Commentary: Inequality fuelling the fire for Thailandâs political change
The changes in income of different classes from 2015 to 2019 reveal that the income of Thailand’s middle- and upper-middle classes has worsened. During this period, the income of the top 5th quintile declined by nearly 19 per cent, while the 4th quintile experienced a smaller decline of 3 per cent.
A comparison based on geographic areas also yields discouraging results. Barring the Bangkok metropolitan area, the Gini index in all regions of Thailand worsened from 2015 to 2019.
This situation is connected to the issue of poverty, which was 7.2 per cent in 2015, 6.8 per cent in 2019, and projected at 6.6 per cent in 2022, indicating a decline in the country’s ability to effectively reduce poverty. Persistent poverty is linked to the rapidly rising population of elderly individuals who are also poor. Most work in agriculture and have limited educational opportunities.
During the years under military influence, Thailand’s inequality has worsened, with the middle classes struggling and a rising number of elderly poor people getting left behind. While government assistance has softened the short-term impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on poverty, the real damage is likely to occur in the long run.
ONE OF LOWEST GROWTH RATES IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
Thailand’s level of inequality has long been one of the highest in Southeast Asia. The problem is rooted in policies and institutions that existed before the Prayut government. Yet the recent years have played a big part in fuelling people’s resentment of the military-backed government.
Is Bollywood a manâs world?
Getty ImagesBollywood, India’s hugely popular Hindi film industry, is often described as a man’s world.
It’s something that’s been talked about for a long time, but now a new study shows just how little gender equality there is – both on and off screen.
The $2.1bn (£1.5bn) industry produces hundreds of films every year and has a massive following among Indians globally. The sway the films and the stars have on their fans’ imagination cannot be overstated. But over the years, many Bollywood films have been criticised for being regressive, promoting misogyny and gender biases.
In a first of its kind study, researchers from Tiss (Tata Institute of Social Sciences) in Mumbai attempted to quantify just how severe the stranglehold of patriarchy on Hindi cinema is.
They selected 25 of the biggest box-office hits from 2019, the last pre-pandemic year, and 10 women-centric films between 2012 and 2019 – the period was chosen to see if there were any changes in the narrative following the 2012 gang-rape of a female student on a bus in Delhi, the resulting uproar over the crime and the introduction of tough new laws to deal with crimes against women.
The list of hits included War, Kabir Singh, Mission Mangal, Dabangg3, Housefull4 and Article 15 and the women-centric films included Raazi, Queen, Lipstick Under My Burkha and Margarita with a Straw, among others.
The researchers studied nearly 2,000 on-screen characters to see the types of occupation actors played and analysed the films over several parameters such as sexual stereotyping, consent and intimacy and harassment. They counted the number of LGBTQ+ and disabled characters and how they were portrayed, and studied how many women worked off-screen on these films.
They have concluded that though women-centric films give some reason for optimism, the box-office hits continue to be sexist and regressive and women and queer representation remains abysmal in them.
For instance, 72% of characters in the films that were analysed were played by men, 26% by women and 2% by queer actors.
Prof Lakshmi Lingam, the project lead for the study, says “the big bucks are riding on all big men in Bollywood” and the filmmakers say “a very strong female character won’t work with the audiences”.
“There’s very little attempt to do something different because patriarchal norms colour people’s idea of a story or narrative and they come to believe that this is what can give them money,” she told the BBC.
So, she says, they stick to the “formula”.
“The protagonist has to be male from the upper caste, the female lead has to be thin and beautiful. She has to be coy and demure who expresses consent through gestures rather than words, but wears sexually revealing clothing and has to be somewhat modern to allow for her to be in a pre-marital relationship which is a transgression.”
The jobs on screen are also imagined through a narrow gender lens – Prof Lingam says although “42% female leads were employed in these films – [way higher than India’s real employment figures of 25.1%] – they were in very stereotypical professions”.
“Nine in 10 men were in decision-making roles playing army officers, policemen, politicians and crime lords; women mostly played doctors and nurses, teachers and journalists and only one in 10 were in decision making roles,” she says.
The portrayal of the LGBTQ+ characters, the study shows, remains hugely problematic – they were never in a decision-making role and often a butt of sexist jokes. The disabled fared equally poorly -making up only 0.5% of all characters and most were used as tropes to invoke sympathy or as comic relief.
“Filmmakers say it’s the reality they’re showing. But there is so much other reality that they do not show. They swing between reality and fantasy to justify being like this,” Prof Lingam says.
The depiction of women and queergender in the industry, she adds, must change because “real life is also dictated by what we see in cinema”.
“In India, where families and schools rarely teach about sex education and consent, all our responses are influenced by books and cinema,” she says, adding that it’s a problem when a film like Kabir Singh shows the male lead stalking and harassing the heroine to woo her.
“It normalises toxic masculinity. so when a woman is stalked or harassed on the street, everyone says it happens. And there is rarely any pushback.”
A few films though, she points out, are breaking from the mould – for instance, in Mission Mangal, when a rocket scientist, played by Vidya Balan, is berated by her husband for spending too much time at work and ignoring their children, she turns around and asks him if children aren’t his responsibility too.
Queen and Lipstick Under my Burkha were among a handful of films that were led by women actors and revolved around strong female characters. But the number of such films is still very low.
Visual media, Prof Lingam says, “can bring new narratives into the conversation and change won’t happen overnight, but it will happen over time”.
The Covid-19 pandemic and the lockdown, she says, have already shown the way forward. “There’s a lot of churn in society and people are producing different content to reflect that. There’s a lot of interesting content on OTT platforms that is doing well.”
On the other hand, the Bollywood formula is no longer working. “Many male-dominated violent films helmed by some of our biggest stars such as Salman Khan and Akshay Kumar have bombed. The one exception has been Shah Rukh Khan’s Pathaan.”
So the industry, she says, needs to re-imagine these ideas.
“The typical thinking is that a majority of the audience is male so films are being made for them. We are not saying don’t do those films, but do a spectrum of films so that there is a wide variety.”
One reason, she says, why the Bollywood gaze is so overwhelmingly male is because there are so few women working off-screen in the industry and even fewer in core filmmaking departments – the films Tiss studied had more than 26,300 men and only 4,100 women in the crew.
“If films are made for a diverse audience, by a diverse people behind the screen, the stories will also be diverse,” says Prof Lingam.
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Whatâs behind Australiaâs big arms deal with Germany?
Early last year, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz declared Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a major historical turning point – a zeitenwende.
That turning point continues to play out. On the eve of this week’s NATO summit in Lithuania, Berlin and Canberra announced a deal that will send more than 100 Boxer armored fighting vehicles from Australia to Germany – not the other way around, as had been the case when Australia bought about 100 Leopard tanks in the mid-1970s.
This unique deal, worth more than A$1 billion (US$666.5 million), is driven by the demands for a rapid German rearmament after the strategic shock of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Germany doesn’t have adequate military production capacity to meet its suddenly pressing new defense needs.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese then added to the German deal by declaring an Australian Air Force Boeing E-7A Wedgetail surveillance aircraft would be based at Ramstein Air Force Base in Germany for six months, starting in October.
This aircraft will be part of NATO surveillance of the alliance’s eastern flank, in particular European logistical hubs supporting Ukraine. These could be threatened by air incursions from Russia or Belarus if the war escalates.
The Wedgetail will be able to detect aircraft approaching the Baltic states or Poland in the east. It can then determine their likely intent and whether they are friendly or not. Then, if necessary, an airborne air defense fighter aircraft could be vectored to intercept the intruder.
This task has been carried out by NATO’s E-3 AWACS aircraft, but these planes were bought in the 1980s and have very low reliability. The Wedgetail is only a decade or so old and is much easier to maintain and keep in the air.
With this move, Australia will now share the burden of continual air patrols in Eastern Europe made necessary by the Russian invasion.
Bringing Germany and Australia closer together
The Boxer is an eight-wheeled armored vehicle fitted with a 30-millimeter automatic cannon. It is operated by a crew of three and able to carry eight soldiers in its rear cabin.
The Boxers are built at a facility just outside Brisbane. In late 2018, the German arms manufacturer Rheinmetall won a $4.28 billion contract to build 211 Boxer Combat Reconnaissance Vehicles for the Australian Army. As part of the contract, the Australian government mandated Rheinmetall build the majority of the vehicles in Australia.
The new Boxers being built for Germany will be based on the Australian Army’s reconnaissance vehicle design, but given a different name: “heavy weapon carrier infantry.” The first deliveries will be made in 2025.
The Boxer deal helps to bring Germany and Australia closer at a time when Berlin is increasingly interested in Indo-Pacific defense matters.
In 2021, a German warship visited the northern Indian Ocean and western Pacific in a long deployment, and the following year, the German air force joined in an air defense exercise in Darwin.
In late June, Germany released its first National Security Strategy, which called China a “partner, competitor and systemic rival” and observed that competition with China has “increased in the past years.”
And later this month, Germany will send more than 200 soldiers to participate in the Talisman Sabre, a large, multinational, military exercise in eastern Australia. It will be the first time Germany participates in the drills.
Why the deal matters
The Boxer deal is also appealing domestically to both leaders.
For Scholz, buying vehicles from the factory of a German arms manufacturer in Australia is more attractive than buying US-made arms. Moreover, the deal would seem pivotal in ensuring Rheinmetall Defence Australia is now chosen over South Korea’s Hanwha to build 129 new Infantry Fighting Vehicles for the Australian Defense Force (ADF).
For Albanese, the Boxer deal is one of Australia’s largest defense export orders ever, which will create hundreds of jobs.
It will also ameliorate some dissatisfaction in the defense industry over the recent Defense Strategic Review. Of note, the review saw no place for vehicles like the Boxer in the Australian Defence Force of the future, and certainly not in local production.
However, the deal will have some direct effects on the defence force in the short term. Fulfilling the German order will probably delay Boxer deliveries to the ADF at a time when quickly increasing its capabilities is considered important.
Moreover, sending a surveillance aircraft to Europe will take it away from Australia’s area of principal strategic interest. However, the Ramstein air base is a very large American facility, so this move will also help support the burgeoning Australia-US military alliance.
Australia was Boeing’s first customer for the Wedgetail aircraft in the early 2000s. Some will hope NATO will now look favorably at also buying them from the US. This could help lower the overall operating costs of the fleet. Larger fleets gain economies of scale and reduce individual maintenance costs.
More deals forthcoming?
These deals were announced even before the NATO summit, so could there be more to come?
Australia is reportedly in negotiations to potentially give up to 41 old Hornet fighter jets to Ukraine. Ukraine is apparently interested in the retired jets, if perhaps only to spur others into gifting it a much larger number of F-16s.
This is all somewhat missing the forest for the trees, however. Russia’s war has now dragged on past the 500-day mark. It is reasonable to assume Ukraine will need more support from NATO and its allies.
And as the war drags on, it is diverting attention away from the Indo-Pacific, where Australia’s core geostrategic focus lies.
But Australia will remain on the hook for more aid until the war ends. Boxers and Wedgetails are fine in their own way, but the main game for the West remains defeating Russia and driving it out of Ukraine. With that, the historical turning point would be complete.
Peter Layton is Visiting Fellow, Griffith Asia Institute, Griffith University
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Suspect held in killing of German in Pattaya
Warrants out for two others as German woman questioned in connection with murder and dismemberment
PATTAYA: One person has surrendered to police and warrants are out for two others linked to the gruesome murder of a German property broker whose dismembered body was found in a freezer in tambon Nong Prue of Bang Lamung district in Chon Buri.
Police took Petra Christl Grundgreif from an undisclosed location to the Nong Prue station for questioning after she contacted them via a lawyer to surrender at 3pm on Tuesday, said Pol Col Santi Kornkasem, superintendent for investigation at the Chon Buri provincial police office.
Warrants had been issued earlier for Ms Grundgreif and another German national, Olaf Thorsten Brinkmnan, as well as a Pakistani man holding Thai nationality, Zahrouk Kareem Uddin, 27. They were charged with colluding in theft and murder.
The dismembered body of Hans Peter Mack, 62, was found in a freezer at a house in tambon Nong Prue of Bang Lamung district on Monday night by detectives who had been following up leads based on security camera video. He had not been seen by his family since July 4.
Mack’s 24-year-old Thai wife, whose name was not disclosed, told investigators on July 5 that he had left their house in the Swiss Paradise housing estate in Pattaya the day before to meet a foreign property broker. The meeting was to discuss property sales in Pattaya and Koh Samui.
Mack’s silver Mercedes-Benz E350 coupe was found in the parking lot of the CC Condominium on Khao Noi Road in tambon Nong Prue on Sunday morning.
Inside the car police found stains of a chemical cleanser apparently used in an attempt to destroy evidence.
Earlier, his relatives had offered a cash reward of 3 million baht for anyone who had information that led to his discovery.
Police called in Mr Brinkmann’s Thai wife, identified as Jarunee, 37, for questioning.
Ms Jarunee worked as a waitress at a restaurant about one kilometre away from the crime scene. She apparently looked stressed and refused to speak to reporters, said a source.
There were reports that police had earlier called the two German nationals in for questioning, but they denied any knowledge and were later released.
After the body of the victim was found, the officers determined that three suspects were involved and they sought warrants, said Pol Col Thawee Kudthalaeng, the Nong Prue police chief.
The freezer containing the body of Hans Peter Mack is taken away for further examination. (Photo: Chaiyot Pupattanapong)
Police allege that Ms Grundgreif and her two accomplices used an electric saw to cut up the body of the victim. The body was later put into the freezer at a house at the Chokchai Village 1 housing estate.
Police seized a red motorcycle to examine fingerprints after it was found that Mr Brinkman had used it.
National police chief Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn ordered the revocation of the suspects’ visas to prevent them from fleeing the country.
Police are expected to seek court approval to arrest one more German suspect, said a source. The fourth suspect has not yet been identified.
Investigators who examined the finances of the dead victim found that more than 3 million baht had been transferred to various bank accounts.
What is it like preparing for the National Day Parade?
“I mean it’s NDP. How often do you get to perform for NDP? So we were like, let’s try it,” said Mr Haramain, 37, who met his wife in a songwriting competition.
“To have this happen like 13 years later, it’s quite surreal, to be on a big stage, performing our own song to a huge crowd. It’s doing something we love.”
Ms Lyne, 35, said the experience is something that she can tell her children and grandchildren in future, “that we performed together, when we look back on videos and pictures”.
BUSY PREPARING FOR THE PARADE
With less than a month to go before Singapore marks its 58th birthday, participants have been busy getting ready for the parade at the Padang.
Many have been working tirelessly behind the scenes for the visual spectacle, putting in several months of hard work ahead of Aug 9, including two previews and several National Education shows.
The preparation has required them to sacrifice several weekends.
On most Saturdays leading up to National Day, participants would gather at various locations, such as Raffles City Convention Centre and the Asian Civilisations Museum, from as early as 9am.
There, they do their preparations such as putting on their costumes and make-up, before heading to the Padang for rehearsals and the full show.
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Indonesia-S Korea in a turbulent fighter jet marriage
Cash-strapped Indonesia is staying the course of its participation in South Korea’s KF-21 Boramae advanced jet fighter program, underscoring Jakarta’s perceived urgent need to modernize and improve its air force.
This month, Janes reported that Indonesian state-owned aircraft manufacturer PT Dirgantara Indonesia (PTDI) said that Indonesia is still committed to South Korea’s KF-21 Boramae 4.5 generation fighter, despite missing a payment deadline for the project.
Janes quotes PTDI as saying Indonesia has already paid off 21% of its cost share through June 2023. It also said there is still no definite timeline for releasing the 2024-2026 payment plan by the Indonesian Ministry of Defense, with PTDI planning to pay off 32% of the cost-share payment.
However, Janes says that the South Korean Defense Acquisition Program Administration (DAPA) mentioned that Indonesia has yet to provide its plans for the new payment and is seeking talks with Indonesia on the matter.
Janes notes that the Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) engineering and manufacturing development phase of the project cost US$6.2 billion, with Indonesia agreeing to pay 20% of the expense, or approximately $1.2 billion.
The report notes that DAPA is planning its response, which could consist of senior-level meetings with Indonesian counterparts. DAPA says that it will continue discussions with the Indonesian government to resolve cost-sharing issues and put the project back on track.
In a separate article from April 2023, Janes notes that Indonesia will receive one KF-21 prototype when it fully meets its financial obligations under the deal.
Indonesia’s determination to proceed with the KF-21 project underlines its desire to modernize the Indonesian Air Force (IDAF), which a lack of resources has handicapped to date.
Asia Times noted in June 2023 that the IDAF has long sought to improve its currently insufficient capability to cover its airspace and meet evolving security needs vis-à-vis China.
As of April 2023, the IDAF operated a hodgepodge fleet of 49 fighter aircraft, which includes 33 F-16s, 11 Su-30s and five Su-27s, with the Su-30 serving as the IDAF’s primary fighter.
While Indonesia planned to purchase Russia’s Su-35, it was ultimately dissuaded by US threats to hit Jakarta with the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA). The US offered Indonesia 36 F-15EX fighters instead.
However, the F-15EX’s high unit price and the risk of possible US restrictions on the jet’s avionics and weapons drove Indonesia to opt for French-made Rafales instead.
Budget limitations and shifting priorities, however, may limit how many jets Indonesia ultimately buys. Those financial constraints were seen in Indonesia’s recent purchase of a dozen 26-year-old ex-Qatari Mirage 2000-5 jets, a procurement of aged aircraft that was widely panned.
The new-age KF-21 project looks like a better bet than the Rafale, which first flew back in 1986.
Military Watch notes in an October 2022 article that the Rafale lacks stealth capabilities, uses weak engines and lacks access to derivatives of the Taurus air-launched cruise missile (ALCM). The report says that the KF-21 offers superior performance to the Rafale at a lower cost.
Seoul views the KF-21 as part of a wider drive to become a major exporter of high-tech weaponry, with potential buyers looking for top-of-the-line fighters at more reasonable prices than Western models.
That drive ties into South Korea’s New Southern Policy, which emphasizes close political and economic links with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations while positioning as an arms supplier to the region.
In February 2023, Aerotime reported that KAI aims to export its combat jets and helicopters to the Middle East, with a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed between KAI and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) in January 2023.
Aerotime noted that the UAE weighed the KF-21 against comparable US and French models and found them to have fewer armament restrictions.
Breaking Defense reported in a June 2023 article that Poland and Malaysia could also be potential customers for the KF-21.
The report mentions that the Polish Armaments Group (PGZ) has expressed interest in the aircraft and designated 2026 as its timeline to decide whether to commit to the program.
The source says Poland previously ordered 48 FA-50 light fighters from South Korea, the largest-ever FA-50 European order. The FA-50 was jointly developed by KAI and America’s Lockheed Martin.
Malaysia could choose between an improved FA-50 or the KF-21 as a replacement for its Su-30 MKMs and F/A-18s, following up its earlier order of 36 FA-50s, said Sangshin Park, KAI’s international business development director for Asia.
Park also hinted that the KF-21 might eventually replace the Su-30s MKMs now in Malaysia’s service, which maintenance issues have hounded due to the difficulty of acquiring Russian spare parts amid the ongoing Ukraine war.
The FA-50 orders may establish political and military ties and bureaucratic mechanisms for future KF-21 sales to those countries.
As with Indonesia’s decision to drop South Korea as its primary partner for its submarine program, payment difficulties in the KF-21 project may still have significant strategic repercussions for both.
Failing to develop a workable solution for Indonesia’s KF-21 payment woes could result in diplomatic fallout and a loss of trust that hampers future bilateral defense cooperation. While Indonesia says it remains committed to South Korea’s KF-21 program, Jakarta runs the risk of being sidelined or replaced by more financially fit prospective partners.