Good morning,

The Burmese junta’s decision to double petrol prices last week seems set to lead to demonstrations (http://www.bangkokpost.com/breaking_news/breakingnews.php?id=120999). The poor Burmese people find it hard enough to make ends meet as it is, without this new and unexpected charge. Around 400 demonstrators marched on Sunday, braving likely reprisals from the police and military (http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=8286). It is possible that demonstrations will escalate but just as likely that crackdowns will be used to arrest pro-democracy activists and others.

There is very little coverage of the crisis facing Hmong people forced to return to Laos and who have started a hunger strike in protest The Nation has this to say (http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/08/21/national/national_30045841.php) about the 149 refugees, including 90 children, who are apparently being held in ‘inhumane’ conditions. The UNHCR is reporting that the hunger strike has been ended but the situation remains grim (http://www.unhcr.org/news/NEWS/46c97f5f4.html).

Two farm workers were shot dead yesterday in the Southern insurgency and thee other people injured (http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/08/21/national/national_30045843.php). More than 2,300 people have been killed in the region since 2004.

Yesterday I published ‘Terrorism in the Philippines’ at Suite 101 (http://philippines.suite101.com/article.cfm/terrorism_in_the_philippines). I also sent some reviews to Bookideas but they have not been put up yet. I will try to catch up with the backlog of reviewing over the next week. However, I also have to write up the Vientiane paper, try to finish the Yunnan paper, do a load of editing and there are three grim looking yellow envelopes grinning at me with gimlet eye, full of unmarked exam papers. Then there is the teaching ….never mind.

Encouraging news from the ASEAN Journal on Hospitality, mind you.

Back tomorrow at some stage.