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...
View Post
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...
View Post
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...
View Post
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...
View Post
Myanmar-Burma, Rohingya (the Muslim people) & Rakhine State (the area where they live)
7 November 2017 | Living
I’ve just been at the Irrawaddy Literary Festival in Myanmar. I put a lot of thought into it before I went, assorted people told me I should not be going, that by turning up I was ignoring the ethnic cleansing or even genocide going on in the Rakhine area, the western...
View Post