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Michael J. Montesano
For Michael J. Montesano's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 21, 2003
A breakthrough for Thaksin
BANGKOK -- Nearly 2 1/2 years after his Thai Rak Thai (TRT) party's unprecedented electoral victory, recent weeks have seen Thailand's Premier Thaksin Shinawatra score an unmistakable psychological breakthrough. The change has nothing to do with Thaksin's own psychology; his supreme self-confidence seems never to have faltered, for years or perhaps even decades. Rather, it is the psychology of broad segments of the Thai public that has changed. As often with resignation or foreboding as with confidence and hope, Thais have now clearly begun to take their premier as seriously as he takes himself.
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 16, 2002
War on terror to have Asian side effects
SINGAPORE -- Speaking earlier this month to the inaugural Asian Security Conference, U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz suggested Washington's latest vision for a post-Cold War world. Held here under the auspices of London's International Institute of Strategic Studies, the conference brought together official representatives from some 20 countries to focus on the ongoing war on terror.
COMMENTARY / World
May 20, 2002
Monarchy retains role in Thai democracy
SINGAPORE -- A decade ago this week, tens of thousands of Thais took to the streets of Bangkok to topple Prime Minister Suchinda Kraprayun. Gen. Suchinda had led the successful February 1991 coup d'etat against the elected government of Chatchai Chunhawan. The terms of a constitution drafted on Suchinda's watch allowed him to assume the premiership without contesting the parliamentary elections of March 1992. But the resultant popular outrage overcame even the direct, bloody intervention of the Thai military. After a televised dressing-down from King Phumiphon, Suchinda resigned.

Longform

Rows of irises resemble a rice field at the Peter Walker-designed Toyota Municipal Museum of Art.
The 'outsiders' creating some of Japan's greenest spaces