New Mandala

I’m no fan of tree ordination, but ground kissing is another thing altogether. When ex-PM Thaksin arrived in Bangkok yesterday he joined some prestigious company (even if he didn’t quite get the lips into action).
This guy is a serial tarmac smoocher:

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New Mandala readers may be interested in tonight’s event in Hawaii:
Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn of Thailand will be the guest of honor at the East-West Center’s annual dinner, “An International Affair,” set for Feb. 29 at the Hilton Hawaiian Village’s Coral Ballroom.  The princess will be accepting the Center’s Asia Pacific Community [...]

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Thaksin’s return to Thailand, with scenes of adulation normally reserved for royalty, underlines the abject failure of the September 2006 coup. Those who reassured themselves with the rationale that Thaksin represented a greater evil than military intervention must now face the prospect that his long-term political capital may well have been strengthened by the events of the [...]

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- The menu for the Singpho food stall at the recent Dehing Patkai Festival held on northeast India’s Assam plain.  The prices are in Indian rupees.  As far as I am aware there are two well-known Singpho (or Kachin) restaurants in India (one in Assam and one in Goa). 
Readers who come across any unusual menus in other parts of the region [...]

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In envisioning an integrated Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS), the governments of the six riparian countries and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) regard the “connecting of nations” as contributing to the “linking of people” and vice-versa.Strategy papers and other programme documents reiterate that the goals of regionalisation are not only to enhance “connectivity” and “competitiveness” of [...]

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The good sense of villagers in southeast Asia is regularly betrayed by the NGOs that claim to represent them. 
Earlier this week, I was amused to read about an expected outbreak of “tree ordination” in Laos (thanks to Holly for bringing this to my attention).
Phongsaly forest ordination to preserve natural resources
Vientiane Times, 22 February 2008
 
The Phongsaly Women’s Union [...]

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I have recently found myself with a copy of Thomas Bleming’s book War in Karen Country.  In light of the renewed New Mandala discussion of a Burma tourism boycott I thought I would throw this extract from Bleming’s effort into the mix.  Reporting a conversation with the Karen National Liberation Army’s Colonel Nerdah Mya, Bleming writes (on [...]

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These photos were taken earlier in February near Miao in the eastern part of India’s Arunachal Pradesh.  The Burmese border is not that far away (see this official map to get a sense of the geography).  The river that stars in these shots is the Dehing.  It starts high in the mountains and, as the huge riverbed [...]

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A German economics professor from the University of Kaiserslautern who is visiting Myanmar this month said he was astonished by the enthusiasm of local masters and PhD students who attended his first lecture on February 18.“It was a great pleasure for me to give the lecture because many students came and there was a lot [...]

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