New Mandala

Thant Myint-U will be giving a seminar at SOAS’ Centre of Southeast Asian Studies later this week.  New Mandala readers in London (or nearby) may be keen to go along and listen to one of the most stimulating Burmese intellectuals.
The details are -
Date: Thursday, 8 March 2007
Time: 17.00-19.00
Title: The Failure of International Policy towards Burma
Speaker: Thant [...]

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On the topic of business-military-political tours, William Boot, The Irrawaddy’s regular reporter of Burma-related business news, has a neat little story on a Burmese delegation to India’s northeastern States of Manipur, Assam and Mizoram.�
Boot reports:
A 30-strong delegation of Burmese business leaders and government officials are on a 10-day tour of India’s northeast states in a [...]

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Reading today’s news from Thailand I am struck by the level of critical energy devoted to attacks on the coup-masters and Thailand’s fumbling dictatorship.  As just one example, The Nation – which for so long maintained a reasonably consistent pro-coup, anti-Thaksin bent – is carrying a handful of very confrontational pieces.
Chang Noi reviews the Fa Dieo Kan [...]

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Over the past few months I have been working on a paper about local electoral culture in northern Thailand. The paper is based on fieldwork I have undertaken in the village of Baan Tiam. The basic aim of the paper is to challenge the negative portrayals of rural electoral behavior that have been used to [...]

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