People and government

While being on the right track, the government’s latest response to the new coronavirus (Covid-19) by closing schools and entertainment venues, as well as putting off the Songkran break, is likely to prove too little, too late, once again. As other countries have shown, the ...

Cambodian authorities should end the politically motivated investigations of four environmental activists looking into illegal logging in Kratie province, Human Rights Watch said today, the International Day of Forests. The authorities should investigate a Taiwanese-Cambodian company whose employees allegedly detained the activists, including the prominent environmentalist Ouch ...

Even as COVID-19 is wreaking havoc and uncertainty around the globe, Vietnam’s Mekong Delta declared an emergency over the devastating drought in early March. Studies suggest that the frequency and severity of droughts in the Mekong region has increased in the past decades, and many blame ...

Vietnam’s prime minister, Nguyen Xuan Phuc, has asked the country’s agriculture ministry to draft a directive to stop illegal trading and consumption of wildlife over fears it spreads disease. The directive, seen as a victory for animal rights organisations, will lead to a clamping down on ...

Local officials seized about 196 kilogrammes of compressed marijuana from the Mekong river bank in Wan Yai district on Tuesday morning. Residents in tambon Pong Kham reported to the kamnan and Wan Yai district chief Pitinat Nithisthani after seeing seven black plastic bags on the bank ...

Muesaw Chokedilok, an ethnic Karen woman from Thailand’s Kaburdin Village in Chiang Mai’s Omkoi district, hops aboard an old pickup truck for a rugged ride up the mountain. With her are a group of housewives from the same village, all clad in cotton handwoven clothes ...

The Government of Japan Friday granted JPY 412 million or approximately US$3.9 million to the Mekong River Commission (MRC) to advance its flood and drought monitoring and forecasting functions. The funding will be spread over four years from 2020–2023. It is to transform the MRC’s Regional ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Hun Sen said China has financed the construction of more than 3,000 kilometres of roads in the Kingdom. The figure was shared at the inauguration ceremony of National Road No. 55 with a total length of 182.16 kilometres and the groundbreaking for ...

Sexism and dangers women face in the Thai workplace are well known, partly thanks to reporters who highlight those issues in their work. But the journalists themselves rarely tell their own stories. This is hardly a surprise. Those working in the media, after all, are trained ...

Two journalists who were abducted and released by Border Guard Force (BGF) troops in Myawaddy Township, Karen State said they were tortured by the soldiers during interrogation. Naw Betty Han, a reporter for Frontier Myanmar, and Mar Naw, a photojournalist for Myanmar Times, were detained in the jungle ...