Around 20.05, on Wednesday, 1 May 20130, at least four perpetrators with two motorcycles used war weapons and fired into the crowd in front of a grocery shop located at 17/12, Poon Sawat Road, Moo 5, Ban Kok Muang, Rusamilae sub-district, Muang District, Pattani. Six deaths included one two years old child and a severely injured. The killing of innocent people is gross human rights abuse and unlawful. It simply incurs an atmosphere of fear among local people.

Washington DC - Thailand's media freedom is categorized as "Not Free" for the year 2012, a change from "Partly Free" the previous year due to ‘court rulings that the lèse-majesté law does not contradict constitutional provisions for freedom of expression and that third-party hosts are liable for lèse-majesté content posted online’, a Freedom House report released on Wednesday said.

Thai readers be warned: You are about to read a commentary penned by an alleged "Thai with a Cambodian heart", a "traitor".

My word how things change.

When I came to Bangkok, I remember there were 3 buildings of more than 7 storeys. One was the tapering triangular structure of the Dusit Thani, which set an aesthetic example which later high-rises studiously ignored. The second was the glass-and-steel Chokchai building, whose construction on Sukhumwit suffered the hiccup of a bankruptcy until the CIA was rumoured to have quietly helped with the financing so it could stick its satellite dishes on the top. And the third was Thai Daimaru at Pratunam, which was so nondescript it has long since been demolished in favour of something much taller and equally nondescript.