LATEST ARTICLES

Roles are reversed for rebels

Roles are reversed for rebels

Weary and feeling her age after the bloody 2010 uprising in Thailand, Thida Thavornseth was a sudden and unexpected rebel leader. Yet she could hardly refuse to to take the chair of the insurgent red-shirt movement. Crushed by Thailand’s military, with most leaders jailed, the red-shirts were at a standstill.

Thaksin ‘clone’ wins on her own

Thaksin 'clone' wins on her own

Yingluck Shinawatra is the smiling new face of Thai politics. Friendly, extremely attractive, conciliatory: the one-time business executive might be the circuit-breaker the deeply polarised nation so desperately needs. The youngest sister of former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, 44-year-old Yingluck will almost certainly become Thailand’s first woman prime minister. She seems to have politics in …read more

Polls show Thai PM lags behind in election

Polls show Thai PM lags behind in election

Thailand’s prime minister Abhisit Vejjajiva sallied forth in the rain in Bangkok’s Chinatown yesterday, greeting lottery-ticket vendors, poking his head into the New Empire hotel, venturing into the Canton House restaurant, drumming up support for his Democrat party in tomorrow’s election.

Painting the town

Painting the town

The acting chairwoman of the United Front for Democracy Against Dictatorship (UDD) movement, better known as the ‘red shirts’, Thida smiles as she begins to address the anti-government protesters.

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.

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.

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.