• THAILAND

  River diversion raises concern

  News, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 26/02/2018

  » Conservationists have raised concern that the state's 40 billion plan to divert water from the Salween River's tributaries into the Chao Phraya River is not economically viable and will be detrimental to the environment.

• THAILAND

  Bangkok's secret weapon in war against floods

  News, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 21/10/2017

  » When the torrential rains of Oct 13 caused heavy flooding in Bangkok, several parts of the city were swamped, including Chulalongkorn University Centenary Park in Sam Yan. However, as the park slowly filled with water, Kotchakorn Voraakhom, the landscape architect who designed the project, remained unconcerned. She even expressed her satisfaction in a Facebook post that the park had finally delivered on one of its purposes -- the detention of flood water.

• OPINION

  The man, his maps, and his people

  News, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 17/10/2016

  » The King rarely smiled -- that was the broad perception of many people about the late monarch, presumably gained from his appearance in news photos or video footage. "The King never smiles" is the perception of a Western writer who scripted a controversial book about him. But for millions of Thais, his solemn face did not matter. The presence of His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej, or even a thought about of him, brought smiles to their own faces.

• LIFE

  From salt to solar

  Life, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 14/09/2016

  » If this year's severe drought returns next dry season, Uncle Wai Rodtayoy and other salt farmers in tambon Koek Kharm of Samut Sakhon, known as the country's largest sea-salt-farming area, will see mounting debts.

• LIFE

  War on weed

  Life, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 22/08/2016

  » After declaring war against corruption and mafia, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha has launched a new battle against the floating water weed phak tob java. The thick, green mats of the aquatic plant have choked Thailand's canals and rivers for more than a century, and since the rainy season started, the army and local administration have been ordered to get rid off the expansive profusion of hyacinth from the Central Plains waterways within 10 days.

• OPINION

  The fear of becoming a banana state

  News, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 15/08/2016

  » 'The company changed the pattern of the rains, accelerated the cycle of harvests and moved the river from where it had always been." This vivid line is from the book <i>One Hundred Years of Solitude</i>, a magnum opus written by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, a Nobel Prize-winning writer.

• THAILAND

  Razing 'cane

  Life, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 30/03/2016

  » March and April are months of haze. The white-grey smoke may be just a seasonal nuisance that exists only in the northern and southern regions in Thailand, but in a sugar plantation in Dan Chang of Suphan Buri province, haze has long been a part of the people's daily lives and of the worrisome harvesting cycle. Villagers in Dan Chang get used to dry-coughing. Smoke hangs over the roofs of their houses and seeps indoors.

• LIFE

  Reworking November rain

  Life, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 06/01/2016

  » Where and when does the rain usually fall?

• OPINION

  Water scarcity calls for nationwide change

  News, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 03/10/2015

  » As the threat of prolonged drought becomes imminent, questions mount over whether the country needs new water management in order to better deal with the “new normal” of water scarcity.

• OPINION

  SEZ plans spark fears among communities, activists

  News, Anchalee Kongrut, Published on 19/09/2015

  » As the government kick-starts its plan for Special Economic Zones (SEZs), locals and activists voice their concerns over the process that epitomises the old development paradigm which bypasses community rights and the environment.

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