Myanmar:

Three More Countries Not to Visit

13 May 2025 | Living

My recent blog – I’m Not Going There Anymore – soon raised other possibilities for a ‘no go’ list. I should agree immediately that this is a change of attitude for me. For a long time I’ve thought we should go anywhere, it’s important for all sorts of reasons that we ...

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Tony’s Coronavirus Notes – the Buddhist Countries of South-East Asia

19 July 2020 | Living

I spend lots of time – like lots of other people – looking at the coronavirus numbers, graphs, projections and analyses. Of course we pay most attention to our own backyard – what’s happening in Europe, in North America or, for me, in Australia and then looking jealou...

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The Rohingya Refugees in Bangladesh

11 April 2018 | Living

In early November 2017 – just six months ago – I went to the Irrawaddy Writers Festival in Mandalay, Myanmar. And got castigated for swanning around in Burma when the country was guilty of war crimes, genocide in the Rakhine region, chasing half a million of their Roh...

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Rohingya, Myanmar, Bangladesh, New York City & Akayed Ullah

26 December 2017 | Living

My visit to Mandalay in Myanmar for the Irrawaddy Literary Festival was all about the disastrous campaign against the Muslim Rohingya people of the country’s Rakhine State. Myanmar’s genocidal campaign against the villagers in the district led to thousands of deaths a...

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Nay Pyi Taw – the new capital of Myanmar

3 December 2017 | Places

The Lonely Planet Myanmar guide suggests that ‘it can feel soulless – Canberra meets Brasilia with a peculiar Orwellian twist.’ I’ve not been to Brasilia, but that’s very unfair to Canberra. Compared to Nay Pyi Taw the bush capital of Australia is compact, crowded, ea...

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