Oscar-nominated Australian filmmaker refused entry to India

Australian documentary filmmaker David Bradbury was detained at an airport in India while travelling with his children earlier this month and refused entry to the country.

The director says he was stopped and questioned about a documentary he made in India more than a decade ago, before eventually being deported.

Mr Bradbury, 73, landed at the Chennai airport in southern Tamil Nadu state on 10 September with his children Nakeita and Omar. The family intended to take a two-week trip across India, with plans to visit five tourist destinations.

“I wanted to show my son Omar how Hindus deal with death and say farewell to their loved ones in the next life,” the filmmaker told The Wire.

Mr Bradbury’s wife, Treena Lenthall, an activist and filmmaker, died of cancer five months ago.

Mr Bradbury started working as a radio journalist for ABC in 1972 and went on to make several acclaimed documentary films. He has been twice nominated for an Oscar—in 1987 for his film on Pinochet’s Chile, Chile Hasta Quando? and in 1981 for Front Line, a profile of Tasmanian-born combat cameraman Neil Davis.

Speaking to The News Minute, Mr Bradbury described being pulled aside at the Chennai airport, being held in a room with “a single bed, mattress, no sheets, or blanket”, and being refused when he asked to contact the Australian embassy.

Naketia, 21, and Omar, 14, were allowed through.

Describing the room, he said there was “rubbish on the floor and a metal grill on the door, which had a view out to a wall beyond. I was allowed to go to the toilet up the corridor, but there was one time when, despite my calling out, they didn’t come back to let me out. So I was obliged to relieve my bladder into a paper cup I found on the floor,” he said.

He was denied access to his medication and warmer clothes, he added, and his request to contact the embassy was ignored.

Mr Bradbury said the interrogators asked him to unlock his phone and provide details of his contacts in India, but he refused.

The Independent has contacted Mr Bradbury as well as India’s home ministry for comment.

Mr Bradbury said that he was asked about the purpose of his current visit and to explain his first visit to the country in 2012.

That 2012 visit is the reason Mr Bradbury believes he was stopped and questioned.

The filmmaker was a member of the jury for the Mumbai International Film Festival in 2012. After his obligations at the festival ended, Mr Bradbury travelled to Idinthakarai, a coastal village in Tamil Nadu, with Lenthall and then three-year-old Omar.

The village is near the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant, and Mr Bradbury stayed for over two weeks to document ongoing protests against the project. The protests centred around concerns of local villagers over the long-term impacts of the plant, especially in light of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan.

Detailing what he had seen and faced, Mr Bradbury wrote in 2013: “I watched as Leon the fisherman rubbed ‘440 days’ off the whiteboard and added a ‘1’ to it. For 441 days the people of Idinthakarai have resisted the dictates of the Centre Government 3000km away in New Delhi to incorporate their village into the grand scheme of things.”

“In the last raid, the police lathi charged (with bamboo sticks) peaceful protestors and beat everyone in their path who could not flee fast enough: children, the crippled, women, old men and women. One fisherman was shot dead.”

“I’ve just been informed 30 people including the woman who helped me get to Idinthakarai have been arrested and detained by Tamil Nadu police…They are ordinary people like you and me. The police couldn’t get away with putting me in gaol, but they can do this to their own people.”

Questions about this trip at the airport have led Mr Bradbury to conclude that his detention and subsequent deportation were related to his role in documenting the protests.

“I told them I was just doing my job, like they are now interrogating me. It was important for me to see the people of Idinthakarai learn why they were so determined in their struggle against the Union government in Delhi and the state government in Chennai that six nuclear power plants were being built. I told the interrogating officers that if India was truly a democracy, it should value the rights of the media to have access to marginalised people and tell their side of the story,” Mr Bradbury said.

“I told the two officers that I agreed with the people of Idinthakarai that it was ‘madness’ to build one, let alone six nuclear reactors, on a major earthquake faultline that had swept one thousand locals to their deaths in the tsunami of 2004.”

After Mr Bradbury was detained, his children decided to continue on their trip.

They said Indian police allowed them to speak to Mr Bradbury only across a barricade and tried to convince them to ask their father to return to Bangkok, where the three had come from.

“They kept asking us to convince our father to return to Bangkok. We just refused,” they said.

Mr Bradbury was deported to Thailand and planned to join his children in Milan, which was where they were meant to go after their trip in India. His children reportedly left India on 26 September.

Teenage girl dies after collapsing during flight from Iraq to China

An Iraqi Airways flight from Baghdad to Guangzhou in China made an emergency landing at Kolkata airport in India due to a medical emergency involving a 16-year-old girl who suddenly fell ill.

Despite getting immediate medical attention after the plane landed, the Iraqi girl was declared dead on arrival at a local hospital.

The flight, carrying 100 passengers and 15 crew members, landed at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose airport at around 10.18pm on Wednesday.

The teenager had reportedly taken ill on the aircraft about half an hour earlier.

According to an Airports Authority of India spokesperson, a medical team was rushed to see the passenger. “The girl had no pulse or heartbeat when the plane landed in Kolkata,” the agency said in a statement. “The attending doctor referred her to the nearest hospital for further evaluation.”

“At about 1.18am, the passenger along with two of her immediate family members were offloaded and due formalities completed.”

It was unclear who the family members were.

The girl’s body would be handed over to her family with assistance from the Iraqi embassy in Delhi.

The Independent has reached out to the Iraqi embassy for comment.

Dr Pooja Adhikary, who was with the medical team that attended the teenager, reported a case of unnatural death at the Baguiati police station, according to The Indian Express.

The Baguiati police launched an investigation based on the doctor’s report, NDTV reported, and collected the girl’s body from the Charnock Hospital for a postmortem examination.

The flight took off for China with the remaining passengers at 1.49am on Thursday.

The Independent has contacted Iraqi Airways for comment.

Fears for US citizen held by Taliban amid reports of al-Qaeda handover

The family of one of three Americans held prisoner by the Taliban in Afghanistan is urging Washington to confirm his whereabouts amid online rumours of his impending execution.

Afghan-born US citizen Mahmood Shah Habibi, 37, was working with an American telecommunications company when he was arrested by the Taliban in August 2022 after a drone strike killed al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Taliban likely assumed Mr Habibi’s employer was involved in the strike, but did not charge him.

Sarah Adams, a former American spy employed by the CIA, recently claimed without providing evidence that Mr Habibi had been transferred by the Taliban to al-Qaeda and would likely be executed soon.

His family say they have received no such information from Kabul or the US State Department.

“I don’t agree with reports that the Taliban have handed over my brother to al-Qaeda. As per my information, the Taliban have him. They took him in August 2022 and they still have him. The US government should verify such reports and confirm if the Taliban has handed over my brother to al-Qaeda,” Mr Habibi’s brother Ahmad Shah Habibi told The Independent.

“In the history of the Taliban’s rule, we have not seen any case where they have handed over a detainee to any other group. We have not received any official information from the US government or from the Taliban. I am hoping it is just a rumour.”

The FBI last month issued a notice seeking information about Mr Habibi’s disappearance in Afghanistan. “It is believed that Mr Habibi was taken by Taliban military or security forces and has not been heard from since his disappearance,” it said.

Mr Habibi urged the US government to redouble efforts to free his brother, noting that the Taliban had indicated a willingness to exchange the American prisoners.

The Taliban claim they only hold two Americans, Ryan Corbett and George Glezmann, allegedly for violating the country’s laws. They are keeping them, Taliban spokesperson Zabiuhllah Mujahid indicated earlier this year, to exchange for Afghans imprisoned by the US in Guantanamo Bay.

The Taliban denies having Mr Habibi in custody.

“I think the Taliban want three people. One is in Guantanamo Bay and two in the US. I don’t know who they are asking for in the US, but the American government has to put in more effort in getting my brother released,” Mr Habibi said.

He said the family has had no communication with Mr Habibi since he vanished in Afghanistan. “I don’t know the reason why they are not acknowledging my brother when they actually detained him on 10 August 2022.”

Mr Habibi served as director of civil aviation and deputy minister of civil aviation in the Nato-backed Afghan government that was overthrown by the Taliban in 2021.

“There is a possibility that he was arrested because he worked for the previous regime and also with the US embassy in Afghanistan between 2011 to 2013. We think his work for the US government and his American citizenship put him in trouble,” his brother told The Independent.

Mr Habibi’s detention was flagged in March by the US Congress in a resolution seeking his release.

His brother denied that Mr Habibi was in any way involved in the American strike that killed Mr Zawahiri. “My brother had nothing to do with that,” he said. “When the strike happened, my brother was not even on Afghan soil.”

Mr Habibi said some workers of his brother’s company told them they had been interrogated by the Taliban about two towers near the location of the drone strike.

“My brother worked with a telecommunication company with towers all over Afghanistan, around 600 in total. There were cameras installed on the towers for their security and not for civilians. My brother didn’t decide where to install the towers or the cameras. He was just one of the 1,200 employees, working as an adviser.”

Pakistan says police murdered doctor over blasphemy claims

Police in Pakistan shot dead a doctor after taking him into protective custody over allegations of blasphemy, the government said.

A provincial minister said police orchestrated the killing of doctor Shah Nawaz in Sindh and then lied about the circumstances of his death, claiming he was killed in a shootout between police and armed men.

The statement marks the first time the government has accused security forces of what the doctor’s family and rights groups have said amounted to extrajudicial killing carried out by police.

The doctor had given himself up to police last week in the district of Mirpur Khas, following assurances that he would be given a chance to prove his innocence.

Days earlier in the city of Umerkot, a mob claimed he insulted Islam’s Prophet Muhammad and shared blasphemous content on social media, and demanded his arrest. The mob also burned Nawaz’s clinic.

According to the provincial interior minister, Ziaul Hassan, a government probe concluded that Nawaz was killed shortly after he gave himself up to authorities in what was a staged “fake encounter” engineered by the security forces.

There was no shootout with armed men as police had claimed, Hassan told reporters at a news conference in the southern port city of Karachi, and added that Nawaz’s family will be able to file murder charges against police officers who killed him.

Hours after Nawaz was fatally shot and his body handed over to his family, a mob snatched it from Nawaz’s father and burned it.

Hassan’s statement backed up Nawaz’s family allegations earlier this week.

Accusations of blasphemy — sometimes even just rumors — can spark riots and mob rampages in Pakistan. Although killings of blasphemy suspects by mobs are common, extra-judicial killings by police are rare.

Under Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy laws, anyone found guilty of insulting Islam or Islamic religious figures can be sentenced to death — though authorities have yet to carry out a death sentence for blasphemy.

Nawaz’s father thanked the government for backing the family and demanded that his son’s killers face justice under the eye-for-an-eye concept under Sharia, or Islamic law.

“We have only one demand: those police officers who staged the killing of my son … must also be killed in the same manner,” said Nawaz’s father, Mohammad Saleh.

Saleh told The Associated Press over the phone that he was grateful for all the support that the family was given and to all those who condemned extremist clerics who had enraged the mob with calls for his son to be killed.

“Those who killed my son should be punished quickly so that others learn a lesson and not indulge in extra-judicial killings in the future,” said Nawaz’s mother, Rehmat Kunbar.

She added that her son can no longer come back to her but that she wants to save the children of other parents from the hands of the extremists.

Nawaz’s killing was the second case of an extra-judicial killing by police this month in Pakistan.

A week before, an officer opened fire inside a police station in the southwestern city of Quetta, fatally wounding Syed Khan, a suspect held on accusations of blasphemy.

Khan was arrested after officers rescued him from an enraged mob that claimed he had insulted Islam’s prophet. But he was killed by a police officer, Mohammad Khurram, who was quickly arrested. However, the tribe and the family of the slain man later said they had pardoned the officer.

Japanese man acquitted after 46 years on death row for four murders

A court in Japan has acquitted an 88-year-old man after he spent nearly 46 years on death row for a quadruple murder.

Iwao Hakamada, then a professional boxer, was accused in 1966 of killing four people, including two children, and burning down their house.

He is the longest-serving death row prisoner in the world, after being sentenced to death in 1969.

His execution was repeatedly delayed by lengthy appeals and several retrials, which eventually led to his acquittal on Thursday.

Mr Hakamada’s acquittal by the Shizuoka district court makes him the fifth death-row convict to be found not guilty in a retrial in post-war Japan.

Presiding judge Koshi Kunii said that the court acknowledged there had been multiple fabrications of evidence and that Mr Hakamada was not the culprit, broadcaster NHK reported.

He had allegedly admitted to the killings during the initial proceedings in the 1960s, but then retracted his confession, which he said was made in the course of a brutal police interrogation.

His retracted confession was at the centre of a series of trials, with his death sentence ultimately upheld by Japan’s supreme court in 1980.

Mr Hakamada’s second appeal for a retrial was filed in 2008 by his sister Hideko Hakamada, now 91, and the court finally ruled in his favour in 2023, paving the way for the latest retrial, which began in October.

“For so long, we have fought a battle that has felt endless,” Ms Hakamada told reporters ahead of the verdict. “But this time, I believe it will be settled.”

Mr Hakamada was represented by his sister during the retrial, because of her younger brother’s failing physical and mental health.

There has been no immediate announcement of whether prosecutors will appeal against the verdict.

His lawyers urged the prosecutors not to challenge the ruling, Kyodo News reported.

Mr Hakamada was released from prison in 2014 when a court ordered a retrial based on new evidence suggesting that his conviction may have been based on fabricated accusations.

“After enduring almost half a century of wrongful imprisonment and a further 10 years waiting for his retrial, this verdict is an important recognition of the profound injustice [Mr Hakamada] endured for most of his life,” Amnesty International said in a statement.

“We strongly urge Japan to abolish the death penalty to prevent this from happening again.”

Sydney Harbour water turns bright green due to ‘bucket-full’ of dye

Water in the Sydney Harbour in New South Wales, Australia, turned a bright green colour due to the spillage of a non-toxic fluorescent dye, authorities said.

Residents near the Careening Cove at Milson Park, Kirribilli, where one of the official homes of prime minister Anthony Albanese is located, were shocked to see the water turn green on Wednesday afternoon.

Locals reported a “large spill of fluorescent green material” to the authorities at about 3pm (local time), prompting the Fire and Rescue NSW to investigate the sudden colour change of the water.

Later, tests conducted by authorities found the substance to be a non-toxic and odorless chemical used by plumbers to dye water to find leaks.

“We can’t say for sure but that’s what we think it is,” superintendent Adam Dewberry said, reffering to a chemical called fluorescein. “It’s a common product that does get used to dye water and it’s very effective,” he told reporters.

The dye had come out of a storm drain in Kirribilli but the exact area where it entered the harbour remains a mystery as there were several access points to the stormwater systems.

“The main thing is we’ve identified it’s non-toxic,” Mr Dewberry said, adding there have been no reports of marine damage or fish deaths. “… there’s no staining on any of the boats that are in the bay there, or around the wharves or the shoreline,” he added.

A local described the water as resembling “green cordial” and the “radioactive stuff you see in superhero movies”, 9News reported.

Authorities flushed the drainage system which was clear of the green water by 6.40pm (local time).

Locals had also spotted a green colour in a stormwater drain at Anderson Park before the hue was spotted at a bigger part of the bay, according to reports.

The chemical which turned part of the bay green is used as a flow tracer to determine leaks, said Stuart Khan, a water expert and a professor of environmental engineering at the University of Sydney. “That’s its normal use. Clearly in this case it’s been misused … It’s a massive amount. It’s probably a whole bucket full of fluorescein dye,” he told The Guardian.

Sydney is forecast to receive about 10mm of rain next week, which authorities hope would dissipate the discolouration.

Couple with quintuplets gets nearly £100k in childbirth grants

A couple in South Korea have received 170m won (£95,757) in childbirth grants after giving birth to quintuplets in heartening news for a country grappling with the world’s lowest fertility rate.

The couple, Kim Joon-yeong and Sagong Hye-ran from Gyeonggi province, became parents to the quintuplets on 20 September, welcoming three boys and two girls.

It was the country’s first natural quintuplet birth, according to the Straits Times.

The previous quintuplet births were recorded in 1987 and 2021 where medical fertilisation was used.

Mr Kim, 31, said the couple used to call their unborn children the “PangPang Rangers”, a nickname borrowed from the children’s television show Power Rangers, according to Korea Joongang Daily.

The rare birth of the five children in the country drew congratulatory remarks from South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol who called them the “power rangers” and congratulated both parents and the medical staff. He also sent gifts to the couple, which included infant clothes in five colours – red, orange, yellow, green and blue – and naturally grown seaweed, a food that promotes postpartum recovery, the newspaper said.

The babies were born at the St Mary’s Hospital last Friday through a caesarean section delivery.

The East Asian country is battling a rapidly falling birth rate and has programmes to encourage people to have more children. The fertility rate declined to a historic low of 0.78 in 2022, the lowest globally and well below the replacement rate.

President Yeol has called the plummeting birth rate a “national emergency” and announced the creation of a “Ministry of Low Birth Rate Counterplanning”.

The city of Dongducheon, where the family lives, will provide 15m won in cash vouchers, redeemable at any store with annual sales of less than 1bn won. These vouchers are part of the city’s childbirth promotion package, which offers 1m won for the first child, 1.5m won for the second, 2.5m won for the third, and 5m won for the fourth and beyond.

The parents will also receive 3.5m won in postnatal care support.

Additionally, they will get a one-time payment of 14m won, called the “first meeting voucher”, along with monthly parental allowance payments totaling 85m won and a children’s allowance of 47.5m won, both spread over time.

South Korea’s demographic crisis is blamed on a number of factors, but frustration with the rising cost of living and declining quality of life is considered to be the primary reason.

How Thailand’s elephant camps are looking to a cruelty-free future

“This herb is excellent at clearing up haemorrhoids,” explains Atichart Chatpisitchaikul, or “Tong”, my guide at the ChangChill elephant camp in the hill country outside of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand.

My fellow trekkers and I glance down at the mountainous pile of poop at our feet and wrinkle our noses in unison before Tong pushes on up the hill and we follow behind, bamboo trekking poles helping to speed our ascent to the top of the slippery slope.

Eating around 10 per cent of their body weight in food every day, it’s no surprise that a four-ton elephant processing 400kg of bamboo, sugar cane, leaves and bananas may need a little anorectal assistance now and then.

Here at ChangChill, the camp’s four resident elephants are visited fortnightly by a vet, with 24/7 interim care provided by their own PA: a local mahout, or elephant buddy, who keeps them content and leaves the visiting guests safe. The name ChangChill is an appropriate one: in Thai, ‘chang’ means elephant and ‘chill’ means relaxed.

Read more: Thailand travel guide – Everything you need to know before you go

ChangChill is one of three elephant camps I experience on a two-week journey through Thailand with the Experience Travel Group, which offers immersive adventures across Asia. It’s also one of a new breed of ethical camps working to tempt travellers away from the exploitative elephant shows and elephant riding experiences which still operate in Thailand. In the eight-acre forest at ChangChill, there’s no riding, no touching, and the sharp bull hooks traditionally used by mahouts to exert control over their animals are nowhere in sight. Instead, we trek into the forest to watch elephants foraging from 10–15 metres away, chop sugar cane which they eat while we watch from an observation deck, and make energy balls of banana, tamarind, rice husks and the all-important medicinal herbs, which are fed to them by their mahouts, rather than us.

“The elephants roam free around the property: they live well and eat well,” says the camp’s chief mahout, Chira Pongpathapee. “When I was young, I always saw elephants working hard logging or carrying tourists, but now they live in a different world. Here, they are happy.”

Like the majority of the 2,798 captive elephants kept in the country’s 246 tourism camps, the four mid-life female elephants at ChangChill – Mae Korn, Mae Too, Mae Mayura and Mae Gohgae (’mae’ means mother in Thai) – started their lives hauling heavy trees in the forests of Thailand. When the government banned the use of elephants for logging in natural forests in 1989, thousands of animals were suddenly jobless and their desperate owners – largely members of the Karen indigenous communities, who live in the hills to the north of the country – had to find new ways to pay for their elephants’ keep, with most of them transitioning into tourism.

“Tourists pay to visit commercialised elephant camps, which are designed as entertainment attractions,” explains Hatai Limprayoonyong, Wildlife Campaign Manager at World Animal Protection Thailand, a leading welfare organisation working to end animal exploitation. “Here, they can pet, feed, take photographs, ride and wash elephants, or watch them perform in circus-like shows. Unfortunately, almost all of these elephants experience cruelty and poor welfare conditions at these venues.”

Read more: The best time to visit Thailand to avoid crowds

Hailing from a family that has worked with and cared for elephants for generations, ChangChill owner, Supakorn Tananseth, allowed visitors to ride and bathe the elephants in his care until World Animal Protection started working with the camp in 2017, guiding its transformation into an operation which puts the elephants’ needs first.

“The initiative stemmed from the Elephant Friendly Conference, where elephant camp owners were invited to explore transitioning their traditional tourism business, which often exploited elephants for entertainment, into more humane, welfare-centred models,” says Hatai.

In partnership with World Animal Protection, Supakorn expanded and redesigned his camp to accommodate elephants’ natural behaviours, creating separate areas for tourists and elephants to ensure the safety of both and avoid any direct contact. The mahouts also received support, including improved living conditions and training on how to manage elephants ethically. ChangChill became the first elephant-friendly venue in northern Thailand, meeting the criteria set by World Animal Protection’s Elephant Friendly standards, and offering observation-only experiences.

“By 2023, ChangChill’s business was thriving, demonstrating financial viability, and they’re now working on a project to open their second location. This serves as an example of an elephant-friendly business model that not only improves elephant welfare, but also ensures the sustainability of the business and livelihoods of the local people involved,” says Hatai.

Read more: The best beaches in Thailand

While efforts have been made by the Thai government to address the welfare of captive elephants, such as introducing Guidelines for Elephant Welfare Management in 2020 and guidance on Good Practices for Elephant Facilities in 2021, as yet there are no plans to ban the remaining circus shows or elephant riding that keep so many elephants trapped in a cycle of abuse.

World Animal Protection is now advocating for an Elephant Protection Bill to prohibit breeding elephants for commercial purposes, using cruel training methods and forcing elephants to perform unnatural behaviours.

“Thailand’s captive elephants have never had the chance to live free in nature,” says Tong, as we leave the feeding observation deck at ChangChill and the elephants wind their way back into the forest. “Our mission here is to give them happy lives, where they can do what they want to do, free from work and stress.”

Until the circus shows are legally shut down, it’s the important choices of travellers that can break the chains and ensure a kinder future for Thailand’s captive elephants: luckily for us, we have the freedom to choose.

See elephants ethically in Thailand with Asia specialist Experience Travel Group. A two-week tailor-made trip, including two nights at Anantara Golden Triangle Elephant Camp, three nights at Tamarind Village and three nights at Mahouts Elephant Foundation starts at £4,950 per person. Price is based on two people travelling and includes B&B accommodation, transport, activities and international flights.

“Tourism can have positive benefits for elephants in Thailand,” says Sam Clark, co-founder and managing director at Experience Travel Group. “Without tourism, as we saw during the Covid-19 pandemic, elephants can suffer badly without the tourist revenues to support them and their upkeep. In recent years, demand from tourists for high-quality and ethical practices has driven an improvement in conditions at a majority of camps in Thailand. Doing your research on the camp, booking with a reputable tour operator and asking questions will help this process to continue.”

Mahouts Elephant Foundation works in partnership with Karen indigenous communities to develop community-based tourism models for observation-only elephant encounters. The projects are in vast areas of forest, enabling elephants to live naturally, while tourists observe from a safe and respectful distance. The foundation is currently fundraising to save six more elephants from entering the tourist industry.

Established by elephant advocate Lek Chaillert in 2003, Elephant Nature Park in Northern Thailand now looks after more than 100 elephants, rescued from abuse in the tourism and entertainment industries. Lek’s Save Elephant Foundation educates elephant owners and raises awareness of the plight of captive and wild elephants in Thailand and throughout Asia.

Inspired by Lek Chaillert’s work, Wittaya Sala-Ngam founded Samui Elephant Sanctuary in 2018 and now has two venues on the island of Koh Samui in Bophut and Chaweng Noi. Recognised by World Animal Protection as a Best Practice Elephant Venue, visitors can feed, walk with and observe the elephants as they forage, socialise and play.

Elephants rescued from the logging and tourism industries have found greater freedom and room to roam at Following Giants’ two “no-touch” sanctuaries in southern Thailand. Supported by World Animal Protection, Charae “Ray” Sangkaow was able to open his first ethical elephant sanctuary on the island of Koh Lanta, with a second venue opening in Krabi this year.

Read more about ethical elephant tourism in Thailand with these guides from World Animal Protection and Experience Travel Group. Discover more about Thailand at Tourism Authority of Thailand

Find out more about ethical and sustainable travel options, and other ways to support local communities and protect the environment during your stay at Responsible Thailand