Thai authorities seek to ease air pollution in capital by offering free public transport

BANGKOK (AP) — Thai authorities have made travel by public transport in Bangkok free for a week starting Saturday, the latest tactic to try to tackle soaring levels of air pollution that have already seen hundreds of schools closed and employees working from home. The travel...

Thai LGBTQ+ couples register marriages as law gives them equal status

BANGKOK (AP) — Hundreds of LGBTQ+ couples in Thailand made Thursday a life-changing occasion, registering their marriages legally on the first day a law took effect granting them the same rights as heterosexual couples. The enactment of the Marriage Equality Act makes Thailand the...

Same-sex marriages will soon become legal in Thailand after historic law

BANGKOK (AP) — They have been in a committed relationship for more than 13 years, and even had a wedding in 2019. Since then, Danaya Phonphayung and Sunma Piamboon, both women, have considered themselves a married couple, even if same-sex marriages were not legally recognized. The...

Uyghurs detained in Thailand for a decade say the government may be preparing to deport them to China

Stock market today: Global indexes are mixed as the US stock market remains closed

BANGKOK (AP) — World shares were mixed on Thursday as the U.S. stock market remained closed to observe a National Day of Mourning for former President Jimmy Carter. London's FTSE 100 climbed 0.8% to 8,319.69 as the value of the British pound slid against the U.S. dollar amid...

An army airstrike on a village in western Myanmar has killed at least 40 people, reports say

BANGKOK (AP) — An airstrike by Myanmar’s army on a village under the control of an armed ethnic minority group killed about 40 people and injured at least 20 others, officials of the group and a local charity said Thursday. They said hundreds of houses burned in a fire triggered by the bombing....

Cambodian police detain a Thai man suspected of gunning down Cambodian ex-lawmaker in Bangkok

BANGKOK (AP) — Cambodian police said Wednesday they apprehended a Thai man suspected of gunning down a former opposition politician from Cambodia in a popular Bangkok tourist area. Lim Kimya, an ex-lawmaker from the dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party, was shot dead near a...

Myanmar releases thousands of prisoners to mark Independence Day

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military government has released more than 6,000 prisoners and has reduced other inmates’ sentences as part of a mass amnesty marking the 77th anniversary of independence from Britain on Saturday. They included just a small proportion of hundreds of...

Initial results of imprecise census in Myanmar show a slight population drop

BANGKOK (AP) — Myanmar’s military government announced Tuesday that provisional results of a census taken in October put the Southeast Asian nation’s population at about 51.3 million, a slight drop from the last official nationwide count of about 51.5 million taken 10 years ago. ...

China raises its estimate for the size of its economy in 2023

BANGKOK (AP) — China's economy grew a bit more in 2023 than earlier thought, but the revision has not affected forecasts for “about 5%” growth in the GDP this year, the government said Thursday. The estimate for total economic activity, or GDP, in 2023 for the world's second...