As dusk falls along the Mekong River, a nightly dance begins between Thai border security and Lao drug gangs now using drones, scouts and a pool of poor fishermen to shift record amounts of meth into Thailand.Landlocked, secretive and with ungovernable borders, Lao has become a sluice for transporting Made-In-Myanmar meth to the drug hungry markets of Southeast Asia and Australia, where billion-dollar seizures are now being made.Whisked over the remote mountains of Lao – one of the world&#039

A Vietnamese-American man charged with "attempting to overthrow the state" will go on trial in Ho Chi Minh City on June 24, his family said, and could face the death penalty if found guilty.Michael Nguyen has been held for nearly a year in the one-party communist state, which has tightened its grip on power since a new administration came to office in 2016 and took a harder line on dissent of any kind.Nearly 130 prisoners of conscience are currently behind bars in the country, where

 Junta chief Prayut Chan-O-Cha formally became Thailand's 29th prime minister Tuesday after a royal endorsement, completing a long transformation from soldier to civilian leader and vowing "love, unity and compassion".But critics may doubt the divisive leader's pledge after his previous stint in power which was marked by a ban on political gatherings, a clamp down on the media and the muzzling of dissent.The 65-year-old ex-army chief led the 2014 coup, the last of

The Philippines on Saturday rejected a call for an independent United Nations probe into Manila's alleged human rights violations, describing it as interference in the affairs of the Asian nation.UN rights experts asked the UN Human Rights Council on Friday to look into the "staggering number of unlawful deaths and police killings in the context of the so-called war on drugs, as well as killings of human rights defenders".President Rodrigo Duterte has overseen a narcotics crack

Hanoi has vowed to crack down on manufacturers illegally using "Made in Vietnam" labels on items destined for America to dodge punishing tariffs as the US-China trade spat drags on.Exporters have started shifting production from China to Vietnam to avoid 25 percent levies imposed by US President Donald Trump on $200 billion worth of Chinese goods. But Hanoi said some manufacturers are illegally claiming their goods - including textiles, seafood and agricultural products - a

Finance Ministers from the Group of 20 nations (G-20) agreed they need to find a common method to tax technology giants, whose digital business models have grown exponentially faster than systems to tax them.“We agreed on a need to redouble our efforts to reach consensus by 2020,” Japanese Vice Minister for Finance Masatsugu Asakawa said Saturday following a G-20 symposium on international taxation that brought together finance ministers from nations including the United States (US), China an

Risks from the United States (US)-China trade war and an expected turn in global monetary policy will feature high on the agenda as finance and central banking chiefs from the Group of 20 (G-20) gather this weekend in Fukuoka, Japan.The meeting takes place as the world’s two biggest economies ramp up tariffs against each other, hurting the global economy and leaving policy makers struggling to shore up growth.

Smiling broadly, Tanwarin triumphantly cast her vote for prime minister as the first transgender MPs enter parliament in Thailand, where tolerance for the LGBT community is not matched by understanding or opportunity in public life.In a sign of that enduring gap, the elderly speaker called for "Mr Tanwarin" to come forward in a vote late Wednesday that saw former junta chief Prayut Chan-o-cha elected as premier with the help of a bank of 250 appointed senators.Tanwarin Sukkhapisit,

Recently, the Suan Dusit Rajabhat University in Bangkok, Thailand, discovered that the majority of Thais believe that political polarisation will continue after country’s the new government is in place and that the problem will not be resolved easily because it is deeply entrenched in Thai society.

Last month, media freedom advocates praised the surprise release of two Reuters reporters in Myanmar but stressed the pair should never have been jailed in the first place.