HUAI KHA KHEANG WILDLIFE SANCTUARY, Thailand — After trudging through the wilds of western Thailand for several hours, the forest rangers thought they were finally onto something: the distant sound of crunching leaves. Automatic weapons drawn, the five Thais crept forward, hoping to catch a tiger poacher. It turned out to be a banteng, a wild cow, which disappeared into [...]

Ubon Ratchathani – A flight of Thai Airways International from this northeastern province to Bangkok was aborted and the planed had to make an emergency landing after its cockpit’s windshield cracked and an engine stopped. No one was injured when the flight TG0303 made an emergency landing at the Ubon Ratchathani airport shortly after it took off at 9:30 pm. [...]

On Dec. 28, Thailand’s military packed more than 4,000 Hmong asylum seekers into trucks and drove them from refugee camps to neighboring Laos, a single-party state that’s been accused of persecuting the group since they backed U.S. forces during the Vietnam War. Thailand now maintains that Hmong living illegally in Thailand are economic migrants, not political refugees in need of [...]

BANGKOK — Thailand on Monday began to deport back to Laos more than 4,000 ethnic Hmong asylum-seekers, defying intense pressure from the United Nations, the United States and human rights groups who say the deportees could face persecution upon their return. After days of preparation, 5,000 troops and officials entered the Hmong camp in Thailand’s central Petchabun province early in [...]

BANGKOK: Thailand will begin repatriating more than 4,000 ethnic Hmong refugees to Laos on Monday despite strong international opposition to the move, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Saturday. The New York-based international rights group said that armed forces had been mobilised for the deportation from a camp in northern Phetchabun province where the Hmong are being held. “The first [...]

Chiang Rai – Police yesterday morning rounded up 32 North Koreans, including an eightyearold boy, allegedly trying to sneak into Thailand by boat in Chiang Rai’s Chiang Saen district. Police patrolling the Khong River for drug smugglers and human traffickers, spotted three crowded boats delivering people near a riverside restaurant. The boats crossed quickly to the other side and the [...]

CHAIYAPHUM, Oct 5 (TNA) – Flooding in several northern and northeastern provinces, Chaiyaphum, Lampang and Si Sa Ket, remained critical Monday, but the water level in the Chao Phraya River in central Thailand is not worrisome, according to government sources. In the northeastern province of Chaiyaphum, heavy rain has triggered a third round of flash floods in Chaiyaphum municipality, its [...]

Thirteen districts out of 18 in the northern province of Chiang Rai have been declared disaster areas after flash floods inundated 322 villages,destroyed bridges and caused mudslides in many areas. Villagers in tambon Mae Jaydee in Wieng Pa Pao district are stranded after mudslides blocked access in and out. Wide areas of farmland are under water and livestock and villagers [...]

Dams and rock-blasting projects are destroying biodiversity and traditional cultures of the Mekong The groans and grumbles emanating from Thai villages along the banks of the Mekong right now suggest that the river is in serious trouble. Villagers are complaining that Chinese dams upstream are causing unseasonably high and low levels that are disrupting river life. One calamity that befell [...]

CHIANG RAI : The Chiang Rai Court on Friday sentenced 13 demonstrators to six months’ jail for leading their supporters to block a road while rallying against the planned construction of a power plant. The rally was held on July 2 in protest against the building of a privately-run biomass-fired power plant in Wiang Chai district. Each of the 13 [...]