· October, 2005

Stories about Thailand from October, 2005

Singapore, Thailand: Grading the Media

  25 October 2005

A ranking that placed Singapore as No. 140 in press freedom sparks much discussion in the local blogosphere. Singabloodypore explains the sorry state of the island state's docile media. Omeka na Huria points out that Thailand appears to be learning from Singapore in reining in its own press; Thailand's ranking...

Effect Measure on Facing the Global Bird Flu Threat

  25 October 2005

Masked Mao With recent reports of avian flu in Western Europe, the disease is clearly no longer East Asia's problem. It's a dilemma for the world. Last week I emailed Revere, the pseudonymous leader of Effect Measure, a public health group blog. Since its inception in late 2004, Effect Measure has been covering the global response to avian flu. My goal was to discuss the pandemic fears and what the world -- and ordinary people -- can do to prepare for it. Revere, an environmental epidemiologist in a senior faculty position at a major research university, has 40 years of experience in medicine and public health. He is also one of the individuals behind the Flu Wiki, an Internet-based experiment in community mobilization and knowledge-pooling to face the feared epidemic. He paints an alarming picture. "If a pandemic is going to happen (and we don't know how to predict if it will or not with certainty), it will happen whatever we do," he writes. "There will be no "outside" for help to come from, so each community needs to prepare to cope on its own." In previous flu pandemics, hundreds of thousands of people went sick or died, leading to massive disruptions as workers failed to show up to work and instead surged into ill-equipped and ill-prepared hospitals ill-prepared. Revere sees two big tasks ahead: managing the consequences of a potential pandemic, and building (or rebuilding) the world's rotting public health infrastructure.

East Asia: Bird Flu Fowl

  20 October 2005

Effect Measure is a blog run by public health experts and epidemiologists. They are very worried about what they call the bird flu iceberg.

Thailand: Vegetarian festival

  13 October 2005

Thai-Blogs posts a long essay with photos on the religious and cultural significance of the Thai vegetarian festival to the kingdom's Chinese community.

Thailand: Scooter rally

  6 October 2005

Stilee at ThaiBlogs.com posts text and photos on a Classic Motor Competition in Betong, Thailand, the highlight of which appears to have been a parade of multicolored, Vespa-style scooters.

Thailand: Army in the south

  5 October 2005

At Thai-Blogs, Stilee posts a long article with photos on the Thai army which is stationed in Betong-Yindee in the troubled south of the country, together with an account of how the armed forces have turned their focus to internal threats since the 1960s.