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The Christmas Star Procession is annually held in Sakon Nakhon to commemorate the Christmas nativity. Ta Rae village, in Sakon Nakhon's Muang district, is home to a large Roman Catholic community in Thailand. —Pattarapong Chatpattarasill

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Tha Rae er ogsaa "verdensberoemt" for sine hundeslagterier og spisning af hunde.

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hej hej

midt i den søde jule tid får vi lidt skræk og rædsel

The Dog Meat Mafia

The Dog Meat Mafia is a special report on Southeast Asia's booming dog meat trade — a crime-ridden, multi-million dollar industry that stretches from upcountry Thailand, through Laos and into Vietnam. The series examines the economic, cultural and illicit aspects of the controversial business, and features an On Location video that illustrates how it works.

Behind this dirt-floor stall, beyond the tables splayed with ropes of jerky, a butcher prepares the day’s catch.

The animal is rigored stiff on the cutting board, its four legs pointed skyward like an upended footstool. In view of passing traffic, the butcher goes to work, sinking his cleaver into its side and paring off belly meat in neat flanks.

read more: http://www.all-cr...eat01.html

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By day, this is a forgettable farming village, a speck of civilization sprung from the Mekong River banks.

Buffalo and man work the earth, scenting the breeze with toiled dirt. Teenagers zip along rice pastures on noisy motorbikes. Across the river, Laos’ scrubby shore is visible through a silver mist.

But after nightfall, the howling begins.

Long-haul trucks chug into town with stinking loads, bound for makeshift platforms on the Mekong. Though tarps cover their cargo, there is no mistaking it: the nuclear-strength musk of fur, urine and frightened animal. Each truck can carry more than 700 dogs. Their stink singes the throat.

There is no permanent, sanctioned border crossing in the village of Baan Pehng. But each night, the riverbanks here come alive with cargo trucks, long-tail boats and smugglers working in sync to smuggle roughly 1,000 dogs across the border.

No fees, no customs, no inspections. Just cage after cage of stray dogs, freshly caught from the Thai countryside, secretly transported to Laos and trucked to Hanoi-area abattoirs.

“All this exportation of dogs, it’s a mafia,” says Phumpat Pachonsap, a motorcycle dealer who represents the Nakhon Phanom province in parliament for Thailand’s Bhumjai Thai party.

read more: http://www.all-cr...eat02.html

Hell on Earth- Thailand's Dog Meat Trade