Action 257, August 2004

Sean Hawkey

Thaksin Shinawatra, in Thailand, has a lot in common with Silvio Berlusconi in Italy. Both are dominant media and telecommunications tycoons, both are Prime Minister of their country, both are billionaires, each is reputed to be the wealthiest man in their country, and both stand accused of serious conflict of interest between their political post and their massive media business interests. Supinya Klangnarong, a WACC scholar, is locked in a legal battle with Thaksin Shinawatra’s Shin Corp in what is becoming a landmark case on freedom of speech.

Tom Cowin

An estimated five million people took part in TV Turn-Off Week organised recently by the International Turn Off TV campaign in the US and the International Campaign Against Television, White Dot. The campaign is supported by groups such as the American Federation of Teachers, the American Medical Association and the Association of Library Services to Children.

Khuensai Jaiyen

Me and my sidekick Saengjuen Sarawin, who started Independence in 1974 as a wall newspaper and ten years later as a printed paper, were both born with big noses. We were curious, inquisitive and full of questions from day one. More than that, we were bad speakers but, fortunately for us, acceptable writers. Armed with ball points, books and a printing press, a property of the Shan resistance that was fighting against Rangoon, whose present leader General Than Shwe, has just been ranked No.2 after North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il, as the world’s worst dictators, we were given in 1984 the tough job to prove that the pen was indeed mightier than the sword.

Sean Hawkey

As churches are finding it increasingly difficult to get ‘bums on pews’, an emerging new breed of church leader is bringing millions to church. They administer pastoral care on a one-to-one basis and in group sessions, provide religious and educational information and services, run diaspora and administrative services. Best of all, from the point of view of the Churches, they are engaging with ever-increasing numbers of the most elusive and high-potential group – youngsters. The unlikely heroes for the Churches are webmasters.

Ralf Peter Reimann

Content is king, says the slogan, and content - texts, pictures, audio files and video streams -is the hot commodity of the information society. In the early days of the net, content was free, but this is changing. What should we do about it?

WACC is supporting Breaking the Silence, a participatory media project on HIV for young people in St Lucia run by the 911 Media Arts Center and the St. Lucia Red Cross Society.

Sean Hawkey

WACC presented Honorary Life Membership to the Rev. Canon Kevin Engel, from Australia, at a service in London, on 21 May, 2004. Engel is the first person from WACC’s Asia region to be honoured as a Life Member of WACC since the award was first made in 1995.