Here comes the election fest again.  Politicians are busy grouping, merging, parting, and regrouping, while calls for free and fair election are made and echoed.

Over 300 men from the three southernmost provinces have been held in army camps in Ranong, Suratthani, and Chumpon undergoing occupational training since August 2007. At least 6 of those detained were juveniles. The military publicized these training camps as capacity building and attitude adjustment programs and stressed that the detainees had enrolled voluntarily.

Someone once told me Piang Luang is waiting for us to explore. Perhaps that's true-whenever the name Piang Luang is mentioned, it brings me immense pleasure, the fresh, delightful breeze of orange-blossom.

The journey the Pangdaeng Palaung took was long and dangerous, from their old villages in Burma's Shan state across forests, rivers and mountains before reaching the Thai border.

Tens of Thousands of Buddhist monks as well as civilians gathered in Rangoon and other provinces in Burma recently, in demonbstrations that ended with violent deaths and arrests of protestors by the military government. This is not the first time that we have heard such reports from Burma.