Category: Southeast Asia

Charges under Thailand’s strict lese-majeste law used to be rare, both for Thais and foreigners. When foreigners were charged, it made public headlines, and such was the case of a drunken Swiss man, who defaced…

During Thai Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra’s recent meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping in Beijing, one of the main topics of discussion was the proliferation of scam centers close to Thailand’s borders in Myanmar, Cambodia,…

On January 14, two border patrol officers in Narathiwat province, in Thailand’s south, were killed when a homemade bomb detonated on their pickup truck on the way to Tua Ngo Border Patrol Police School where…

As Indonesia’s term as ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Chair ended, there was both reservation and alarm at the possibility of Laos serving as its successor. In late 2023, ASEAN moved ahead with a “troika” format, with…

Thailand is currently bidding for the third time for a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC), with the election for a three-year term for 2025-2027 being held at the U.N. headquarters in New York in October.…

Thailand’s Chiang Mai now has airborne pollutants that are 20 times higher than the World Health Organization (WHO) standard. Last week, Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin declined to designate the northern city as a disaster area…

Amid China’s heavy investments in Cambodia, made evident by the vast sums of public and private cash flooding both the capital city of Phnom Penh and port cities like Sihanoukville, two Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (MSDF) destroyers, the Suzunami and Shimakaze, each…

Thailand’s new government cannot get enough of “soft power.” It has become such a buzzword in the Kingdom that a Chiang Mai man on X (formerly Twitter) gasped at the extent of its use, mockingly noting,…

On February 2, three political activists, including Lim Sokha, a senior member of the Candlelight Party, the once fledgling opposition party that was banned from participation in Cambodia’s sham July 2023 elections, were arrested in Thailand after…

Thailand’s nascent semi-democracy suffered a tremendous blow last week (31 January), when the Constitutional Court ruled that the Move Forward Party’s (MFP) campaign to reform Article 112 of the 2017 Constitution was tantamount to treason. The Court…