News

Riding the waves of the pot rush 

Daycha Siripatra, founder of the Khaokwan Foundation, would have remained largely unknown had the police and anti-narcotics officials not raided the foundation’s premises in Suphan Buri province and seized 200 cannabis plants, some marijuana extract, oil and seeds.  They also arrested senior foundation member Pornchai Choolert and ...

Anchalee Kongrat

Heart-to-Heart Talk with 6 People of the Mekong

The Mekong Butterfly had a heart-to-heart talk with 6 people of the Mekong — they are from 6 different communities in Thailand located on the Mekong riverbank. Despite informal atmosphere, topics of the discussion were very earnest around problems they have been facing from irregular ...

Part 1 – 5 countries, 13,000 km, 1 goal: Challenge the everyday use of plastic

I was on a 3-month bike ride across five countries of Myanmar, Laos, Thailand , Cambodia and Nepal, to challenge the everyday use of plastic through an activity called Plogging – a mix of jogging and picking up trash.  Dwarfed by the five-feet jumble of trash ...

Abhimanyu Chakravorty

Thailand ramps up fight against forced labor with stricter law

 Thailand will use a newly amended law to crack down on forced labor with hefty fines and prison time, a move analysts said could help curb exploitative practices against migrant workers. The Southeast Asian nation, which has come under scrutiny for slavery and trafficking in ...

Rina Chandran

Haze woes lIkely to lInger, worsen

Unlike the smog that enveloped Bangkok early in the year, the haze crisis in the North stems largely from spontaneous dry-season forest fires and other fires deliberately set to clear farmland. GISDA has found that the number of hotspots in nine northern provinces including Chiang Mai ...

Thailand must take action for cleaner air in Asean

When complaints are made about the haze crisis and air pollution in Southeast Asia, most usually think about fires in Indonesia’s provinces, which have been a recurrent problem for over two decades. However, the situation this year has been different as Thailand has been at the ...

Simon Tay & Liyana Othman

“Unpredictable, messy” is how the March-24 election is seen by academics

The March-24 is anything but predictable. That’s the general consensus among some of Thailand’s leading academics and political experts just less than a week away from the first general election for the country in almost eight years. They agree that the electoral system – in ...

Thailand's Election is a “Referendum on Democracy” as Voters Flock to Early Polls Voting

The contest broadly pits the party of junta leader Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led the 2014 coup when he was army chief, against populist parties loyal to ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and also parties opposed to extending military dominance in government. Keep reading ...

Meth production in Vietnam, Laos and Thailand booming: UN

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) published a report Tuesday which names the “Golden Triangle” of Myanmar, Thailand and Laos as the heart of methamphetamine production and trafficking in East and Southeast Asia. The report also states Taiwan-based crime syndicates operating across ...

Thailand offers loans for Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam entrepreneurs

The Export-Import Bank of Thailand (Exim Bank Thailand) has unveiled a new loan facility for entrepreneurs in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam who purchase products from Thai businesses, a move aimed at boosting exports to the subregion. Under the scheme, each borrower is offered up to ...

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