#Thailand

The deplorable decision by the government of Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra to forcibly repatriate around 70 ethnic Rohingya fleeing ethnic violence in neighboring Myanmar this past week should certainly not come as a surprise. Successive governments have routinely prevented asylum seekers from remaining in Thailand from various trouble spots surrounding the country. This is […]

I was fortunate to have spent the past year working in Phnom Penh. Cambodia is a raw, untamed land with beautiful sights but also shocking poverty. I’m no stranger to living in the region but, for my money, there is nothing more amazing in the world than driving through the rural countryside of Southeast Asia […]

U.S. President Barack Obama is returning to Asia for his first overseas trip since winning re-election. He will attend, for the second consecutive year, the East Asia Summit which is viewed by the U.S. as the emerging eminent multilateral forum for regional leaders from 17 other states to discuss salient strategic and security issues. The […]

U.S. President Obama is no stranger to Southeast Asia having spent parts of his childhood in Indonesia and returning several times to the region as Commander-in-Chief. And now, fresh off his reelection to the highest office in the land, President Obama will travel to the region next week on a three-country tour culminating in the […]

  “In life, men are either kings or pawns.”  -Napoleon Bonaparte Not to underestimate the cult of personality which Cambodia’s late King Father Norodom Sihanouk engendered, approximately one million people reminded us of his revered presence in the country by lining the streets from Pochentong International Airport all the way to the Royal Palace on […]

As Malaysia celebrated its 55th anniversary of independence on Friday, Muslim separatists in southern Thailand marked the occasion with a string of coordinated bomb attacks across the country’s three restive, Islamic-majority provinces. On Hari Merdeka, the day which Malaysia commemorates its freedom from British colonial rule, ethnic Malays hung Malaysian flags from light poles and […]

Southeast Asia’s youngest and poorest country, Timor-Leste, went to the polls on Saturday in the second round of parliamentary elections that will determine their next government as well as whether UN peacekeepers might be able to leave the country by year’s end. According to the World Bank, nearly half of the country’s 1.1 million people […]

There’s never a dull moment in Bangkok. As I recently reported, rumblings of a coup are gaining traction. The atmosphere in the city is becoming eerily similar to when Yellow Shirt demonstrations took hold in 2008. Protests, albeit of a small variety, are beginning to sporadically pop up. The main difference today is that the […]

I recently asked a journalist friend of mine with over 25 years of experience reporting across Southeast Asia, “Do you think it’s possible we’ll see a coup in Thailand soon?” His sardonic reply was, “A coup in Thailand? Well it’s not like that’s ever happened before.” In its current state, Thai politics is at best […]

In the latest twist in the increasingly violent saga of Thailand’s southern problem, last month’s triple bomb blast in the province of Yala highlighted another failure of the administration of Yingluck Shinawatra’s eight-month old government: the campaign vow to grant the three southern provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat ‘special administration zone’ status. Much like […]

The extent of change in a country’s foreign policy during the transition to a new regime can sometimes be striking. It is a proposition which will be played out in Thailand over the coming weeks and months as the new Pheu Thai-led coalition begins to govern following its electoral victory last week. The result of […]

Amidst a backdrop of popular discontent and social strife, Yingluck Shinawatra, sister to ex-Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, was swept into office Sunday on a tidal wave of support from the poor, rural Thai majority. Ms. Yingluck will become Thailand’s first female prime minister in August when she will be all but certainly be given the […]