Crime and law enforcement

Chinese border patrol officials seized 620 wild turtles and tortoises that were found alive in a shipment claimed to be frozen seafood from Vietnam, Xinhua News Agency said on 30 August. Keep reading ...

Human rights groups and the wife of a prominent civil rights leader who disappeared nearly three years ago have called on the Lao government to adequately investigate the incident and provide information about the case’s progress. Sombath Somphone went missing on 15 December 2012, when police ...

Vietnam will release 18,539 prison inmates, including 34 foreign nationals, as part of this year’s National Day amnesty. Keep reading ...

Police in Yangon Division’s Hmawbi Township have detained 10 Rohingya Muslims and the driver of the vehicle in which they were found riding, according to local law enforcement. A police officer in Hmawbi Township told The Irrawaddy that local authorities were holding the internal migrants, but he ...

Thai authorities destroyed more than 2 tons of seized and smuggled ivory on 26 August, in the latest move by the government to avoid possible economic sanctions over a perceived failure to tackle the illicit trade. Tusks from more than 200 dead African elephants and other ...

Investigations into a scheme in Laos in which private companies cashed government bonds issued in promise of payment for work they never performed have revealed the involvement of senior government officials who will never be brought to trial, a state auditor says. The auditing of the ...

Cambodia’s young internet users are thinking twice before discussing politics online, say prominent bloggers, after the third case of government punitive action sparked by Facebook comments within a month. On 22 August, student Kong Raiya, 25, was charged over a Facebook post linked to him for ...

Cambodian police on 25 August showed off a seizure of nearly 1.5 tonnes of marijuana worth more than $7 million packed into coffee bags, part of an ongoing drug crackdown in the country. Keep reading ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen has delivered a warning to anyone still thinking about criticising the government’s handling of the ongoing border demarcation with Vietnam: you will be arrested. Addressing a cabinet meeting, Hun Sen said anyone who persisted with claims that authorities were using “fake” maps or ...

Thailand has said that a deadly bomb attack at a popular shrine in Bangkok was “unlikely” to be the work of international terrorists, but appealed for Interpol help in hunting a foreign man accused of being the prime suspect. The military government was initially reluctant in ...