Bangkok Post
City pollution at 'national disaster' level
Bangkok must upgrade its ultra-fine dust pollution problem to “national disaster” level in order to strengthen protections against its far-reaching health impacts, ranging from heart and brain disorders to cancer.Keep reading ...
Apinya Wipatayotin
Immunising Asean
Southeast Asia has become a hot spot for emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, which has led to stepped-up international efforts to strengthen national and regional pandemic preparedness capacity.Socio-economic, demographic and environmental factors are driving the emergence of more disease outbreaks in the region, according to ...
Nareerat Wiriyapong
Rural economic stimulus vowed
The Commerce Ministry has pledged to move ahead with plans to drive local economic development, e-commerce, exports and big data for farm products and trade.Commerce Minister Sontirat Sontijirawong said on March 16, 2018 after a workshop that the ministry is still focused on stimulating the ...
Phusadee Arunmas
Mekong researchers seek ways to improve dams
Researchers backed by multi-million-dollar grants from NASA are heading to Southeast Asia’s Mekong River region to find ways to improve dams so they are less harmful to people and the environment.Researchers from Michigan State University (MSU) will spend three years analysing sites in the lower ...
Thomson Reuters Foundation
Thailand down in happiness ranking
Thais are less happy than last year, while Finland tops the rankings in the United Nations’ World Happiness Report 2018 published on March, 14 2018. In this year’s report, a survey of the state of global happiness , Thailand dropped from No.32 in 2017 to ...
Bangkok Post Reporter
Thai-EU FTA talks to resume this year
Thai-EU free trade agreement (FTA) talks are expected to resume by the middle of this year, after the bloc late last year agreed to resume political contact “at all levels”, more than three years after suspending them to protest the 2014 military coup.After meeting with ...
Air quality again hits unsafe levels
Poor air quality is again a concern after the Pollution Control Department detected amounts of micro-fine dust exceeding safe limits at all five air quality monitoring stations on Monday.The department said the average value of so-called particulate matter, or PM 2.5 over the past 24 ...
Mekong returning to normal as water level rises
CHIANG RAI – Small freight vessels and passenger cruises have resumed services after the water level rose above two metres on a stretch of the Mekong River in Chiang Saen district yesterday, according to the provincial office.Cargo and cruise vessels plying the international river were ...
Challenges to gender equality in Thailand
Thailand’s formal commitment to women’s rights began in 1985 when it became a party to the key UN treaty on the subject: the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).The country’s record was vetted by the monitoring committee under the ...
Women must be central to Mekong dam decisions
Today, on International Women’s Day, a recent trip to the Mekong Basin serves as a reminder that women’s voices must be central to decision-making on hydropower, and in broader energy planning for Thailand and the region.The Nam Ou River, a longest tributary of the Mekong ...