Not just an area studies lack of expertise in journalism circles, try none at all if defined in terms of knowledge of the literature in a given field. Area studies expertise is completely outsourced to outside experts in op-ed pieces. Such a small fraction of the staff of mainstream news organizations have any interest at all in the actual news content and it is not the content per se that generates revenue, it is advertising revenue requiring sizable ad sales staff, and that revenue is drying up with the rising advertising dominance of web platforms such as Facebook and Google.
That gives academic institutions a big opportunity not just “informing Australians about the world” but informing Thais, for instance, about what is going on in their own country.
But academics lack two things essential in the news business: 1. timeliness in reporting on “breaking events” (as in grab the breaking news audience which typically accounts for 50% of website traffic) but that can easily be accomplished because of the great redundancy in news reporting at this level (in fact, what I do all day-long), and 2. breadth, because of the hyper-specialized nature of PhD research perhaps. For example, ANU has the RegNet School or Regulation and Governance and since someone pointed it out to me, I have come to realize that a huge percentage of daily news coverage, including breaking events, in countries like Thailand is related to regulatory issues or failure of regulation, from food safety, to fire and building safety, boating safety, school buses, traffic safety, regulation of police conduct and public oversight, etc, etc, but Southeast Asianists seem to have their own obsessions, currently focused on social movements and national political conflicts, and it is this breadth that really breaks the camel’s back as far as academic institutions and the news is concerned. A large fraction of Thai people want to learn about what is happening in their country, but web traffic statistics clearly show they are burned out with the decade political conflict. So diversification of the news issues covered by academics is severely needed.
“As I understand it, the CNRP is committed to a Khmer nationalist position that is hostile to Vietnam and to ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia. If CNRP government is formed, will relations with Vietnam be managed sensibly, or will conflict arise between the two countries?”
Conflict between Vietnam and Cambodia extends back for centuries and during recent centuries Camdodia has ceded much territory to Vietnam and of course been invaded and occupied by Vietnam following the Khmer rouge. For many Khmer, especially those with Chinese ethnicity, the Vietnamese rule was no better than the situation under the Khmer Rouge. Whilst Cambodia has had similar problems with Thailand, culturally Cambodia and Thailand are much closer. So most Khmer see Vietnam with distrust and as their natural enemy, moreso Hun Sen has clear links to Vietnam and is seen by many Khmer as giving Vietnam favourable treatment and selling out Khmer assets to Vietnamese interests. Some would go as far as to say he is a puppet of Vietnam. Under Hun Sen border incursions by the Vietnamese are largely ignored unlike similar incursions by the the Thais. So one might expect that a new government would be less favourable to Vietnam in keeping with popular sentiment. Whether this leads to severe conflict with Vietnam will largely be determined by Vietnams response to a changed situation in Cambodia.
It is the CNRP policy to have the many Vietnamese staying illegally in Cambodia return to Vietnam, but there is no stated intention to remove those present legally. Most people expect that this will be done gradually.
I’ll remind Ms. Llewellyn that the royal succession matters more to the Thai poor and neglected (they look up to HMK Bhumibhol for hope, inspiration and succor) than it does to the Thai elite. That said, the Crown Prince for years had been a perennially absent royal figure in Thailand (how many times a month do the Thais get a glimpse of The Crown Prince appearance in public affairs on TV? – almost zero). Whereas Princess Sarindhorn, like her father HMK Bhumibhol during his reign before age and illness slowed him down, tirelessly and with enthusiasm carry on her multiple royal assignments/appearances nearly everywhere (remote or otherewise) to lift the Thai spirits, and with much appreciation from the Thai citizenry, daily on TV (the medium still most watched by the Thais).
Thus three questions to Ms. Llewellyn:
(1) Would the Thai public be angry and disappointed if Princess Sarindhorn is crowned Queen, and not the Crown Prince?
(2) Who decides the royal succession? The Privy Council decides, don’t they? Who do you think the Privy Council prefers to succeed HMK Bhumibhol?
(3) Finally assuming General Prayuth is still the Thai Prime Minister to oversee the royal succession . . . The Princess or The Prince?
Wat Phra Dhammakaya is part of the Thai Mahanikaya, and is not a separate sect as the mainstream media suggests. No amount of propaganda will prove effective if the DSI starts assaulting their monks. Even taking action against the lay supporters is problematic as they potentially number in the millions and they are not deterred by the threat of prison sentences.
The DSI arrest warrant is similar to Sweden’s warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange. Neither have been charged with any crime and the warrants are for repeatedly failing to attend an informal interview. In common with Julian Assange, Phra Dhammajayo believes that his interview request is merely a pretext for a separate and highly political agenda. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicholas-liusuwan/prosecution-of-buddhist-m_b_10122666.html
Too bad there aren’t local language versions of the articles that come out on this site. New Mandela’s contributors’ ideas are outside the box for the vast majority of Thais due to the language barrier.
As I understand it, the CNRP is committed to a Khmer nationalist position that is hostile to Vietnam and to ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia. If CNRP government is formed, will relations with Vietnam be managed sensibly, or will conflict arise between the two countries?
It’s all well and good to believe that all the new laws and regulations are in place but one should consider if they are being enforced, which they are not.
The Thai Navy could and should do it’s job, but it isn’t.
As far as I can see nothing has changed, the 8,000 odd illegal fishing boats get around all the rules and regulations by sitting off shore and claim they are fishing locally, which they are.
In the last two months I took my little fishing boat out around the islands near Kho Samet. Behind those islands, out of view of the mainland they sit and wait for the larger boats to come to them and off-load their catch, then take it into port as caught locally.
I have sonar and GPS on my small boat and I can tell you the coast around Thailand has been stripped of all fish, no matter the size.
In days gone past I would see small shoals of fish under the boat, now all I see is nothing. Even over the reefs where the larger boats had to avoid, smaller shallow draft boats are setting nets that clean out all the small fish.
In one of my favourite spots that used to be a diver’s haven I saw nothing and the tourist boats have stopped going there, so I donned the diving gear and had a look. The coral has been ripped out by the large nets and the fish are gone, all those small tropical fish that would come and have a suck and nibble at you have disappeared because they have no protection.
The seas around Kho Samet have been raped by the smaller boats waiting for the bigger ships to come in and off-load their catch.
I even went out to the main shipping channel and the fish I saw on my sonar you could count on one hand.
The sooner the EU and US ban Thai seafood the better.
I don’t know how the small fisherman with his one man boat is surviving, during my three days touring around the area I saw none, whereas in the olden days you would see at least a dozen or so putting between their grounds.
Rape is a good word to use at the moment.
Thanks for this update. It’s pity the Australian government is absolutely silent on such matters. We seem to only care about ‘democracy’ when it involves profits.
Hi Chris
Yes we will be recording each panel and will make these live shortly after the event. Be sure to check in with the site as well as our Soundcloud profile: https://soundcloud.com/newmandala
Thanks for the kind words and the continued support.
Thank you for your comments. This piece is based on my academic article on slavery in the fishing industry, published in the Asian Journal of International Law. I have provided the link below.
The maturity level of most Malaysians is very low, but when mixed with crony capitalism, it becomes infantile. No Malaysian is immune from this pattern.
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The King is (nearly) dead: long live the King?
indeed
The King is (nearly) dead: long live the King?
don’t make false assumptions there is plenty of Thai language options , which is why the junta is so paranoid .
The King is (nearly) dead: long live the King?
Succession has been decided and is now being enforced like it or not at gun point by the Junta .
The blogger’s rise and media’s demise
Not just an area studies lack of expertise in journalism circles, try none at all if defined in terms of knowledge of the literature in a given field. Area studies expertise is completely outsourced to outside experts in op-ed pieces. Such a small fraction of the staff of mainstream news organizations have any interest at all in the actual news content and it is not the content per se that generates revenue, it is advertising revenue requiring sizable ad sales staff, and that revenue is drying up with the rising advertising dominance of web platforms such as Facebook and Google.
That gives academic institutions a big opportunity not just “informing Australians about the world” but informing Thais, for instance, about what is going on in their own country.
But academics lack two things essential in the news business: 1. timeliness in reporting on “breaking events” (as in grab the breaking news audience which typically accounts for 50% of website traffic) but that can easily be accomplished because of the great redundancy in news reporting at this level (in fact, what I do all day-long), and 2. breadth, because of the hyper-specialized nature of PhD research perhaps. For example, ANU has the RegNet School or Regulation and Governance and since someone pointed it out to me, I have come to realize that a huge percentage of daily news coverage, including breaking events, in countries like Thailand is related to regulatory issues or failure of regulation, from food safety, to fire and building safety, boating safety, school buses, traffic safety, regulation of police conduct and public oversight, etc, etc, but Southeast Asianists seem to have their own obsessions, currently focused on social movements and national political conflicts, and it is this breadth that really breaks the camel’s back as far as academic institutions and the news is concerned. A large fraction of Thai people want to learn about what is happening in their country, but web traffic statistics clearly show they are burned out with the decade political conflict. So diversification of the news issues covered by academics is severely needed.
Cambodia’s latest crackdown: an affair to remember
“As I understand it, the CNRP is committed to a Khmer nationalist position that is hostile to Vietnam and to ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia. If CNRP government is formed, will relations with Vietnam be managed sensibly, or will conflict arise between the two countries?”
Conflict between Vietnam and Cambodia extends back for centuries and during recent centuries Camdodia has ceded much territory to Vietnam and of course been invaded and occupied by Vietnam following the Khmer rouge. For many Khmer, especially those with Chinese ethnicity, the Vietnamese rule was no better than the situation under the Khmer Rouge. Whilst Cambodia has had similar problems with Thailand, culturally Cambodia and Thailand are much closer. So most Khmer see Vietnam with distrust and as their natural enemy, moreso Hun Sen has clear links to Vietnam and is seen by many Khmer as giving Vietnam favourable treatment and selling out Khmer assets to Vietnamese interests. Some would go as far as to say he is a puppet of Vietnam. Under Hun Sen border incursions by the Vietnamese are largely ignored unlike similar incursions by the the Thais. So one might expect that a new government would be less favourable to Vietnam in keeping with popular sentiment. Whether this leads to severe conflict with Vietnam will largely be determined by Vietnams response to a changed situation in Cambodia.
It is the CNRP policy to have the many Vietnamese staying illegally in Cambodia return to Vietnam, but there is no stated intention to remove those present legally. Most people expect that this will be done gradually.
The King is (nearly) dead: long live the King?
I’ll remind Ms. Llewellyn that the royal succession matters more to the Thai poor and neglected (they look up to HMK Bhumibhol for hope, inspiration and succor) than it does to the Thai elite. That said, the Crown Prince for years had been a perennially absent royal figure in Thailand (how many times a month do the Thais get a glimpse of The Crown Prince appearance in public affairs on TV? – almost zero). Whereas Princess Sarindhorn, like her father HMK Bhumibhol during his reign before age and illness slowed him down, tirelessly and with enthusiasm carry on her multiple royal assignments/appearances nearly everywhere (remote or otherewise) to lift the Thai spirits, and with much appreciation from the Thai citizenry, daily on TV (the medium still most watched by the Thais).
Thus three questions to Ms. Llewellyn:
(1) Would the Thai public be angry and disappointed if Princess Sarindhorn is crowned Queen, and not the Crown Prince?
(2) Who decides the royal succession? The Privy Council decides, don’t they? Who do you think the Privy Council prefers to succeed HMK Bhumibhol?
(3) Finally assuming General Prayuth is still the Thai Prime Minister to oversee the royal succession . . . The Princess or The Prince?
Buddhist politics and Thailand’s dangerous path
Wat Phra Dhammakaya is part of the Thai Mahanikaya, and is not a separate sect as the mainstream media suggests. No amount of propaganda will prove effective if the DSI starts assaulting their monks. Even taking action against the lay supporters is problematic as they potentially number in the millions and they are not deterred by the threat of prison sentences.
The DSI arrest warrant is similar to Sweden’s warrant for the arrest of Julian Assange. Neither have been charged with any crime and the warrants are for repeatedly failing to attend an informal interview. In common with Julian Assange, Phra Dhammajayo believes that his interview request is merely a pretext for a separate and highly political agenda.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nicholas-liusuwan/prosecution-of-buddhist-m_b_10122666.html
The King is (nearly) dead: long live the King?
Too bad there aren’t local language versions of the articles that come out on this site. New Mandela’s contributors’ ideas are outside the box for the vast majority of Thais due to the language barrier.
After the coup
then perpetually smirking Chalerm Yubamrung? Is he in jail, or, is he dead already?
Had the smirk been replaced by a scowl and had he bolted and run?
The King is (nearly) dead: long live the King?
Excellent.
Playing cat and mouse with Thailand’s junta
UDD and the Red Shirts play the Cat-n-Mouse game with the Junta. While the Red Shirt head abbot of Wat Dhammakaya played Hide-n-Seek with DSI today.
No photo shoots at Wat Dhammakaya N. Nostitz?
Cambodia’s latest crackdown: an affair to remember
As I understand it, the CNRP is committed to a Khmer nationalist position that is hostile to Vietnam and to ethnic Vietnamese living in Cambodia. If CNRP government is formed, will relations with Vietnam be managed sensibly, or will conflict arise between the two countries?
Ending labour abuse at sea
It’s all well and good to believe that all the new laws and regulations are in place but one should consider if they are being enforced, which they are not.
The Thai Navy could and should do it’s job, but it isn’t.
As far as I can see nothing has changed, the 8,000 odd illegal fishing boats get around all the rules and regulations by sitting off shore and claim they are fishing locally, which they are.
In the last two months I took my little fishing boat out around the islands near Kho Samet. Behind those islands, out of view of the mainland they sit and wait for the larger boats to come to them and off-load their catch, then take it into port as caught locally.
I have sonar and GPS on my small boat and I can tell you the coast around Thailand has been stripped of all fish, no matter the size.
In days gone past I would see small shoals of fish under the boat, now all I see is nothing. Even over the reefs where the larger boats had to avoid, smaller shallow draft boats are setting nets that clean out all the small fish.
In one of my favourite spots that used to be a diver’s haven I saw nothing and the tourist boats have stopped going there, so I donned the diving gear and had a look. The coral has been ripped out by the large nets and the fish are gone, all those small tropical fish that would come and have a suck and nibble at you have disappeared because they have no protection.
The seas around Kho Samet have been raped by the smaller boats waiting for the bigger ships to come in and off-load their catch.
I even went out to the main shipping channel and the fish I saw on my sonar you could count on one hand.
The sooner the EU and US ban Thai seafood the better.
I don’t know how the small fisherman with his one man boat is surviving, during my three days touring around the area I saw none, whereas in the olden days you would see at least a dozen or so putting between their grounds.
Rape is a good word to use at the moment.
The Kuala Lumpur logo controversy
Peter Cohen – any chance you could post at least ONE POSITIVE comment about Malaysia, and Malaysians ??
Cambodia’s latest crackdown: an affair to remember
Ana,
Thanks for this update. It’s pity the Australian government is absolutely silent on such matters. We seem to only care about ‘democracy’ when it involves profits.
Slavery and seafood
thank you for the link! -Thomas
New Mandala turns 10
Hi Chris
Yes we will be recording each panel and will make these live shortly after the event. Be sure to check in with the site as well as our Soundcloud profile:
https://soundcloud.com/newmandala
Thanks for the kind words and the continued support.
All the best to all,
James
The Kuala Lumpur logo controversy
Malaysia is FUBAR.
Slavery and seafood
Hi Thomas,
Thank you for your comments. This piece is based on my academic article on slavery in the fishing industry, published in the Asian Journal of International Law. I have provided the link below.
Kind regards,
Douglas
http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=10040164&fileId=S2044251315000235&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_campaign=asianjil
The Kuala Lumpur logo controversy
The maturity level of most Malaysians is very low, but when mixed with crony capitalism, it becomes infantile. No Malaysian is immune from this pattern.