Thai retailers kicked off 2020 with a ban on single-use plastic bags, joining the battle against throwaway carriers in the Southeast Asian nation where citizens go through an average of eight every day. The move, taken on Wednesday by several major mall operators and the ubiquitous 7/11 convenience stores, will see customers instead paying a small fee for a reusable bag made of a cloth-like fabric. Thailand is one of the largest contributors to ocean pollution, with plastic

2019 proved to be a tumultuous year for the region. Some ASEAN countries faced major challenges. For example, Indonesia was, yet again, struck by disasters multiple times. But it was also a time when several countries were navigating their respective democratic paths.

For the more or less 10 million people living in Thailand’s capital city of Bangkok, flooding is a common and recurring phenomenon. This is partly due to the city’s geographic location at the southern end of the Chao Phraya River Basin, as well as its low-lying terrain of around 1.5 metres average elevation above mean sea level. The city normally experiences six months of rainy season every year from May to October.However, conditions are soon expected to worsen for much of Bangkok.

A Thai Navy SEAL who aided with the rescue of a youth football team trapped in a flooded cave last year has died from an infection he contracted during the dramatic recovery mission. Petty Officer Beirut Pakbara fell ill with a blood infection while working to retrieve the 12 young boys and their coach, the Thai Navy said in a statement posted late Friday on their Facebook page. After the 18-day ordeal came to an end last June - with the entire team emerging safely from Tham

A Thai court on Wednesday said it would rule on a complaint to dissolve an upstart opposition party over alleged plots to overthrow the constitutional monarchy, a decision that could test the stability of the new government.The accusations against the Future Forward Party link its upside-down triangle logo to the supposed symbol of the Illuminati, which many conspiracy theorists - without offering serious evidence - claim is a secret society pursuing world domination.On 21 January, judges of

Separated from their mothers, jabbed with metal hooks, and sometimes deprived of food - many Thai elephants are tamed by force before being sold to lucrative tourism sites increasingly advertised as 'sanctuaries' to cruelty-conscious travellers.Balanced precariously on hind legs, two-year-old Ploy holds a ball in her trunk and flings it towards a hoop, one of many tricks she is learning in Ban Ta Klang, a traditional training village in the east.Here young elephants are "broken

We’ve written about it time and time again. While it is undeniably exciting that the world is witnessing technological advancements at a rate never before seen in the past, there are real dangers associated to these developments as well.

The Thai army has expressed "regret" after troops shot dead three Muslim men foraging in the jungle this week and promised a probe, a rare admission of wrongdoing by the military in Thailand's insurgency-scarred south.On Monday security forces killed three men aged 24-27 in a jungle in Narathiwat province, believing them to be Muslim militants. The commander of the southern army region - which oversees the three southernmost provinces - apologised for the "mistake

Thailand recently witnessed, what is considered by many, to be the largest street protest in more than five years (before the military coup of 2014). Thousands of people gathered on the skywalk linking the National Stadium and Siam Bangkok Mass Transit System (BTS) stations, chanting “Prayut get out” at an anti-military demonstration on Saturday. Heading the protest?

At Bangkok's Reclining Buddha temple Krairath Chantrasri says he is a proud custodian of a 2,000-year-old skill - the body-folding, sharp-elbowed techniques of Thai massage, which this week could be added to UNESCO's prestigious heritage list.From upscale Bangkok spas and Phuket beach fronts to modest street-side shophouses, "nuad Thai" - or Thai massage - is ubiquitous across the kingdom, where an hour of the back-straightening discipline can cost as little as US$5.This w