<p>Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have issued statements condemning the double bombing attack outside the Southern Border Provinces Administrative Centre (SBPAC) in Yala on Tuesday (18 March).</p>

<p>The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Thailand rose to 177 over the past three days, while a cabinet resolution ordered all Bangkok Metropolitan Region&nbsp;educational institutions and places of entertainment are to close for 14 days.</p>

<p>On Friday morning (13 March), a group of civil society organizations and members of the public, led by the Committee Campaigning for a People&rsquo;s Constitution (CCPC), iLaw, and the People Go Network Forum, marched to parliament to submit a petition demanding an amendment to the 2017 Constitution.</p>

<p>The big student protests in Thailand have seen the rise of the hashtag &ldquo;boycott 7-eleven on Wednesdays.&rdquo; Twitter users say that Charoen Pokphand (CP), owner of Thai 7-eleven shops,&nbsp;belong to the pro-junta oligarchs and are the perpetrators of many bad things.</p>

<p>Thailand is now rated as &lsquo;partly free&rsquo; in the 2020 <a href="https://freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/2020-02/FIW_2020_REPORT_BOOKLET_Final.pdf">Freedom in the World</a> report, published by Freedom House, after being classified as &lsquo;not free&rsquo; last year, while the report notes that political rights and civil liberties in Asia have declined.</p>

<p>If you paid a visit to a student protest in Thailand in the last two weeks, ชั่ย is the word which you would encounter the most often. But do you know what it means?</p>

<p>A <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/394501579357102381/pdf/Thailand-Economic-Monitor-Productivity-for-Prosperity.pdf">new report from the World Bank</a>, launched yesterday morning (5 March) at the Foreign Correspondents&rsquo; Club of Thailand (FCCT), said that the number of people living in poverty in Thailand has risen in recent years, despite the success in reducing poverty over the last three decades.</p>

<p>The Department of Fine Arts has announced that it will be reducing the area of a designated archaeological site on a mountain in Yala where several prehistoric paintings have been discovered, in order to open up the area for rock mining.</p>

<p>Rasi Salai, Sisaket - A twenty-foot high tower of rice sacks presides over The Wetlands Center in Rasi Salai, serving as a reverent centerpiece assembled by local villagers in honor of their land and labor. For a community bound together by the natural world and, increasingly, the myriad of threats to it, the rice mound is a symbol to be admired.</p>

<p>The wave of student demonstrations which began on 21 February has now been continuing for 10 days as more universities and high schools organize their own rallies amidst fear of COVID-19 and as students in many universities go into their mid-term examination period.</p>

<p>Student demonstrations have broken out in universities across the country since the dissolution of the Future Forward Party last Friday (21 February), as students speak out against the government both online and offline.</p>

<p>At least a thousand Khon Kaen University (KKU) students have gathered to protest against the current government of Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, using the hashtag &quot;#KKUenoughisenough&quot;, with student activists reading statements denouncing the dissolution of the Future Forward Party by the Constitutional Court.</p>