hatred depending on whose side you were on.

Those were the days of World War II and the Cold War. At the time, Chin Peng as he is widely known, was the head of the Malayan Communist Party.

Chin Peng is the former head of the Malayan Communist Party.
PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh

I was at the hotel in Bangkok to join The Straits Times' Senior Regional Correspondent Leslie Lopez, who had flown down from Kuala Lumpur to interview him. It was an occasion, perhaps even a historic one.

Chin Peng, who will be 85 this month, is locked in a legal battle for the right to return to Malaysia to die in his homeland. He has been living in Thailand for decades now and has not given a media interview in years.

Almost always, he paused to think before answering a question.

Chin Peng was a legend while in the jungle. Tales about him included his supposed mystical powers which it was said enabled him to avoid capture by the police and armed forces of three countries - Britain, Japan, and finally his own Malaysia.

But the man himself dismissed the tales.

There was nothing mystical about it, he told us with a laugh.

Referring to one incident in which he managed to escape being captured, he simply said he left the place by a different route. "We knew the area well," he said with a smile.

He expressed no regret for his beliefs or his decision to wage an armed struggle.

When asked which world leaders he admired most, he paused for a long time - perhaps up to three minutes - and then broke into a sheepish grin and said, "Mao Tse Tung."

But he hastily added a caveat: "But, but - for many, he was not a perfect leader."

We spent a few hours with him, and after Leslie was through I popped in a last question of my own.

Is the world a better place now, is there less or more injustice in the world? I asked.

He thought for a while, as we sat patiently, surrounded by the leafy trees and the sound of water in the landscaped garden, by then in the half light of the gathering evening.

Then he smiled and said the answer was too complicated for him to venture a short reply. It seemed a fitting comment nevertheless.

Chin Peng being interviewed by The Straits Times' Senior Regional Correspondent Leslie Lopez. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh

Read Leslie Lopez's interview with Chin Peng in Wednesday's edition of The Straits Times.

Rescue dog heroes

2009-09-26T22:05:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh meets the large-hearted dogs and people of the TRDA in Thailand.

IN THAILAND

SAVANNAH looked at me with her large gentle eyes and raised a paw for me to gently shake. Then she sat at her owner Susan Redmond's feet obediently, with one eye occasionally rolling over to keep an eye on me.

Strong bonds: Savannah with Susan Redmond. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh

Around five months ago on May 13 when the floor and dome of a movie theatre under construction in Bangkok collapsed at around 5am, four injured workers were pulled out alive from the dense mass of twisted, tangled steel scaffolding.

Unable to find three others buried under drying concrete slabs, Thai authorities called the Thai Rescue Dog Association (TRDA) for help.

By the time the dogs arrived two had been recovered — dead. The location of the third remained unknown.

Savannah, a golden retriever belonging to New Zealand-born volunteer Susan Redmond, went into the thicket of steel. She detected the man – under 50 cm of concrete.

Unfortunately he too was dead. But Savannah and the TRDA had proved themselves.

The TRDA is the only civilian institution in the region doing pioneering work in training rescue dogs and handlers.

The idea of starting the TRDA germinated after the tsunami of December 2004. The TRDA was set up as a voluntary centre with costs met entirely through sponsorships.

One volunteer is Susan Redmond, 45, a former aviation instructor who has been in Thailand 9 years and has an absolute passion for dogs and the outdoors, and loves the fact that she can work together with Savannah to help people.

Today the TRDA has some 300 members. But only three – with their dogs - are qualified. That is because the training for both dog and owner is extremely rigorous and not many can stay the full, two-year course.

Savannah was two years old when she qualified as a rescue dog – the youngest so far to make the grade under the TRDA programme. Today she is 3.

Handlers are trained in the use of compasses and global positioning system (GPS) based navigation and mapping; first aid for both humans and dogs; forest survival; and skills like rappelling down from a helicopter or a building with their dog harnessed to them. Both handlers and dogs must be fit. Handlers must be ready to pack minimal supplies and move at just minutes' notice.

Rigorous training: The biggest ingredient is commitment. PHOTO: TRDA

For the dogs, much depends on temperament and the trust between dog and handler. Dogs – trained to work for a reward – must be absolutely obedient; not baulk at going into dangerous situations or bad conditions like shifting rubble and broken glass litter; must work with other dogs and people; must be strong and agile and hardy; and also must enjoy their work.

"They must be brave and big-hearted" says Suthikiet Sopanik, 56, a veteran anti-land mine activist who runs the TRDA.

It was 2007 by the time the TRDA was "mission-ready". That year the TRDA's dogs were deployed at a landslide in Uttaradit province, and successfully found five bodies buried in the thick mud.

Mr Suthikiet, 56, got his own training in Samsung Corporation's sprawling, elaborate Search and Rescue Dog Centre in South Korea, which trains working dogs in a wide range of fields from companionship and assistance to the handicapped, to searching for land mines and disaster victims.

Pioneering work: Suthikiet Sopanik being interviewed. PHOTO: TRDA

Thai government agencies do not have disaster rescue dog capabilities, so the TRDA fills that need. The TRDA's five mission-ready dogs – two of their own donated by Samsung and three belonging to private owners like Susan Redmond – train every weekend at Kasetsart University in Bangkok for beginners, and at Khao Yai for advanced members.

Dogs are trained to keep an eye on their handler who communicates often through hand signals especially when the environment is crowded and noisy.

They are trained to sort through smells (dogs' sense of smell is in general around 400 times more acute than humans') and home in on people in distress postures. A myriad distractions are provided, including food – but the dog is trained to ignore all and focus solely on the objective.

In the exercises, volunteers pose as "victims" by hiding in crouched or lying position in abandoned buildings, forests, or scrap yards.

Dangerous work, large hearts. PHOTO: TRDA

In the aftermath of the Oklahoma City and 9-11 attacks in the US, when dogs worked hard and found only dead bodies, they actually became depressed, Susan Redmond told me.

Search and rescue teams had to "plant" live victims so that the dogs felt it was worthwhile going through all the effort.

Mr Suthikiet – Khun Moo to those who know and work with him – hopes to build more rescue dog teams to assist government agencies.

But volunteers need to be committed to the training, willing to support themselves – and sponsors are needed to pay for the approximately 500,000 Baht a year that it takes to keep the TRDA going in its present form.

Still, the biggest ingredient is commitment.

Coup jitters calmed

2009-09-19T03:05:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh gauges the mood in Bangkok.

Sept 18, 11.30pm: Got back half an hour ago from a round of Royal Plaza and General Prem Tinsulanonda’s residence at Si Sao Thewes. At key intersections around the area there are police/military, dressed in black, were standing discreetly below trees, watching the traffic. At Royal Plaza a couple of companies of police with riot shields were stationed around the square, but with nothing much to do; there weren’t many people around. Many of them were chatting with the odd passer-by.

There were about a dozen or so red shirts, mostly taxi and motorcycle taxi drivers. There was a slight hubbub around a man and when I got closer, I discovered it was Major-General Khattiya Sawasdipol, better known as Seh Daeng, with some smiling but efficient looking men with him dressed in black. He remembered me from last year, and pumped my hand with a grin. 'Long time' he said, and when I asked what he was doing here he just said 'Looking around.'

Major general Khattiya signing autographs.

Major General Khattiya had last year, as the rival People’s Alliance for Democracy remained encamped at Government House in a bid to force the Samak Sundaravej government out, trained young men for security and combat, creating his own ragtag maverick unit. He had threatened the PAD and warned that a military coup would be met with fierce resistance. (See my blog at the time - 'Nobody messes with Seh Daeng' )

There was little other security in sight. The road to Ban Si Sao Thewes was free of roadblocks. At the house itself concrete blocks lined the frontage, manned by up to 100 riot police, sparsely spaced. There was a roll of concertina wire at the base of the wall of the house.

Police deployed at Ban Si Sao Thewes on Friday night: in readiness.
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I got a call from Nick Nostitz over in Korat, who was covering the red shirt demonstration there. The red shirts were getting ready to march to general Prem’s house in Korat, he said. There were perhaps a few hundred at around 10pm but the numbers were swelling. Nothing untoward was happening there.

Sept 19, 9.30am: Today's Bangkok Post reports Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thaugsuban saying as acting premier in the absence of PM Abhisit Vejjajiva who is departing for the US on Sunday, he has full authority to declare a state of emergency if the situation demands it.

But other reports quote sources downplaying the prospect of violence, and army chief General Anupong Paochinda has pledged that the military will not intervene in a coup d’etat.

In fact fears of a coup appear to be driven more by general jitters and the ever-present shadow of the army as a force in Thailand, than by facts on the ground. There is little reason as of now, for the army to intervene to topple a government it had encouraged to take power in the first place.

Will be going to the rally in a few hours.

What Thais want

2009-09-16T07:01:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh writes 'democracy, direct elections, accountability' says survey.

IN BANGKOK

ON WEDNESDAY morning the Asia Foundation released and discussed the results of a comprehensive face to face survey of national attitudes towards democracy and amendments to the current constitution.

The audience at the launch at the Dusit Thani hotel, was an even spread of academics, civil servants, political activists, journalists and diplomats.

The event was timely. At 9am local time, Thailand's parliament opened a discussion on amending the constitution – a contentious charter drawn up by conservatives largely handpicked by the military-appointed government then in power in 2007.

The constitution was put to a referendum which saw it being passed nationally – but soundly rejected in the north east, reinforcing the notion of Thailand's geo-political divide.

The Asia Foundation survey threw up some interesting results which it may behoove MPs in parliament – and other powerful players in the current dynamic – to consider.

As Asia Foundation country representative Dr James Klein observed, the results show a "very deep and sophisticated understanding of democracy."

Respondents resoundingly rejected appointed Senators or MPs – a snub to the "New Politics" espoused by the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) which is opposing amendments to the constitution.

But respondents also opposed amendments to the controversial Article 237, which makes it easy for a political party to be dissolved for the transgression of individuals.

That's because Thais want corrupt politicians held accountable. Indeed 69 per cent of respondents said convictions against politicians should be allowed to stand.

"Thais have become tired and less tolerant of the culture of impunity of powerful elites," noted Asia Foundation's Tim Meisburger.

Independent institutions generally fared badly, with the courts coming out with the highest credibility and the police with the lowest by far.

As much as 81 per cent of respondents saw the media as biased. The Election Commission did not come out with flying colours either.

Forty-six per cent of respondents saw democracy as rule of the majority. But 52 per cent saw it necessary to compromise with minorities.

Also significantly, most agreed that despite dissonance and conflict, democracy is the best form of governance. Interestingly though, 30 per cent said authoritarian rule in some circumstances could be condoned.

The army's popularity however has sagged since 2002, when a King Prajadhipok Institute survey pegged it at 94 per cent.

The Asia Foundation survey returned a figure of 62 per cent believing the military is an important institution – but 34 per cent saying it has too big a role in politics today.

The constitution amendment issue is a deeply absorbing one.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has conceded that it is not much point having another election under this constitution.

A majority of the Asia Foundation respondents said they would like the amendments ratified in a national referendum. Political observers are keenly watching the process.

Sri Lankan paradise resurrected

2009-08-27T06:45:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh visits a national park that has survived the tsunami and civil war.

ON THE morning of December 26, 2004, Wicky Wickremasekera was in a Land Rover a few metres inland from a lodge on the edge of the ocean when he saw the tsunami coming.

That fateful morning still etches his nightmares.

Seeing the massive swell rolling in at a frightening speed, he told the driver to step on the gas and drive inland. Behind them as they fled, the 40-foot high wall of water thundered ashore, obliterating the Yala Game Safari Lodge, killing staff and dozens of tourists, among them a group of Japanese enjoying a picnic breakfast on the picturesque shore.

Wicky is the top naturalist for Jetwing Eco Holidays, a travel operator run by Sri Lankan naturalist, conservationist and author Gehan de Silva Wijeyeratne. Jetwing owned the hotel that was destroyed, just outside Ruhuna Yala National Park in south eastern Sri Lanka.

Wicky took me to the site earlier this month. We walked around the shells of the ruined buildings, with the rubble of the disaster still crunching under our shoes. In a bizarre facsimile of some Kipling tale, long-tailed grey langur monkeys wandered about the ruins, some sitting on top of solitary walls looking out to the unbroken ocean.

Wicky amid the ruins: sombre reminder
-- PHOTOS: NIRMAL GHOSH

"I remember the mud. Awful black mud," Wicky muttered as we stood in silence.

Yala, a picturesque six-hour drive from Colombo, recovered, only to be beset by a different kind of tragedy when clashes took place between the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) coming out of their strongholds to the north to attack army camps set up in northern Yala.

That sparked travel advisories from some countries including the UK, warning tourists to avoid Yala.

But just last month, the British government lifted its advisory. And with the end of the bloody, 30-year civil war that has torn the country apart, tourists are now returning in greater numbers than before, many of them locals earlier nervous of visiting.

Not all of Yala is open to tourists, and the Sri Lankan army still maintains camps inside the park. But the blocks that are open are astonishingly rich in biodiversity.

Yala is an extraordinary wilderness. Tigers never reached Sri Lanka; the island separated from the mainland before the big cat that came south out of central Asia could colonise it. But the leopard did, and the beautiful, enigmatic cat is Sri Lanka’s top predator. Yala possibly has the highest density of leopards in the world.

One of Yala's famed rocky outcrops

Red earth merges into white sand near the ocean, huge rock outcrops and escarpments rear up out of the thorny bush; large low-lying bowls become lakes and wetlands in the north east monsoon season and dry out to sun-baked mud flats in the summer. As you drive around the bush, the distant thud and roar of the Indian Ocean’s 6-feet tall breakers is a constant refrain.

Grey headed fishing eagle: watchful eye

Wild buffalo in a shrinking waterhole - focus of life in summer

Peacocks, monkeys, spotted deer and wild boar wander the wilderness. We sat for hours one evening watching a shrunken waterhole. Crocodiles lined its banks, wild buffalo sat impassively in its waters, a grey headed fishing eagle coursed over it in wide sweeps spooking many of the birds. Spot bellied pelicans floated in the water and painted storks perched on the trees. Ibis and stilts stalked the shallows. A ruddy mongoose and a gaudy Ceylon jungle fowl visited to drink, and in the gathering dusk a family of elephants ambled out of the woods.

Male elephant: astonishingly unafraid

The elephants of Yala are surprisingly unafraid of people in vehicles – unlike in other parts of Sri Lanka where they can be extremely aggressive. Perhaps the Yala population does not have an inherited memory of conflict with people. One elephant walked right past our Land Rover within touching distance on the dirt track while we sat still as statues in it, the engine off. At night a male elephant regularly visited a small fresh water pond at the Yala Village resort where we stayed, to drink while tourists ate their dinner in the restaurant just above it.

The leopard, Sri Lanka's top predator: this is one of three seen in two days

And then, of course, there are the leopards. Here, it is evident that Sri Lanka’s wildlife tourism suffers from the same mad rush of jeeps when a leopard is spotted, as afflicts some Indian national parks when a tiger is seen. But if you – as the leopards have learned to - can ignore congregating Land Rovers with their roaring diesels, and the loud conversations of drivers and trackers and tourists, it is an extraordinary experience to see the big, elusive cat, sometimes draped languidly over a rock, sometimes pacing the dirt tracks, sometimes warily lapping water from the ponds that give the forest life in summer.

The leopard rush

The Indian Ocean - mesmerising landscape

And then there is the incomparable setting. Yala's wilderness is a welcome relief from the brutality of the human conflict that has ravaged Sri Lanka. On our last morning, mesmerised, I took over a hundred pictures of the ocean as it crashed endlessly upon the shore. When I returned to Bangkok a day later I could still hear the sound of the waves in my head.

Stiglitz on big bank blackmail

2009-08-22T02:15:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh talks to Joseph Stiglitz about global banking.

IN BANGKOK

WHEN he speaks the formidable Joseph Stiglitz, 66, is definitely heard.

The American economist and professor at Columbia University – one of the best minds of our times and awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001 – spoke at the UN in Bangkok on Friday at a UNESCAP-hosted lecture themed "The UN System and Economic Crisis: Towards a New Global Financial and Economic Architecture."

Professor Stiglitz, known for his criticism of conventional free-market-led economic development, globalization and gross development product (GDP) measures, recently took up the chairmanship of a panel set up by French President Nicholas Sarkozy, tasked with developing new indicators for economic growth that will include measures of quality of life alongside traditional numerical indicators of production and output.

In his talk he delivered a scathing critique of the US Government's bailout of large banks and corporations, saying the trillion-Dollar measures had destroyed the level playing field, benefitted only a select few, and failed to address underlying problems.

Reeling off instances of bank failures and bailouts over the decades and around the world, he said financial institutions which had an "enormous history of incompetence" had been allowed to blackmail the US government into bailing them out.

The result was large banks which were more often "involved in gambling, not lending" had been saved from collapse – but smaller ones which had a more critical and effective role in firing the real economy, had been allowed to fail.

He called for a new global reserve fund which could be an amalgamation of regional funds like the Chiang Mai Multilateral Initiative which ASEAN governments have been working on as a collective hedge against currency fluctuations.

Later after the lecture Professor Stiglitz met with a few journalists, where he gamely took questions well beyond the time limit set by his UN handlers, and had some advice for Asia.

Listen to Professor Stiglitz's critique of the bailouts.

And why Professor Stiglitz is not confident of a robust recovery, and his advice for Asia.

Kingdom of the Cat

2009-08-14T22:03:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh travels to find a creature that's fast becoming a rare sight.

DAY 1, 4PM
THE telltale blips in the hiss emanating from the receiver's speaker, tells us that the fishing cat is in the area. But it is not close by.

For an hour we scramble through thick brush, crisscross prawn farms and rice fields, step across water channels on bamboo bridges, and wade across ponds, following the signal. Mosquitoes whine around us.

Eventually we come up against a patch of very thick cover. The increased strength of the blips tells us the fishing cat is somewhere in here, within 50m of us.

He is two kilometers from where he was first fitted with the radio collar, two days previously. And he is also outside the protected area of Khao Sam Roi Yot Marine National Park.

"There's no point disturbing him," says "Namfon" Passanan Cutter, who is doing her Masters degree on the ecology of the fishing cat.

One of the increasingly rare fishing cats.
PHOTO: Courtesy of 'Namfon' Passanan Cutter

We are just outside the legal boundaries of KSRY, which in 1966 became Thailand's first marine national park.

The good news of the discovery last year by Namfon that KSRY has more endangered fishing cats than any other area in Thailand – and possibly south east Asia – is tempered by the fact that most of the cats she has recorded on camera or radio collared, spend much of their time outside the boundaries of the protected area.

Collaring one of the fishing cats.
PHOTO: Courtesy of 'Namfon' Passanan Cutter

This is likely the last significant population of the beautiful wild cat left in Thailand, and still they must face perils every day of their lives.

KSRY is an assortment of "karst" outcrops, their lower slopes clothed in dense vegetation, their bases eroded by seawater.

Below is a mosaic of woodland and wetlands, including mangroves, all crusted with fragmented seas shells. Much has been lost to prawn farming, but Thailand’s department of national parks is replanting mangroves in some areas.

DAY 2, 6.30AM
I WANDER down to the beach to take a few pictures of the slow dawn.

Behind me I can hear Pornchai Patumrattanathan tinkering with his Range Rover, which at 38-years-old is only 11 years younger than he is. After my pictures are done I go back and help him load his para motor into the back.

Pornchai is in the frontlines of wildlife conservation in Thailand. A few years ago when researchers in a national park lost track of a radio collared tiger, he flew up strapped into the harness on what I jokingly call his flying motorbike, and purred across the sky above the vast forest, listening on his headphones for the telltale blips of the signal.

He eventually detected it, but it was an estimated 9 kilometres away. Pornchai followed that signal like a homing pigeon, suspended in his harness.

"In the end the tiger was right below me. I took the GPS reading and told the guys on the ground, and they went to the location and found the tiger, alive and well," he told me with a grin.

KSRY is a magical little, 98 sq km gem, with serow roaming the jagged cliffs, dusky and spectacled langurs roaming the leafy trees, and fishing cats ruling the coastal wetlands by night.

Pornchai needs to go up again, to find two fishing cats radio collared by Namfon. She has lost the signals, and fears for the cats. Up in the sky, it will be easier for Pornchai to pick up a signal from a cat possibly in a crevasse or rivulet or hidden among the lower rocky outcrops.

Namfon is worried, because already two of her collared cats have been found dead. A host of problems beset the cats as they struggle to survive in marginal habitat.

Pornchai and I drive to a patch of open ground which offers a clear run. The air is filled with the trills of wild doves. Bits of toilet paper left to float in the air tell us which way the wind is blowing. He straps on boots and helmet.

The antenna which will pick up the signal, is strapped to the frame of the harness. He checks that his hand-held GPS (global positioning system) device is working.

Then as Pornchai braces, a field assistant pulls the starter cord on the motor. It sputters to life, all 210 cc of it. Behind is the colourful parachute laid out on the ground. Pornchai has the throttle with its little red button in one hand. He starts running, pressing the throttle for full power. The huge fan on his back roars. The parachute unfurls perfectly.

Pornchai and his 'flying motorbike'.
PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh

In just a few metres he is airborne and the sound of the motor dwindles in the sky as he becomes just a blob against the grey monsoon morning.

Pornchai could not complete his mission that day, because it was raining in patches all over the park, and rain and gusts of wind are not happy combinations when you are strapped into the flying motorcycle. But he will try again.

Meanwhile, every day as she trudges the wilderness or writes up her notes and data sheets in her cabin by the quiet sea, Namfon crosses her fingers that the cats will be found alive.

The fishing cat team.
PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh

Later that evening I interview Namfon on the beach, as the full moon traversed the sky. My tiny recorder picked up the sound of the waves as she spoke about the project.

Listen to the sounds of the waves and Nirmal Ghosh's interview.

Read my full report on Namfon's fishing cat project at The Straits Times online or in Saturday's edition of The Straits Times!

Thai conflict 101: Red vs Yellow

2009-07-16T09:02:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh tells of his relationship with the author of the new book.

In Bangkok

PHOTOGRAPHER Nick Nostitz launched his book "Red vs Yellow" (White Lotus Press) at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) yesterday. Speaking with him was Chris Baker, co-author of among others, the excellent book "Thaksin: The Business of Politics in Thailand" (Silkworm Books, 2004).

Nick has been at ground zero with the yellows and the reds doggedly covering all the action since before the September 2006 coup d’etat. I remember being one of the very few foreign or even Thai journalists who hung out with Nick at Sanam Luang in Bangkok after the coup as the first few pro-democracy, anti-dictatorship groups sprang up like struggling wild flowers.

The original photo of the book cover.
SOURCE: Nick Nostitz

Speakers would stand on plastic chairs with loudhailers and talk to groups as small as 20 to 30, and sometimes, as Nick said yesterday, there were more spies than protestors. I did a couple of reports on the protests, which was more than many other mainstream journalists did, because at the time they were a long way from making an impact. But even if I didn’t write very much on them for the same reason, it was useful to be there and see the nascent signs of things to come.

I also spent hours with Nick in the middle of the night in Government House when the yellow-shirted People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) occupied it last year. We sat and talked among scores of policemen trapped inside, sleeping out in the open with their shields and batons next to them. Marwaan Macan-Markar of Inter Press Service joined us on one particularly memorable night.

Nick and I (and Dan Ten Kate of Bloomberg Business News) were later on the scene of the first serious clash between the reds and the yellows, when the red shirts attacked the PAD entrenched at Government House on the night of September 2, 2008. It was a frightening episode, and an ominous harbinger of things to come. One red shirt was killed in that clash which turned Makhawan bridge at the top of Rajadamnoen Avenue right in front of the UN building, into a medieval battleground.

As the battle raged I saw a PAD protestor caught by the reds, being dragged down the street. Some red guards were trying to protect him from other red shirts out to lynch him. He was in a daze, being jerked around like a rag doll. It was clear his life was in danger.

In the middle of the melee I spotted Nick, darting around taking pictures; then I saw him give up and help the red guards protect the man, and yell for help from nearby medics. The man was eventually safely bundled into an ambulance.

Red vs Yellow (subtitled "Volume 1: Thailand’s crisis of identity") is the first non-academic book on what most analysts agree is a seminal political struggle in Thailand. In an atmosphere fraught with propaganda and disinformation, it is an essential record of things as they occurred, on the streets where terms were dictated by the yellows and the reds, with the government of the day often reduced to a helpless bystander as rule of law all but collapsed.

Nick has been accused of being a red sympathizer. He addressed this on Wednesday, saying: "I do not feel that I am biased. I work the story on the ground, and go to both camps. Of course I have sympathies.. But I do not let my sympathies interfere in factual and fair reporting. I have never whitewashed anything I have seen.

"My sympathies are, and have always been with poor people, with people who do not have a voice in the mainstream, when they demand a better life for themselves, and important ideals such as equal opportunities. And here it happens that most of these underprivileged sectors are with the red shirts.

"I do not accept the reasoning that these people are too uneducated to make a choice for themselves. This is a highly patronizing and elitist view. Much sophistry and polemics are used to explain this position, which for me is untenable, counter to the humanistic ideals I try to follow."

Nick also covered the red shirt rampages at Pattaya and in Bangkok in April this year. He has promised a Volume 2 on that phase of the conflict.

Nirmal Ghosh was SPH's Journalist of the Year for his coverage of the Bangkok protests in 2008.

How much is a tiger's life worth?

2009-07-02T10:06:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh discusses the economic value of tigers - dead and alive.

IN BANGKOK

ON MAY 29, Malaysian police found five wild tiger skins in the boot of a car driven by two Thais.

The tigers had probably been killed in Perak and Kelantan, said the unit commander Mohd Noor Idris, who estimated that the dried skins, each measuring about two metres in length, were valued at around RM18,000 each (around US$5,000).

The figure excludes the bones and dried organs, which were not found in the car but would certainly have found their way into the illegal market.

SOURCE: REUTERS

A dead tiger, with skin and bones and organs intact, can fetch well over US$25,000. A Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) report last February on Nepal's illegal wildlife trade, said. 'In Taiwan, a bowl of tiger penis soup goes for US$320 and a pair of eyes for US$170. Powdered tiger humerus bone brings up to US$3,200 per kg in Seoul.'

Tiger penis supposedly boosts virility, eyes supposedly help against epilepsy and malaria, and humerus bone supposedly helps against ulcers, rheumatism and typhoid.

Of course scientific tests have long shown that tiger parts have no more medicinal value than those of pigs and dogs. The fascination for tiger parts is purely psychological.

The money would be spread through the middlemen of the supply chain, with the poacher probably getting the least. It is possible and common today, to kill a tiger in the wild for less than US$25, so there is plenty of profit to spread around. The illegal wildlife trade is run by transnational criminal syndicates, and is one of the largest criminal trades in the world.

But is a tiger worth more dead or alive? On the face of it the question is a silly one. But the existence of the illegal wildlife trade in itself shows there are many people out there to whom it is a legitimate question, and therefore must be addressed. Valuing wild ecosystems has always been a somewhat unfair challenge thrown at conservationists and scientists by the kind of people who would like to turn forests into furniture and malls.

An initiative called Travel Operators for Tigers (Toft) recently gave two symbolic 'Lifetime Achievement' awards to two wild tigers in India.

The big cats were a tigress called Machali in Ranthambhore National Park in Rajasthan, and a tiger called B2 in Bandhavgarh National Park in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

Toft calculated that Machali has generated nearly US$100 million in around 10 years.

Machali has not only been stared at by thousands of tourists who hire vehicles to get to Ranthambhore, stay and eat at hotels in the area and hire guides and buy local souvenirs; she has also been photographed and filmed – and so have her 11 cubs down the years.

As for B2, he has sired over 35 tigers, 90 per cent of which lived to adulthood. Toft calculated that B2 had earned US$30m over 7 years.

It is not advisable to extrapolate figures like these to apply to all wild tigers in places as diverse as the dense jungles of Malaysia and the far drier and sparser forests of Ranthambhore.

But a median habitat – the mosaic forests of Corbett National Park in northern India where it is not easy to see a tiger – offers the possibility of some analysis.

It is a safe assumption that Corbett National Park is home to around 90-110 tigers. Of course numbers do not really matter as long as there is a healthy breeding population and poaching is absent or minimal – but it is necessary to have some basis even for a back of the envelope calculation.

Corbett drew 45,019 Indian and 4,293 foreign tourists in 1996-97. Eleven years later in 2007-08 the national park drew double the number of foreigners (8,794) and four times the number of Indians (162,600).

Revenue jumped from US$138,023 in 1996-97 to US$582,613 in 2007-08. This is the bare minimum earned, and only by the state government. The real figure would be several times that if one takes into account the money spent in the private sector in the area – on lodges, vehicles, guides, food and drink and so forth. The tourism industry generates employment for locals, and a local supply chain keeps the industry going.

Even the roughest and most minimalist estimates, would put the value of a wild tiger in Corbett National Park, at around US$6,000 per year based on tourism value alone.

The total economic value (TEV) of the Corbett ecosystem is another matter altogether. For the sake of comparison, the TEV of Gunung Leuser National Park in Sumatra has been calculated at over US$22 billion.

You don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that a live tiger is more valuable than a dead one.

A generation of bitterness

2009-06-19T08:01:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh outlines some of the issues in southern Thailand.

IN BANGKOK

I SPENT three days in Thailand’s troubled deep south earlier this week, visiting the mosque in Cho Airong where the June 8 massacre took place.

Locals arrive to commemorate those killed in the June 8 massacre at the mosque in Cho Airong. PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh

I met, among others, a teacher who has been shot at and lives in fear, and a young Buddhist monk who was wounded in an attack soon after the mosque incident, which was put down as retaliatory violence.

Victims of conflict - the young Buddhist monk wounded last week.
PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh

The south is a deceptive place. It is well connected with a network of good roads through beautiful lush countryside and green hills clothed in dense jungle.

The way of life here seems peaceful, and while it is true that many live in fear, that is more the case in rural areas than in the cities where life is quite normal.

On my last night in Narathiwat, I photographed a big sculpture of one of the peace birds that started with an idea from Souriya "Sunshine" — the maverick musician and peace activist from Isan who has made his home in Narathiwat.

I remember being there when the Thai Air Force dropped over 100 million of the little origami cranes from the skies in December 2004, in what was touted as a major expression of the silent majority’s yearning for peace and unity after the terrible events of that year — the January 4 raid on the military weapons depot in Narathiwat, the local uprising and subsequent killing of young men culminating in the Krue Se mosque incident in April, and the Tak Bai incident of October.

Origami bird sculpture in Narathiwat - peace remains elusive.
PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh

The peace bird operation turned out to be little more than an empty gesture.

In hundreds of homes across the provinces of Pattani, Narathiwat, Yala and part of Songkhla, people still grieve for family members lost often in horribly violent circumstances.

In schools across the region, there are little children who should never have to go through these kinds of experiences, yet have seen people — sometimes their own parents and teachers — slaughtered in front of them.

I have been in villages where the Thai army has been engaged in building relationships with civilians through developmental work.

This attempt began around 2004, but success has been sporadic and isolated. The government and security agencies seem sometimes to be operating in a world which only tenuously overlaps with the world of local communities.

A woman cooks for the large crowd at the mosque.
PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh

Rumour is a potent force across this land, and repeated often enough it becomes perceived as fact.

Stories that seem black and white on the surface, upon closer examination dissolve into multiple shades of grey, with the truth falling through the cracks.

The apparently peaceful communities are capable of erupting in outbursts of anger and violence that belie the smiles of the locals that sat around me on the sidewalk late last Tuesday in Narathiwat while a man flipped rotis on his hot pans, and the politeness of the soldiers who check cars and motorcycles on the main roads and side lanes.

Flipping rotis in Narathiwat - life is deceptively normal.
PHOTO: Nirmal Ghosh

The rage that is expressed in anonymous clandestine strikes leaving both Buddhist and Muslim civilians dead and entire families and communities bleeding, is even more difficult to deal with.

A generation is growing up in bitterness.

Read my most recent reports: A wake-up call to Bangkok

Read more about the south Thailand situation: 3 Muslims shot in Thai south and Thai south gripped by fear.

Disbelief at Carradine’s death

2009-06-05T00:19:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh was with the Kung-Fu actor's friend when news broke.

IN BANGKOK

1110 hrs, Friday June 5

Have just heard confirmation of some information that we got from police sources last night, but did not report at the time because there was no second confirmation.

Now the Bangkok Post is reporting what we heard, and another source has also confirmed it.

It seems Carradine's body was found inside the wardrobe in his hotel room, with one end of a shoelace tied around his private parts and the other around his neck.

His hands were tied with some sort of cord, which was also tied around his neck, police sources said.
This is possibly the curtain cord we heard about last night.

They said he had been dead at least 12 hours before the body was found.

There were no signs of injuries or a struggle.

Disbelief continues to spread among Carradine's friends, who insist that he was not suicidal - though years ago the actor had confessed in interviews to occasional suicidal thoughts.

In recent years his career has in fact been on an upswing.

11.30pm, Thursday June 4.

Have just returned from trying to chase down the reports which started breaking earlier this evening, of the death of US actor David Carradine in Bangkok.

I have been out with Eric Seldin of Thaicam, on assignment for ABC News. Eric's producer Dave Walker was with us, and happened to know David Winters, a friend of Carradine's.

Winters, 70, has lived in Thailand 14 years.

‘’There’s no way he would have killed himself’’ he said with conviction when we met him at his apartment last night, less than two hours after the news of Carradine’s death broke.

Winters, a producer, director and actor, was part of the original crew of West Side Story, working on the film at the age of 18. In his spacious apartment where every wall is lined with movie posters and memorabilia – including posters of two movies starring David Carradine – there is an original poster from the Broadway production of West Side Story, signed by the entire cast.

Carradine had sent Winters two emails about a month ago while in Taiwan making a movie, he said.

PHOTO: AP

"He loves to work, and he’s very happy when he’s working. He was probably one of the most underrated actors in the world,’’ Winters said. ‘’He was nominated for an Academy award for Bound for Glory. He was a lovely lovely person, he’ll be missed by a lot of people around the world.’’

‘’I heard he was found in the closet, which is very strange. You don’t walk into a closet to kill yourself.’’

Earlier at the Swissotel Nai Lert, we were the first to arrive after the news broke. The hotel security would not let us go up to the room we had heard Carradine had stayed in. The hotel’s general manager said he had heard nothing about the incident, but then said Carradine had checked in a few days ago and had ‘’checked out this morning.’’

He said he could not say anything else out of respect to Carradine's family.

More than just hot air

2009-06-04T05:24:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh meets pop star Tata Young and finds her "green" mission refreshing.

IN BANGKOK

AT 28, Thai-American pop star Tata Young has already sold 12 million albums across Asia, and has performed at concerts from Japan to India. Her latest gig though, is free of charge and for the environment - specifically, the ozone layer.

The last time I met her was in 2004, when her song Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy was considered a bit too bold by the ministry of culture. She stood up to the pressure then, telling me ''I don't care what they think'' - and the song became a mega-hit, even playing at every Skytrain station in Bangkok.

I met her again very recently moments before a show in Bangkok - and again at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thaialand (FCCT) where she appeared to talk of her latest role as an ambassador for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

She was her usual frank and unpretentious self as I asked her about her new mission.

"The world right now is falling apart’’ she said. ‘’It’s important that people pay more attention to the world and the environment.''

PHOTOS: Nirmal Ghosh

This month, four public service announcements (PSAs) began screening in movie theatres in the Philippines. They will soon screen in Thailand and other countries in the region, in theatres and on some TV networks.

The PSAs feature the unlikely combination of Tata Young, Art of Living Guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Japanese anime cat Doraemon, and the Beijing Olympics mascots.

Their message: to alert the public as the Montreal Protocol approaches a defining moment – the elimination by Jan 1, 2010 by developing countries, of all consumption and production of chlorofluorocarbons or CFCs, one of the main destroyers of the ozone layer.

The stratospheric ozone layer is Earth's invisible protective shield, a membrane filtering out ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Its depletion, triggered by chemicals such as CFCs – first noticed in the late 1970s – threatens the very basis of life on Earth.

The ozone hole was a big issue in the 1970s and 1980s. Momentum and memory tend to fade however, and UNEP is trying to inject new life into the issue.

Ozone depleting substances (ODS) are mainly used in air conditioning and refrigeration applications, metered dose inhalers used by asthma patients, fire extinguishers, solvents and process agent applications, and a specific type of fumigation. Phasing out CFCs, is something which touches the lives of tens of billlions, usually without their ever knowing it.

The 1987 Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, is considered the most successful international agreement of its kind, assisting countries in progressively phasing out ODS.  The chemicals are also global warming gases, so the phase out delivers significant climate benefits.

The Protocol has succeeded because the gases it covers are measurable in terms of production and use, substitutes can be and have been developed – and developing countries are being given financial assistance by developed countries to phase them out.

It is also not mired in the politics that has made the Kyoto Protocol at best an unsatisfactory mechanism with which to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – and at worst a tragic failure.

The ozone layer has stabilised. The phase out will theoretically restore it to its 1970s level. But many challenges remain, not least that of illegal trade in ODS, which remain cheaper than substitutes.  And as is often the case, the cure to the problem of ODS was only a lesser evil. CFCs were replaced with HCFCs – which also deplete the ozone layer but at a slower rate than CFCs.

Increased HCFC consumption in the growing refrigeration & air conditioning and foam sector, is an emerging challenge. That is why a strategy to phase out HCFCs in 20-25 years is now being mapped out – and the public is being prodded to realize that the ozone problem has not gone away.

Tata's new album is titled Temperature Rising. While the title track is more about hormones than hot air, it is encouraging to see a relatively new Asian star taking up an issue as arcane yet as critical as the ozone layer. Tata is not strong on technicalities, but her heart is in the right place.

''It’s important that people are aware of the little things you can do to protect our world, are aware (of ozone) and know what’s going on, especially because unlike garbage and other types of pollution, you can’t see the ozone layer’’ she said.

Passing on the baton at the Oriental

2009-05-13T06:15:00Z

Nirmal Ghosh relates the passing of an era as a legendary hotel GM retires.

IN BANGKOK

AN ERA of sorts is drawing to a close. Kurt Wachtveitl, the legendary GM of the legendary Mandarin Oriental hotel in Bangkok, is retiring very soon – and on Tuesday evening gave a talk at the FCCT (Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand) rich with memories and anecdotes from his career.

It was a special evening for the FCCT, which was once (1972-76) based at the Oriental. AP's Denis Gray – himself somewhat of a legend and a former president of the Club who goes back to those times, introduced Mr Wachtveitl.

The 72-year-old Bavarian recalled how he first arrived in Thailand to run the Nipa Lodge – at that time the first hotel in Pattaya. When the town was flooded with engineers and defence personnel building U-Tapao air base, business boomed and Mr Wachtveitel was often "caught between the bottles and the women".

PHOTO: NIRMAL GHOSH

The Oriental was in the doldrums then. "When I first came to the Oriental it had 10 per cent occupancy, and when I leave in June I think it will again be 10 per cent - but in between we had a fantastic run," Mr Wachtveitl quipped.

Key factors in the success and image of the grand old hotel by the Chao Phrya river, include owner Ital-Thai's unquestioning support for the GM's decisions and recommendations, and the "basic value" of a close and compassionate relationship between management and staff.

"Without the staff we are nothing," he said. "Trust is the most important value... You have to earn the trust of the staff; have honesty, respect for each other and accountability – and never let the customer down."

It was important to be fair, he said, recalling how in 1969 he had proposed giving the service charge to the staff. There were cries of opposition from other hotel owners, but the Oriental's owner agreed with Mr Wachtveitl and the change was made.

"The Oriental's secret is consistency," he said. "The owners have been the same for over 40 years, and have never said no to suggestions involving capital expenditure. The staff consider the Oriental a lifetime job; we have an average service length of 16-17 years and a turnover of only 3 per cent."

He related several anecdotes about celebrity customers, some of which went back to pre-Oriental days – most memorably when movie stars Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor had their long and feverish relationship including torrid and drunken liaisons in Lausanne, where Mr Wachtveitl worked before he headed to Thailand.

"Richard Burton would fall down the stairs and crawl across the lobby to get back into his Cadillac and return to his wife in Geneva," he said with a chuckle.

Years later it was Elizabeth Taylor who saved the day, he said, when she persuaded a sulking Michael Jackson to perform in Bangkok after the King of Pop was hit by accusations of child abuse in the US and said he was not up to performing – with 40,000 fans having bought tickets.

The most memorable guests, he said, were those that gave the hotel the hardest time. Celebrities were easy to deal with provided their every wish was granted.

And it is the customers who make a hotel, he said. "What the architect does, it is just an object. What really brings a hotel alive is the customers."

And he recalled a moment during the APEC summit in Bangkok in 2003 when then prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra at a dinner had a microphone passed around the leaders at the table, requesting them to state three challenges they faced.

"I was standing in a corner pretending to be a restaurant manager," Mr Wachtveitl said.

When the microphone was given to then-US president George W. Bush, the leader of the world's most powerful nation related three jokes.

"Nobody laughed," recalled Mr Wachtveitl.