Another entry in the not quite award winning iPhone video series, Observed the Other Day . In this episode, I come in for a smooth but noisy landing at Bangkok's Don Mueang airport.
A sleepy Thai town on a 2500-mile underground railway to freedom has become a key transit hub for North Korean refugees. But it’s leaving Bangkok with a political headache.
Cambodian authorities assured the United States’ ambassador to the country that it would abide by international refugee protocols, just two days before it broke its obligations and deported a group of Uighur asylum-seekers to an uncertain future in China, according to documents leaked by the anti-secrecy group Wikileaks.
Details of Cambodia’s sudden U-turn, and the worried backroom consultations among the US Embassy, United Nations and Cambodian officials that preceded it, are contained in a series of diplomatic cables published by Wikileaks this month.
The classified documents highlight how the US and the UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR, were caught flat-footed in countering China’s influence in the lead-up to the controversial December 2009 deportation. And, say human rights observers, the cables cast a troubling spotlight on China’s ability to export its human rights agenda to developing countries like Cambodia.
Thailand remains a deeply divided country more than a year after massive anti-government protests swept through Bangkok. The various political players have framed the July 3 elections--the first since those Red Shirt protests--as a chance for national reconciliation. But in a country where the colour of your politics is worn on your sleeve, Sunday's election may usher in a new period of uncertainty. A radio feature on Thailand's colour divide.
In the last stronghold of the Khmer Rouge regime, children have only recently begun learning about their parents' past. My radio piece for PRI's The World looks at how the children of one-time Khmer Rouge see their families' histories, and how former cadres explain war to the first Cambodian generation in decades to grow up without it.