Showing 1 - 8 of 8
Kabul's traffickers are in for the long haul
Spectrum, Luke Hunt, Published on 17/11/2013
» Kabul's black market for illegal travel is still doing a brisk trade despite the crackdown from Australia's newly installed government on people smuggling. However, the logistics required to circumvent the authorities and ensure a safe trip have become more complex and smugglers are under pressure to maximise profits. Fake passports, forged visas, tickets to Southeast Asia, sometimes via the Middle East, and boats to Australia and elsewhere are often available for about US$25,000 (788,000 baht) a head, more than double the costs the smugglers first charged when they began plying the Kangaroo Route in the late 1990s.
Pol Pot's henchmen damned by evidence
Spectrum, Luke Hunt, Published on 27/10/2013
» For more than two years, the latest instalment of the Khmer Rouge tribunal has provided a blow-by-blow account of Pol Pot's bloody reign of terror and the inner workings of the political machine blamed for the deaths of between 1.7 million and 2.2 million people.
Asean hazed by self-Interest
Spectrum, Luke Hunt, Published on 08/09/2013
» The dreaded haze has made an unwanted return across large swathes of Southeast Asia and for the second time this season politicians have been found desperately wanting in their inability to find a solution to the horrible haze which is costing the region billions of dollars.
Gambling with Kampot's colonial charm
Spectrum, Luke Hunt, Published on 05/05/2013
» Hidden in the clouds on a mountain overlooking the provincial capital of Kampot in Cambodia's south sits a relic of a long-gone French colonial era. For decades a Catholic church, possibly the oldest in the country, remained abandoned here as wars were waged for decades on the flat lands below.
Furious foreign investment driving land grab scourge
Spectrum, Luke Hunt, Published on 07/10/2012
» Land grabbing has emerged as the biggest blight to afflict Cambodia in recent years. Thousands of villagers have been pushed off their family plots for what they say is too little compensation as big corporations move in with the government's blessing.
Muslim acceptance in Laos stark contrast to Myanmar intolerance
Spectrum, Luke Hunt, Published on 02/09/2012
» Just over a decade ago the tiny Islamic population of Laos, like Muslims everywhere, watched on in horror as al-Qaeda carried out its suicide attacks on New York and Washington. They were then flabbergasted as a tide of Western opinion turned on them.
The murder that shocked even Cambodia
Spectrum, Luke Hunt, Published on 06/05/2012
» In Cambodia, the murder of a high-profile environmentalist has sent shockwaves around a country which has never shaken-off its reputation for violence, corruption and a culture of impunity among the ruling political and moneyed classes.
War crimes and the price of justice
Spectrum, Luke Hunt, Published on 22/01/2012
» Putting a price on human life has never been a simple matter. For example, hospitals constantly face financial pressures, but patients' rights to privacy ensure that such awkward subjects are handled behind closed doors.