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- American academic held in Thailand charged with insulting monarchy
Paul Chambers detained under strict lese-majesty law, which can lead to 15 years in jail on a single charge
A prominent American academic has been detained in Thailand after being charged with insulting the monarchy, a rare case in which a foreign national has fallen foul of the country’s strict lese-majesty law.
Paul Chambers, who specialises in civil-military relations and democratisation in south-east Asia, was denied bail on Tuesday and is being held at Phitsanulok provincial prison in northern Thailand, his lawyers said.
Continue reading...8 April 08 2025Thailandhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/apr/08/american-academic-paul-chambers-thailand-charged-insulting-monarchy - Rebirth: Home Sweet Home review – family holiday turns into hellish apocalypse in Thai-set yarn
When a square-jawed cop arrives with his family for a Bangkok vacation they coincide with a demon wreaking havoc
Square-jawed cop Jake (Wiliam Moseley, Peter from the early-2000s Narnia movies, all grown up) arrives in Bangkok with his wife Prang (Urassaya Sperbund) and moppet daughter Loo (Akeira Hadden) to visit Prang’s mother. Unfortunately for this nuclear family, a demon has broken through on to this earthly realm, its first point of contact right in Bangkok and all hell has quite literally broken loose. Actually the film, which is an adaptation of a computer game (called Home Sweet Home) popular in Thailand, rather dawdles with touristy scenes of Jake, Prang and Loo daytripping around the city, and one has to wonder if some of the production money was put up by a tourism board with its own agenda.
Nevertheless, Jake tries to kill possessed bad guy Mek (Michele Morrone, rather a hoot) in a shopping mall and that’s when it all kicks off. Suddenly, half the population of Bangkok seem possessed and are trying to kill the other half, and Prang and Loo are separated from Jake and must cross the city on a municipal bus as they try to avoid being murdered by the marauding millions. Elsewhere, a ginormous demon made of fire and CGI pixels moves its slow thighs through the urban landscape, a rough beast whose 93 minutes has come round at last in time for the absurd apocalyptic conclusion.
Continue reading...8 April 08 2025Filmhttps://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/apr/08/rebirth-home-sweet-home-review-family-holiday-turns-into-hellish-apocalypse-in-thai-set-yarn - The creators of The White Lotus tried to avoid stereotypes of Thailand. They didn’t succeed | Rachel Harrison
Despite Thai advisers, the series failed to escape the western lens of its rich protagonists and the history of the country’s representation
- Contains spoilers for the finale of The White Lotus series 3
One of the first things I noticed when I sat down to watch the eagerly awaited third series of The White Lotus was the birdsong. The distinctive call of two species peculiar to Thailand – the coucal and the Asian koel – conjure up precisely how it feels to be there, in the midst of a tropical soundscape. Then there are the exquisite opening credits, which plunge the viewer into a visceral experience of the Thai cultural environment: based on reimagined traditional Buddhist temple painting, the key protagonists are “Thai-ified” as they merge into the mural motifs.
The expertise of an array of famous Thai actors, pop stars, fashion models and celebrities – along with the somewhat heavy hand of the Tourism Authority of Thailand – have helped this series achieve a cultural authenticity like no other previous western drama set in Thailand. Things have certainly come a long way since British governess Anna Leonowens (played by Deborah Kerr) waltzed gaily around the royal palace of Yul Brynner’s shiny-headed King Mongkut in the 1956 hit musical, based on the Rodgers and Hammerstein stage production, The King and I (perhaps unsurprisingly banned in Thailand for its derogatory portrayal of a highly revered monarch). Gone too are the crass depictions of Bangkok from the 2011 comedy The Hangover Part II; or the classic Lord of the Flies-style narrative that is explored in Danny Boyle’s 2000 adventure The Beach. In both these cases, the ill-fated western tourist faces crude symbols of the dangers posed by the tropics – from predatory sharks to kleptomaniacal monkeys and gun-toting cannabis farmers.
Rachel Harrison is professor of Thai cultural studies at Soas University of London
Continue reading...8 April 08 2025The White Lotushttps://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/apr/08/white-lotus-creators-stereotypes-thailand-rich-western-history - 'We have to go on': Bangkok pushes on with quake rescue despite 'no signs of life' – video
Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said that although no signs of life had been detected, the search for survivors in the rubble of a skyscraper that collapsed during the 7.7 magnitude Myanmar earthquake will continue as experts 'still have hope'. He added that 12 bodies have been found, but that the search for survivors is the priority.
‘It’s beyond description’: Bodies pile up in mass graves as Myanmar grapples with quake toll
Myanmar earthquake death toll tops 2,000, as health system ‘overwhelmed’
2 April 02 2025Earthquakeshttps://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2025/apr/02/we-have-to-go-on-bangkok-pushes-on-with-quake-rescue-despite-no-signs-of-life-video - Myanmar earthquake death toll tops 2,000, as health system ‘overwhelmed’
WHO warns there is urgent need for care capacity, while US agency says number of dead could eventually exceed 10,000
The fallout from Myanmar’s earthquake has overwhelmed parts of the healthcare system, the World Health Organization has said, as the official death toll rose to more than 2,000, with many more missing.
Rescue operations faced “significant obstacles including damaged roads, collapsed bridges, unstable communications and the complexities related to civil conflict”, the WHO said in an update.
Continue reading...31 March 31 2025Myanmarhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/31/myanmar-earthquake-death-toll-healthcare-overwhelmed-who - Myanmar healthcare facilities overwhelmed, WHO says, and scale of earthquake deaths and injuries ‘not fully understood’ – as it happened
World Health Organization issues flash appeal for $8m of emergency support amid frantic search for survivors
AFP has spoken to relatives anxiously waiting at the site of a collapsed building in Bangkok.
Daodee Paruay said she had been at the site for two days, hoping for a miracle. Her brother was an electrician working on site, and he is believed to be under the rubble. “We wait, we wait.” she said.
Continue reading...31 March 31 2025Myanmarhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2025/mar/31/myanmar-thailand-earthquake-bangkok-survivors-search-latest-live-news-updates - Myanmar earthquake: woman trapped for days pulled alive from the rubble
Brief moment of relief as rescue workers carry a woman from the rubble of a hotel in Mandalay after a five-hour operation
A woman trapped beneath the remains of a hotel building for nearly 60 hours after a devastating earthquake struck Myanmar was pulled alive from the rubble on Monday, officials said, in a rare moment of hope for rescue teams scrambling to find survivors.
Rescuers, many of them unequipped volunteers, have spent days trying to free people from buildings collapsed following Friday’s huge earthquake, which killed more than 1,700 people in the country and at least 18 in neighbouring Thailand.
Continue reading...31 March 31 2025Myanmarhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/31/myanmar-earthquake-woman-rescued-alive-great-wall-hotel-mandalay - Volunteer rescuers race to find survivors two days after Myanmar earthquake
Red Cross says devastation is of a level not seen in Asia for over a century as more than 1,700 people killed
Rescue volunteers, many of them poorly equipped local people, raced to find survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings across central Myanmar, two days after a huge earthquake killed more than 1,700 people in the country and at least 18 in neighbouring Thailand.
Red Cross officials said Myanmar was facing “a level of devastation that hasn’t been seen over a century in Asia”, after a 7.7-magnitude quake struck near the centre of the country on Friday afternoon, followed minutes later by a 6.7-magnitude aftershock.
Continue reading...30 March 30 2025Myanmarhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/30/aftershocks-frighten-myanmar-survivors-while-death-toll-from-bangkok-high-rise-collapse-rises - Water spills from Bangkok skyscraper pools as Myanmar earthquake hits – video
Social media footage shows water sloshing from rooftop swimming pools in Thailand's capital, Bangkok, as the powerful 7.7 magnitude earthquake hit Myanmar on Friday. At least 18 people were killed in Bangkok, Thai authorities say, where officials are now conducting building inspections across the metropolitan area. At least 76 people remained trapped under the debris of the collapsed building as rescue operations continued for a third day
Continue reading...30 March 30 2025Thailandhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2025/mar/30/footage-shows-water-spilling-from-bangkok-high-rise-pools-as-myanmar-earthquake-hit-video - ‘I must have hope’: the families waiting for news of loved ones after Bangkok tower collapse
Rescue workers in Thai capital are frantically searching for 78 missing amid rubble as their loved ones watch on
Pluem, 18, had been working for just one month at a construction site in Bangkok’s Chatuchak district. It was her first job since leaving her family home. “She found the work because she wanted to live on her own,” said her mother, Wanpetch Punta, 38.
She was hired as an electrician on the 30-storey construction, which was soon to become a new office block for the city’s auditor general.
Continue reading...30 March 30 2025Thailandhttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/30/i-must-have-hope-the-families-waiting-for-news-of-loved-ones-after-bangkok-tower-collapse