REVIEW: ‘The Ideal Man’, by Joshua Kurlantzick
On Easter Sunday 1967, Jim Thompson, a prominent businessman and Bangkok expatriate, disappeared while on holiday in Malaysia’s Cameron Highlands. The 61-year-old American left his bungalow to take a solitary hike in the hills and never returned.
All aboard North Korea’s refugee railroad
PHNOM PENH – In late November 2006, after a long, perilous journey from northeast China, a North Korean national crossed the Vietnamese frontier into Cambodia’s northeast Mondulkiri province. The man, identified only as Ly Hai Long in local media reports, was promptly arrested by Cambodian police, who told a reporter from the Cambodia Daily that...
Family Matters
On Sunday, Thailand will elect a new prime minister who belongs to a very familiar, and deeply divisive, family.
Will Thais Say Yes To Thaksin’s Little Sister?
There’s plenty of pageantry and talk of reconciliation but this weekend’s election in Thailand may be one of the most divisive in decades, writes Sebastian Strangio
Hun Sen’s war calculations
PHNOM PENH—Fighting along the Thai-Cambodian border continued over the weekend after two agreed ceasefires broke down last week. At least 17 people have been killed and 50,000 evacuated on both sides of the border since the latest round of armed skirmishes and diplomatic salvos commenced on April 22. Some analysts now wonder whether the sustained...
Thailand’s domestic politics drives Cambodian border clash
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia–Since the morning of April 22, Thai and Cambodian troops have waged a series of heated firefights along sections of their shared border. The two sides have now traded artillery and small-arms fire for a week, leaving at least 13 soldiers dead on both sides and forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands...
Border spat set to drag on
YESTERDAY, Thai media reported that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva and nationalist Yellow Shirt leaders had reached a “common position” on the 4.6-square kilometre disputed area adjacent to Preah Vihear temple. In a televised debate with the so-called Thai Patriots Network, a fringe group dominated by the yellow-shirted People’s Alliance for Democracy, Abhisit agreed that the...
Good relations on the horizon
THOUSANDS are expected to turn out for a celebration at Preah Vihear temple today marking the two-year anniversary of its listing as a UNESCO World Heritage site. The July 2008 listing of the 11th-century Angkorian temple, the ownership of which has long been a point of contention between Cambodia and Thailand, sent bilateral relations into...
Bomb suspects handed over
CAMBODIA has deported two anti-government Red Shirt activists to Thailand, where they are accused of involvement in an attempted bomb attack in Bangkok last month. Kobchai Boonplod and Varisareeya Boonsom, both 42, were handed over to Thai officials at Phnom Penh International Airport yesterday, a move Long Visalo, secretary of state at the Ministry of...
Prasat Preah Vihear
This week brought the news that UNESCO has finally decided to list the country’s Preah Vihear temple as a world heritage site, implicitly recognising Cambodia’s sovereignty over the Angkor-era ruin. The announcement came amidst a wave of mewling and sabre-rattling from the anti-Thaksin People’s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) party in neighbouring Thailand, where zealots from...
