Law and judiciary
Crime and law enforcement
5 Vietnamese arrested for stealing in Thailand: report
Thai police have arrested four men and one woman, all Vietnamese nationals, for allegedly stealing 4,000 baht (US$110.6) in cash from local tourist shops, news website The Nation reported on 3 January. Keep reading ...
Chinese vessel sank fishing boat in Vietnamese waters: authorities
Border guards in Quang Tri Province have confirmed that a Chinese steel fishing vessel rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing boat off Quang Tri, VTC News reported. Senior Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Huy Tho of the Quang Tri Border Guard Command said the sinking occurred around 40 ...
Anti-smuggling teams abolished: Commerce ministry
The government’s mobile task force teams, which aimed to clamp down on the country’s thriving illegal border trade, have been abolished, the Ministry of Commerce announced on 30 December. “All teams will stop, starting from today,” Than Win, the director of the Ministry of Commerce, told ...
3,000 officers, metal detectors to secure New Year's Countdown
About 3,000 soldiers and police have been deployed to Bangkok’s Ratchaprasong area where walk-through metal detectors also were installed to secure the New Year’s Countdown site on 31 December. Keep reading ...
Convoy of Lao trucks transports logs to Vietnam, despite ban on timber exports
Laos has continued to transport logs from its forests to Vietnam, despite a government ban on timber exports that took effect in August and a leaked report by an international environmental group two months ago, revealing huge increases in illegal logging with the implication of ...
Deadly attacks by bandits in Laos leave one dead, three injured
Bandits in a mountainous and isolated province in northern central Laos have shot one person dead and injured three others in the latest of a series of attacks on vehicles passing through the region, said a retired Lao soldier close to a high-ranking officer in ...
Activists call for witness protection as major Thai human trafficking trial begins
Thai authorities must step up witness protection for a major human trafficking trial with the accused including an army general and one investigator fleeing the country fearing for his life, activists said on 24 December as the first witnesses gave evidence. The case includes 88 defendants allegedly ...
Protest outside Thai embassy in Myanmar against murder verdict
Hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside Thailand’s embassy in Yangon on 25 December after two Myanmar migrants were sentenced to death by a Thai court for murdering two British backpackers, in a verdict that has sparked anger in their homeland. Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun were found ...
Myanmar politician objects Koh Tao verdict
A Myanmar political group, 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, today showed its objection against the death sentence handed down to two Myanmar migrant workers in Thailand. Keep reading ...
Police raid brothel, free seven girls
A group of seven Vietnamese and Cambodian girls were freed during a raid on a brothel in Battambang province on 23 December in which three suspected brokers were arrested, according to anti-human trafficking police. Officers entered the nameless “massage parlor” in Kamrieng district’s Boeng Raing commune at ...