In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Among the array of international television series aired by cable networks in Thailand, “CSI,” “Bones,” and other dramas that highlight the work of forensic pathologists are especially popular. While Thai audiences are exposed to the dramatized investigative techniques applied by forensic specialists working in cooperation with law enforcement agencies…

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While a lucrative deep-sea fishing industry places Thailand among the world’s leading exporters of sea products, a grim specter of human rights abuse lurks below the surface of an industry whose contribution to the national economy is estimated to exceed $4 billion a year. A combination of factors – including a shortage of labor in this dangerous…

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For the last several days, the water level in Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River has been rising in virtual synch with the escalating worry that grips a city bisected by this great river and whose neighborhoods are crisscrossed by dozens of canals, or klongs.

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At first glance, the lead-up to Thailand’s July 3 national parliamentary election seems little different from previous electoral countdowns. The campaign period has been fairly low-key, with political leaders occupied for the most part in defining their individual campaign personas and fairly measured in their comments on the character and record of opponents. Only now, in the closing days of the campaign, have reciprocal criticisms borne a sharper edge.

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Since Thailand’s color politics began pitting the People’s Alliance for Democracy’s (PAD) “Yellow-Shirt” movement against the National United Front of Democracy Against Dictatorship’s (UDD) “Red-Shirt” movement, political watchers have insisted that the Thai people are bitterly divided in their loyalties to rival political factions. The view holds that an old-guard elite preference for guided democracy has collided with a populist call from marginalized farmers and wage earners to return Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to power.

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On December 16 in Bangkok, The Asia Foundation released the results of its first in-person public perception survey conducted in Thailand’s three southern border provinces. Since 2004, the provinces of Yala, Narathiwas, and Pattani have been the locus of an indigenous separatist movement and communal conflict that has shaken a tradition of peaceful coexistence between [...]

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There is an instant before the start of a large event when, with logistical arrangements set and the agenda fine tuned, attention shifts to participants. One draws a breath and wonders what the chemistry of personalities, perspectives, and experience will yield. So I reflected at the start of last week’s regional conference on the role [...]

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I was honored to represent The Asia Foundation at the seventh U.S.-Islamic World Forum co-hosted by the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy and the State of Qatar in Doha last month. The Saban Center has convened the forum for seven years, shaping an event that is duly recognized and anticipated as the [...]

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Among the many satisfactions of our work with The Asia Foundation, it is a special privilege to work with remarkable individuals who invest tremendous energy and passion in their work with little thought or appetite for attention, but whose contributions are ultimately so innovative, bold, or otherwise striking, that they cannot escape notice. This week [...]

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The military has no intention of returning power to an elected government It will take five years to produce a proper voters’ list with photographs Bangladeshis will vote as they always have, with no expectation for change The election will be meaningless as a deal has already been cut with the major political actors for [...]

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