New Mandala

A note-taking New Mandala reader has contributed a very interesting account of a recent seminar hosted by the Australian National University’s College of Asia and the Pacific.  This report provides an excellent overview of the event and its take home messages.
On Tuesday, 14 October, Paul Risley, the Asia Regional Communications Advisor and Spokesperson for the United Nations [...]

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PBS Frontline World has a documentary on the “Saffron Uprising” and its aftermath.  It includes footage from the crackdown and from along the Thailand-Burma border.  The focus is the monks who spearheaded the protests.  It is, without question, worth a look for anyone who is interested in the future of Burma and its people.
Other Frontline World [...]

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This New Mandala special interview was conducted in recent weeks.  The interviewee is a disaster worker who has recently returned from several months working on emergency shelter in the wake of Cyclone Nargis in Burma. They prefer to be identified simply as a “disaster worker recently returned from Burma”.
Nicholas Farrelly: Could you give our readers an [...]

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Over at the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter “blog/zine hybrid”, Andrew Selth has a neat overview of recent events in and around Burma.  Selth’s take-home message comes right at the end:
Increasingly…it is being understood that foreign powers are likely to have only limited influence in Burma. Real and lasting change will have to come from the Burmese [...]

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Over the past couple of days a few people have written to ensure that George Packer’s recent article for The New Yorker does not escape the attention of New Mandala readers.  With the title “Drowning: Can the Burmese people rescue themselves?”, it is a wandering 12,000-word account of the trials and tribulations of contemporary Burma.  Much [...]

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In some countries big disasters always seem to be followed by big charity songs, the type where a whole lot of famous but not necessarily talented people sway backwards and forwards together and try to look sincere about donating their time and vocal chords for a good cause. But that a group of popular singers [...]

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With both Mizzima News and the Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB) subjected to recent Distributed Denial of Service attacks it makes sense to draw some more attention to the excellent work of their journalists and editors.�
Earlier in July the DVB carried an outstanding report on the Burmese government effort to modify radios donated by the Chinese [...]

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Thanks to prolific New Mandala commentator, Grasshopper, I have learned of some interesting geographic information system work done by the US government on cyclone-affected areas of the Irrawaddy Delta.  A contextual article is available here and a very useful, but slightly dated, map is available here.
Other maps, including one that deals with livestock impact, are online at [...]

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As if a cyclone and a disastrous exercise in disaster relief were not enough, Myanmar has in the past week been hit by floods. From Kachin State in the north to Bago in the centre, the Ayeyarwaddy, Chindwin, Sittaung and Bago rivers among others have spilled over into towns, farmlands and villages.
The Chindwin, which flows [...]

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The global media has reported widely on the immense damage that Cyclone Nargis caused to crops, fisheries and livestock in Myanmar, and international agencies and governments have justifiably shown particular concerns for the coming rice crop. However, another important product that has also been seriously affected but has attracted less interest is salt.
According to official [...]

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