LATEST ARTICLES

Burma activists hope junta will end torture

Burma activists hope junta will end torture

She’s just 26 years old, but, barring a miracle, she is destined to spend the next 26 years of her life in one of Burma’s notorious jails.

Thai threads

Thai threads

A taupe knit dress with sleeves of cascading ruffles, a translucent silk bodice adorned with appliquéd silver hearts, a structured deep purple silk bustier, and a trench coat with a super-hero cape: just a few examples from this season’s eclectic Thai fashion collections.

Home Truths

Home Truths

Five years ago, Aye Min Soe abandoned his work as an engineer to pick up a camera, dodge the Burmese military and risk arrest and another prison term.

Slaves of the Sea

Slaves of the Sea

Kyaw-Kyaw grimaces as he explains how he was effectively sold, like a spare bit of machinery, to a Thai trawler captain. And from then, he says, his life slid into a nightmare of beatings, amphetamines, perpetually interrupted sleep, and casual death.

The World on their Shoulders

The World on their Shoulders

For most of the year they struggle through the Burmese jungle, carrying heavy packs of supplies, ducking the army, keeping an eye out for landmines.

State of change

State of change

She sits in a bamboo chair in the steaming Bangkok heat, slim and elegant in a long skirt and a black sleeveless vest. Her eyebrows are delicately plucked, her ears pierced, her hair long and wavy. She turns and smiles sweetly. She has been a woman for less than a fortnight.

Yum Factor

Yum Factor

Serious Australian, British and European chefs have presented high-end Thai food in restaurants from Sydney to London to Copenhagen. Chefs of all nationalities have long been seduced by the delicate balancing art of Thai food – the interaction between the salty and sour, sweet and spicy veins of flavour that inspire Thai food devotees. Rarely, …read more

Reporters risked all during Thais’ bloody week

Reporters risked all during Thais' bloody week

Fabio Polenghi was killed by a burst of gunfire in Bangkok. Wounded in the lower abdomen, he was rushed to hospital on the back of a motor-scooter. The Italian freelance photographer had been in Thailand for three months on assignment for a European magazine and, like so many others, he was on the spot to …read more

Fatal moment of hesitation

Fatal moment of hesitation

After nearly ten tumultuous weeks of protest, Thailand’s anti-government activists have been thoroughly routed, their sprawling encampment in Bangkok’s retail heart seized, their tents and stages dismantled, and their strident demands officially set aside. 

Red shirts warn of a civil war

Red shirts warn of a civil war

URBAN warfare raged through Bangkok last night as antigovernment protesters skirmished with the military and a protest leader warned of a coming civil war. Streets outside the protesters’ fortified encampments in Bangkok’s commercial heart — designated ‘‘live-fire zones’’ by the military on Saturday — echoed with the rattle of gunfire and small bombs as the …read more