Stories written by Marwaan Macan-Markar
Marwaan Macan-Markar is a Sri Lankan journalist who covered the South Asian nation's ethnic conflict for local newspapers before joining IPS in 1999. He was first posted as a correspondent at the agency's world desk in Mexico City and has since been based in Bangkok, covering Southeast Asia. He has reported from over 15 countries, writing from the frontlines of insurgencies, political upheavals, human rights violations, peace talks, natural disasters, climate change, economic development, new diseases such as bird flu and emerging trends in Islam, among other current issues.

SOUTH-EAST ASIA: Fallout of Bali Verdict Will Gauge Scale of Militant Islam

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
The spectacle that unfolded in an Indonesian court this week, as it issued its verdict on the Bali bombings, would have added to the long list of stereotypes critics of Islam have of this faith - that it encourages violence and that Muslims kill civilians without remorse.

DRUGS-THAILAND: Anti-Opium Campaign Wins Converts from Overseas

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
In Disnadda Diskul, Thailand has the perfect salesman to export a success story: the potent weapon this South-east Asian country has developed to wean communities away from poppy cultivation.

THAILAND: Activists Turn to Local Heroine to Protect Marine Life

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Dawan Chantarhassadi is a woman in demand due to her temporary life as an activist in this fishing town along the Gulf of Thailand.

THAILAND: ‘King of Commercial Sex’ Puts Premier in Hot Seat

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Suddenly, the tough-talking prime minister of Thailand who has won public approval for his high-profile, populist campaigns - including the promise to be a crimebuster - appears to be losing his steely edge.

POLITICS-CAMBODIA: Poll Stands Out in Region Short of Democracy

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Despite being one of South-east Asia's poorest countries, Cambodia succeeded this week in pulling off a general election that can easily shame most of its regional neighbours, where democracy is either absent or skin deep.

RIGHTS-THAILAND: Fear of Expulsion Haunts Hill Tribes

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
The wrinkles on Avu Mae's face have come with age and with worry. The trouble that haunts the 60-year-old grandmother is her future in this village, spread out on the gentle slopes of a mountain in northern Thailand.

POLITICS: Indonesia Gets Away with Little Flak for Aceh Operations

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
More than two months into Indonesia's military assault to crush a separatist movement in Aceh, Jakarta is still to face a battery of criticism from the international community, as a meeting of foreign ministers from Asia and Europe revealed this week.

POLITICS: Unlike Its Neighbours, Thailand Stands by Burma

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
By throwing a lifeline to Burma's military government, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra has made clear where his sympathies lie - with the oppressors rather than the oppressed of that South-east Asian country, critics here say.

THAILAND: Despite Crackdown, ‘King of Commercial Sex’ Thrives

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
''The reason I like 'Emmanuelle' is because all around service is the best,'' a man writing as 'ABC' says about a place here in the Thai capital that fronts as a 'massage parlour' but caters to the sexual fantasies of men.

ASIA: Activists Cheer Pullout of French Firm from Lao Dam Project

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
A sudden announcement by a French company to drop a project to build Indochina's biggest dam in Laos pulls the rug from under a project that has been a hallmark of the skewed development model it represents, environmentalists say.

EAST TIMOR: Rapes Cannot be Buried in Past – Activists

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Ivete Oliveira refuses to let the past be buried in her country, especially the past of women who were raped and sexually abused by Indonesian forces during East Timor's struggle for independence.

THAILAND: Electricity Changes Lives, But Has Cross-Border Impact

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Over the past seven months, Suphan Beka has been enjoying the comforts many of her school friends take for granted - sipping ice cold drinks at home and watching Thai television shows late at night.

CULTURE-THAILAND: Hill Tribes Go High-Tech to Preserve Way of Life

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
As the sun sets, all the traits of a community light years away from modernity emerge in this northern Thai village. There is, after all, no electricity to illuminate the homes made of bamboo walls and thatched roofs, and to keep out the invading darkness.
   But that has not deterred the 60 families living here - people belonging to the Lahu ethnic community - from using cyberspace to bring themselves out of the dark ages.

CULTURE-THAILAND: Hill Tribes Go High-Tech to Preserve Way of Life

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
As the sun sets, all the traits of a community light years away from modernity emerge in this northern Thai village. There is, after all, no electricity to illuminate the homes made of bamboo walls and thatched roofs, and to keep out the invading darkness.

THAILAND-MALAYSIA: Community Rights Hinge on Gas Pipeline Project

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
The mounting tension in southern Thailand over the impending construction of a long-disputed gas pipeline has brought to the surface the tussle between the government's view of development and community rights.

TRADE-ASIA: EU Farm Reforms Get Feeble Cheers

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
A European Union (EU) attempt to sound magnanimous over its recent reforms in agricultural policy has still to draw loud cheers across Asia, whose activists say they know a charade when they see one.

LABOUR-ASIA: HIV Testing of Migrant Workers Fuels Pandemic

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
A practice common in some Asian countries - forcing migrant workers to face mandatory HIV/AIDS tests - is bound to hasten the spread of the disease than curb it, say experts and officials at a regional conference on migrant workers here.

LABOUR-ASIA: Mandatory HIV Tests of Migrant Workers Fuels Pandemic

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
A practice common in some Asian countries - forcing migrant workers to face mandatory HIV/AIDS tests - is bound to hasten the spread of the disease than curb it, say experts and officials at a regional conference on migrant workers here.

POLITICS-SRI LANKA: Tamil Tigers Reveal Chinks in Their Armour

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
By setting new conditions for resurrecting the stalled peace talks, the Tamil Tigers have conceded that the world beyond the patch of land they control in northern Sri Lanka is an inhospitable place.

ECONOMY-THAILAND: Growth Suggests that Recovery Has Deeper Roots

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
More cars, worsening traffic jams and the accompanying automobile pollution in Bangkok may leave commuters exasperated, but behind this urban smog are palpable signs that the Thai economy has been expanding.

THAILAND: Muslims Fear Tense Times Ahead for Islamic Schools

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
Since the much-hyped arrest of three Thai Muslims with alleged links to an Islamic militant group in the region, the Muslim minority in the country's south has been fearing that Islamic schools there may soon face a lesson in survival.
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