Stephff's world

Coworking at the FCCT

Tuesday, 1 July, 10am

Need a change of scenery from your home office? Join us for a coworking day at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) -- a perfect space for working professionals, digital nomads and anyone looking to break free from the home-office routine.

Enjoy a spacious, comfortable workspace with dedicated tables, a full restaurant, café and bar and exclusive lunch specials just for this event.

Whether you're tackling deadlines or networking with like-minded professionals, this is an opportunity to be productive in a collaborative, social environment. Come work, connect, and enjoy great food because working remotely doesn’t have to mean working alone.

Hosted by Nick Bernhardt, FCCT treasurer and managing director of Khayan Consultants.

Free and open to all.

Board games night

Tuesday, 1 July, 7pm

Join us for a chilled night of board games with The Boring Club. Try your luck with classics like chess and backgammon or modern games including Catan and Pandemic.The bar and restaurant will be open. Try our pizzas from the new pizza oven. The Boring Club meets at the FCCT clubhouse for games every Tuesday at 7pm.

Free and open to all.

7.7 MMERQK: Through the cracks -- life after the Myanmar earthquake

Photo exhibition,
Friday, 4 July, 6.30pm

The exhibition will showcase photos of the disaster’s impact, presenting powerful visual documentation of the significant damage in earthquake-affected areas near Mandalay and Sagaing, as well as surrounding towns and rural areas in central Myanmar. The photos were taken by a group of concerned Burmese citizen photographers, organized by Platform 36, who have been mobilizing funds and support for grassroots organizations operating in the earthquake area to provide assistance directly to affected people and communities. During the exhibition opening, there will be opportunities to provide support for those efforts.A panel discussion will also be organized as part of the exhibition opening so that those attending can ask questions about the photographs and the current situation about what’s happening in Myanmar.  

The panel will include:

Khin Ohmar, chairperson, Progressive Voice.

Nang Nyi, project coordinator, Platform 36.

"Stan", management team member,  Myanmar Emergency Response Coordination Unit (MERCU).

Other panelists to be announced

Moderator: Panu Wongcha-um, president, FCCT.

The 7.7 magnitude earthquake that hit the central region of Myanmar on March 28, 2025, was the most devastating to hit the country in more than a century, devastating entire communities, killing and injuring thousands, and leaving hundreds of thousands homeless. While the world’s media quickly responded, drawing international attention and donations, Myanmar’s military State Administration Council (SAC) regime continually sought to restrict outsiders’ access to afflicted areas and control any incoming international assistance.

Over the past several months, the SAC has shown it is part of the problem rather than part of the solution by steering the disaster response away from those most in need. Moreover, despite announced ceasefires by both the SAC as well as ethnic armed organizations and People’s Defense Forces (PDFs) opposed to the military regime, fighting has continued and the SAC has launched airstrikes against civilian targets, including in earthquake affected areas.

Urgent action is needed to provide relief to affected communities in the earthquake zone who cannot return to their damaged homes, have no livelihoods, and face Myanmar’s torrential monsoon season living in tents. Relief is needed for immediate needs as well as for long-term recovery efforts. All funds raised via the exhibition will be used toward medical supplies and healthcare services via trusted local and civil society organizations working on the ground. For those interested, the photos as well as postcards and booklets will be on offer for donations.Platform 36 is a collective of photographers, artists, technologists and creative activists working at the intersection of art, community and social change. United by a shared belief in the power of storytelling, Platform 36 has long engaged in grassroots media projects across Southeast Asia. Ye Aung Thu, a Burmese photojournalist and World Press Photo Award winner whose work has shed light on life in Myanmar and the broader region, leads Platform 36. With deep ties to communities across Myanmar and Thailand, Platform 36 focuses on truth-telling, building resilience and providing inclusive support for those most affected by crisis and conflict.The exhibition opening is free and open to the public.The exhibit, which is organized by Platform 36, will be at the FCCT from July 4 to 31, 2025.Free and open to all.Bar and restaurant open.

Internal reform, external strain: Bangladesh’s transition and the future of the Rohingya crisis

Lunchtime discussion,
Monday, 7 July, 12pm

Following the student uprising that toppled Sheikh Hasina’s regime last year, Bangladesh’s interim government is implementing an ambitious reform agenda ahead of elections expected between December 2025 and June 2026. One of its top foreign policy challenges is the Rohingya refugee crisis, which has grown more complex with the rise of the Arakan Army and its consolidation of control over the Bangladesh-Myanmar border and much of Rakhine state in Myanmar.

This lunchtime discussion brings together International Crisis Group expert on Bangladesh, Thomas Kean, Bangladeshi journalist and researcher Tanbirul Miraj Ripon, founder and executive of the Women’s Peace Network, Wai Wai Nu, and independent journalist Verena Hölzl to discuss Bangladesh’s delicate political transition as well as mounting challenges to the Rohingya humanitarian response, including deepening funding cuts and an insurgency emerging from the refugee camps that is actively targeting the Arakan Army in Myanmar’s Rakhine state.

Speakers include:

Thomas Kean, senior consultant on Myanmar & Bangladesh, International Crisis Group.

Wai Wai Nu, founder and executive of the Women’s Peace Network.

Tanbirul Miraj Ripon, freelance journalist from Bangladesh.

Moderator: Verena Hölzl, independent journalist based in Bangkok.

Members who wish to book in advance should email info@fccthai.com or call the FCCT office on 02-652-0580.

Non-members can use this link.Members free, non-members 200 baht.Bar and restaurant open.

Future democratic Myanmar and human rights: Report on Myanmar from Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights

Report launch and panel discussion
Monday, 7 July, 5.30pm

Canada’s International Development Research Centre and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights would like to invite you to the report launch and panel discussion on human rights in Myanmar.The report will be first presented to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on June 27, 2025 and then in Bangkok on July 7. It highlights the crisis in Myanmar and global responsibilities to support the country’s democratic aspirations.Panellists will explore key recommendations from the report and ASEAN’s role in solving the Myanmar crisis.Speakers:James Rodehaver has headed the Myanmar team of the office of the high commissioner for human rights based in the South East Asia region office in Bangkok since January 2020. A lawyer by profession, James has over 25 years of experience working on complex human rights issues in conflict and post-conflict situations. Miemie Winn Byrd is a senior adjunct fellow at the East-West Center, specializing in security dynamics in Myanmar and Southeast Asia, with a focus on civil-military relations and the intersection of economics, education, and security. Toby Mendel is the executive director of the Centre for Law & Democracy (CLD) in Canada and past senior director for law at ARTICLE 19, a human rights NGO. He has provided expertise to a wide range of actors including the World Bank, UN and other intergovernmental bodies, and numerous governments and NGOs globally. Thinzar Shunlei Yi is the director of #Sisters2Sisters, an NGO focused on anti-wartime sexual violence. She is a Burmese pro-democracy activist and former television journalist and host. She has received the Magnitsky Human Rights Award, and further honors from Women of the Future, the Obama Foundation, and the US Department of State.Edgard Rodriguez will be the moderator. He is an expert on capacity building for policy research. He has worked with universities, think tanks and networks at IDRC promoting better training and mentoring of emerging thought leaders in social and economic policies in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Vietnam. To attend, please book your space before 2 July. Places are limited and reservations will be on a first come basis. A light buffet dinner will be provided. Please follow this link to book your space: https://k4dm.ca/2025/06/18/future-democratic-myanmar-and-human-rights/ or Myanmar@idrc.ca.This is not an FCCT-organized event.Free and open to all.

Vampire state -- The rise and fall of the Chinese economy

Book talk with Ian Williams,
Wednesday, 9 July, 7pm

Ian Williams has attracted a lot of attention with his critical commentaries on China in publications such as The Spectator in London and a lengthening list of books. His latest, ‘Vampire state – The rise and fall of the Chinese economy’ was published last year and described as a “hard-hitting exposé” by Nigel Inkster, a former MI6 director of operations and intelligence in London.“Williams demonstrates how the Chinese Communist Party’s obsession with exercising uncontested power has led to pervasive corruption and unintended consequences for China’s own population and the world at large,” Inkster observed.Ian bills his latest work as “the terrifying story of China’s vampire economy”.“There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy,” he writes. “However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world’s most populous nation – nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom.“Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied – often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The [Chinese Communist] Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will.“All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping’s ambition of China becoming the world’s pre-eminent economic, technological and military power.”“This is a timely and important read,” Tej Parikh wrote in the Financial Times – before President Donald Trump upset the applecart of international trade in a tariff war nobody wanted.“Williams’s sceptical prognostications about China’s economic future are hard to argue against, particularly as the state is right now struggling to revive ‘animal spirits’ that have weakened, in part, because of President Xi Jinping’s recent clampdown on wealth-creators and tech firms. Still, with China’s dominance in emerging technologies, critical minerals and green industries, it is also difficult to write it off,” said Parikh.

A former FCCT president, Williams covered business and technology for the Sunday Times before becoming a long-time foreign correspondent in Russia and then Asia. During a 25-year career overseas, he was based in bureaus in Moscow, Hong Kong, Beijing and Bangkok for Channel 4 News and then NBC, the American network. He has also covered conflicts in the Middle East, Balkans and Ukraine. His previous book, ‘The fire of the dragon’, was shortlisted for the UK’s annual Orwell Prize and reissued in a second edition in early 2024.

Ian will be in discussion at the FCCT with Keith Richburg, a member of the Washington Post’s editorial board since 2023, and a veteran observer of Xi Jinping and China. Keith’s storied career as a foreign correspondent includes postings as the Post’s bureau chief in Beijing and Hong Kong. He was president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Hong Kong from 2021 to 2023. Members who wish to book in advance should email info@fccthai.com or call the FCCT office on 02-652-0580.Non-members can use this link.Members free, non-members 450 baht; students with ID, 150 baht.Bar and restaurant open.

FCCT pub trivia

Friday, 25 July, 7pm

Gather your friends and colleagues for a night of pub trivia at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand.Come for a bite and a beverage and test your knowledge. 1,000 baht bar tab up for grabs for the winning team, to be redeemed on the night.Advanced table bookings encouraged here.Free and open to all.Bar and restaurant open.

FCCT’s new podcast: Dateline Bangkok

For this week's episode of the Dateline Bangkok podcast, Tommy Walker speaks with Chokwan 'Kitty' Chopaka. Kitty is a cannabis rights activist and entrepreneur.Nicknamed the “Queen of Cannabis,” Kitty’s advocacy has seen her protest for the regulation and legislation of cannabis in Thailand. She has also been an advisor to the Thai government and the European Union on issues surrounding cannabis.A former law professional, Kitty spent her youth in Australia before returning to Thailand. Kitty opened up the Chopaka shop in 2022, the same year Thailand de-listed the cannabis flower as a narcotic, effectively decriminalising it.Chopaka was closed as of 2025.Kitty speaks to Tommy about her early years in cannabis advocacy, her own hopes for the use of cannabis in Thailand and the challenges the industry faces today.Watch the full episode on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

Paper Airplane

Film screening,
Friday, 8 August, 7pm

Step into the frontlines of the conflict in Myanmar and see the real toll on the lives of the people in Moses Marks’ new film, Paper Airplane. Set in the war-torn Karen State, Paper Airplane follows the life of a Karen girl, Naw Mi, her mother, and her younger brother as they are forced to flee their home amid the violence of the country’s ongoing civil war.After a harrowing nighttime escape, they manage to seek refuge in an internally displaced persons camp hacked out of the jungle. Living in a makeshift tent, they struggle with the harshness of their new reality without a home or land to call their own, while continuing to have constant concerns for their safety. Despite the hardships, Naw Mi's younger brother finds solace in watching airplanes soar overhead, not recognizing they are Myanmar Air Force jets responsible for terrorizing and bombing civilians.In a tender moment, Naw Mi folds a paper airplane for him, symbolizing their shared hope and longing for a brighter future in a country where airplanes can be marveled at, not feared. This poignant story of one family’s struggle to survive, and remain united in face of all challenges, signifies much of what is at stake in the war in Myanmar. Paper Airplane is also accompanied by two short films to complete the narrative of the story, and the FCCT will show all three films.Moses Marks is a writer, producer, and director. He graduated from the Ngee Ann Polytechnic, School of Film and Media in Singapore. He started his career as an editor for the Singaporean film Masala Mama, which was shot on super 16mm film format. This film won several awards at various festivals and was featured in Singapore cinemas.In 2010, Moses joined Myanmar International Television (MITV), and produced numerous TV shows for MITV, leading production and post-production teams.While television played a significant role in his career, Moses’s true love has always been films. He has written, produced, and directed several short films whenever he had the opportunity. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he moved back to Singapore in 2020. After the 2021 coup in Myanmar changed the film and media landscape, Moses became involved in several film projects including Broken Dreams: Stories from the Myanmar Coup (2023).Paper Airplane has been screened in Singapore, and for Burmese audiences in Mae Sot district, Tak province, and makes its Bangkok screen debut at the FCCT.After the films are shown, there will be a panel discussion with the filmmaker and other experts.Moses Marks, director, The Paper Airplane.Sompong Srakaew, founder and executive director, Labor Rights Promotion Network.Additional panelists to be announcedModerator: Phil Robertson, FCCT board member and director of Asia Human Rights and Labour Advocates (AHRLA).

Members who wish to book in advance should email info@fccthai.com or call the FCCT office on 02-652-0580.

Non-members can use this link.

Members free, non-members 200 baht.
Bar and restaurant open.

The FCCT is grateful for the support of corporate sponsor Bitkub. For more information about the club's corporate sponsorship program contact: info@fccthai.com.

The FCCT expresses appreciation for the support provided by corporate sponsor Bumrungrad International Hospital. For more information about the club's corporate sponsorship program contact: info@fccthai.com.

Heart valve disease: A possible hidden danger!

The heart consists of 4 chambers with the valves opening and closing to let blood pass through between the upper and the lower chambers in one direction, and not backward.

Heart valve disease occurs when one or more of the heart valves do not open or close properly. This causes the heart muscles to work harder to pump blood for the body’s requirements. This can result in heart failure and death.

What are the symptoms of heart valve diseases?

• Fatigue, tired when doing daily activities.
• Difficulty breathing while doing activities or lying down.
• Rapid weight gain.
• Swelling in various organs such as the abdomen, legs, ankles and feet.
• Cardiac arrhythmia such as fast or irregular heartbeat.
• Fever and body aches, if due to infection.
• In severe cases, too much fluid in the lungs, difficulty breathing and loss of consciousness.

What is the treatment for heart valve disease?

There are many ways to treat heart valve disease. Currently, Bumrungrad Hospital has the technology for heart valve replacement without surgery, offering good results and highly safe.

Learn more about heart valve disease and treatment option here.

Send us an enquiry today by clicking here.

Two job opportunities in Beijing At China's top university

The global business journalism program at Tsinghua University, founded in 2007, is looking for both a lecturer for one semester and a full-time director.For more details: https://www.icfj.org/about/jobs/global-business-journalism-program-international-co-director-and-faculty-member

Advertise in the FCCT's Bulletin at special discount rates

Individuals and organisations are welcome to take out advertising in the weekly FCCT Bulletin which reaches nearly 4,000 people in the club’s network. Guidelines

• Write a catchy headline, followed by a maximum of three sentences + contact email/phone number/ link to a website for further details if applicable.

To book an ad please email: info@fccthai.com