Panda-monium!

In case you haven't heard, a female panda cub was born in the Chiang Mai (northwestern Thailand) Zoo last month. Much like the Knut craze, the Thai media has been milking this birth dry. There's even a Million Baht contest to name the little cub, which includes a trip to China to visit more pandas.

The mother panda was artificially inseminated with the male panda's sperm after they failed to make babies the cheap way... a 12 pack of Old Style and some candles. The weird part is they didn't even know the mother was pregnant until the cub came out! Since the pandas are on "lease" from China, the parents and cub must be returned to Chinese panda-keepers in two years. Guess we should have signed up for the layaway plan!


On the non-adorable news front, religious warfare in southern Thailand near the Malaysian border continues. Malaysia's population is 60% Islamic, while Thailand's is 90% Buddhist. Last Tuesday, ten people were gunned down in a mosque in Narrathiwat province, then a plantation worker was found decapitated and burned in retaliation for the Muslim killings. Locals, the government and news outlets blame Muslim insurgents and anti-Muslim Thais for the murders. It is a vicious cycle with no clear association or leader taking responsibility for more than 3,500 deaths since 2004.

This concludes our Wednesday installment of Thai current events.