Jul
5
2011
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
Jul
2
2011
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.
Mar
28
2011
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.
Dec
1
2010
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.
Oct
16
2010
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.
Jun
4
2010
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.
Jun
1
2010
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
May
24
2010
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
May
22
2010
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.
May
17
2010
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