News stories by Marwaan Macan-Markar, page 5

Veterinary experts in China and Vietnam are scrambling to produce a vaccine capable of beating a new strain of the deadly avian influenza (AI) virus, reports an official of the Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO).

With Burma’s quasi-civilian government relaxing the iron grip on power maintained for half-a century by military juntas, the big question is: How real is the change?

A leading international human rights group has accused the United States government, the World Bank and other international donors of indirectly funding forced labour in Vietnam’s drug rehabilitation centres.

Armed with a smile, Don Marut exposes the pitfalls of Western aid to developing countries. At a conference here, the Indonesian recalled the story of how 40 electric-train carriages were sent from Germany to his country for a journey to nowhere.

In a country where the going rate for a contract killing is around Thai baht 15,000 (500 dollars), the price paid to eliminate Thongnak Sawekchinda, an environmental activist, has caught the police by surprise.

'Even if 100,000 people die of starvation in North Korea, foreigners working there will not see it,' says a humanitarian worker who spent three years in the impoverished, communist country.

Besides attracting international investors, Cambodia’s new stock exchange is expected to nudge this Southeast Asian country towards greater transparency.

Villages like this one are nothing more than a mix of small wooden and cement houses on tree-lined lanes where people make a living growing rice or rearing cattle and pigs. Yet they are shaping the future of Thailand’s democracy and taking part in what residents call a 'rural awakening'.

Across villages, towns, and cities in northeast Thailand, a mood of political empowerment is bursting to the surface, with people gathering in groups since Sunday evening to celebrate political history. After all, they helped put Yingluck Shinawatra on the road to becoming the country’s first female prime minister.

With an eye on the tightly contested Jul. 3 general election, Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva is tapping into the national unease gripping this country over a deadly habit shared by some Thais: drugs.