Long weekend long reads

Concern about the treatment of animals in Thailand has deepened during the pandemic. If more tourists was bad for animals, it seems that fewer could be even worse: The collapse of tourism, now entering its third year, has plunged many elephant camps and owners into crisis. For many of the elephants, which obviously have no say in the matter, their reality has gone from being ridden and overworked to the possibility of sickness and starvation.

“The monks in Buddhism are very powerful,” Vothnak says. “If I return back as an educated monk, they worry we will teach about history or politics. If I return back after having left the monkhood, they do not worry much—but they will not let us live well. Maybe they will only let us work in factories.”

Other entries note his refusal to cooperate: ‘Tomorrow there is a meeting. Everyone, old or young, will be taken to work in the rice fields … I am among them, but I refused to go and am even willing to die right here.’ It was a risky strategy to employ, as Angkar did not broker dissent, killing people for such acts of resistance. The acts Na Tao Ky describes are in direct conflict with the regime, as one Khmer Rouge saying warns: ‘If you dare say anything, comrade, you must take full responsibility for your own words.’

"I agree that the economy has been too centralized in Java and Jakarta," Baswedan said, but argued that the reason for the economic bias toward Jakarta was because Indonesia had "not given equal opportunities" across the country for developing both hard and soft infrastructure. While Widodo has built hard infrastructure like roads and bridges across the archipelago in his almost eight years as leader, observers have argued that not enough progress has been made on education and developing human capital.

Described by farmers as a “sea of rats,” the vermin chew through at least 20 percent of the country’s annual rice harvest, placing added stress on household finances and food security in what is already one of Southeast Asia’s poorest nations. According to the United Nations World Food Programme, one in five Laotians were already experiencing food insecurity even before the COVID-19 pandemic, while one in three children is chronically malnourished.

“Monks committing crimes is often reported in Thai media outlets, but it isn’t a recent social trend,” Katewadee Kulabkaew, a Thai Buddhism politics scholar and former visiting fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, told VICE World News. “This problem has chronically plagued Thai Sangha [the Buddhist monastic order] for decades.” 

By the time Anna arrived in Germany, the journey was taking its toll on her. She posted pictures to her Facebook of her sipping bubble tea outside Berlin cathedral but other posts betrayed her fears.

“I’m in such a difficult situation,” she wrote. “I don’t want mum to worry about me, I wander about here in a mess I created, helpless every day.”

Prophetically, she ended the post: “I’m about to suffocate in this atmosphere.”

I felt that I wouldn’t have a clean conscience when explaining to the future generation about this revolution if I didn’t take part in it.

When I left home that day in late February, my two aunts in their 60's and my children prayed for me to return home safely. But they didn’t stop me from going, they accepted that it was my job and I had to do it. They didn’t say it, but I knew they had considered and accepted the worst possible scenario.

As we drove through side streets to avoid the blockades, elderly people came out of their houses and stopped our cars to tell us they had been praying for our safety.  I tried not to cry in public, but I couldn’t stop myself.

“GoTo is Indonesia’s face,” Vendy Sutedjo, former equity analyst at BNI Asset Management, told Rest of World. “It has to be successful.”