Valentine’s Day meets Ash Wednesday: Navigating love amid penance
On the one hand, February 14 is awash with the commerce of romance—flowers, chocolates, and grand gestures fueling a trade boom. On the other, Ash Wednesday ushers in a period…
Special Report
PUV modernization: Filipino jeepneys out, China imports in
Even with the government stating that cooperatives would decide which brand to get, its words were still not enough to erase fears about the modernization program, which, the…
Beijing empties out as migrants head home for first ‘real’ CNY after Covid-19 pandemic
The world’s largest annual human migration, China’s yearly Chinese New Year travel rush, called chunyun, is expected to break records in 2024. The number of trips over the…
Sukhothai man’s 800km wheelchair trek for disability pay sparks government action
Monthon, 48, recounted that he had fallen from a building while working on a construction site in Bangkok in 2014 and returned to Sukhothai to work as a handyman. An investigation…
Wearing your political heart on your sleeve
And just like cricket fever helps sell t-shirts of the boys in green, elections usually whip up a frenzy for political parties’ merchandise. Or at least that would have been the…
The rise of tech: from LAN cafes to AI university
As technology evolved and costs decreased, there was a notable shift towards personal internet access, reducing reliance on internet shops. This change has been particularly…
Deep-seated injustice needs to end in Bangladesh
"Unless you actually have a system of governance, which is contingent on the freely given vote of its citizens and is then accountable to them at all times, then there is always,…
How Singapore builds communities in the sky
The Housing and Development Board was set up in 1960, replacing the Singapore Improvement Trust (SIT), to solve the severe housing shortage and improve the poor living conditions…
No ‘occult’ cure for mental health: Experts
Modern science has much to offer in the treatment of mental health with specialists, and even Buddhist monks, calling on people to recognise it as a medical issue and seek…
Indonesia, the dynastic democracy soap opera
Academics and civil society activists decry dynastic politics as being the death of democracy in Indonesia, but it seems that the Indonesian electorate doesn’t mind it.