News stories by Marwaan Macan-Markar, page 18

Adult education of a novel kind is making its way through this remote town of rice farmers, who are drawn to it by a desire to learn about this kingdom’s deep political and social divisions.

Meal by meal, a political feast is being laid out under the night sky to nourish a wave of anti-government protests rapidly spreading across this rural heartland. The diners come dressed in their signature red shirts.

Thailand’s attempt to repatriate over 3,000 ethnic Karens who fled the conflict in military-ruled Burma last year has triggered strong local and international objections, including from 27 members of the United States Congress.

A report exposing the spreading opium fields in the north-eastern corner of the military-ruled Burma has brought to light an equally revealing story. It was produced by a team of ethnic women who risked their lives to document the heroin-filled world they inhabit.

The road to the world’s first tiger summit in Vladivostok later this year will have to be paved with answers about the future of tiger farms in China and other East Asian countries, said conservationists.

Po Po has been enduring long hours of hard work, poor pay and abuse within the confines of her employer’s home for the past seven years. Poverty forced her to leave her family in eastern Burma and abandon a university education to work as a domestic helper in Thailand.

As the global financial crisis triggered alarms across Asia, Singapore responded with a government programme to aid its vulnerable workforce. The affluent city- state pumped in three billion U.S. dollars in an employment protection programme.

An international campaign to save the tiger, one of Asia’s iconic wild animals, is proving to be fertile ground for the World Bank to earn its stripes as an institution keen on joining the ranks of conservationists.

The world’s largest free trade area that became a reality at the start of the year is being billed as a welcome shot in the arm for the countries comprising it, namely, China and six South-east Asian countries. It offers a route out of the global financial crisis, analysts said.

A year after coming into office, Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is finding some parallels between the challenges of governing this divided South-east Asian kingdom and one of his favourite books, the ‘Myth of Sisyphus’ by French existential novelist Albert Camus.