News stories by Marwaan Macan-Markar, page 16

Even as the Thai military warned that its troops would fire live bullets in any imminent confrontation with anti-government protesters in Bangkok, women like Supaporn Sonnorp did not flee.

'I know the word; I understand it; I love it,' street artist Chuwit Kunasawat said, using his pencil-thin brush, dipped in deep red ink, to paint on the right cheek of an anti-government protester.

The prospect of peace returning to Bangkok’s streets following a bloody crackdown over the weekend remains elusive as the Thai government toughens its stance to go after a mass protest movement, including the arrest of its leaders.

The morning after the Thai troops’ bloody crackdown on anti-government protesters here, the mood among them remained as it was after the guns had gone silent only hours before. The red shirts, called such because of their signature protest colour, appeared defiant, edgy and, in some cases, victorious.

If Burma’s military regime goes ahead with its promised general election this year, some 27.2 million voters will be deprived of the chance to cast a ballot for the political party that has come to symbolise democratic hope in that oppressed nation.

Thailand’s culture of non-violence got a shot in the arm on Monday, after Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva ended a second round of nationally televised peace talks with leaders of the anti-government movement that has been holding protests for over two weeks now.

It has been just over a week since the turbines came to life at Laos’ largest hydropower project, but questions are already dogging this World Bank showpiece that marks the financial institution's return to the business of big dams.

Once a stronghold of Thailand’s banned communist party, this north-east rural outpost has been drawing a different kind of people railing against the political order set in the capital Bangkok.

As the water level in the Mekong River dips to a record 50-year low, a familiar pattern of fault-finding has risen to the surface. China, the regional giant through which parts of South-east Asia’s largest waterway flows through, is again at the receiving end of verbal salvoes from its neighbours.

An unprecedented show of force by men and women from Thailand’s rural hinterland was on display over the weekend as they poured into Bangkok in the tens of thousands to stake a claim on having a voice in shaping this South-east Asian kingdom’s national agenda.