A playground for businessmen is thriving on land leased from the Laos government. Edward Loxton reports from Kapok City

Police have arrested a man suspected of being a key player in one of Thailand's largest tiger trafficking rings. Authorities had been searching for the 49-year-old Thai man since last year, when they issued a warrant for his arrest after seizing a Bengal tiger cub, police said.

Frightened and disconsolate, 50 North Koreans seeking a better life in the southern part of their divided peninsula sit in an abandoned police station on the Thai side of the broad Mekong River and count the hours until they can continue on with the final stage of their journey.

Environmentalists opposed to a controversial dam that could have a devastating impact on one of Asia's most important rivers have accused the authorities in Laos of starting work on the project without formal approval.

Tae bumped down on the bed frame and it cracked. Startled, he leapt up and uttered a deferential apology to the room. This was no ordinary bed but one belonging to a senior cadre of the Pathet Lao, the Laos communist leadership that had operated from a series of 480 caves deep in the north-east of the country to escape US bombardment between 1964 and 1973.

The family of Vang Pao, a former Laotian general and leader of the Hmong ethnic group, said it was "disgraceful" that the US Army did not allow the key American ally in the Vietnam War to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington.

Vang Pao was a fabled Hmong war veteran who led by example and exuded bravery, fighting a covert CIA-sponsored war against Laos Communist insurgents and Viet Minh in Laos during the Vietnam War. The General, once described as the "biggest hero of the Vietnam War" by the former CIA Director William Colby, went on to become the revered leader of the Hmong exiles in the United States.

This week sees the start of 'Human Planet', a new BBC series focusing on our place in the natural world. As these extracts from the book by Dale Templar and Brian Leith that accompanies the programmes reveal, it's a dramatic – and colourful – story

International delegates meeting in Laos – the most heavily bombed nation on earth as a result of a huge US bombing campaign during the Vietnam war, and where 80 million landmines still cause death and tragedy on a near-daily basis – have agreed on a new plan to help rid the world of cluster munitions. The agreement came as a 10-year-old Laotian girl was killed by a cluster bomb.

This indefatigable Bavarian multi-instrumentalist is currently on a roll, bringing a virtuoso display of himself singing and playing some exotic, rare instruments: notably a bamboo pipe played by the Hmong people in Laos, and the Japanese nohkan, whose presence in Noh theatre creates a unique sense of danger.

Simon Wolfson, Next's chief executive, has warned that a "speculative bubble" in the cotton market will lead to near-double-digit price rises on clothing next year, as the fashion retailer's underlying sales slipped behind City expectations in its third quarter. Next has previously warned that a surge in cotton prices would cause a 5 to 8 per cent rise in clothing prices in the first quarter, but Lord Wolfson said yesterday that the uplift would be at the top end of the range.

Laos's capital is steeped in a coffee culture introduced by the French

The first confirmed sighting in more than a decade of one of the rarest animals in the world, described as the "Asian unicorn", was revealed today.