New Mandala

[A New Mandala reader has sent me the following comments on sex trafficking in Singapore.]
There have been a number of recent reports about women trafficked into coercive brothels in Singapore. Here is a Bangkok Post report from October last year about Thai women working in “forest brothels”. Here is another Bangkok Post report from late [...]

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When Paul Handley published The King Never Smiles one of the more common jabs at his work came from those who dismissed it as being based on “rumours”.  Handley countered by arguing that “[t]he palace lives on gossip and rumor, at least that which benefits it”.
If comments here and in this post by Bangkok Pundit [...]

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As poor Thais learn more about their rights, demand greater transparency and exhibit less tolerance for privilege-based behavior and extraconstitutional interference in government by the army and other quarters in the elite, the pressure to reconcile the needs of different sections of Thai society will increase.
That tipping point may yet be some years off. Yet [...]

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