Ramadan is supposed to be the holy month for all Muslims throughout the world to refrain from food, drink and other physical needs from sunrise to sunset, to practice self-restraint to cleanse one’s body and soul from impurities and to focus on God.

Like their countrymen in the other parts of the country, residents in the three violence-plagued three southernmost provinces have high expectations from the new Pheu Thai-led government which is expected to be formed soon.

Fillers of cooking gas (LPG) has started phasing out steel cylinders and replacing them with composite cylinders since August as ordered by the forward command of the Internal Security Operations Command in order to ease the impacts of the explosions from explosives-stuffed steel cylinders.

The most popular question that I was lately asked by fellow journalists was: "Has the unrest situation in the Deep South improved?" This is a simple question but it is very difficult to answer because there are various perspectives related to the situation.

“From the old days, the people of Satun have never been starving because Satun is a land of aplenty. Satun is the land that our ancestors explored and built the first town and it is also a peaceful Muslim territory. It is also melting pot of peoples of all religious faiths who co-exist peacefully. We are the sons and daughters of the land of Satun, the land of the South and the land of Thailand…” ...