For press conferences, book and motion picture launches, corporate meetings and more. The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand's penthouse Clubhouse is the perfect venue. We are:

• Centrally located in the Maneeya Center, in the heart of Ratchaprasong, home to the greatest concentration of news bureaus and media organizations in Thailand.


• Adjacent to and easily accessible directly from the Chidlom BTS Skytrain station.

We offer our customers a wide range of services, custom tailored to your specific needs. We have:

• Complete audio-visual capability with three video cameras and fixed and wireless microphones for live presentations.


• Multi-disk record and playback equipment for standard-definition and Blu-Ray high-definition DVD, audio and video CD and most other popular formats.


• LCD projector with direct and oblique screens for motion picture and computer presentations.


• Complete kitchen providing a myriad of delicious food-service options, from coffee-break sweets to quick meals to sit-down or buffet lunches and dinners featuring eastern, western and vegetarian cuisine.


• Full bar offering a wide range of soft drinks, beers on tap and in bottle, wine, and a selection of spirits and popular cocktails.


• Smoker's balcony with picnic seating, greenery and a fine view of central Bangkok.

Rates are among the most reasonable in town, starting at only Baht 5,000 for a half-day's use of the Clubhouse, including our audio-visual equipment and a skilled operator. Catering services are priced to your specific requirement.

And for that special private party, the fully staffed Clubhouse can be exclusively yours on almost any Saturday or Sunday for little more than a weekday event.

For bookings or for more information, please contact the FCCT at 02 652-0580 or by e-mail to info@fccthai.com.

"The one thing that is important for Thai leaders - since we pride ourselves on being in a country which is open, well integrated into the international community, with exports, tourism, and foreign investment all an essential part of our economy --- that leader has to be accountable to journalists who come from all over the world to work here."

From Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's keynote address at the FCCT, 14 January 2010.

Read or download the full text in pdf form.

The FCCT is not just for correspondents-in fact, most of our members are not news people.

A past FCCT president even came up with the slogan, "You don't have to be foreign and you don't have to be a correspondent". We are a very diverse club and welcome all.

For more information, call 02-652-0580-1 or click here to e-mail info@fccthai.com

The Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (FCCT) hosted a memorial Thursday to mark the 25th anniversary of the deaths of NBC cameraman correspondent Neil Davis and soundman Bill Latch. The two journalists were killed by military fire on September 9, 1985, while covering a failed coup attempt in the Thai capital.

Davis, who covered the Vietnam War for more than a decade beginning in 1964, was one of the most storied war correspondents of his generation. "Frontline," a critically acclaimed 1979 documentary shown at the FCCT event, chronicled the extraordinary risks Davis took while reporting from the battlefield, including his historic footage of North Vietnamese tanks breaking through the gates of Saigon's Independence Palace, the iconic image of the end of the war.

Veteran journalists Jim Pringle, a former Reuters and Newsweek correspondent, and Derek Williams, a former CBS cameraman and current director of Asiaworks Television, spoke about their fallen colleagues. Pringle described his time in Saigon with Davis, whom he called "the greatest overall journalist of the Vietnam War." "It is said the first casualty of war is truth," said Pringle, "but that was not the case with Neil."

Williams spoke about the circumstances surrounding the deaths, recounting that Davis turned his camera on himself after being hit by shrapnel. He noted that the soldiers responsible for the attack that took their lives went unpunished. Indeed, none of the coup's plotters--including Col. Manoon Rupekachorn, Lt. Col. Prajark Sawangjit, and Gen. Serm Na Nakorn--were ever sentenced. All were granted parliamentary amnesty in 1988.

Manoon, who later changed his name to Manoonkrit, was elected a senator in 2000, a development the FCCT protested in a letter at the time. Prajark committed suicide in 2003, on the same date that Davis and Latch were killed in 1985, according to Williams, who speculated that the former soldier's death was related "more to cognac than karma."

The memorial event had special poignancy given the recent deaths of Reuters cameraman Hiro Muramoto and freelance photographer Fabio Polenghi, both killed while covering armed exchanges between Thai troops and protestors in April and May. A CPJ special report found numerous indications that those responsible will not be held accountable--just as the perpetrators in Davis' and Latch's killings escaped accountability 25 years ago.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has formed a fact-finding committee to investigate this year's protest-related deaths, but its leader, former Attorney General Khanit Na Nakorn, said in June that his panel is more concerned with promoting forgiveness than assigning blame. CPJ research found that authorities refused to make foot soldiers available for interviews with private investigators looking into the circumstances of Muramoto's death. The government has also declined to release closed circuit footage of the area where Muramoto was shot and killed.

Williams noted that the circumstances surrounding Muramoto's and Polenghi's shooting deaths were less clear-cut than with Davis and Latch, but from his perspective it appears that they were killed by Thai soldiers. Pringle recalled how Davis' and Latch's deaths had a divisive impact on the Bangkok-based press corps, including a sharp debate among reporters about whether enough had been done to pursue justice for their fallen colleagues.

Judging by the robust turnouts and impassioned presentations at recent press freedom-related events at the FCCT, including Thursday's commemorative event for Davis and Latch, there is strong media consensus today on the need for justice.

(Reporting from Bangkok)

CPJ Senior Southeast Asia Representative Shawn W. Crispin is based in Bangkok, where he is an editor for Asia Times Online. He has led CPJ missions throughout the region, including the Philippines and Indonesia

The first Friday of every month features TONIC:

The Bylines

Bob

for more details check out Friday Night Jazz at the FCCT.

"The Executive Committee of the FCCT strove to achieve a balance between the two primary objectives of the club during the past year. These were to offer a space welcoming to our members and to serve as a venue open to the free exchange of views and ideas on current issues of the day. The support we got for these two endeavours was reflected in the number of people, both members and non-members, who used our facility be it for a drink and a chat, to work with their laptops, or to attend our eclectic mix of programmes."

Marwaan Macan-Markar
President,
5 February 2010

Read full Report

With an American plane sitting on the runway to take Victor Bout to the US on arms trafficking charges, his wife Alla Bout read out a statement to a hastily arranged press conference at a packed FCCT. The statement, dictated to her by her husband, was in Russian but effectively translated on the fly by our resident Russian language expert.

In the statement Victor Bout claimed that from 1993 to 2001 he had run a legitimate air transport business based in Sharjah, and vigorously denied any charges of arms dealing, specifically of selling anti-aircraft missiles to the FARC rebels in Columbia. He accused The US and Hollywood (in the movie "Lord of War" starring Nicholas Cage) of a smear campaign against him.

He referred also to a meeting in his prison cell with Democrat MP Mr. Sirichok Sopha, in which the latter had questioned him on his relationship with former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra, on whether he himself was a member of the KGB, and as to how many KGB agents were currently in Bangkok - causing some amusement among the assembled press corps. Mr. Bout, however, stated that he had never been an intelligence officer and that the KGB had been disbanded at the time of the collapse of the old USSR.

A lively opening to friday at the FCCT!

Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs has developed a new online registration system for journalists, which went live on Monday, August 16, 2010.

All journalists already accredited in Thailand, must register online. Anyone seeking accreditation should also do it online.

The MFA in a briefing to some foreign journalists, also emphasized that those seeking renewal of their accreditation, should apply online at least one month before the expiry of their credentials.

The MFA Media Online Service page can already be seen at http://mmos.mfa.go.th

BANGKOK - The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand (FCCT) and OnAsia, Asia's top photo agency, announced the winners of this year's FCCT OnAsia Photojournalism Contest

Amateur and professional photographers submitted more than 5,000 images from across the region. Judges selected winners in four categories: Spot News, Feature Photography, Migrants and Refugees (a category sponsored by the International Organization for Migration for photos concerning the plight of migrants and refugees) and Photo Essay. In addition, the judges selected a Photographer of the Year, the contest's top prize.


Photographer of the year Androniki Christodoulou:
Kamagasaki, Japan's slum:


Kamagasaki is known as Japan's largest slum, with the country's largest day laborer concentration. Some 30,000 people are estimated to live within a 2,000-metre radius in the region.

Full details here.