New Mandala

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If you go the website of Thailand’s Ministry of Information and Communication Technology there is a page where you can alert the authorities to the existence of any “inappropriate website”. 

The “types of complaint” to choose from  includes lèse majesté, obscenity, gambling, narcotics, etc.
Do any New Mandala readers have experience with the site?  Has anybody made [...]

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The latest program for the 2009 Thailand Update is pasted below. The Update has been organised by the National Thai Studies Centre at the Australian National University.
New Mandala will be experimenting with some live coverage of the update using Twitter. Our Twitter account is newmandala.  If you don’t already have a Twitter account create one (here) and add newmandala to [...]

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“Truth becomes fiction when the fiction’s true; real becomes not-real when the unreal’s real”
- The story of the stone, or the dream of the red chamber, Xueqin 1973, p.55)
The award winning NGO “Reporters Without Borders” (RWB) noted that Thailand has slipped to 130th this year from 124th the previous year in terms of comparative [...]

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There is an interesting analysis of Thai politics that was just published at Asia Sentinel.  It draws attention to “a feckless heir”, “a muddle-through scenario”, and “anti-monarchy radicalism”, among a large number of other issues.

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When this correspondent stepped off the plane in the mid-1990s to begin a reporting life in Asia, the Far Eastern Economic Review was the most successful regional current-affairs magazine in the world. In Asia it was revered for the calibre of its reporters, for its analysis of politics and business and, especially, for getting up [...]

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David Scott Mathieson, the Human Rights Watch “Burma-watcher”, has written an essay on Australian approaches to Burma.  From certain perspectives I expect this would be considered a parochial matter. But my sense is that the current debate here in Australia around, crudely, “sanctions” and “engagement” is one that speaks to the wider yearning for a [...]

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Patchara [Kerdsiri, a 32 year old Web program developer] said Twitter opens the chance for users to be close to famous people. Fugitive former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra, or @thaksinlive, veteran politician Chaturon Chaisang, or @chaturon, and Patee Sarasin, or @patee122, have replied to his “tweets”.
- Extracted from Kornchanok Raksaseri, “Calling Twitterers…to Thai coffeeshop”, Asia [...]

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If everything goes according to plan New Mandala will transfer to a new address (asiapacific.anu.edu.au/newmandala) on Wednesday, 28 October 2009. We have enjoyed almost three and a half years on our current site but organisational changes here at the ANU mean that this is a good time to make a new home.  There will be [...]

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As the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the PRC, China’s October 1st National Day this year was the centre of much media attention both within and beyond the country. But it’s interesting to reflect upon how this festival was viewed within China’s Tai-Kadai speaking minority communities. I was visiting Kam (known in Chinese as Dong [...]

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