Southeast Asia Globe

Thailand took a momentous step on 24 August  —not only because of a shock decision by the Constitutional Court to suspend Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha from his duties, but also because parliament finally passed a historic anti-torture bill. Once fully enacted, the Bill, formally known as ...

n a remote road in Battambang, Cambodia, 38-year-old Lam Samphors was driving to a community training when he came across a strikingly large pile of trash in the middle of the road. As he hit the brakes and gazed upon the mountain of garbage, Samphors ...

The detention centre was sweltering as Bangkok’s heat oppressed the crowded room.  Dark steel bars lined the cells while scores of imprisoned migrants counted down the hours of the day. Crammed together in a tight space, the refugees were in a constantly agitated state. The watchful ...

Garment workers at Thailand’s Brilliant Alliance factory were granted leave, only to learn their employer had shut down when they returned to their worksite in early March 2021.  “Everyone was abandoned and never went back to work, there was nothing from the company about compensation,” said ...

The stiff, rusted grate forming a metal ramp scraped its stone anchor and bent under Lounh Samnang’s weight as he clambered onto the small-scale dam he operates and maintains. Water rushed from the reservoir and gurgled through the dam’s turbine before flowing down O’Porng Morn Kraom, a ...

Despite being forced from her home in Cambodia without compensation and giving birth while imprisoned for speaking out, Hoy Mai believes she will finally receive justice after more than a decade when she appears in a civil court in Thailand. Mai is expected to testify as ...

Rambo paced anxious circles in his cage as it became clear he was subject to special attention. The Bengal tiger was about to be moved from the shuttered Phuket Zoo to a new home: a rescue centre in central Thailand.  As the zoo closed, its 11 ...

The official end of a conflict leaves a country with obvious physical scars, from devastating death tolls to levelled landscapes. But a war’s effect on a country evolves. In Indochina, casualties continue because of unexploded remnants of war. Efforts to remove these weapons have gone on ...

A two-lane dirt road truncates the northeastern tree line of Phnom Tamao Forest, marking the start of a housing complex on private land bordering the protected area. Dozens of boundary markers cemented underneath the tree canopies of the forest indicate the plans for land exchange deals ...

Abortion is a global health issue, impacting individuals and families regardless of ethnicity, income, social status or nationality. Yet there is no worldwide legal standard for the practice of terminating a pregnancy. Lawmakers and governments hold sway over access to abortion, or its abolition. In the ...