Coronavirus Update for Phuket & Thailand
Monday 18th October, 2021: Fully vaccinated travelers to Phuket can skip the usual Covid-19 quarantine and just have to complete a 7-night stay on the island, and then be able to travel to all destinations in Thailand if they wish. Yes, it's still classed as...
Laos police seize record drugs haul in Golden Triangle
BANGKOK (REUTERS) - Lao police have seized a record haul of illicit drugs in the Golden Triangle region, two security sources in Thailand confirmed on Thursday (Oct 28), in what the United Nations said was Asia's largest single drug bust ever. More than 55 million...
Thai students win award for writing software to control NASA space robot
A team of Thai students from Assumption College Thonburi has won “The Best Achievement Onboard Award” in the final round of the 2nd Kibo Robot Programming Challenge. The international competition was jointly organized by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)...
The UN News COP26 climate quiz
1) a) Margaret Thatcher. The “Iron Lady” studied chemistry at university, and so was well placed to understand the threat of climate change, when she made the statement in a speech in 1988. The following year, she expressed similar sentiments in a speech to the UN...
United Nations says the world has eight years to halve emissions
In a statement, she said: “We have eight years to almost halve greenhouse gas emissions: eight years to make the plans, put in place the policies, implement them and ultimately deliver the cuts. The clock is ticking loudly.” Her comments come against a background of a...
US concerned by ‘coercive’ Chinese actions in Taiwan strait, Biden tells summit
WASHINGTON (REUTERS) - President Joe Biden on Wednesday (Oct 27) told a summit of East Asian leaders that the US was deeply concerned by China's "coercive" actions across the Taiwan Strait, calling it a threat to peace and stability. Speaking at the virtual event also...
Thailand’s Escalating Crackdown on Dissent
AdvertisementOn a Thursday afternoon in June last year, Sitanun Satsaksit was chatting on the phone with her brother Wanchalearm as he was walking down a small street in front of his apartment in Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh. A high-profile activist back home in...
Thailand’s main airport runs tests ahead of country’s reopening on Monday
Suvarnabhumi international airport conducted drills today (Wednesday) to test its readiness to cope with the arrival of foreign tourists on November 1st, when Thailand reopens its borders to arrivals by air. The drill involved 150 people pretending to be tourists...
US, China, Russia Join Asia Summit Amid Regional Disputes
AdvertisementU.S. President Joe Biden and China’s Premier Li Keqiang joined an annual summit of 18 Asia-Pacific nations by video Wednesday, as some regional leaders voiced concern about the sharpening of competition between major powers over trade, Taiwan, democracy,...
China will not be the first to recognise Taliban government, Chinese scholar says
BEIJING (REUTERS) - China will not take the lead in recognising Afghanistan's Taliban government and will only do so in a concerted move with Pakistan, Russia and Iran, an expert familiar with China's foreign policy considerations told Reuters on Tuesday (Oct 26). The...
Thailand’s Royal Palaces reopen to visitors on 1 November 2021
Bangkok, 27 October, 2021 – The Bureau of the Royal Household has announced that the Grand Palace and the Temple of the Emerald Buddha, along with other royal palaces and locations would reopen from 1 November, 2021. The reopening of Bangkok’s most famous attraction,...
Which Asia-Pacific countries are re-opening to foreign visitors?
Thailand’s re-opening to vaccinated foreign tourists marks a major easing of border controls for Asia, where governments have been far slower to roll back coronavirus travel curbs than in much of the West. Here is a look at which countries are opening up across the...
Not quite net-zero: how real are corporate decarbonisation goals?
Sunny Verghese, the chief executive of US$24 billion agribusiness firm Olam, is one of Asia’s most admired agitators for corporate sustainability, which made his confession at a conference last month all the more unsettling. He said he had spoken...