New Mandala

The Boston Phoenix has republished a fascinating article that first appeared in January, 1972.  It extensively quotes a Lao Army captain.
Among other things, he says:
“Do I hate the Pathet Lao? Why should I? They are Lao people, like me. You know, when I was at Mam Bac back in 1968 I used to meet with them [...]

[Read more →]

General Surayud Chulanont’s speech (full text available) to the Joint Foreign Chambers of Commerce in Thailand is essential reading.  in his speech, Surayud calls 2007 “The Year of Great Reforms”.�
I have taken the liberty of drawing New Mandala readers’ attention to slabs of the speech that spruik “sufficiency economy”.  Regular readers will know that Andrew and I have [...]

[Read more →]

Almost every morning before the boat engine was started by a male trader, the female traders devote a small, but important, amount of time to conducting a simple ritual of boat spirit worship. Small balls of sticky rice, or other kinds of food, and three joss sticks are the only two things needed for the pre-departure ceremony. [...]

[Read more →]

Over at Fifty Viss, Aung Htin Kyaw’s terrific post summarises the range of organisations that have been trotted out in The New of Light of Myanmar to denounce the failed UN Security Council resolution on Burma.  For some context, I discussed one of these tame groups, the Kachin Development and Security Army, in a post last week.�
Aung Htin Kyaw has helpfully tallied [...]

[Read more →]

Sifting through the transcript of a CNN program that discussed the censorship of the Thaksin interview, Leonard Doyle, the foreign editor at Britains’ The Independent, caught my attention.  He is featured in this segment alongside CNN’s Bangkok correspondent, Dan Rivers.  They do not pull their punches.  Over at 2Bangkok, reference is made to the program’s “many sensationally negative comments [...]

[Read more →]

Further to my previous posts on the UN Security Council vote on Burma, Nobel Laureate Desmond Tutu has now been widely quoted in the South African media.  He does not mince his words:
I am deeply disappointed by our vote. It is a betrayal of our own noble past. Many in the international community can hardly [...]

[Read more →]

The ongoing battle for moral and discursive supremacy on Burma issues has now made it to the pages of Foreign Policy In Focus.  It has recently carried a three-part debate between David I. Steinberg, Director of the Asian Studies Program, School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, and Kyi May Kaung “a Burmese dissident, artist, poet, and [...]

[Read more →]

Besides using mobile phones to make personal and business contacts, and receive information about trade issues, Lao long-distance traders also learn about what is happening in the world from listening to wide-range (short-wave) radio broadcasts. Besides the Thai radio programs, which I mentioned earlier, Lao traders often listen to Thai pop and Look Toong (country songs), [...]

[Read more →]

Today’s opinion from Chang Noi attacks the military and its assertion of a “unifying mandate”.  From my considerable distance, I can almost smell the growing frustration with the Thai junta and its allies.  Over the past month, it has become increasingly clear that much of the initial tolerance of the “transitional” regime has started to wane.�
Chang Noi is [...]

[Read more →]

The Secretary-General of Thailand’s royalist Chaipattana Foundation, Sumet Tantiwechakul, has an obvious interest in the promotion of the sufficiency economy agenda.  Recently, Thaisnews paraphrased Sumet’s advice to Thai entrepreneurs:
Dr.Sumet said they should stick to His Majesty the King’s initiatives on economy, especially the Sufficiency Economy theory. The theory will help them lay sufficient investment plans based on insights [...]

[Read more →]