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A family dog in Thailand is credited with bringing home an abandoned newborn baby on Monday. The two-year-old canine named Pui found a plastic bag with a newborn baby girl inside and carried the infant back home. Officials believe the baby was abandoned at a roadside dump in Tha Rua district of Ayutthaya province. According to a report in the Bangkok Post, when Pui returned home, it barked loudly to get it’s owners’ attention. A 12-year-old girl named Sudarat Thongmak came out of the home and was shocked to find the baby with her umbilical cord still attached. After getting...

Thailand’s capital, the first point of entry for thousands who head to the country’s beaches, has been named the number one destination for international visitors in the Global Destination Cities Index forecast. The index rates visitor numbers and estimated spend for 132 different destinations around the world. Bangkok is expected to welcome 15.98 million international arrivals this year, just beating London, which is expecting 15.96 million visitors. London topped the list last year. The index has been compiled annually by MasterCard since 2010 and this is the first year that an Asian city was named as the number one destination....

You are my Rod (of Obedience) for I AM your Staff ( of Authority) What worked for you yesterday, Will not work for you today , Come to me in the early morning that My WORD may light your path , For in it lies my will in peace where you will find NO wrath , So cover yourself in My Zeal for it is the fire that will lead the way , As I did for the Israelites I will do for you each day ! For my Fire guides your morning and shall be your eyes at night...

MUMBAI: Relying excessively on central banks to bring real growth back is "illusory" as low interest rates would not help overcome the structural imbalances plaguing global economies, Singapore's Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tarman Shanmugaratnam today said. "It is the fiscal imbalances arising out of negative real interest rates and lack of investments in infrastructure that are holding back the global economy. "Relying too much and too long on central banks, as has been the case since the 2008 crisis, to bring growth back is an illusory measure," Shanmugaratnam, who is also the finance minister of Singapore, said in...

China is attempting to open a new front in its territorial dispute with Japan by questioning Tokyo's sovereignty over the island of Okinawa, home to 25,000 US troops. The two countries are already pushing rival claims to the Senkakus, a chain of uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are controlled by Tokyo. The dispute over the islands, known as the Diaoyu in China, has hit bilateral trade and sent diplomatic relations to their lowest point for decades. Beijing began its attempt to broaden the territorial dispute earlier this month when the communist party newspaper, the People's Daily, ran...

KATHMANDU SNIPPET: The Annapurna Post vernacular daily reported on Sunday that the arrest was made on April 13. Identified as Mohsin Khosravian, the suspect is currently in police custody.

 The security officials at the Embassy speculated that the suspect was scouting the facility with a harmful intention "for he carried a tourist map of the Lazimpat area" where the Israeli mission is located. 

He had stayed in a Thamel-based hotel. After his arrest, the suspect told police that he had ventured out to find out a shop to repair his laptop.

 According to the report, the Nepal Police's Central Bureau...

Pattani, Thailand: Thai soldiers fending off a major assault on a military base in the country's violence-plagued south killed 19 insurgents, authorities said Wednesday. The death toll was believed to be the biggest inflicted on the Muslim guerrillas since more than 100 died in a single day nearly a decade ago. About 50 militants wearing military-like uniforms raided a marine corps base in Bacho district in Narathiwat province late Tuesday night, Col Pramote Promin said. [...] An Islamic insurgency erupted in 2004 in Thailand's three southernmost provinces, a Muslim-majority region in the Buddhist-dominated country. In April of that year, guerrillas...

BANGKOK — The Thai military is urging people in its troubled south to stay indoors after soldiers repelled a large-scale attack on a base by scores of armed militants. At least 16 of the attackers were killed in one of the biggest death tolls in the nearly 10-year insurgency by Malay Muslims seeking autonomy from Buddhist Thailand. The Thai army says at least 60 heavily-armed insurgents, dressed in military-style fatigues, attacked a base early Wednesday in southern Narathiwat province. The military says it was tipped off to the planned attack, was ready and suffered no casualties in the exchange of...

China offers Type 054 to meet Thai frigate requirement By Jon Grevatt 1/30/2013 China has offered Thailand its Type 054-class Jiangkai frigate to meet a requirement to procure multipurpose frigates for the Royal Thai Navy (RTN), thus potentially putting Beijing and Washington head to head in a large-scale international procurement programme. Sources have confirmed to IHS Jane's that preliminary discussions between Thailand and China have commenced over the potential deal, in which China has said it is prepared to sell to the RTN three Type 054-class vessels at a cost that will meet the programme's budget of USD1 billion. While...

BANGKOK -- Most of us can read about sex trafficking with a sense of detachment. It is only when we see its results up close that we are forced to confront the full extent of its horror. Nana Plaza is one of several "red light" districts in Bangkok. It is less than two blocks from my upscale hotel, but worlds away from it, a distance, you could say, separating Heaven from Hell. Girls -- and that's what many of them are -- wear almost nothing. They are there to please. My guide points out a three-story structure. "The higher you...

BANGKOK — Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta has ordered the Pentagon to find out why so many generals and admirals have become embroiled in legal and ethical problems, a trend exacerbated by recent investigations of two of the military’s best-known commanders. The Pentagon disclosed Panetta’s directive on Thursday after he arrived in Thailand as part of a visit to Asia. But aides insisted that he had been considering the review for some time and that it was not prompted by revelations that the FBI has been investigating former CIA director David H. Petraeus, a retired Army general, and Marine Gen....

In the lush hills of northern Thailand, a herd of 20 elephants is excreting some of the world's most expensive coffee. Trumpeted as earthy in flavor and smooth on the palate, the exotic new brew is made from beans eaten by Thai elephants and plucked a day later from their dung. A gut reaction inside the elephant creates what its founder calls the coffee's unique taste.

The First Lady of Cambodia greeted Barack Obama like he was a towel boy. And, of course, our clueless president thought it was ‘cool.’ Investor’s Business Daily reported: So amid all the colorful and flirty photos from President Obama’s first tour of Southeast Asia, what did he actually accomplish? As usual, he served himself politically in what was largely a Potemkin mission abroad. It was obvious enough from the rubelike gaffes that the president hasn’t been particularly interested or attentive to the affairs of Thailand, Burma or Cambodia as he made his first trip since his re-election. It was pretty...

Big Guy took his FORWARD! campaign to Southeast Asia this weekend. At his presser in Thailand yesterday, BO explained how he’s planning to deport the American System to the Near East: Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra: main reason Lady M did attend. Plus she hates Thai food. (snip)because Thailand I think is more successful economically than some of its neighbors, it's now in a position to be a donor country. Got that Thailand? You didn’t build that on your own! Somebody else made that happen! Now it’s time to spread your wealth around. Although the presser was in Bangkok,...

President Obama is practicing a new brand of foreign relations, appearing to flirt with Thailand’s attractive prime minister on his first stop of his three-day tour of Southeast Asia. The president and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra could be seen laughing together and exchanging playful glances throughout a state dinner at the Government House in Bangkok on Sunday night.

BANGKOK, Nov. 15 (UPI) -- Thai officials reassured the U.S. Secret Service that lizards found on the Government House grounds were not the dangerous komodo dragons, but water lizards.

The Bashar al-Assad rule in Syria has come under heavy fire from people who believe that the regime must quit over its atrocities. But any attempt by the US-led West to impose a replacement will backfire soon India’s oil-rich western neighbourhood, extending from the Arabian Sea to the Bosporus, is engulfed in conflicts arising from sectarian and civilisational rivalries, aggravated by the meddling of external powers. With an arsenal of over 100 nuclear weapons, Pakistan is today witnessing a period of internal strife, largely arising from the pernicious role of its military establishment and tensions across its disputed borders with...

The most striking proof that the Arab anti-Israel cause is a common meeting ground for both Nazis and Communists --and that the Arabs welcomed supporters of both ilks-- lies in the friendship of Carlos, the notorious master terrorist who served the PLO, with Fran*ois Genoud, an old Nazi, one of the leading Nazis in pre-War Switzerland, later a financier who provided funds for Habash's faction of the PLO. "Carlos" (his nom de guerre) was what is called a "red diaper baby." His fabulously rich father, a Venezuelan lawyer and owner of estates, gave "Carlos" the name Ilich, Lenin's patronymic, as...

VERO BEACH — An undercover investigator posing as a corrupt immigration agent led to the arrests of four people at the Vero Beach Bangkok restaurant and helped foil an elaborate scheme where undocumented workers from Thailand were paying as much as $30,000 to obtain illegal green cards. Agents arrested Bangkok owner Sarah Tipfun and the others after they raided the popular 14th Avenue restaurant last week.

Police in Thailand say that they will charge a member of the Thai parliament with causing death by negligence for accidentally shooting his secretary dead with a submachine gun. They say that the accident happened in a restaurant on Sunday night. Senator Boonsong Kowawisarat took out a 9mm Uzi submachine gun while waiting for food, the Bangkok Post reported. He told police the gun accidentally discharged and his secretary was shot in the stomach.