New Mandala

“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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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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If you are inclined to follow the rumours about King Bhumibol’s health then you could do worse than start with the meaty synthesis put together by Political Prisoners in Thailand. It includes all of the key sources.
In response to this style of coverage, the editorial team of The Nation has come out firing.  They have [...]

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Lillehammer, Albertville, Lake Placid. Major sports events have a way of putting obscure places on the map. This was the hope harbored by Laos’s Communist leaders when they offered Vientiane, the capital, as the host of the Southeast Asian Games this December.
But so far the greatest legacy of the games is a record deficit that [...]

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In February 2010 the Southeast Asian Centre of the Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National University (ANU), is hosting a workshop on the topic of ‘Intersections of Area, Cultural and Media Studies’.  All of the details on the workshop are available here. The organising committee is seeking expressions of interest from prospective participants.  For further [...]

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From where I sit, I sense an increasing willingness on the part of many journalists to report potentially risky stories about Thailand’s future.  The Independent has joined the chorus with today’s “Thai taboo: what happens when the king has gone?“ 
Little in this particular story will be news to regular New Mandala readers, but it is [...]

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The Malaysian government is again embroiled in a corruption scandal, this time with an estimated taxpayer cost of RM4.6 billion (A$1.53 billion). Rather than implementing reforms to improve transparency and accountability, in the usual pattern of Malaysian politics the government continues to shift blame and shuffle paper. This scandal comes amidst promises by Prime Minister Najib to [...]

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His son, the Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn, has been married three times and in the past two years scandalous film footage has been distributed on the Internet and on clandestine CDs, featuring him and his current wife, Princess Srirasmi.
- Extracted from Richard Lloyd Parry, “King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand ill in hospital”, [...]

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In case you have not noticed, there seems to be a full scale blow-out by Indonesians against Malaysians — and not between the governments but, instead, between the people.
Of course, the countries have long-standing conflicts related to disputed borders (read here and here). Furthermore, abuses of migrant labour in Malaysia (with Indonesians making up the majority of the foreign [...]

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While people may and should debate on the merit of the lese majeste law, outright verbal attacks online, especially those that are unsubstantiated have led to a feeling that the online virtual debating community is degenerating into verbal abuse and uncompromising dogmatism, both from the political left and right. These reckless and vicious contributors end [...]

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