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Thailand’s treatment of refugees has come under scrutiny for confining 140,000 refugees to camps along the Thai/Myanmar border, and refusing them the right to work and study.
The US Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) in June ranked Thailand as one of the 10 worst places for refugees.
USCRI and others have also criticised the Thai military for returning 800 Hmong asylum-seekers to Laos in early July.
Some 8,000 Hmong have been living in the Huai Nam Khao camp in Thailand’s Petchabun Province since 2004. The Hmong claim they fled harassment and persecution in their homeland because of ties to the CIA-backed force that fought the communists in the 1960s and 70s.
Read my article for IRIN (irinnews.org) (the UN’s humanitarian information service):
www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=79227
International donors have poured millions of dollars of relief aid into Myanmar, hoping to help more than two million people affected by Cyclone Nargis.
In this feature article for Reuters AlertNet (19 June 2008), I explore whether corruption by Myanmar’s junta could tarnish efforts to help those who need it most:
www.alertnet.org/db/an_art/1264/2008/05/19-172226-1.htm
In spite of massive spending on efforts to counter HIV/AIDS, experts warn that many young Thais are still having unsafe sex.
Read my feature article for IRIN (irinnews.org) (19 June 2008):
