Voices from Pattani: Fears,suspicion, and confusion

Abstract

By December 2005, violence in the South of Thailand had taken the lives of more than one thousand people. In this article, the voices of southerners are presented as they were recorded during the author's two-year stay in Pattani Province and various Malay-Muslim villages in southern Thailand. Verbatim excerpts from tok imams (religious teachers), overseas scholars, academics, fisherfolk, and locals of various ethnicity and religious groups illustrate perspectives and frustrations about the violence. Fears, suspicions, and confusion are the most prominent emotions embedded in these conversations. These excerpts illustrate the foremost concerns of the common people in the South, among them, impertinent threats to livelihood security and peaceful ethnic coexistence in the region.     

In the Name of the Cause: Women's Work in Secular and Religious Terrorism

The article begins by providing a brief history of the involvement of females in the conduct of modern terrorism and discusses the different ideological mindsets that account for their becoming more involved in terrorism associated with ethno-separatist rather than religious concerns, with an eye to the fact that the trend shows unmistakable signs of changing. Secondly, it considers the structure of logic, or systems of contention, that secular and religious groups employ in attempting to legitimize women and girls offering themselves up as martyrs, and discusses what mechanisms they share for doing so. The thesis of this paper is that secular and religious terrorism, though seeking to create significantly different worlds, one modern, the other traditional, fall back upon many of the same rhetorical strategies to justify females engaging in political violence, especially the rhetoric of martyrdom. The Sri Lankan nationalist-based Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) is highlighted as the secular example and Hamas and Islamic Jihad as the religious ones.     

K2 Toxicity: Fatal Case of Psychiatric Complications Following AM2201 Exposure

Limited forensic and clinical experience and the lack of confirmatory testing strategies for synthetic cannabinoids (SC) prevent adequate characterization of SC toxicity and the potential impact on public health. A statewide surveillance system identified a fatality involving a 23‐year‐old man found with a large stab wound to the neck following use of a SC product suspected of containing AM2201. Analytical testing for common SCs, SC metabolites, routine drugs of abuse, and over‐the‐counter medications was performed on heart blood obtained at autopsy. Additionally, assays were performed on the SC raw material and drug paraphernalia found on the decedent. High concentrations of AM2201 were detected in all samples. AM2201 metabolites were detected in postmortem blood. Other than a trace amount of JWH‐073 found in smoke residue, no other substances were detected. Psychiatric complications including self‐induced, lethal trauma can occur after the use of SC products.     

Hostile Media Perceptions: Partisan Assessments of Press and Public during the 1997 United Parcel Service Strike

This study investigated partisan perceptions of hostile bias in news coverage of the 1997 Teamsters Union strike against United Parcel Service (UPS), and the processes by which Teamster and UPS partisans formed impressions of public opinion regarding the strike. As predicted, both partisan groups perceived neutral news coverage as biased against their respective sides. However, perceptions of hostile media bias did not produce corresponding perceptions of hostile public opinion; instead, partisans appeared to rely on their personal opinions when estimating the opinions of others. Nonpartisan control-group subjects, however, did infer public opinion in part from their subjective assessments of news content. Findings suggest that level of involvement is crucial in predicting the effect that perceived media coverage of social issues will have on perceptions of public opinion regarding those issues.     

Realizing the Promise of Well‐Being: Longitudinal Research from an Effective Early Intervention Program for Substance Exposed Babies and Toddlers Identifies Essential Components

The University of Miami Linda Ray Intervention Program (LRIP) is a Part C early intervention program for children under the age of three, with verified developmental delays located in Miami‐Dade County that has established a strong link and referral process from the Juvenile Court as well as local community‐based care agencies. Creating a system where early intervention communicates well with the court system is paramount in changing the well‐being trajectories of these vulnerable children. This article describes the growing need for early intervention services as well as the results of one successful early intervention‐court partnership that has shown promising short and long‐term results for developmentally‐delayed children who were born prenatally exposed to cocaine.     

Going non-nuclear in the nuclear alliance: the Danish experience in NATO

Danish nuclear policy is at a crossroads. Looking back, Denmark's relationship to nuclear technology has been a difficult balancing act for successive governments, trying to soothe an anti-nuclear domestic sentiment on one side and the membership of a nuclear military alliance on the other. This history produced an enduring double approach to nuclear policy by Copenhagen throughout the cold war. Looking ahead, this history is of particular relevance as Denmark and Greenland are considering lifting their twenty-five-year ban on mining radioactive elements and allowing the production of Greenland's uranium. With Greenland's large reserves potentially catapulting this otherwise non-nuclear and non-mining kingdom into one of the world's top suppliers of uranium, the policy debate has to include a look back at Denmark's relationship to nuclear technology, for both peaceful and military purposes.