The Thai Navy has more admirals than ships. To be precise, there are 42 admirals servicing 1 aircraft carrier**, 10 frigates and 7 corvettes. So that works out at 2.3 admirals for every ship. Money is clearly no object when it comes to keeping the Thai Navy afloat.
kireb – when a scene you want to photograph is so wide that you can’t get everything into one shot with a normal lens, you have to take two or more photographs and fit them together. Nick did that – and showed what he did by including the whole frame of each separate photo – not just for the crowd shots but also others. Without a distorting “fish-eye” lens, the only other way is to use a specialised panning camera that will move from one side to the other. That’s not practical in these situations – so Nick did the next best thing and was honest in showing it.
If you think those crowd photos are too “blurry” to be clear, I suggest you visit an optician. If you want to believe they’re “propaganda” (fake), I suggest none of the facts here will matter to you anyway.
The crowd photos are not “blurry”, they are slightly grainy as they have been shot on 3200 ASA, 1/60 sec, and with F-stop 2.8 to 5.0 depending on image. And yes, of course, they are panoramic shots made up of 2 and 3 single images (clearly marked so as each of the single images has a black border). I have done so out of reasons of “visual language” (google that term, please), and because one single shot would have simply not been able to capture the size of the crowd.
To even suggest that the Thai Language is any more difficult to read and/or comprehend because there isn’t any spacing between words is one of the most ludicrous things I’ve heard in a LONG time!
The same goes for the less than astute observation that Thai has ‘no punctuation’.
Given Thai is a totally tonal language; words in spoken Thai cannot be emphasized like they are in engrish to carry emotive value. You can’t raise the tone of the last word in a sentence and have it carry an interrogative meaning, because you’d be saying a different word entirely. Hence the many “question word” tags which mark both spoken AND written Thai as a sentence construct which is a question.
Not coincidentally, Thai has a plethora of words which can and do convey the emotional context of what is being said, be it; interrogative, emphatic statements, denial on many levels, urging, and outright commands to do something. These all sync up to emotions commonly expressed in spoken engrish by the different toning of words and in written engrish as punctuation. What is the reasoning behind advocates who say written Thai should adopt punctuation marks when the important punctuation markers already appear as WORDS in the sentence construct?
Sadly, it would appear foreigners making these comments aren’t quite as clever in reading and understanding written Thai as they make themselves out to be.
Oh, BTW, this is posted in my real name; Google it, and if you’re not gonna post this at least have the balls to let me know via email.
To be honest, Thai language is not really optimized, especially the scripting (44 alphabets, with loads of duplicates just to mess with the spellings). Though the grammar is simple enough, conversational Thai could be mastered fairly quick*.
—
#2
I can confirm that the 8-12 years mandatory school curriculum was really a prolonged brainwashing program.
For example. We were taught that we maintained our sovereignty/independence (р╣Ар╕нр╕Бр╕гр╕▓р╕К) throughout our history, though the “history textbooks” were so keen on emphasizing the facts that Burma occupied us twice, and skimmed a bit on Japan also.
The same “history textbooks” did not really mentioned the fact that we took over our current neighbors and did what to them, the text just kept showing the fact that we gave it to the farangs (Farangcais! and British) due to gunboat treaties.
—
* = Does not include the Royal Thai and the Holy Thai reserved for particular audiences/objects. That, even Thais cannot really master.
That’s a fascinating point about punctuation that’s worth exploring further.
I’m a much better reader of Thai than I am a speaker, mainly because I find it easier to learn a foreign alphabet by rote than grasp the intuition necessary for learning to speak. Even so, the lack of punctuation in Thai makes no sense to me. There is nothing inherent in the Thai alphabet that compensates for these constraints. Thai is just as difficult to read as English would be without punctuation and the separation of words and sentences. To obtain fluency in written Thai one spends much more time learning to identify patterns – or consistent ‘pictures’ within the text, if you will. This seems to me to be a highly inefficient structure for extracting meaning and progressing discourse. Most European languages (I can’t speak for other language groups) rely on punctuation to enhance meaning and subtlety – a well-placed comma, for example, can remove ambiguity.
I wonder how this inherent constraint in written Thai has influenced the socio-political development of the country? Has it, as the contributor seems to suggest, hamstrung the lower classes and allowed the elite to control society?
A study of how Thai society has been influenced by its language would be a fascinating read.
Putting spaces between words in written Thai would indeed be a win-win for both Thais and foreigners, and I agree that the evidence seems to suggest that the changes in the neurophysiological demands for reading would allow readers of Thai to become more efficient and lead to increases in automaticity that would let them be more attentive to subtleties of meaning. It might even increase the amount of pleasure derived from reading, thus leading to higher rates of reading among the population at large.
I was therefore surprised (actually shocked) by the level of vitriol this suggestion generated when proposed in the Bangkok Post a few years ago. It taught me that there is a deeply conservative, some might even describe it as reactionary, ideology among the gatekeepers for the Thai educational system. Is it no wonder then that the just released O-NET scores were at an all time low for Matiyom 6 students, with the majority of students receiving failing grades on all subjects, and scores for Mathematics and English abysmally low (14 percent and 17 percent)?
What would happen if we could start a mass movement for language reform? By “we” I don’t mean foreigners, but progressive elements in Thai society. I think beliefs are so entrenched among the elite that there would be a crackdown against it, with laws passed criminalizing the writing of Thai in anything but scriptura continua format by the powers that be. Then writing Thai with breaks between words would become a revolutionary act.
Can’t help it but say this is the most bias news I ever read coming from professors of a respected University. The authors should be ashamed on themselves for being “experts” in the field. What a joke, let alone censoring comments which they think is “high quality”. The articles are low quality to begin with.
There are numerous links to pro-red supporter websites, that alone makes the authors and University highly bias and not trustworthy.
Tukkae: You have got to be delusional or kidding if you think a couple of out-of-date small subs, maintained in a haphazard manner and manned by a badly trained Thai Navy crew are ever going to be anything more than a minor speed bump to the military structure of China (or even Vietnam for that matter).
China is already dominate in Laos, Burma and Cambodia and is just about to start building a major hi-speed rail system across Thailand as part of China’s plan to connect SW China and Kumming to SE Asia and Singapore.
China also just got the “go-ahead” from the present Thailand government to build one of the world’s largest Trade Mart Centers on the outskirts of Bangkok which will house 70,000 plus Chinese trading business and eventually dominate/control imports & exports in and out of Thailand of all manner of dry goods and small electronics products.
From the China pov, the Army/Navy/Air Force of Thailand is a kind of comic joke, manned by corrupt, greedy and incompetent generals who are constantly meddling in politics when they are not busy with their brothels, human/drug/illicit materials trafficking networks and various highly lucrative extortion schemes.
Are you a citizen of Thailand, Tukkae? You need to “wake up” as to where your country stands after 4 years of treading water and “going forward in reverse”.
While in the same 4 years, China continues its rapid ascent, Vietnam is building up to 400,000 science and technology graduates a year and even little Cambodia is putting up 40 story buildings in its capital.
#1 QUOTE It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the near future when the very top of this pyramid is gone. UNQUOTE
We don’t seriously think that this is going to happen, do we? The current farce really does go no further than sacrificing gun fodder in t-shirts for the sake of those already rich who want to exploit the succession to cement their own power. Revolution might happen, but we will still be stuck graynjaiing a bunch of talentless parasites.
I recently enrolled in a 6 month Thai language course at one of the major Bangkok language schools. Most of the students were either evangelical Christian Koreans, Russians who wanted to work in Pattaya or Americans/Europeans in their 20’s who desired to live in Thailand for a while as a kind of “cross-cultural” experience.
While technically, the teachers and school were OK and many of the students actually became quite developed in their Thai language skills, throughout the course the teachers, many of whom seemed to be strong supporters of PAD/Yellow and anti-Red Shirt, constantly made negative comments about rural Thais, Thaksin and the Red Shirt movement.
They also filled the classrooms each day with all the standard Thai Tourist Authority constructs about what Thailand “is” and who the Thai people “are”, always polite, everything in Thailand is “suay” (even Walking Street in Pattaya which I kept inisisting to the various teachers’ constant annoyance, was not actually “suay” at all, in fact downright “ugly”, and there is a “proper” way to say and do everything which is the “Thai way”.
Basically, it was a complete and total, albeit possibly unconcious, indoctrination/brainwashing into the rightwing/royalist construct as to what Thailand is, Thailand’s history, and who the Thai people are.
The result sort of washed over the evangelical Christians, bounced off the worldly and cynical Russians and seemed to be enthusiastically accepted by the young and naive Americans and Europeans.
But it gave me a clear impression of what it must be like for the average Thai child to spend 8 to 12 years in the Thai government schools with day long brainwashing/indoctrination into such a twisted, untrue and rightwing/royalist views of where he/she lives and who they “are”.
If your country might get some trouble with China in the future, a small batch of submarines will be more deterrent that a handful of frigates or the Aircraft Carrier with no operational fighter jets.
I hope you are not joking here, if we are to have trouble with the country with the biggest arm service in the world, I dont think 6 submarine will be much help. To give you some credit, the 2 countries that has more potential to have any trouble with China is Taiwan and Japan do have plan or already have submarine fleet (Taiwan is planning to construct one while Japan already has a fleet).
If a country is going to maintain a submarine fleet, its better make sure that the technology and training is always up to date to make the submarine fleet any matter in the modern day context.
Now let’s talk a bit about Navy tactic during WWII and demonstrate what I mean. During WWII the german has to relied on submarine because their Navy was weak and Goring wasn’t interesting on giving the Kriegmarine the air craft carrier capable fighter so the Kriegmarine was left with no much choice. Moreover the type VII was the state of art of the submarine design of its day, that’s why they were successful during the early day of the war (specifically in 1941). The German’s large number of submarine, the technology, the training, and the tactic were what made them dangerous during those day. (if Thailand is to simulate the same success we better be doing something similar). However, after the introduction of modern sonar and sea born petrol, the German submarine operation was limited to a small corridor in the North Atlantic. Not until the introduction of type XXI that the German gain the initiative again but that came too late to make any different.
Given the fact that the main mission for submarine was the sea lane interdiction (or simply put, harassment) and intelligence gathering it is a de facto, an offensive military weapon type. The application for submarine usage is somewhat limit. If you want to look at a good example, I would encourage you to study about the Indo-Paki war of 1971, because that was when the small Pakistani Navy equipped with submarine went against the large surface only Indian Navy.
On a side note, maintaining a submarine is much much much more costly than a frigate.
In living here I’ve seen Thais act for more disrespectfully and directly than anything I’ve seen back in my home country. Kreng jai can be sincere or it can be survival. Thais often suppress their rage, disapproval, angst only to explode in an orgy of vitriol. They can also step outside their system and use a farang as a scapegoat for their rage thinking that in “farang culture” one can say anything and get away with it.
Thai culture is based on inequality and the Thai food chain is the mother of all food chains. Kreng jai or not, beware those who step out of line.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the near future when the very top of this pyramid is gone.
The video was discomforting on so many fronts; the obsequious kow-towing by the interviewer for starters. When he ate the dog’s biscuit, it literally drew bile to my throat. Next he’ll be sucking the toe jam from her socks.
Does anybody know more about the princess’s condition? I undertsand her appearance has been put down to a “fall”. I don’t want to be intentionally being mean to her, as she is clearly unwell, but it looks far more serious to me. Severe brain damage and an unhealthy dose of very strong medication was my initial thought.
You mean 19? Or 91. If the latter, read the short post again. If 19, then you might need a refresher on the events. I believe most reports have it that 25 died that day. Some say 26.
If your country might get some trouble with China in the future, a small batch of submarines will be more deterrent that a handful of frigates or the Aircraft Carrier with no operational fighter jets.
For the same reason the German Navy im WW II was more dangerous with a few dozens of submarines instead of one big battleship which would cost about the same.
That was the reason why I posted the videolinks, so that you have another source and people like you can have a second look that will confirm Nick’s professionalsm.
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On Thailand’s submarine ambitions
The Thai Navy has more admirals than ships. To be precise, there are 42 admirals servicing 1 aircraft carrier**, 10 frigates and 7 corvettes. So that works out at 2.3 admirals for every ship. Money is clearly no object when it comes to keeping the Thai Navy afloat.
**what the f..k?!
A mass rally and a funeral
c17
kireb – when a scene you want to photograph is so wide that you can’t get everything into one shot with a normal lens, you have to take two or more photographs and fit them together. Nick did that – and showed what he did by including the whole frame of each separate photo – not just for the crowd shots but also others. Without a distorting “fish-eye” lens, the only other way is to use a specialised panning camera that will move from one side to the other. That’s not practical in these situations – so Nick did the next best thing and was honest in showing it.
If you think those crowd photos are too “blurry” to be clear, I suggest you visit an optician. If you want to believe they’re “propaganda” (fake), I suggest none of the facts here will matter to you anyway.
A mass rally and a funeral
“kireb”:
The crowd photos are not “blurry”, they are slightly grainy as they have been shot on 3200 ASA, 1/60 sec, and with F-stop 2.8 to 5.0 depending on image. And yes, of course, they are panoramic shots made up of 2 and 3 single images (clearly marked so as each of the single images has a black border). I have done so out of reasons of “visual language” (google that term, please), and because one single shot would have simply not been able to capture the size of the crowd.
Reforming Thai language structure
To even suggest that the Thai Language is any more difficult to read and/or comprehend because there isn’t any spacing between words is one of the most ludicrous things I’ve heard in a LONG time!
The same goes for the less than astute observation that Thai has ‘no punctuation’.
Given Thai is a totally tonal language; words in spoken Thai cannot be emphasized like they are in engrish to carry emotive value. You can’t raise the tone of the last word in a sentence and have it carry an interrogative meaning, because you’d be saying a different word entirely. Hence the many “question word” tags which mark both spoken AND written Thai as a sentence construct which is a question.
Not coincidentally, Thai has a plethora of words which can and do convey the emotional context of what is being said, be it; interrogative, emphatic statements, denial on many levels, urging, and outright commands to do something. These all sync up to emotions commonly expressed in spoken engrish by the different toning of words and in written engrish as punctuation. What is the reasoning behind advocates who say written Thai should adopt punctuation marks when the important punctuation markers already appear as WORDS in the sentence construct?
Sadly, it would appear foreigners making these comments aren’t quite as clever in reading and understanding written Thai as they make themselves out to be.
Oh, BTW, this is posted in my real name; Google it, and if you’re not gonna post this at least have the balls to let me know via email.
Reforming Thai language structure
To be honest, Thai language is not really optimized, especially the scripting (44 alphabets, with loads of duplicates just to mess with the spellings). Though the grammar is simple enough, conversational Thai could be mastered fairly quick*.
—
#2
I can confirm that the 8-12 years mandatory school curriculum was really a prolonged brainwashing program.
For example. We were taught that we maintained our sovereignty/independence (р╣Ар╕нр╕Бр╕гр╕▓р╕К) throughout our history, though the “history textbooks” were so keen on emphasizing the facts that Burma occupied us twice, and skimmed a bit on Japan also.
The same “history textbooks” did not really mentioned the fact that we took over our current neighbors and did what to them, the text just kept showing the fact that we gave it to the farangs (Farangcais! and British) due to gunboat treaties.
—
* = Does not include the Royal Thai and the Holy Thai reserved for particular audiences/objects. That, even Thais cannot really master.
Red Shirt statement on 10 April
Dear Fall,
I expect you will find the “most bias news [you] ever read” actually came from the undersigned: Jaran Ditapichai, a Red Shirt leader.
Best wishes to all,
Nich
Reforming Thai language structure
That’s a fascinating point about punctuation that’s worth exploring further.
I’m a much better reader of Thai than I am a speaker, mainly because I find it easier to learn a foreign alphabet by rote than grasp the intuition necessary for learning to speak. Even so, the lack of punctuation in Thai makes no sense to me. There is nothing inherent in the Thai alphabet that compensates for these constraints. Thai is just as difficult to read as English would be without punctuation and the separation of words and sentences. To obtain fluency in written Thai one spends much more time learning to identify patterns – or consistent ‘pictures’ within the text, if you will. This seems to me to be a highly inefficient structure for extracting meaning and progressing discourse. Most European languages (I can’t speak for other language groups) rely on punctuation to enhance meaning and subtlety – a well-placed comma, for example, can remove ambiguity.
I wonder how this inherent constraint in written Thai has influenced the socio-political development of the country? Has it, as the contributor seems to suggest, hamstrung the lower classes and allowed the elite to control society?
A study of how Thai society has been influenced by its language would be a fascinating read.
Reforming Thai language structure
Putting spaces between words in written Thai would indeed be a win-win for both Thais and foreigners, and I agree that the evidence seems to suggest that the changes in the neurophysiological demands for reading would allow readers of Thai to become more efficient and lead to increases in automaticity that would let them be more attentive to subtleties of meaning. It might even increase the amount of pleasure derived from reading, thus leading to higher rates of reading among the population at large.
I was therefore surprised (actually shocked) by the level of vitriol this suggestion generated when proposed in the Bangkok Post a few years ago. It taught me that there is a deeply conservative, some might even describe it as reactionary, ideology among the gatekeepers for the Thai educational system. Is it no wonder then that the just released O-NET scores were at an all time low for Matiyom 6 students, with the majority of students receiving failing grades on all subjects, and scores for Mathematics and English abysmally low (14 percent and 17 percent)?
What would happen if we could start a mass movement for language reform? By “we” I don’t mean foreigners, but progressive elements in Thai society. I think beliefs are so entrenched among the elite that there would be a crackdown against it, with laws passed criminalizing the writing of Thai in anything but scriptura continua format by the powers that be. Then writing Thai with breaks between words would become a revolutionary act.
Red Shirt statement on 10 April
Can’t help it but say this is the most bias news I ever read coming from professors of a respected University. The authors should be ashamed on themselves for being “experts” in the field. What a joke, let alone censoring comments which they think is “high quality”. The articles are low quality to begin with.
There are numerous links to pro-red supporter websites, that alone makes the authors and University highly bias and not trustworthy.
On Thailand’s submarine ambitions
Tukkae: You have got to be delusional or kidding if you think a couple of out-of-date small subs, maintained in a haphazard manner and manned by a badly trained Thai Navy crew are ever going to be anything more than a minor speed bump to the military structure of China (or even Vietnam for that matter).
China is already dominate in Laos, Burma and Cambodia and is just about to start building a major hi-speed rail system across Thailand as part of China’s plan to connect SW China and Kumming to SE Asia and Singapore.
China also just got the “go-ahead” from the present Thailand government to build one of the world’s largest Trade Mart Centers on the outskirts of Bangkok which will house 70,000 plus Chinese trading business and eventually dominate/control imports & exports in and out of Thailand of all manner of dry goods and small electronics products.
From the China pov, the Army/Navy/Air Force of Thailand is a kind of comic joke, manned by corrupt, greedy and incompetent generals who are constantly meddling in politics when they are not busy with their brothels, human/drug/illicit materials trafficking networks and various highly lucrative extortion schemes.
Are you a citizen of Thailand, Tukkae? You need to “wake up” as to where your country stands after 4 years of treading water and “going forward in reverse”.
While in the same 4 years, China continues its rapid ascent, Vietnam is building up to 400,000 science and technology graduates a year and even little Cambodia is putting up 40 story buildings in its capital.
Reforming Thai language structure
#1 QUOTE It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the near future when the very top of this pyramid is gone. UNQUOTE
We don’t seriously think that this is going to happen, do we? The current farce really does go no further than sacrificing gun fodder in t-shirts for the sake of those already rich who want to exploit the succession to cement their own power. Revolution might happen, but we will still be stuck graynjaiing a bunch of talentless parasites.
Reforming Thai language structure
I recently enrolled in a 6 month Thai language course at one of the major Bangkok language schools. Most of the students were either evangelical Christian Koreans, Russians who wanted to work in Pattaya or Americans/Europeans in their 20’s who desired to live in Thailand for a while as a kind of “cross-cultural” experience.
While technically, the teachers and school were OK and many of the students actually became quite developed in their Thai language skills, throughout the course the teachers, many of whom seemed to be strong supporters of PAD/Yellow and anti-Red Shirt, constantly made negative comments about rural Thais, Thaksin and the Red Shirt movement.
They also filled the classrooms each day with all the standard Thai Tourist Authority constructs about what Thailand “is” and who the Thai people “are”, always polite, everything in Thailand is “suay” (even Walking Street in Pattaya which I kept inisisting to the various teachers’ constant annoyance, was not actually “suay” at all, in fact downright “ugly”, and there is a “proper” way to say and do everything which is the “Thai way”.
Basically, it was a complete and total, albeit possibly unconcious, indoctrination/brainwashing into the rightwing/royalist construct as to what Thailand is, Thailand’s history, and who the Thai people are.
The result sort of washed over the evangelical Christians, bounced off the worldly and cynical Russians and seemed to be enthusiastically accepted by the young and naive Americans and Europeans.
But it gave me a clear impression of what it must be like for the average Thai child to spend 8 to 12 years in the Thai government schools with day long brainwashing/indoctrination into such a twisted, untrue and rightwing/royalist views of where he/she lives and who they “are”.
On Thailand’s submarine ambitions
tukkae – 4
If your country might get some trouble with China in the future, a small batch of submarines will be more deterrent that a handful of frigates or the Aircraft Carrier with no operational fighter jets.
I hope you are not joking here, if we are to have trouble with the country with the biggest arm service in the world, I dont think 6 submarine will be much help. To give you some credit, the 2 countries that has more potential to have any trouble with China is Taiwan and Japan do have plan or already have submarine fleet (Taiwan is planning to construct one while Japan already has a fleet).
If a country is going to maintain a submarine fleet, its better make sure that the technology and training is always up to date to make the submarine fleet any matter in the modern day context.
Now let’s talk a bit about Navy tactic during WWII and demonstrate what I mean. During WWII the german has to relied on submarine because their Navy was weak and Goring wasn’t interesting on giving the Kriegmarine the air craft carrier capable fighter so the Kriegmarine was left with no much choice. Moreover the type VII was the state of art of the submarine design of its day, that’s why they were successful during the early day of the war (specifically in 1941). The German’s large number of submarine, the technology, the training, and the tactic were what made them dangerous during those day. (if Thailand is to simulate the same success we better be doing something similar). However, after the introduction of modern sonar and sea born petrol, the German submarine operation was limited to a small corridor in the North Atlantic. Not until the introduction of type XXI that the German gain the initiative again but that came too late to make any different.
Given the fact that the main mission for submarine was the sea lane interdiction (or simply put, harassment) and intelligence gathering it is a de facto, an offensive military weapon type. The application for submarine usage is somewhat limit. If you want to look at a good example, I would encourage you to study about the Indo-Paki war of 1971, because that was when the small Pakistani Navy equipped with submarine went against the large surface only Indian Navy.
On a side note, maintaining a submarine is much much much more costly than a frigate.
Reforming Thai language structure
In living here I’ve seen Thais act for more disrespectfully and directly than anything I’ve seen back in my home country. Kreng jai can be sincere or it can be survival. Thais often suppress their rage, disapproval, angst only to explode in an orgy of vitriol. They can also step outside their system and use a farang as a scapegoat for their rage thinking that in “farang culture” one can say anything and get away with it.
Thai culture is based on inequality and the Thai food chain is the mother of all food chains. Kreng jai or not, beware those who step out of line.
It’ll be interesting to see what happens in the near future when the very top of this pyramid is gone.
Zarni comes out firing at Burma experts, again
Hi Maung Zarni, I thought you have signed out. Why touting your articles? No one in Burma will read them?
Popular responses to Princess Chulabhorn’s interview
The video was discomforting on so many fronts; the obsequious kow-towing by the interviewer for starters. When he ate the dog’s biscuit, it literally drew bile to my throat. Next he’ll be sucking the toe jam from her socks.
Does anybody know more about the princess’s condition? I undertsand her appearance has been put down to a “fall”. I don’t want to be intentionally being mean to her, as she is clearly unwell, but it looks far more serious to me. Severe brain damage and an unhealthy dose of very strong medication was my initial thought.
Marking April 10 in Sydney
You mean 19? Or 91. If the latter, read the short post again. If 19, then you might need a refresher on the events. I believe most reports have it that 25 died that day. Some say 26.
On Thailand’s submarine ambitions
If your country might get some trouble with China in the future, a small batch of submarines will be more deterrent that a handful of frigates or the Aircraft Carrier with no operational fighter jets.
For the same reason the German Navy im WW II was more dangerous with a few dozens of submarines instead of one big battleship which would cost about the same.
A mass rally and a funeral
@ kireb
That was the reason why I posted the videolinks, so that you have another source and people like you can have a second look that will confirm Nick’s professionalsm.
If you don’t believe that, up to you…
Zarni comes out firing at Burma experts, again
Web Exclusive
Outrageously optimistic 08 April 2011
By Maung Zarni
The intellectual crisis of reporting on Burma by the International Crisis Group.
http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/4383-outrageously-optimistic.html