New Mandala

True to form, the good folk at Liberal Thai have put together a Thai-language translation of Richard Lloyd Parry’s interview with former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.  It remains incomplete (with only the first 6 pages of the 12 page interview) but a note at the bottom suggests that the full version will be available soon.

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New Mandala has been sent the following draft letter by a contact in Bangkok. It was written by a diligent officer in Thailand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Its authenticity cannot be verified but it raises issues that may be of interest to some readers.
The Editor
The Times
Dear Sir, I must protest in the strongest possible terms about your [...]

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Thaksin’s interview is a violation of the monarchy, which is the country’s core pillar and a highly respected institution. It is unacceptable and should have never taken place…Thaksin has also chosen to make a move when the entire nation is joining in wishing His Majesty the King a full recovery and good health. I wonder [...]

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The full transcript of Richard Lloyd Parry’s interview with former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra is available here.  It makes for explosive reading.  There is so much in the interview that will be of interest to the average New Mandala reader that all I can do is suggest that you digest it in full.  Thaksin [...]

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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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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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