Thailand on The Huffington Post

Wayne Corliss, Man Who Played Santa Claus At Children's Parties, Gets Prison For Sex Tourism

2009-11-16T17:07:59Z

NEWARK, N.J. — A small-time actor and former children's entertainer who was known for playing Santa Claus was sentenced Monday to nearly 20 years in prison for his role in an international sex tourism ring that preyed on young children.

Wayne Nelson Corliss, whose 2008 arrest was the culmination of an international manhunt, had admitted traveling to Thailand three times between 2000 and 2002 to have sex with at least two boys, ages 6 and 9. He pleaded guilty last October to five counts that included distribution and possession of child pornography and traveling to foreign countries to engage in illegal sexual activity.

Union City man who traveled to Thailand for underage sex to be sentenced

2009-11-16T05:31:08Z

Wayne Nelson Corliss, an actor, played Santa Claus at children's birthday parties and fairs

Read more: Union City, Thailand, Home News

Thai Cinema Accepts Gay Sex But Political Rifts Censored

2009-11-09T14:00:05Z

BANGKOK, Thailand -- The gay sex scene alone would be enough to ban "This Area Is Under Quarantine" in many countries.

Today: Abbas vows to step aside, Saudis on the offensive

2009-11-06T12:30:04Z

Stories compiled by Gizem Yarbil, Connie Kargbo, Channtal Fleischfresser, Christine Kiernan, Ivette Feliciano, and Mohammad al-Kassim, and edited by Rebecca Haggerty.

CAMBODIA/THAILAND: Cambodia recalled its ambassador from Thailand hours after Thailand recalled its ambassador from Phnom Penh. Diplomatic relations between the two countries took a blow after Cambodia offered an advisory position to the controversial former Thai prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra.

INDIA: A crowded bus plunged down a steep mountain gorge in northern India, killing 32 people and injuring at least 30 others.

SOUTH AFRICA: South Africa is moving to enlist men in the fight against HIV/AIDS. Through a series of recent ads catering to men, local organizations are hoping that men will play a greater role in addressing South Africa’s most pressing medical battle.

ZIMBABWE: Morgan Tsvangirai, Zimbabwe’s Prime Minister, has once again agreed to work with President Robert Mugabe, ending the three-week boycott of the unity government.

KENYA: 750,000 Kenyans could be affected by flooding as heavy rains hit the East African nation, according to the United Nations. Six people have already been killed in floods and landlsides.

GERMANY: The European head of General Motors has quit his job “in disgust” after GM decided to abandon plans to sell its European unit, Opel.

UK: British Airways will be cutting 1,200 additional jobs, after posting a six-month loss of $361 million.

RUSSIA AND CIS: Russia’s health minister has warned the media not to spread panic over swine flu, claiming that the situation is under control and that H1N1 mortality rates do not exceed that of seasonal flu.

Neighboring Ukraine is taking extraordinary measures to combat the H1N1 outbreak there. The mayor of Kiev wants to impose a quarantine on the capital city, and authorities there are organizing the free distribution of gauze masks to prevent the virus’ spread. Meanwhile, Azerbaijan has confirmed its official first case of swine flu.

Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev warned against a new wall of hostility and mutual distrust in Europe, adding that old stereotypes and mistrust had yet to be banished. He made the comments in an interview published today in the newspaper Rossisskaya Gazeta.

In the latest development in the PR war between Russia and Georgia, Georgia is launching a Russian-language television station to reach ethnic minorities across the Caucasus.

Human rights worker Arbi Khachukayev has been abducted from Moscow and flown to Chechnya. Khachukayev, who works for the human rights group Memorial, had recently fled Chechnya, fearing for his personal safety.

Russia’s leading search engine Yandex has decided to stop ranking popular blog posts–a move that critics have derided as pandering to Kremlin censorship.

BRAZIL: Israeli President Shimon Peres and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad are both set to visit Brazil next week — part of Brazil’s strategy as it hopes to cement its larger global role is to mediate the conflict in the Middle East.

HONDURAS: Honduras’ ousted president, Manuel Zelaya, says a U.S.-brokered pact has failed to end the country’s political crisis.

VENEZUELA: President Hugo Chavez has ordered 15,000 troops along the country’s border with Colombia after months of political tensions.

SAUDI ARABIA: The Saudi newspaper Al-Watan is reporting that scores of Yemeni Houthis fighters have been killed in new Saudi Arabia’s air attacks in the remote mountainous regions along the the borders between Yemen and Saudi Arabia.

ISRAEL: Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon has said that Israel is not bluffing in its threats to take military action against Iran’s contentious nuclear program. In the news regarding the UN General Assembly endorsing the Goldstone report, Israel’s Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that the vote shows Israel has the moral majority.

PALESTINE: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced in a televised speech yesterday that he would not seek reelection. The announcement dealt a huge blow to the Obama administration efforts to revive Middle East peace negotiations. In another story, the United Nations General Assembly voted to endorse the Goldstone report which accused Israel of war crimes during its military offensive on the Gaza Strip last winter.

IRAN: Press TV reporting that the US has called on Iran to accept an IAEA-backed proposal for nuclear cooperation as proposed, reiterating that the draft deal would remain unchanged.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced in a televised speech yesterday that he would not seek reelection. And the Saudi newspaper Al-Watan is reporting that scores of Yemeni Houthis fighters have been killed in new Saudi Arabia’s air attacks in a remote mountainous region.
http://worldfocus.org/files/2009/11/th_palestine_abbas.jpg

Fake Viagra: Organized Crime's New Goods

2009-10-28T12:26:27Z

Police in Spain have reportedly recovered over 160,000 fake Viagra pills, says Typically Spanish.

The report is the latest in a line of international reports that suggest fake Viagra may be a growing industry.

These fakes are not contained by region either. The Miami Herald reported that customs officers at Miami International Airport intercepted 21,600 pills earlier this month. The pills were in a shipment from India.

Presumably the drugs are not being sold from respectable outlets, instead being traded on the black market for those either too embarrassed to admit to their erectile problems, seeking to use the drug for recreational purposes, or perhaps hoping to get the drug cheaper.

What is worrying, however, are the health risks. GlobalPost recently ran an story on the fake drug trade in Bangkok. As one part stated:

"It might contain the correct active ingredient, but the wrong dose. Or it might contain nothing at all," said Clemence Gautier, consultant at the Bangkok-based law firm Tilleke & Gibbins. The firm specializes in prosecuting counterfeiters for clients that include pharmaceutical firms Pfizer, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline.

The worry is even more potent for other types of drug, such as malaria medication.

The GlobalPost article goes on to say that around 77 percent of these fake meds are thought to be produced in China, and that the U.S. government is helping the fight against these drugs.

So, if you needed another reason to not buy cheap Viagra off of a man standing on a street corner, you probably just found it.

Child Sex Boom Fueled By Global Recession

2009-10-28T10:27:55Z

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Narisaraporn Asipong, a matronly social worker at the "Mercy Center" shelter met 8-year-old Niran (a pseudonym) five years ago in Klong Toey, Bangkok's largest concentration of slum communities.

Fake Viagra, And More, Sweep Southeast Asia

2009-10-23T14:54:36Z

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Little is real in Patpong, a glowing bazaar and sex district here in Bangkok. The Gucci is fake, the DVDs are pirated and the go-go girls tell every man he's handsome.

Obit: Jeremy Joe Rivera

2009-10-22T18:17:12Z

Jeremy Joe Rivera, 26, of Winter Park, Colo., formerly of Dumas, Texas, was called home to the mountain top of all mountain tops on Oct. 16, 2009 in Mae On, Thailand.

Read more: Dumas-Texas, Thailand, Home News

Jeremy Joe Rivera

2009-10-22T17:47:06Z

Jeremy Joe Rivera, 26, of Winter Park, Colo., formerly of Dumas, Texas, was called home to the mountain top of all mountain tops on Oct. 16, 2009 in Mae On, Thailand.

Read more: Dumas-Texas, Thailand, Home News

Mitchell Warren: An AIDS Vaccine is Now More than a Dream

2009-10-05T14:19:57Z

The elusive dream of an AIDS vaccine is one step closer to reality. Last
week an historic announcement was made in Thailand: the world's largest HIV
prevention trial showed that an AIDS vaccine is possible.

And it also seemed to prove that science at its most exhilarating is
unpredictable and downright surprising. Before it even enrolled the first of
its 16,400 volunteers, the Thai prime-boost trial was labeled a guaranteed
failure by critics, many of whom questioned its design and whether it should
go forward at all.

Five years later, thanks to the dedication of the volunteers, trial staff
and sponsors, we have the exciting news that the vaccine regimen is the
first in history to show an impact on risk of HIV infection. The protective
effect -- roughly 30 percent -- is modest, to be sure. In the weeks and months to
come there will be difficult questions about what the next steps should be
in terms of research on this strategy and on the entire AIDS vaccine field
as a whole.

But before embarking on this necessary process of questions and, no doubt,
debate, the world should take a moment to celebrate an historic finding that
many stalwart AIDS vaccine advocates did not believe would come in their
lifetimes.

To put it in context, two years ago many people were asking if the dream of
an AIDS vaccine was over. Were we wasting millions of dollars on a fruitless
search for a vaccine that seemed to grow more and more elusive?

These questions were prompted by news of the failure of what was then seen
as the most promising AIDS vaccine candidate to enter clinical trials. The
failure of this candidate, MRK-Ad5, demoralized researchers and advocates.
In the aftermath, critics within and outside the field questioned the wisdom
of conducting any more AIDS vaccine trials in humans and even asked whether
an AIDS vaccine was a realistic goal for the HIV prevention field.

In these discussions, the Thai prime-boost trial was frequently an
afterthought. It was certainly not expected to be the trial that buoyed
hopes and brought to an end the first chapter of AIDS vaccine research
twenty years before a proof of concept that a vaccine is possible.

As we celebrate, we must also remember that there are many, many steps from
a proof of concept (as demonstrated in this trial) to a licensed vaccine
that can be introduced (which is certainly not warranted based on this one
trial).

In the near- and mid-term it will be critical that these results are
explained to the full range of relevant stakeholders in a balanced and
thoughtful way. This is the first step, not the end of the road. As the
trial team has made clear, the broader scientific community will need to
provide expert input on how these results impact on other vaccine research
and on additional research that should be undertaken with this or similar
regimens to learn more about it specifically.

The bottom line is that this is both cause for celebration and a complicated
result. It doesn't mean that tomorrow the citizens of Thailand or any other
country can roll up their sleeves and stand in line to get an AIDS vaccine.
We're still a long way from that.

So how do we move from this modest effect in a clinical trial to a tangible
public health good?

Additional scientific research and studies are a large piece of a very
complex puzzle. But, we have several other herculean tasks ahead of us that
will require unprecedented cooperation among researchers, funders,
policymakers, advocates and communities.

We must begin to discuss in specific terms what the world might do with a
partially effective AIDS vaccine.

Such a vaccine would be enormously valuable as part of a combination
approach to HIV prevention. However, most people equate a vaccine with
complete protection from a disease, and it will be difficult to convey what
a partially effective vaccine would and would not do. Advocates, social
scientists and community members must begin to work now to develop ways to
explain how a partially effective AIDS vaccine will work along with other
prevention methods to help protect individuals from HIV infection.

Pharmaceutical and biotech companies and other partners must think now about
manufacturing capacity, both for the doses needed for any new trials of this
vaccine combination and for any eventual licensed vaccine, and legislators
and funders must determine how we will finance manufacturing and
distribution when we eventually do have a vaccine that can be licensed.

Regulatory officials in Thailand and other countries hardest hit by AIDS
must develop clear policies and pathways for licensing partially effective
vaccines and other new prevention strategies, and policymakers in those
countries must develop policies and guidelines for including partially
effective AIDS vaccines in their HIV prevention programs.

And we must all redouble our efforts to expand access to existing HIV
treatment and prevention programs around the world and to sustain investment
in research and development for AIDS vaccines and other biomedical
prevention options, including microbicides and pre-exposure prophylaxis
(PrEP).

Throughout, advocates must work as aggressively as the researchers to ensure
that the perspectives of communities are represented in planning for
additional trials and for future access, and we must hold each other
accountable for proceeding quickly and transparently.

We still have a long way to go before we can end the AIDS epidemic, but this
week's news brought us closer to the finish line.

Suang Puangsri Lives With 4,600 Scorpions (VIDEO)

2009-10-01T11:56:00Z

A man In Thailand, Suang Puangsri, has some unusual housemates: 4,600 scorpions. In the video, they appear to be living loose on the floor of his house, in a slight dirt pit. And they don't just lie there! Puangsri strokes them, picks them up, even puts them in his mouth. Dangerous? He has been stung so many times he's developed an immunity.

The arrangement is one of atonement -- Puangsri explains how he is trying to make up for years of breading them to sell to restaurants. "I felt scared about my sin, because I had been selling them for quite a long time." His wife is apparently comfortable with their new housemates: "I feel good about what he's doing." She says, "I didn't like it when he made the scorpions suffer"

Puangsri is hoping to set a world record for time spent with a scorpion in his mouth.

Guy Lives With 4,600 Scorpions - Celebrity bloopers here

Kenya, Ethiopia authorities seize ivory stash

2009-09-30T12:29:00Z

NAIROBI, Kenya — Authorities in Ethiopia and Kenya have seized more than 2,600 pounds (1,200 kilograms) of bloodstained ivory from about 100 illegally killed elephants at airports, the head of Kenya's Wildlife Service said Wednesday.

Julius Kipng'etich said trained dogs sniffed out a consignment of bloodstained tusks at Kenya's national airport late Tuesday. Another shipment of tusks sent by the same individual had been seized Monday at the airport in Ethiopia's capital.

Thai Volunteers Make HIV Vaccine Possible

2009-09-29T00:14:36Z

NONGTAPAN, Thailand — Nearly 16,000 Thais ignored the false rumors that they were being infected by the AIDS virus, and overcame their fears of becoming social outcasts to participate in the first HIV vaccine trials to show positive results.

Many of the volunteers – an eclectic mix of housewives, fishermen, factory workers, laborers and prostitutes – had seen firsthand how the disease ravaged this region of plantations and industrial estates in southeast Thailand, part of the epidemic that kills millions worldwide each year.

Dr. Peter Klatsky: HIV Vaccine: No Silver Bullet Yet

2009-09-24T11:35:29Z

There is nothing I would like better than to wake up and learn of a new and effective HIV vaccine (except maybe a malaria vaccine), so I was excited to hear of a successful vaccine trial this morning. Multiple news agencies reported that a vaccine reduced the risk of HIV infection by 30%.

While the media loves a big story, these results were underwhelming. Although they were "statistically significant," it is way too early to declare success. A simple look at the numbers is more sobering: after vaccinating 16,000 people, there were 23 fewer new infections in patients receiving the vaccine (51 cases versus 74 cases). If one additional patient who received the vaccine became infected (52 instead of 51) the results would no longer be "statistically significant."

A misunderstanding of statistics and study design often leads to premature optimism as well as fear, when new studies come out. Today we learned that combining multiple injections of two vaccines that proved unsuccessful in the past may reduce the chance of new infections. I remain hopeful but VERY skeptical, given the modest differences and lack of biological evidence (there was no difference in viral loads between vaccinated and non-vaccinated patients who acquired HIV). While I am encouraged by the efforts and work being done to develop a vaccine, we have yet to find a silver bullet.

Meanwhile, condoms, education and empowering women remain the most effective ways to reduce infection. Improving access to treatment and to providing prophylactic medicines for pregnant HIV infected women are also incredibly successful and cost effective.

We currently spend a lot of money on abstinence education programs, which have proven unsuccessful and often highlight the failures of condoms. Encouraging abstinence and faithfulness are noble goals, but they should not divert money from strategies with a stronger track record of success. While we continue to wait for more promising results of vaccine trials, we should not wait to deliver more condoms, sex education, clean needles and drugs to reduce perinatal transmission of HIV.

First HIV Vaccine Helps Prevent AIDS Infection

2009-09-24T08:31:11Z

BANGKOK — For the first time, an experimental vaccine has prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a watershed event in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible.

The World Health Organization and the U.N. agency UNAIDS said the results "instilled new hope" in the field of HIV vaccine research, although researchers say it likely is many years before a vaccine might be available.

HIV Vaccine Is Possible, Reaserchers Say

2009-09-24T08:30:28Z

An experimental vaccine has for the first time prevented infection with the AIDS virus, a groundbreaking development in the deadly epidemic and a surprising result. Recent failures led many scientists to think such a vaccine might never be possible, according to the Associated Press.

The vaccine cut the risk of becoming infected with HIV by more than 31 percent in the world's largest AIDS vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers in Thailand, researchers announced Thursday in Bangkok.

Even though the benefit is modest, "it's the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine," Col. Jerome Kim said in a telephone interview. He helped lead the study for the U.S. Army, which sponsored it with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

The institute's director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, warned that this is "not the end of the road," but said he was surprised and very pleased by the outcome.

"It gives me cautious optimism about the possibility of improving this result" and developing a more effective AIDS vaccine, Fauci said in a telephone interview. "This is something that we can do."

Read more: Bangkok-Thailand, Thailand, Home News

In a first, an AIDS vaccine shows some success

2009-09-24T01:47:43Z

Scientists and government leaders have already started mapping out how to try to improve the world's first successful AIDS vaccine, which protected one in three people from getting HIV in a large study in Thailand.

That's not good enough for immediate use, researchers say. Yet it is a watershed event in the 26 years since the AIDS virus was discovered. Recent setbacks led many scientists to think a successful vaccine would never be possible.

Palace announces Thai king's health has improved

2009-09-23T12:56:50Z

BANGKOK — The royal palace says the health of Thailand's hospitalized 81-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej has improved, with his temperature back to normal and his appetite returning.

The palace announced Wednesday night that the king was able to eat more and sleep better, so doctors had reduced the use of antibiotics and glucose drip with which he was being treated.

Read more: Bangkok-Thailand, Thailand, Home News

Audio Slideshow: Commercial Sexual Exploitation and Human Trafficking in Thailand

2009-09-15T14:02:17Z

Thailand is often called the "Land of Smiles" and considered
a tropical paradise full of friendly, spiritual locals eager to share their
unique cuisine and pristine beaches.
However, Thailand's elaborate culinary feats and sun-washed beachfronts
are not the only reason why the country has become the playground of the rich
and elite of the world. Conservative estimates suggest that 10% of tourist
dollars are spent on the sex trade.

Behind the brothels posing as massage parlors is a painful story involving women trafficked from Burma, children
exploited by pimps, and global economic disparities that allow rich tourists to make unchecked demands on impoverished locals' bodies. Recent political turmoil coupled with the global economic downturn has made the Ministry of Tourism
reluctant to reinvigorate efforts and give the outside world any impression
that Thailand is anything but the "Land of Smiles."

Top Fall Travel Destinations (SLIDESHOW, POLL)

2009-09-14T17:15:27Z

Who says the summer fun has to end just because we're in the middle of September? We've compiled a list of places you can visit to stay warm and enjoy the breathtaking beauty of countries across the world. Enjoy the markets of Marrakech or the beaches of the Fiji Islands -- and, best of all, prices are some of the cheapest in the year right now.

Vote for your favorite place.

And leave your suggestions for other great fall getaways in the comments section below.

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Michael Giltz: Toronto Film Fest Day 1: Peasants, Cats, Goats, Nymphs and War

2009-09-11T02:24:06Z

The Toronto Film Festival kicked off on Thursday. This is my first time at the festival after covering Cannes for a decade. I have a good feel for a lot of the other festivals: Sundance is over-crowded and people get into a frenzy over a lot of films that end up not mattering the day after the festival ends. Venice and Berlin and a lot of other cities have good to very good festivals located in marvelous cities. But Cannes is still the Wimbledon of festivals and Toronto is still the other one that matters most. Come to Toronto and you can catch the hottest films from Cannes, fall releases looking for a platform to tout themselves and Oscar hopefuls.

It's also often called the friendliest and easiest film festival to attend. Day 1 sure backed that up. Getting my press badge was a breeze and oh, by the way, here's a free pass to ride the subways and buses throughout the entire festival. (Thank goodness I only bought a day pass when coming in from my friend's home.) And when a trailer before every film thanks the volunteers, the audience actually burst into applause to thank the volunteers. Only in Canada!

Since Toronto is a vibrant city (my mom's family is from here), you don't get that isolated, everyone around you is talking about cinema vibe of Cannes. You do see festgoers with their badges on the streets near the main cinemas. But you can walk a block away and breathe in auteur-free air whenever you want. And the stress level is way down: I got into every screening I wanted, even though showing up at the last minute for the final film of the day meant I had to sit in the front row. So here are the five films I saw on Day 1.

HUACHO ** 1/2 out of **** -- This is almost the prototypical festival film, one that is intriguing but will never see the light of day outside the fest circuit. Director Alejandro Fernandez Almendras makes his approach clear early on. It's a day in the life of a hardscrabble family in Chile. The morning starts for everyone -- mother, son, grandmother and grandfather -- and then we spend about a reel (20 minutes) seeing the day each of them had. The grandmother makes cheese and then sells it on the side of a street. The mother works for the lady of a grand estate who chides her for not managing her money better and refuses to give her an advance; the mother then returns a dress she's been wearing (she never takes off the tag) to get some quick cash. The little boy spends his day at school yearning to play on a PSP; the other boys call him "peasant." And the grandfather struggles to put up a fence in a field and then has a drink at his local. Very familiar territory, but there's enough detail and specificity to maintain your interest, which is saying a lot when you're talking about a rather routine day and what I assume are mostly untrained actors. The price of milk goes up so the grandmother tries to raise her prices, only to lower it back down by the end of the day so she isn't stuck with cheese. The little boy finally gets to play a video game (one of those dancing game machines at a video arcade) but he gets so few chances to play he's terrible. The grandfather tells long stories but no one ever listens. It all adds up to a more humane, involving film than it might otherwise have been.

DOGTOOTH *** out of **** -- How often can a film have you wondering what the hell is going on but at the same time maintain your interest without frustration? I probably knew too much about this movie, so if you're willing to see a really eccentric movie with a plot straight out of an absurdist play, skip my review and wait to see it. Are you still reading? Here's a little more: two parents in Greece have kept their three children completely isolated from the world. The kids never leave the compound of their off-the-beaten-track home and have been fed tales of the vicious kitties that tear people apart just outside the perimeter. (Yes, "kitties.") But sex will out: the boy is old enough (at least in his late teens) that the parents pay a woman to come in and sleep with him (rather mechanically) while the two sisters lick each other on various parts of the body in exchange for gifts. The children are constantly coming up with games (who can leave their fingers under the hot water tap the longest) and the parents devise ever stranger ways of explaining away terms they don't want the kids to know (the word "sea" is used to describe a leather chair, for example). This could play as a surreal comedy: a couple of scenes find one girl improvising moments from videos of Rocky II and Flashdance she sneakily watched. It also plays as deeply disturbing, with the parents pushed to extremes to protect their kids from the world they fear. The audience I saw took it very seriously indeed. But play it at midnight in New York and it would seem a very different film. Fascinating. I want a second viewing to make sure it doesn't just play once, but it's hard to shake and the cast is right in tune with the wavelength of the film.

THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS * 1/2 out of **** This George Clooney comedy is based on the true-ish stories of the US military's exploration of psychic abilities and the paranormal as potential weapons for war. It's spun into a far too elaborate story of a journalist (Ewan McGregor) who stumbles on Clooney and the loony story of psychic research prompted by hippie and career soldier Jeff Bridges. There are modest laughs in the film but it has a convoluted structure and takes forever to tell a very slight tale of LSD, competing psychics and McGregor's wary acceptance of this story. It doesn't help that the backdrop of 9-11 and prisoner torture takes some of the larkiness out of the goofy tone of the film. Clooney is game and McGregor was lucky casting: the tons of jokes about Jedi warriors naturally have an added spin here. Not much else does.

NYMPH *** for cineastes only out of **** - Not quite sure why I stayed with this one. The Thais sure do love their endless tracking shots and obscure storylines. This one has a girl attacked by men in the jungle who turns into (or was?) a woodland nymph and gets her revenge. Then the film proper begins, with a cute girl who is cheating on her shlubby photographer husband with her much cuter boss. She and her husband head into the jungle for a vacation. But he literally becomes a tree-hugger and either wanders off or is swallowed up by a tree. She heads home distraught but doesn't tell anyone when he shows up unexpectedly, even though the police are searching the jungle for him. Why doesn't she say anything? Because she's imagining it? I knew better than to expect any real answers. But I was held by the visuals and an ominous score filled with the sound of creaking, groaning wood. As an aside, every print of a film includes a marker when a reel is ended, traditionally used to tell the projectionist they should be ready to change reels. It's usually a dot in the upper right hand corner and they appear every 20 minutes on every print. Once you notice them, you can't believe you've been watching movies and never spotted them before. This movie's eerie mood was heightened by the BIGGEST reel marker I've ever seen: it was a gigantic, scrawled 14 or perhaps E14 that covered the entire middle of the film. It was so prominent, I thought at first it was some sort of subliminal message we're meant to spot. But no, it's just the wackiest reel change symbol I've ever seen.

CITY OF LIFE AND DEATH *** despite the weak finale -- This Chinese film tackles the Rape Of Nanking and like the fine Katyn of last year, it's basically a catalog of horrors, presented soberly and well. How do you critique it, I felt at first. Though the horrors pile on, the film takes a few interesting tacks. First, it's shot in beautiful black and white. Second, we see much of the film through the eyes of a Japanese soldier, who is distraught by the horror around him. Since the Japanese soldiers generally partake in one horrific act after another, this was a welcome attempt not to paint them as pure Evil (which frankly would detract from the horrors that occurred -- they were committed by real people, not monsters, which makes it worse). A few brief English language characters are all so poorly and awkwardly voiced, you'd swear the actors were dubbed. I felt a strong emotional connection even as I felt the movie didn't try and manipulate me too much (stock characters of noble woman, cynical whore, and plucky child notwithstanding). They hit a good finale with the Japanese soldiers celebrating their victory with a martial parade. But that's undercut by a soft coda in which the film tries to underplay the misery of what we've seen by emphasizing too much the guilt of our Japanese hero and the potential for a happier future for at least one Chinese survivor. It rings false after a film that rang mostly true. Still, there was decent applause for the movie at the end, the strongest of the day.

Repentant Man Breeds 4,600 Scorpions

2009-09-08T16:26:13Z

UTTARADIT, Thailand (Reuters) A Thai man is keeping more than 4,600 scorpions as pets to atone for the years he spent cooking the arachnids to sell as snacks.

Thai NGO warns that the global recession will increase human trafficking

2009-08-29T00:06:24Z

Deena Guzder, reporting for the Pulitzer Center

BANGKOK, Thailand--In August 2009, ECPAT International released a global report on the trafficking of children for sexual purposes around the world. The report--Their Protection is in Our Hands-The State of Global Child Trafficking for Sexual Purposes--reveals
that the trafficking of children and young people for sexual purposes
in many countries is increasing and governments simply are not doing
enough to protect young people.

The
global recession is increasing the vulnerability of children to
traffickers, according to the new report. "The recent economic downturn
is set to drive more vulnerable children and young people to be
exploited by the global sex trade," said Ms. Carmen M. Madrinan,
Executive Director of ECPAT International. "In addition, trafficking
is not only significant across international borders, but increasing
within country borders. The indifference that sustains the
criminality, greed and perverse demands of adults for sex with children
and young people needs to end." Increasing poverty in children's
countries of origin, reduced budgets for social services, restrictive
immigration laws in "destination countries" (which encourage children
to avoid detection) are among the factors heightening the vulnerability
of children and young people to human traffickers. Deterioration in
the living conditions of entire households can induce children and
young people to abandon school in order to contribute to the family
income, exposing them to harmful situations as they become at risk of
seeking livelihood options that lead to their being exploited.

In
cases involving children, the U.S. has relatively strict domestic laws
that hold accountable any American citizen or permanent resident of the
U.S. who travels abroad for the purpose of engaging in illicit conduct
with a minor. However, child pornography, sex tourism and human trafficking remain fast-growing industries. Rep. Chris
Smith, R-N.J.
recently introduced H.R. 1623, the International Megan's law. Similar
to the domestic Megan's Law (named after Megan Kanka of New Jersey),
which provides for community notification when a sex offender is living
in the area, H.R. 1623 would alert officials abroad when U.S. sex
offenders intend to travel, and likewise encourage other countries to
keep sex offender lists and to notify the U.S. when a known sex
offender may be coming to the United States for sex tourism. While there are serious problems with the current domestic sex offenders' registry,
human rights organizations such as Eliminate Child Prostitution And
Trafficking (ECPAT) and UNICEF believe this would be a step in the
right direction.

Watch Giorgio Berardi, Program Officer for Combating Child-Sex Tourism (CST) at ECPAT International talk about efforts in Thailand to end child prostitution and trafficking.

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Read more: Bangkok-Thailand, Thailand, Home News

Craig and Marc Kielburger: Without Freedom of Expression

2009-08-28T14:50:59Z

Suwicha Thakor is a family man.

The 37-year-old shares a crowded home in Nakhon Phanom in north-eastern Thailand with his wife, three children and dependent father.

An engineer by trade, Thakor sent his oldest child, a boy of 16 named Kanchai, to a bilingual school in Bangkok. The boy wants to study computer engineering at university. Although Kanchai is far from home, the family agrees his schooling is worth it.

Unfortunately, Thakor will be away from his children longer than expected.

Kanchai recent returned to Nakhon Phanom and the local school with his brother and sister. His mother Thitima couldn't keep up with her son's school payments.

Money has been tight for the past few months. It might still be for the next 10 years. That's the length of the sentence Thakor received in April for posting two comments on a website deemed insulting to Thailand's monarchy.

"Most of my friends don't know about this. Some people who got wind of it came to ask if I was related to the man who got arrested," Thakor's 14-year-old daughter Kanyawat told a Thai newspaper. "But there's one person who knew I was my father's daughter, and he deliberately asked me aloud right in front of my school."

As Thakor endured the first few months of his prison sentence, a similar story unfolded in North Korea. There, two American journalists were sentenced to 12 years of hard labour for entering the country without a visa. This, unlike Thakor's story, rightly caught the attention of politicians, the media and the public.

Earlier this month, former President Bill Clinton even travelled to Pyongyang to ensure their pardon and bring the women home. Their release was an important victory for freedom of press worldwide.

But, Thakor's story is a setback.

In Thailand, the crime of lese-majeste (or defaming, insulting or threatening the King and the monarchy) carries a harsh penalty. In January, authorities matched the IP address on Thakor's computer to two such comments. He was arrested at a friend's home and denied bail twice. Even though his sentence was cut in half because he pled guilty, the procedure for seeking a royal pardon was suspended.

Thakor's crime is something that millions of us in North America do every day. Our press writes articles and readers are encouraged to express their views in comment sections.

There, you can share your views. But, unlike Thakor, you probably won't spend the next 10 years in jail for doing so.

Thakor is not a journalist. He has no American passport or friendship with someone from the mainstream press. That means, besides a petition campaign from Reporters Without Borders, his story hasn't garnered the political response of the American journalists.

In Australia, a group of human rights activists campaigned to name a newborn elephant in his honor while the Doha Centre for Media Freedom has been helping his family financially. Still, Thitima has been forced to sell many of Thakor's hard-earned possessions.

While Kanchai is closer to home, dealing with the stress of having his father in jail has had repercussions on the bright student's grades.

"I have not been able to concentrate much because I've been thinking about my father," Kanchai told the media.

Thakor may not be a journalist. But, as the internet changes how news is disseminated, so to does it change the definition of the practice. Thakor was contributing to the debate media is supposed to elicit. Having true freedom of press and freedom of speech means we need to remember the hundreds of others around the world who have been jailed for expressing their opinions.

Thakor is a family man, not a criminal. He deserves to go back home, too.

The Economics of Commercial Sexual Exploitation

2009-08-25T15:46:16Z

Deena Guzder, reporting for the Pulitzer Center

PHUKET, Thailand -- Thailand's sex tourism industry is primarily driven by acute poverty. "All forms of prostitution are about comparatively rich men buying poor women," writes renowned feminist scholar and law professor Catharine MacKinnon in a recent email correspondence. "Anything that accentuates that inequality increases the abuse that can be demanded" and "anything that makes women relatively more powerless, including living in the global South, makes the abuse both sexier and easier to get away with," notes MacKinnon. In Thailand, a tourist with money is tourist with unchecked power. The World Bank estimated in 2008 that the average annual purchasing power of Thais is $7,703 per person, compared to $46,716 in the United States.

Women and girls from poor rural families make up the majority of sex workers in Thailand. As a result of the current economic downturn, hundreds of factories and projects have closed across Thailand, leaving thousands of workers--both Thai and non-Thai--unemployed, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review. Unemployment is rising at a rate of about 100,000 workers a month, and may climb to 1.5 million by the end of the year. Even if a migrant laborer finds an increasingly elusive unskilled factory job, the paltry salaries are ten to twenty times lower than those paid to the lowest level sex worker working at "beer bars," according to the nonprofit organization Ashoka.

The women trapped in the freakish sexual circus of "ping pong shows" often worked in factories before the economic downturn. Left with no alternatives after being laid off, many women migrated to Thailand's most notorious tourist hotspots such as Pattaya, Phuket, and the Patpong District of Bangkok. Once lost in Thailand's seedy underbelly, these women are further robbed of their individual agency, economic independence, and bargaining power by domineering pimps who keep tabs on debts owed for room and board, and deliberately foster discord among workers who may otherwise attempt to unionize. Even if language barriers and calculating brothel managers did not prevent women from collectively demanding more rights, most women accept their conditions silently since a stream of even poorer migrants are steadily available to replace any dissenters.

If history repeats itself, the situation for poor Southeast Asian women will only further deteriorate with the global economic downturn. During the 1997 Asian financial crisis, many Thais lost their jobs in the manufacturing, finance and tourism sectors. Siddharth Kara, a board member of Free the Slaves, an NGO based in the United States, notes in his recent book, Sex Trafficking, that the International Monetary Fund's interest-rate policies and cuts on social-welfare programs not only contributed to the economic problems but also made poor migrants more vulnerable to changing market forces. During that period, writes Kara, the sudden increase in the rural poverty in the Mekong region led to a mass migration from the villages of rural Thailand, Burma, Laos and Cambodia into urban centers such as Bangkok and Chiang Mai. Uprooted from their communities and transplanted to unfamiliar metropolises, destitute migrants were easily exploited in factories and brothels.

In the world's largest Red Light District, Bangkok, there are stark differences between the go-go dancer types--who are similar to those prevalent in every global city across the world--and sex entertainers subjected to egregious forms of human zoo tourism at "ping pong shows." Extreme forms of sex entertainment in Bangkok are disturbing, but logical, extensions of an inherently misogynistic industry, notes feminist scholar MacKinnon. "Pornography of Asian women sold in the West has been almost entirely a pornography of torture," writes MacKinnon. "This is just presenting that in the flesh." MacKinnon also notes that these shows perpetuate a stereotype of the "exotic East," which Edward Said correctly dismissed as a racist and Orientalist fantasy.

In Phuket, a notorious tourist hotspot in Southern Thailand, a young performer who goes by her first name only, "Peung", looks more girlish than womanly. She confides in staccato sentences: "The first time I performed, I was so shy. I was so scared. I felt so ashamed. I just wanted to cry." Looking at her alabaster hands while talking in hushed tones, Peung says she dropped out of school after sixth grade to help support her family. "I worked in many different factories and, each time one closed, I looked for another," says Peung who recently was laid-off from a car manufacturing plant where she assembled CD players. "The economy is very bad, so I came to Phuket to become a waitress," says Peung who is originally from northeastern Thailand. "I couldn't find any work and did not have any money to go back home." Now, Peung works at Spicy Club off Patong Bangla Road where sex shows feature women performing with everything from eels to snakes to catfish for chortles of Western men. "No Thai men ever come here, unless he is with a Westerner," says Peung who looks barely old enough to legally drink alcohol let alone perform at a live sex show. Peung, who has worked at Spicy Club for a little over three months, says her family has no idea how she makes a living in Phuket, but appreciates the little money she sends home. "They don't ask too many questions," says Peung. Most of Peung's colleagues are either from Laos or northeastern Thailand; they lead double lives and keep their professions hidden from their parents and children. At Spicy Club, Peung earns a monthly salary of 6000 Thai Bhatt (USD$ 181) and is given two days of vacation. Cocktails at Spicy Club cost 550 Thai Bhatt (USD$ 17) and Peung receives a commission of 50 Thai Bhatt (USD $1.50) for every drink a customer buys for her. "I don't drink because I don't like the taste," says Peung whose layers of make-up seem like a ruse to add years to her cherubic face. When pressed about her age, Peung replies quickly, "I am 21 years old." She responds to a journalist's askance look of skepticism by repeating herself a little too forcefully.

Centuries of soldiers, seamen and teachers have used their wealth to fully exploit the erotic possibilities of the Far East. The role of the U.S. military is creating a fictional sexual utopia in East Asia is especially sordid and shameful. "Thailand becoming a sex tourism destination was condoned and sanctioned by Robert McNamara," says Taina Bien-Aime, Executive Director of Equality Now. Kenneth Franzblau, also of Equality Now, adds, "In the Philippines, most early sex tour operatives were former servicemen stationed there during the war." One legacy of the Vietnam R&R days in Thailand is Soi Cowboy (between Soi 21 & Soi 23), a strip of hostess and go-go bars cater not to curious voyeurs, but old-time consumers. Bien-Aime notes that the media preponderantly focus on the age of consent rather than focusing on who is responsible for keeping the industry alive, whether in the days of the Vietnam War or in the days of U.S. economic hegemony. "Let's focus not only on the women, but who are the contributors to this billion dollar sex trade," says Bien-Aime. "Women are not for sale whether they're on a stage or not."

Convincing visitors and voyeurs in Thailand's sex tourism hotspots to speak with a journalist is infinitely more difficult than convincing exploited women and children to speak, although the latter have far more to lose. One Westerner who refused to give his name said, "Chill out, it's all in good fun." He added, "This is what Thailand's known for and you got to live a little." Another says, "Sex is part of these people's culture," and "they wouldn't be here if they didn't want to." Another, speaking specifically about ping pong shows, says, "It's like a form of art, these women are really talented. They're making money the same way any other athlete makes money." Human rights organizations scoff at wealthy men's self-exculpating explanations. They insist that reducing impoverished women's sexuality to a spectator sport is inherently degrading. "The attitude that [sex work in places like ping pong shows] is empowering gives a green light to traffickers. We're trying to fight the commercial sex trade, not empower the sex trade," says Bien-Aime of Equality Now. Bien-Aime says that ending the multibillion dollar trade must begin with holding buyers accountable rather than nurturing any illusions that sexual exploitation is beneficial to women.

Of course, not all tourists are willfully ignorant. Tom Grundy, a human rights activist visiting Bangkok, says he finds these shows disgusting. "I don't know how tourists justify coming to Thailand and doing things they would never consider doing at home," says Grundy. "If a ping pong show occurred in the U.K., people would immediately express outrage, start a letter writing campaign, and get the police to shut down the place." Boycotting ping pong shows is a start, says Grundy, but tourists should also donate to human rights organizations.

Unfortunately, Grundy's view remains in the minority. To witness how deeply entrenched sexual exploitation has become in Thailand, one needs only to walk through the Patpong district of Bangkok, Thailand. Middlemen stop male tourists and whisper "What you looking for, mister?" Money exchanges hands and keeps the industry thriving. Pattaya, which first exploded as a sex tourism hotspot for American GI's during the Vietnam War, receives almost 6 million visitors, according to the Tourist Authority of Thailand. The female concierge, who speaks only on the condition of anonymity, confides that she receives 65% commission for every woman she hires for a tourist. "Once a year, many U.S. soldiers come to Pattaya," she says, "and it is our busiest season." She continues, "Once a group of forty men requested only two women. One ended up in the hospital." One reason the Royal Thai Government is not more proactive about curbing sex tourism is because the underground industry comprises 2 - 14% of South East Asian countries' economy, according to the ILO. Recent political instability has also deterred efforts to regulate the sex tourism industry. Before the 2006 military coup, End Child Prostitution And Trafficking (ECPAT) had been collaborating with the Ministry of Tourism on creating a National Plan of Action to address the issue of child sex tourism. The initiative was suspended shortly after the ouster of the Thaksin administration. Now, the global economic downturn has made the Ministry of Tourism reluctant to reinvigorate efforts and give the outside world any impression that Thailand is anything but the "Land of Smiles." Giorgio Berardi, Program Officer for Combating Child-Sex Tourism (CST).at ECPAT, says Southeast Asia continues to harbor a reputation as a destination for sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism. "We still need far better enactment and enforcement of effective extraterritorial legislation," says Berardi.

In Thailand, as in many countries, the stigma of poverty is doubled for woman. "Good girls do not have sex before marriage," insists a businesswoman in her mid-30s who is the general manager of a pineapple export company in Bangkok. "In my culture, a good girl would never sleep with a man she does not know. I think maybe these women have some deep problems. I think they go crazy for Western men," says the petit woman who insists the word "virginity" is synonymous with "honor." She thinks that some Thai women's fetish for white men runs as deep as some western tourists' "yellow fever" (the colloquial term for white men who gravitate towards Asian women). "I am not proud that my country is known for sex tourism," says the businesswoman, "but many of these women are lazy and not from good families. They don't want to work. They are materialistic and just want to live off of Westerners." When asked about women who are direly poor, the businesswoman responds, "Yes, but if you or I are poor we would still never think about doing something like this." In a country where sexual promiscuity is laden with moral judgment, economically stable women subscribe to a conveniently Manichean worldview in which they protect their "honor" from a self-righteous pedestal while their poorer sisters who are forced into brothels are forever branded with a Scarlett letter.

While some Thai women admittedly view Western men as status symbols or economic benefactors, the majority of women trapped in Bangkok's seedy underbelly are single mothers from desperately poor families who have benefited from very little formal education and have no other financial alternatives. Many women are economic refugees from northeastern Thailand, the country's poorest region; some women are trafficked from repressive countries such as Burma; still others come voluntarily from Thailand's poorer neighbors such as Cambodia and Laos. Although Thailand is still a developing country, its per capita GDP is 12 times, seven times and 5.5 times higher than that of Burma, Cambodia and Laos, respectively. A relative sense of deprivation compels workers from the poorer nations in the Mekong region to seek better opportunities in neighboring Thailand, which has an estimated 1.5 to 2.5 million undocumented migrants living within its borders, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review. John Padorr who works for the Mercy Center in Klong Toey, Bangkok's largest concentration of slum communities, notes that undocumented women and children are the most vulnerable groups in Thailand and the most easily sold into sexual servitude. Narisaraporn Asipong, a Mercy Center outreach worker who has assisted street children in the slums for 7-8 years, says the Thai government is "only treating the symptoms, not the cause." When asked about the cause, Asipong answers with one word: "Poverty."

Sex workers who live in and work for brothels are vulnerable to extreme forms of abuse and exploitation by brothel owners who regard them as sex slaves. In the major cities of northern Thailand, Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai, an estimated sixty percent of sex workers work in brothels, according to Ashoka. Although prostitution has been illegal since the 1960s, many sex entertainment venues double as brothels. At Nana Entertainment Plaza, adjoining guest-houses facilitate trysts. Inside Bangkok's brothels, women--some Thai, others trafficked from Burma--stand akimbo with numbers pinned to their tops like animals at a county fair. A manager encourages patrons to pick from the group. A 23-year-old who goes by the name "Bhu" says she sleeps with a different client every night except her two days off. "I am saving money so I can continue to go to college once a week," says the young woman with a perfectly symmetrical face and dilated eyes. For sex workers in both bars and brothels, information about legal rights and such issues as sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS, is not widely and consistently available. When asked if women in the brothel practice safe sex, "Bhu" shrugs, "most of the Western men will use a condom because they think we're dirty anyway." Although police are easily bribed, pimps remain palpably afraid of police raids. When I tried to discreetly film inside a brothel, a pimp aggressively confronted me and was only placated after my translator insisted I was using a cell phone to send a text message, not a mini-camcorder to film.

On July 8, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI raised greater awareness about sex tourism by speaking out against the industry: "It is sad to note that this activity often takes place with the support of local governments, with silence from those in the tourists' countries of origin, and with the complicity of many tour operators." Renowned feminist scholar MacKinnon suggests that "the best approach to the live forms of the sex industry is the Swedish model, which criminalizes the johns and pimps and decriminalizes prostituted people." Unfortunately, the exact opposite often happens in Thailand. Human Rights Watch reported that the Royal Thai Government, rather than punishing officials and other traffickers, has wrongfully arrested and deported hundreds of Burmese victims in the past, in clear violation of Thailand's obligations under national and international law.

Globally, an estimated 27 million human beings are trafficked and exploited as forced or bonded laborers in factories, fisheries, fields, streets and brothels as part of a business that is raking in more than $30 billion in profits annually, according to the Far Eastern Economic Review. South Asia, where an estimated 200,000 to 400,000 people are trafficked each year, is often the focal point for this bourgeoning humanitarian catastrophe. Human traffickers follow the money trail: women from China, Burma, Cambodia, and Laos are trafficked to Thailand; whereas, women from Thailand are trafficked to Japan. Western sex tourists are conspicuous consumers in homogenous populations; however, human rights organizations such as UNICEF note that the majority of sex tourists in Thailand still come from richer Asian countries, such as Japan. While these regional sex tourists rarely gravitate towards "ping pong shows" with the same morbid fascination as some Westerners, they do funnel billions of dollars into myriad sexually exploitative venues that incentivize traffickers.

Equality Now says human trafficking is a natural outgrowth of sex tourism, whether that tourism involves prostitution or ping pong shows. "There are certain people who believe you should separate prostitution from trafficking, saying one is work and the other is slavery," says Bien-Aime. "But sexual exploitation is always extremely intrusive, permanently damaging, and a form of violence against women." She adds perceptively, "working 14 hours [a day] in a factory or blowing ping pong balls out of your vagina should not be a person's only choices."

Special thanks to my translator in Bangkok, Faai (Kanokkwan) Thamavit; my translator in Phuket, Fab (Kasemchat) Thamavit; my fixer in Pattaya and Bangkok, Nuch Ruplek.

Learn more about this reporting project.