KELANTAN, MALAYSIA — A puppet with flowing hair and a sharp-toothed grin came soaring into view as background singers shrieked, cackled, and whooped. Illya Sumanto spread her arms wide, making the beautiful ghost Pontianak glide across the screen, surfing on a banana. “To play Wayang, you need big movements, but traditionally, women [in Southeast Asia] were expected to be small, moving gracefully,” Sumanto told Hyperallergic.

BANGKOK — The day Chonthicha Jangrew got up to give a public speech in 2021 about Thailand’s politically powerful monarchy, she was prepared to go to prison. “It’s something I already knew would happen,” the 31-year-old elected parliamentarian said in an interview with NPR in May. It was days after she was sentenced to two years in prison for violating Thailand’s draconian lèse-majesté law, which criminalizes criticism of the royal institution.

KAYAH STATE, Myanmar—Just over three years ago, Thar Thakhin woke up a wanted man. A prominent political writer, he had authored poems skewering the Myanmar military and a book lionizing Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

When Angelia Pranthaman walked on stage in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to unveil a new song written by her brother on death row, she told a story about the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. Like Pannir Selvam Pranthaman, Socrates was sentenced to death, but while awaiting his punishment the philosopher began to try to learn the flute.

The United Nations’ human rights office said at least 18 people died and 30 others were wounded in several cities across the country, including Yangon, Dawei, Mandalay and Bago. Deaths, the office said, occurred “as a result of live ammunition fired into crowds.”

Although 1,000 kilometres apart, two massive development projects – one in Myanmar’s Kayin State, the other in Cambodia – bear striking similarities. They both cover thousands of hectares and include plans to build airports, hotels and casinos. Both are located in neglected, undeveloped corners of their respective countries. Both have been accused of having links to online gambling and other illegal activities, and both have been mistaken for state-owned enterprises.

He looks out from the picture, a slight man in a loose shirt, a pen in his pocket, the jungle stretching behind him. The photograph was taken after murders he was accused of committing when the Khmer Rouge swept through this nation decades ago in a reign of fevered killing and mass graves. No one knows whether the man, Ao An, a former Buddhist monk now in his 80s, will ever face a reckoning on charges that he oversaw the genocide of the Cham ethnic minority during the 1970s.

The government of Laos has officially informed the intergovernmental Mekong River Commission (MRC) of its plan to build a new dam in Luang Prabang, despite warnings about the project's environmental effects.

Bangkok, Thailand - Minutes after Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, the leader of the Future Forward Party (FFP), was sworn in on Saturday, he was ordered out following a court decision blocking him from taking his seat in Thailand's newly formed parliament.

When Va Savorn was around 10 years old, he stepped outside of his home and watched three planes swoop low over the flatlands of Svay Rieng province, leaving behind a trail of white dust.