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Kamala Harris traveled to Asia this weekend to bolster the US’s economic ties with the region. North Korea responded to Harris’ visit to Bangkok by firing off an intercontinental ballistic missile toward Japan on Friday. Harris attended the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Summit this weekend and spoke to reporters in Thailand on Sunday before traveling to the Philippines. Kamala Harris told reporters being in Thailand “signifies the significance” of US allies and that she was glad to have “in large part, a discussion about the significance of the climate.” Another embarrassment on the world stage. VIDEO:

A massive explosion at a factory on the outskirts of Bangkok has damaged homes in the surrounding neighborhoods and prompted the evacuation of a wide area over fears of poisonous fumes from burning chemicals and the possibility of additional detonations. Styrene monomer, a hazardous liquid chemical used in the production of disposable foam plates, cups and other products, can produce poisonous fumes when ignited. Chailit said officials were trying to move all people out of the area, including doctors and patients from the neighborhood's main hospital where many of the casualties were initially treated, over fear of the fumes and...

A diamond is forever but what happens if you throw a parrot into the mix? On Tuesday (June 22), Frosty, a pet parrot in Bangkok, Thailand, raided its owner's jewellery box and appeared to be enamoured of what it had found inside. A diamond necklace caught the bird's eye and that spelt trouble — Frosty decided to gobble the sparkly jewels up for breakfast. By lunchtime, the eight-month-old sun parakeet looked weak and had lost its appetite. Noticing something was off, the bird's owner quickly brought it to the nearby Animal Space Hospital for an X-ray. Chances are she (and...

BANGKOK (Reuters) - Thai anti-government protesters demonstrated in Bangkok’s outskirts on Saturday with a duck parade and speeches demanding the removal of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a new constitution and reforms to the monarchy. Protests have been stepped up this week despite threats by Prayuth, a former junta ruler, to use all available laws against protesters who break them and charges of insulting the monarchy against several protest leaders. Protesters are seeking the removal of Prayuth, accusing him of engineering an election last year to keep power that he seized from an elected government in a 2014 coup. He has...

Taoyuan, TaiwanTwo women became the first military officers to marry their same-sex civilian partners at a mass military wedding in Taiwan on Friday, marking another landmark for LGBTQ+ rights in Asia. The island's Defence Ministry called it an "open and progressive" move and gave its blessings to all 188 couples married during the annual mass wedding in Taiwan, considered a beacon of liberalism in Asia. "I am hoping to boost the visibility of homosexuals so that people understand we are also just part of everyday life," said major Wang Wi, who cried after receiving her marriage certificate at the ceremony...

Wearing hard hats and dressed in black, thousands of people rallied in Bangkok on Sunday, using Hong Kong-inspired tactics to defy the authorities and demand that the prime minister resign and the power of the royal family be curbed. The government is struggling to control an unprecedented student-led movement that began on university campuses and has since spread to streets across the country. Protesters have risked long jail sentences to breach the country’s ultimate taboo and call for reforms to the monarchy, demanding that the institution be answerable to the people. They also want wider democratic reforms including a new...

Riot police in Bangkok used water cannon and charged crowds to disperse thousands of protesters in the Thai capital, a day after the government officially banned street rallies demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, a new constitution and reform of the country's monarchy. Mostly students defied a government ban on gatherings in the capital on Friday imposed a day earlier after protesters halted and jeered a motorcade transporting King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida. It was an unprecedented display of displeasure for the royal couple in a country where people are taught to revere the monarchy and where...

BANGKOK - People queued to buy wine, beer and spirits in Bangkok on Thursday after the Thai capital announced a 10-day ban on alcohol sales to try to limit social activities before the traditional new year and curb the spread of the coronavirus. “The announcement prohibits the sale of alcoholic beverages at all shops … from April 10 to April 20,” Bangkok Metropolitan Administration spokesman Pongsakorn Kwanmuang told a news conference. At supermarkets in downtown Bangkok, shoppers wearing facial masks crowded in to the alcohol section. “I don’t know how long the ban will take, so I bought a lot...

BANGKOK: Thailand has seen its first case of human-to-human transmission of the new coronavirus inside the country, a health official said on Friday (Jan 31), as it raised its total number of cases to 19, the second-highest after China. The first patient to contract the virus inside Thailand is a Thai taxi driver, said Tanarak Pipat, deputy director-general of the Department of Disease Control. "(He) ...does not have the record of travelling to China, and it is likely that he was infected (by) a sick traveller from China," Tanarak said. Authorities have conducted virus scans on 13 people, including three...

Weeks after switching on the machines of a new production line near Bangkok, veteran manufacturer Larry Sloven has a quip for the stream of companies leaving China: “Elvis has left the building.” After three decades of building up manufacturing bases in China, Sloven helped Capstone International Hong Kong, of which he is managing director, wind one down. Costs were rising before the trade war, but a 25 per cent tariff on the lighting products the company exports back to the United States helped accelerate a shift that was set in motion 18 months ago – moving its production base to...

State Department Employee Arrested and Charged With Concealing Extensive Contacts With Foreign Agents A federal complaint was unsealed today charging Candace Marie Claiborne, 60, of Washington, D.C., and an employee of the U.S. Department of State, with obstructing an official proceeding and making false statements to the FBI, both felony offenses, for allegedly concealing numerous contacts that she had over a period of years with foreign intelligence agents. The charges were announced by Acting Assistant Attorney General Mary B. McCord for National Security, U.S. Attorney Channing D. Phillips of the District of Columbia and Assistant Director in Charge Andrew W....

BANGKOK - When Pope Francis celebrates Mass in a Bangkok sports stadium Nov. 21, tens of thousands of Catholics from across Thailand will be there to celebrate with him. Several devout Catholics may not be among them, however much they might love to join. Ucanews.org reported that by venturing outdoors to attend the Mass in person, these believers would run the risk of being detained by authorities. They are Pakistani Christian asylum-seekers who fled their homeland in fear for their lives in recent years. They were driven away by the increasingly militant form of Islam that has come to dominate...

BANGKOK — A Belarusian escort with close ties to a powerful Russian oligarch said from behind bars in Bangkok on Monday that she had more than 16 hours of audio recordings that could help shed light on Russian meddling in United States elections. The escort, Anastasia Vashukevich, said she would hand over the recordings if the United States granted her asylum. She faces criminal charges and deportation to Belarus after coming under suspicion of working in Thailand without a visa at a sex-training seminar in the city of Pattaya. Ms. Vashukevich, who described herself as close to the Russian aluminum...

I wish that I could tell you that my life in Bangkok is better with very few guns in the city, but now I have to watch out for bombs. I have been living in Bangkok for nearly half a decade now, but I was raised in America, and I too am watching the extensive back and forth between gun rights supporters and those pushing for strict gun control in the wake of the Florida school shooting. In my extensive world travels, I have made a number of observations in countries that have gun control that might add something of...

Stuck in a Bangkok jail with a deportation order against her, Chen Guiqiu waited with dread over what seemed certain to come next. A Thai immigration official showed her surveillance video of the jail entrance, where more than a dozen Chinese security agents were waiting. Within minutes, Chen feared, she and her two daughters would be escorted back to China, where her husband, prominent rights lawyer Xie Yang, was held on a charge of inciting subversion - and where punishment for attempting to flee surely awaited her. After weeks on the run, Chen was exhausted, and so was her luck....

BANGKOK – A Thai man is recovering from a bloody encounter with a 10-foot python that slithered through the plumbing of his home and latched its jaws onto his penis as he was using a squat toilet.

Thai police say a man they arrested over a deadly bombing at Bangkok's Erawan shrine is indeed the bomber, contradicting earlier statements. A police spokesman said the man - earlier named as Adem Karadag - was the figure in a yellow shirt seen on CCTV leaving a bag at the shrine. Thai police had earlier said neither of two men in their custody were the main suspects for the 17 August attack. The motive for the bombing, which killed 20 people, remains unclear.

Mystery fireball seen blazing across Bangkok sky caught on film Posted about 2 hours ago A mystery fireball seen blazing across the sky in northern Bangkok has been captured on film. A dash cam captured the moment the fireball, thought to be a meteor, was seen over the Thai capital this morning. The film shows a bright ball of flames move across the sky for a few seconds like a shooting star. Locals took to social media to report sightings of the mystery blaze. There has been no official confirmation of what caused the fireball. However, local media reported that...

Thai police have arrested a young man in connection with the Erawan shrine bombing. He reportedly holds a Turkish passport. According to the report, Thai police raided an apartment on Soi Chueam Samphan 11 in Bangkok's Nong Chok district about two o'clock this afternoon, arresting its occupant. The reports also say bomb-making equipment was found, including ball-bearings very similar to those used in the Erawan shrine bombing. Post Today reports that national police chief Somyot Poompanmoung said plainclothes police were instrumental in tracking down the suspect and that others were involved in the plot, possibly some Thais.

The mass murder has been identified as a Muslim named Mohamad Museyin. “The motive behind the attack remains unclear,” says the Herald Sun, but in reality the motive is only unclear to those who refuse to admit that there is a global jihad. The motive of a Muslim who leaves a backpack with a bomb in it at a Hindu shrine that is frequented by Buddhists in a country that has been battling jihad violence for years now is unclear only to those who are willfully ignorant.