News

Rights groups say the long-awaited rules Thailand’s government approved this month for screening foreigners seeking refuge from persecution in their home countries are likely to leave many worthy applicants in the lurch. The United Nations refugee agency says Thailand currently hosts about 5,000 “urban refugees and ...

The unchecked growth of freewheeling business enclaves and casinos in and around Laos is opening new money laundering and drug trafficking options for crime networks using the country to push spiraling volumes of narcotics across Asia, the United Nations warns. As China and Thailand tighten their ...

In recent days, many petrol filling stations in the Mekong Delta region have closed and stopped selling, partly because of losses, and partly because of supply shortages, leading to the prospect of large-scale disruptions in the region. Along the Nam Song Hau route from the Mekong Delta City ...

From cries of “fake news” in the United States and Brazil to the Marcos family’s return to power in the Philippines, the growing role of misinformation and disinformation in the global political landscape is a very real concern. The spread of deliberately deceitful and unintentionally ...

Houa* sat on the doorstep of her bamboo house helping her grandmother pluck a chicken. She is not even ten years old, but she is learning how to become a ‘good wife.’ As the Covid pandemic and economic crisis hit the family hard, Houa dropped out ...

In mid September, a 25-year-old trans person, Jatuporn “New” Sae-Ung, was sentenced to three years in prison for wearing a Thai traditional dress and performing a mock fashion walk at a political protest in Bangkok back in October 2020. She was charged with royal defamation, ...

Malaysia deported 150 Myanmar nationals this month, including former navy officers seeking asylum, and plans to send back more despite the risk of arrest they face at home, four sources familiar with the matter said. The deportations come despite Malaysia’s condemnation of violence in Myanmar since the military ...

In the remote and densely forested northeastern province of Mondulkiri in Cambodia, Song Pro, a member of the indigenous Bunong community, stares at a rubber plantation that was once a sacred forest. When the war in Indochina came to Cambodia in the 1970s, the forest saved ...

Twelve teams of directors and producers from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar have been selected to take part in a ten-day filmmaking workshop this December. This is the second year running that Netflix is a major sponsor of the Short Film Camp led by Purin ...

The Minister of Public Works and Transport of Laos, Mr. Viengsavath Siphandone, met with Thailand’s Minister of Transport, Mr. Saksayam Chidchob, and his team last week to discuss the project’s development. This was after Thailand’s Department of Rail Transport provided an update on the progress ...