News stories by Marwaan Macan-Markar, page 11

A powerful bomb that ripped through an apartment building on the Thai capital’s outskirts last week — one that killed the suspected bomb maker and three people — has provided the latest twist to an ongoing debate about the Thai government’s continuing use of a harsh emergency law.

A powerful bomb that ripped through an apartment building on the Thai capital’s outskirts last week — one that killed the suspected bomb maker and three people — has provided the latest twist to an ongoing debate about the Thai government’s continuing use of a harsh emergency law.

As efforts to control malaria intensify in the region, the significance of a busy health clinic in Mae Sot, a Thai town close to the Burmese border, stands out even more.

Dustbins in a university toilet rarely elicit a second look, but those at one of the oldest universities in Burma’s Kachin State do offer reason to pause. The bins, after all, collect a special form of garbage disposed of by students — hypodermic needles and syringes they have used to inject themselves with heroin.

Teachers heading for work in the 380 public schools across Thailand’s southernmost province of Narathiwat take more than a bag filled with textbooks and lecture notes. Many go armed with guns.

A landmark political trial begins on Monday when leaders of an anti-government protest movement, known as the ‘red shirts’, will be hauled before the criminal court to face alleged terrorism charges.

When her husband was arrested for links to an insurgency raging in this southern region, Pattama Heemmima joined the ranks of Malay-Muslim women forced into the unfamiliar routine of visiting police stations, military camps and courts to secure the freedom of their imprisoned kin.

Cambodia’s partial success in reducing child mortality rates has exposed a fault line of inequity, one that underscores the advantage that the country’s urban population has had over the rural poor.

After a lapse of four months, Pukkie Mathika was finally able to break her silence, finding her way back to a busy intersection in the heart of an up-market shopping district here in Bangkok to rage against the Thai government.

When nearly 1,000 Burmese migrant workers launched a strike at a fishnet factory in north-east Thailand a week ago, activists expected it to be a short burst of anger. After all, this frequently abused labour force was often gripped with fear during brief work stoppages in the past elsewhere in this South-east Asian kingdom.