506 workers at Canadoil Asia Thai plant are picketing outside the factory gate since the company refused to have dialogue with the union and the workers decided to take strike action from 22 January. 

We write to you to raise our serious concern about the plight of the Rohingyas, a Muslim minority from Rakhine State, western Myanmar. Thousands of Rohingyas have fled in recent months on boats sailing for Thailand and Malaysia, and hundreds are missing, feared drowned. Their situation has reached a critical stage over the last two months, as the Thai military have forcibly expelled approximately 1,000 Rohingyas arriving in southwest Thailand by boat, while the Indian and Indonesian authorities have rescued hundreds of them.

The Thai Senate announced on January 23 that it formed a committee that will monitor violations of lèse majesté and other related laws that protect the kingdom's monarchy, media reports said.

Reporters Without Borders condemns the three-year prison sentence which Australian writer Harry Nicolaides received today from the Bangkok criminal court on a charge of lese majeste under article 112 of the criminal code for briefly alluding in a novel to the way King Bhumipol's son treated one of his mistresses. Nicolaides pleaded guilty and asked the court to show clemency.

The months ahead will hold much peril and uncertainty for members of the press in Southeast Asia. The years 2009 and 2010 will be highly charged, for starters, anticipating national election seasons for most countries in the region. Even without the chaos and violence attendant to electoral exercises in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Thailand, and Burma, the unpredictability of the contests and the inevitability of uncertainty will give the region's journalists not only compelling stories and issues to follow, but also dangerous times and situations to navigate.