News stories by Marwaan Macan-Markar, page 24

A verdict by a provincial court is poised to deepen the sense of injustice felt by Thailand’s Malay-Muslim minority in the country’s southern provinces, where an insurgency has been raging for over five years.

In a move reflecting growing anger towards Burma, parliamentarians from across Southeast Asia want the military-ruled country suspended from a 10-member regional bloc for the unjust treatment of Aung San Suu Kyi, Burma’s pro-democracy leader.

A special investigative arm of Thailand’s criminal justice system is set to mount a fresh probe into a massacre of civilians during a brutal ‘war on drugs’ launched six years ago, when the authoritarian Thaksin Shinawatra was the country’s prime minister.

By pushing ahead with a sham trial to prosecute the country’s pro-democracy icon, Burma’s military regime appears set to shatter the credibility of the new, rules-based Southeast Asian regional bloc, of which it is a member.

A year after powerful Cyclone Nargis tore through Burma’s Irrawaddy Delta and southern Rangoon, killing tens of thousands of people, nature continues to play a cruel trick on survivors.

As if the torment she has endured at the hands of the country’s military regime were not bad enough, Burma’s pro-democracy icon may be condemned to more years of detention due to the foolhardy exploits of an oversized, middle-aged Vietnam War veteran from the United States.

Researchers at a prestigious university hospital in Bangkok have been able to cut by 14 hours the time it takes to detect the lethal strain of the swine flu virus, which has infected thousands across the world.

With the hint of a general election in the air, the largest opposition party in military-ruled Burma is facing a dilemma about its future. Should it or should it not contest the planned poll in 2010?

When the World Health Organisation (WHO) raised the influenza pandemic alert from phase three to an ominous phase four warning this week, it went beyond the alarm associated with the killer avian influenza virus in Asia.

When the Thai government imposed an emergency law cracking down on rampaging red-shirted protesters on the streets of Bangkok, the military, in combat gear, was not its only weapon. The state’s censors were given liberty to silence critical media.