Flames crackle through piles of hundreds of human skulls and thick grey smoke pours into the Thai sky in a moment as spiritually significant as it is gruesome.The Lang Pacha ceremony is observed by Thais of Chinese descent to give a dignified funeral to the unclaimed dead.In Thailand, hospitals hand unidentified bodies and those with no-one to give them appropriate last rites to local foundations.These then bury the corpses in graveyards, sometimes for several years, before a weeks-long ritual when they are exhumed, cleaned and all cremated together.In Buddhist belief, the spirits of the uncremated remain trapped between worlds and cannot be reincarnated until monks perform the proper rites. “Spirits without cremation still roam,” said Pisit Pongsirisupakul, vice president of the Dhamma of Buddha Nakhon Ratchasima Foundation, which organised the event.”They suffer and they can’t be reborn. We help them move on, and that’s why this is an act of merit,” he told AFP.Buddhists believe death marks the beginning of a new life, and making merit ensures a better rebirth.”It’s not scary,” said Pisit. “When people die, we all look the same — like skeletons.”- Empty eyesocket -The ritual begins with volunteers digging up the graves — the event’s name translates as “cleaning the jungle” — before brushing dirt and flesh from the remains and washing them in holy water boiled with tea leaves.One man scrubbed out an empty eyesocket firmly with a toothbrush.The scene is incongruously cheerful: wearing blue surgical gloves, Pimjai Sornrach grinned broadly as she held a skull, declaring “it’s so good, it’s so good”, while her smiling friend held up a femur for the camera.”I just want to be there whenever there’s an event like this,” said Pimjai, a 54-year-old shopkeeper.She started volunteering at 17 after seeing two people killed in a hit-and-run, and says the ritual is about helping others as well as earning merit. “My heart tells me to go.”Accumulated over the course of a decade, some of the 600 corpses were only recently deceased and the smell of death hung over the foundation complex in Nakhon Ratchasima province, north of Bangkok.Some will have been Alzheimer’s patients who wandered from their homes, never to be found by their families, others include road accident victims or undocumented labourers from Myanmar.Laid out to dry, the remains are combined and divided up by bone type and laid out on mats or piled in buckets — hundreds of skulls, leg bones and others.It is a family occasion — two young girls sat alongside rows of skulls, each holding an anonymous head in their lap.- ‘Peace of mind’ -In the days running up to the ceremony’s climax, volunteers press gold leaf onto the bones, and reconstruct faces on a few.Each set of bones is loaded by turn into two separate crematorium towers — one for the men, one for the women — with the skulls on top completing the stacks.Monks chant and pray before the flames are lit. Later the ashes from each tower will be interred in a graveyard.Thitiwat Pornpiratsakul, 63, began volunteering after he, his wife and two sons survived a bus crash 20 years ago.”Our bus flipped over, and no one came to help us,” he recalled. “My wife and children were with me. We felt helpless.”Since recovering, he has taken part in the ritual every year.”My family and I have stayed healthy, and I believe it’s because we help in this ceremony,” he said.Organisers say the event not only honours the dead, but also highlights a need for legal reform.Pisit has long campaigned for government support to expand DNA testing and connect the civil registration system to police forensics to help identify the unclaimed.”We need a centralised database where families can search by ID and find their loved ones,” he said.

In a tiny studio, a former Wall Street banker and an ex-aviation executive are doing what critics say is lacking in Singapore’s tightly managed media landscape — giving opposition politicians unfiltered airtime ahead of an upcoming election.The popular podcast Yah Lah But — a colloquial Singlish way of saying “Yes, but” — promises “the most uncensored conversations and interviews from the much-censored country of Singapore”, according to its YouTube description.The show is part of a growing wave of podcasts deep-diving into the affluent city-state’s politics, providing alternative coverage of the May 3 polls.”We’re not scared. I think there’s a desire to really hear different voices,” said host Terence Chia.Despite its reputation as a modern global hub, Singapore’s domestic media is “tightly controlled by the government” and self-censorship is “widespread”, said Reporters Without Borders, ranking it 126th out of 180 countries. Its media landscape is also dominated by players linked to the government that critics say are too pro-establishment.However, mainstream election coverage of the opposition has improved over the past decade, with its news podcasts showing a willingness to feature alternative voices. Co-host Haresh Tilani said the independent Yah Lah But will not give their guests a free pass, no matter their party.”We don’t just bash the establishment. We, in fact, challenge them,” he told AFP.Ahead of the election, Yah Lah But has pivoted to political topics and conducted long interviews with politicians from both sides of the aisle, employing a candid tone that allows a peek into their personalities. “In parliament, rallies, and in mainstream media you see one side of them but podcasts allow you to see the human side of them,” Tilani said.- Mainstream media ‘won’t engage’ -Singapore’s ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) has held power since 1959 with an overwhelming majority of parliament seats, and is expected to win the May 3 election. But the opposition has made gains in recent years, and the election will be seen as a referendum on PAP’s popularity under Prime Minister Lawrence Wong when up against a rejuvenated opposition. Despite podcasts’ niche reach, Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chairman Paul Tambyah said they are “definitely” a better platform than mainstream outlets for non-ruling party players. “The PAP government has made no secret of the need for agencies… to promote the views of the ‘government of the day’,” he told AFP. SDP leader Chee Soon Juan said he has never been invited for a long-form interview by mainstream media in his three decades in politics.Earlier this month, Chee was on The Daily Ketchup, another breakout podcast, for nearly an hour and a half.”Ask me the hard-hitting questions, the ones that drill into the issues — I’m happy to answer. But they (mainstream media) just won’t engage in that sense,” Chee told AFP.Legacy media’s “biggest problem” is “the government which controls the media”, said veteran former editor P.N. Balji.”Even if the government… opens up, I’m not sure the media knows what to do,” Balji said. “They’ve been used to a certain style of reporting.”Mainstream outletsdid not respond to comment when contacted by AFP.- ‘Pent-up demand’ -With the podcast microphones finally on, the opposition is not wasting time — and Singaporeans are taking note. When Workers’ Party’s rookie candidate Harpreet Singh appeared on Yah Lah But, his hour-plus-long episode racked up almost 100,000 views in two weeks — huge for a long-form interview in tiny Singapore.”This is literally the first time I’ve heard this man speak, but (he) has completely won me over,” said one commenter. SDP leader Chee’s episode on The Daily Ketchup got 126,000 views since its mid-April debut — a reflection of the “pent-up demand” for long interviews with politicians, said co-host Jonathan Chua. In JanuaryThe Daily Ketchup landed a coup, securing Prime Minister Wong for an interview. It now has 269,000 views. “The cast members on the show have been upfront on which political parties they are leaning towards… Instead of self-moderating, we cast people with different political views and let them be themselves,” Chua told AFP.Podcasts have “greatly expanded the opposition’s access to the public”, said Cherian George, a Singapore politics and media expert, adding that their presence also “pressured the mainstream media to take down their pro-establishment bias a notch”.Yah Lah But’s hosts believe podcasts will play a larger role in Singapore’s political discourse in the future. “Podcasts are really providing the platform to ask really tough questions that the mainstream media isn’t able to ask,” Chia said.