Law and judiciary

Draft changes to a law outlawing prostitution have been sent back to committee after an upper house MP objected and argued that the law should be amended to protect, rather than punish, sex workers. Yangon Region parliamentarian U Phone Myint Aung urged MPs to look past ...

The UN refugee agency criticised Thailand on 17 November for deporting two refugees who were about to be resettled in a third country. Rights groups identified the two as Chinese pro-democracy activists, although the Bangkok office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees did not give their ...

The ethics committee at world soccer body FIFA has banned two officials from Nepal and Laos for taking cash during elections, it said on 16 November. Keep reading ...

A bomb blast at a village checkpoint in Thailand’s far south killed four people and wounded four others, police said on 13 November, in the latest deadly attack to strike the insurgency-plagued region. The bomb exploded late on 12 November evening in Khok Pho district of Pattani, ...

Bokeo provincial police confiscated over 100,000 amphetamine pills and arrested two drug traffickers in Phonthong village, Paktha district, last week. Head of the Bokeo provincial Public Security Headquarters, Colonel Lamphai Yotpaphai, told Vientiane Times on 11 November that police received a tip off about illegal drugs being ...

Officials are wrestling with the problem of identifying a long-term solution to Vientiane’s chronic traffic jams and some are suggesting that an overpass might ease the situation. While no such scheme currently exists, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility to imagine that overpasses will ...

Early morning on 10 November, 168 Chinese nationals were deported from Cambodia, following their arrest last month for allegedly using the Kingdom as a base from which to extort money from victims in China, police said. Keep reading ...

Thailand’s junta launched on 12 November a crackdown on organized crime, its latest effort to clean up the country and improve the image of the military government as it struggles to get a sluggish economy on track. Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, ushered in a “clean up Thailand” ...

The high road fatality rates that make Thai roads the world’s second deadliest may in fact be understated, said Prommin Kantiya, director of the Accident Prevention Network (APN). Mr Prommin, who was responding on 5 November to the Public Health Ministry’s campaign to reduce road fatality rates, said ...

  Gen Nakatani, head of the Japan Defense Agency, will visit Vietnam from November 5-7 at the invitation of Minister of National Defense Phung Quang Thanh, Tuoi Tre newspaper reported. His Vietnam visit would follow the ASEAN Defense Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) Plus, to be held from ...