New Mandala

New perspectives on mainland Southeast Asia

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Former Lao President Nouhak Phoumsavanh reported to have died

September 10th, 2008 by Andrew Walker · 2 Comments

I have received a reliable email report that the former Lao President Nouhak Phoumsavanh has died.Â
Nouhak Phoumsavanh died yesterday evening after being in a critical condition at Mahosot Hospital for the last month or so. He had been in a coma for many weeks. There will probably be a week’s official mourning, as was the [...]

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Tags: Laos

Thai politics from Chinese perspectives

September 10th, 2008 by Ryan Manuel, Guest Contributor · 1 Comment

[Ryan Manuel is a Rhodes scholar and doctoral student at Merton College, Oxford.  He is currently based at the Australian National University where he is contibuting to the East Asia Forum blog hosted at the Crawford School of Economics and Government.  Readers looking for perspectives on the wider East Asian region will find that it contains [...]

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Tags: China · Samak · Thailand

Coup talk

September 10th, 2008 by Nicholas Farrelly · 21 Comments

The further problem for the decay of Samak’s legitimacy is that if he clings on, he gives the military greater justification for stepping in and throwing out his Government.
After the fiasco of a military-led interim government in 2006-07 that was unable to create conditions that would prevent another Thaksin-like government arising, the army, in particular, [...]

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Tags: Coup · Thailand

The Thai circus continues

September 10th, 2008 by Giles Ji Ungpakorn, Guest Contributor · 16 Comments

The Thai political crisis took another farcical turn today when the courts ruled that Prime Minister Samak must resign because he appears on a TV cooking programme. Rather than concentrating on serious issues like democratic legitimacy, murder in street fighting between the two opposing factions or trying to find a peaceful and democratic solution to [...]

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Tags: Thailand

Seeking a consultant astrologer

September 10th, 2008 by Nicholas Farrelly · 2 Comments

Good with calendrical and astrological charts?
Prize auspiciousness above all else?
Have a flair for seeing patterns in numbers that nobody else sees?
Instinctive about the past?
Already know what the future holds?
Looking for new challenges?
An exciting opportunity has recently opened up at New Mandala, a website run out of the Australian National University.  The website managers are seeking a consultant [...]

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Tags: Asian Studies · Thailand