His Majesty says fair criticism can be healthy and useful, and that good leaders should be tolerant of their critics; his words come at a time of much political posturing over lese majeste laws. His Majesty the King’s eagerly-awaited address to the nation this year was delivered at a time when the Thaksin administration is grappling with political turmoil brought on by growing public discontent with his perceived misrule and arrogance of power.

REGIONAL PERSPECTIVE: Farewell to the lame-duck prime minister

By his own stupidity and arrogance, Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has quickly turned his government, one marked by a great majority in Parliament, as reconfirmed in elections early this year, into one that now at year’s end has become better known for laughable governance.

The struggle for secularism, then and now

It is a strange irony that France is poised to celebrate the centenary of the law of December 9, 1905, that separated church and state at a time when disorders have been roiling its cities.

Indonesian democracy’s enemy within

Reflecting the discreet charm of fundamentalism, Hidayat Nur Wahid, founder of Indonesian radical Islamic party PKS, addresses a gathering: