A lumbering grey shadow can often catch your eye as you drive along one of Bangkok's most polluted and congested streets, Sukhumvit. If this were not Bangkok, you would think you'd had one too many beer Singhas, but in this city of contradictions, anything seems, and often is, possible. And so it is that spotting a huge elephant, dodging the tuk-tuk motorcycle rickshaws, the ubiquitous taxis and blizzard of traffic is nothing out of the ordinary. I remember seeing my ...

Before it began, United Nations officials had described UN Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon's visit to Burma as a diplomatically risky mission that could end in failure. After it ended, following two days in Burma and two rare and lengthy meetings with the reclusive leader of the country's military government, Ban had come away with nothing concrete to show for his venture. His requests to meet imprisoned Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi were rejected. His pleas for ...

In early June, the founders of Thailand's New Politics Party unveiled their logo — usually a routine procedure in a country where new parties seem to come and go with the monsoons. But the yellow-and-green symbol of the NPP has generated controversy not just for its questionable 1970s color scheme but because it resembles a swastika. Asians are rightly miffed that Adolf Hitler hijacked an ancient religious symbol of luck and peace and turned it into the unofficial ...

American actor David Carradine has been found dead in a Bangkok, Thailand, hotel, according to his personal manager, Chuck Binder. Binder said Thursday that the death is being investigated but could provide no other details. Carradine's death was "shocking and sad. He was full of life, always wanting to work ... a great person," Binder said, according to People magazine. Carradine, who became famous in the 1970s when he starred as Kwai Chang Caine in the television ...

Saying cheese has acquired new gastro-cachet. a temperature-controlled cheese room is the latest must-have at fine-dining restaurants around the world. So are cheese sommeliers , who compile multicourse cheese menus, regale diners with tales of bucolic settings and artisanal production methods, and pepper their tableside conversation with terms like hand-stretched and cave-aged. Love cheese? Put these restaurants on your itinerary. 1 Le Bouchon Breton: Located in Spitalfields, London, this brasserie de luxe, www.lebouchon.co.uk/breton/index.php, is already renowned for its impressive Gallic ...

Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi will be joined by her two housemaids and an American man who swam to her house when she confronts two judges in a Myanmar jailhouse courtroom on Monday, one of her lawyers said. The four face trial for an incident in which American John William Yettaw allegedly swam across a lake and stayed for two days in the pro-democracy icon's closely guarded residence, where she is under house arrest. The government has charged the ...

China on Tuesday marked the first anniversary of a devastating earthquake that left nearly 90,000 dead or missing one year ago in mountainous Sichuan province. In the city of Dujiangyan, a moment of silence was held amid the ruins of collapsed buildings and debris. Mourners placed flowers at a memorial to quake rescue efforts, sang the national anthem and a stone carving of a clock that stopped at 2:28, when the temblor hit, with the date underneath. China's President Hu ...

Indians were voting Thursday in the fourth phase of a marathon general election to choose a new federal government. Officials at the meeting are expected to sign a prisoner transfer agreement that would allow Samantha Orobator to serve out a sentence in Britain, if she is convicted at her forthcoming trial, according to an official Laotian source who spoke to CNN. The agreement document has been prepared, the source told CNN. A Foreign Office spokesman in London confirmed that ...

The number of confirmed swine flu cases worldwide rose to 154, with six additional cases reported in Spain, the World Health Organization said Thursday. Until now, the country had four confirmed cases. Of the 10 cases of the H1N1 virus in Spain, nine were found in people who had returned from Mexico. But authorities are troubled about the 10th case which they say is a case of community transmission, spread from one person in the community to another, said ...

The outbreak of swine flu, which appears to have originated in Mexico, has crossed borders and datelines, spooked the travel industry -- and thrown up some unfamiliar and uncertain terminology. Just what is the World Health Organization, based in Geneva, Switzerland How does it differ from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based in Atlanta, Georgia What is the difference between an infectious disease and a contagious disease Or between being held in quarantine and being held in isolation ...