Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Thailand

  • INTERNATIONAL

    No Buddhist bullets in Thai turmoil

    • Paul Kay
    • 24 January 2014
    4 Comments

    It's often said in Thailand that the three pillars of Thai society are Buddhism, the monarchy and the nation, or political system. In recent months I've witnessed many noisy anti-government protests in Bangkok where political groups have been very visible. But amid the turmoil, Buddhism and the monarchy are notably absent. The low profile of the monarchy is easily explained. The absence of Buddhism is more puzzling.

    READ MORE
  • INTERNATIONAL

    Thailand tensions must rouse traumatised Coalition

    • Tony Kevin
    • 04 December 2013
    11 Comments

    We are witnessing a serious opposition-led threat to democratic process and respect for election results in Thailand. Possibly the Abbott Government is so traumatised as a result of its current tensions with Indonesia and China that it won't dare to open its mouth on Thailand. But this is a clear case where Australia should comment as a friend of Thailand and of its democratically elected government.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Coalition's car kill is crazy

    • Tony Kevin
    • 08 November 2013
    23 Comments

    The Coalition's impending destruction of the Australian car industry by calculated public stalling of decisions on government assistance is shaping up as its most disastrous high-visibility policy blunder. This industry — but none other — is to be wilfully abandoned as a victim of rigid free-market economic ideologies. It does not make sense, in economic, social or national security terms. This is Australia's version of US Tea Party budget brinkmanship.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Hope for a Malaysian Spring

    • Lily Zubaidah Rahim and Sven Schottmann
    • 29 April 2013
    1 Comment

    Amid democratic transitions in Asia and protest movements in the Middle East, a growing number of Malaysians are unwilling to countenance any further their government's paternalistic politics. Whoever wins next Sunday's election will have the task of forging a new consensus on what it means to be Malaysian. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Remember the Rohingyas

    • Susan Metcalfe
    • 01 March 2013
    8 Comments

    The deaths at sea of nearly 100 Rohingya asylum seekers is a stark reminder that Australia needs to step up its efforts to improve regional protection for asylum seekers. If we are genuinely committed to saving lives at sea, we must bring more to the table than words and Pacific island diversion policies.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    'Spend mentality' won't help the new Burma

    • Duncan MacLaren
    • 20 February 2013
    5 Comments

    'Development is the new name for peace,' said Pope Paul VI in 1967. Well, not in Burma, where wars and religious disputes have caused the death or displacement of 190,000 people. Such horror stories don't concern the Western and Chinese business people who sweep in, salivating, to 'develop' Burma.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Brennan and Katter's Aboriginal pilgrimage

    • Frank Brennan
    • 01 October 2012
    1 Comment

    'I had the pleasure of the company of Bob Katter at a series of meetings with Aboriginal Councillors before addressing a public meeting on Palm Island. Some say there has been little growth or change on these remote Aboriginal communities. In fact some of what we saw was unimaginable 30 years ago. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Updating the Malaysia solution

    • John Menadue
    • 26 July 2012
    9 Comments

    There is a lot of political point-scoring over whether particular countries have signed the Refugee Convention. But there is no signatory country on the route used by almost all asylum seekers fleeing to Australia. A regional framework must be built on what's available — such as the Malaysian agreement.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    POW priest and the sacrament of sport

    • Brian Doyle
    • 18 July 2012
    3 Comments

    The Japanese had taken the island and the priest was imprisoned with many other residents. One Sunday, the POWs set up stumps in the morning, dressed in the best clothes they had left, and assigned teams. One captain was a minister, the other a teacher. The priest opened the bowling. The guards were angry.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Politics played as holy comedy in Cambodia

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 07 June 2012
    5 Comments

    Meetings between holiness and politics are inherently dramatic. Think of Jesus' trial, of A'Beckett's murder, of Luther at Worms, of Romero's last sermon. These were tragedies. In Fr Pierre Ceyrac, a French Jesuit priest who died last week, politics and holiness met dramatically, but as comedy.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Suicide is the new leprosy

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 17 May 2012
    14 Comments

    A common public response to suicide is very similar to earlier attitudes to leprosy. The latter makes invisible people who need to be seen. The former makes silent people who need to speak. A recently published collection of writing by relatives and friends of people who had taken their own lives breaks that silence.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Inter-faith perspectives on justice and reconciliation in Cambodia

    • Frank Brennan
    • 16 May 2012

    'The challenge to a Christian living in a largely Buddhist society has some similarities to the challenge to a Christian living in a society where the public square is largely the preserve of those who argue and agitate with a secularist mindset.' Fr Frank Brennan SJ's address to the gathering of church and NGO workers convened in Siem Reap by the Jesuit Refugee Cambodia on 12 May 2012. 

    READ MORE