Good morning,

Looks like the junta is going to crack down on pro-democracy demonstrations with arrests threatened against supposed ‘leaders’ (http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/07/24/politics/politics_30042150.php). The English language newspapers, especially The Nation, are doing their bit for the generals by continuing to accept the reports provided by junta cronies at face value and describing the demonstrators as a ‘mob.’ So much for journalism.

Ong Keng Yong, Secretary General of ASEAN, has said that it is unlikely that a US-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement will be signed soon but that relations between the two remain strong (http://www.nationmultimedia.com/worldhotnews/read.php?newsid=30042154). Mr Ong was speaking in the wake of President Bush’s decision not to turn up for the 30^th anniversary of relations between the USA and ASEAN.

Archaeologists are looking at a one thousand year old wooden coffin lid created by an unknown tribe (http://www.bangkokpost.com/News/24Jul2007_news02.php). The lid is currently in the Haripunchai National Museum in Lampang. It bears a stylized figure of a woman on it and no one knows its provenance – is it from a previously unknown tribe or from people now living in Vietnam?

Semi-final day tomorrow in the 2007 Asian Cup: Korea against Iraq and Japan against Saudi Arabia. A Korea-Japan final would give a nice sense of ancient rivalry, while success for Iraq would be a remarkable human interest story. Expect the Saudis to win, therefore.

Today’s article at Suite 101 is about Cambodia’s Oil: http://cambodia.suite101.com/article.cfm/cambodias_oil.

Back tomorrow.