BANGKOK, Thailand — When Iran looks west, it faces trade sanctions, political hostility and military threats. So now the vilified government is turning to the east, where energy-hungry Asia is embracing it as a regional partner. Trade and investment between Iran and Asia is exploding, with Asia’s booming economies keen to buy Iranian oil and natural gas, and Iran desperate for Asia’s advanced technology. “Asia needs our energy and we need their technology,” said Iran’s ambassador to Thailand Moshen Pakaein, from Iran’s newly expanded $5 million diplomatic compound in Bangkok. Behind the ultra-modern frosted glass and concrete building — which [...]
BANGKOK, Thailand — The rekindling of formal diplomatic relations between Burma and North Korea this week completes a bizarre circle of skulduggery between two pariah states. The visit by Pyongyang’s deputy foreign minister, Kim Yong-Il, to Rangoon and the half-built new capital Naypyidaw is a formality, and certainly not the first visit by North Koreans since relations were formally severed in 1983. There have been persistent reports in recent years of North Korean technicians working in Burma, including isolated Naypyidaw — which means the abode of kings — 200 miles north of the old capital of Rangoon, a nine-hour train [...]
BANGKOK, Thailand — The quaint 1956 Hollywood musical “The King and I,” which most people might regard as innocuous, probably would have been banned in Thailand under broadening definitions of “national security” now being cited by military coup leaders to justify their increasing censorship. But in any case, the movie, starring the late Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, is already outlawed under another device that curbs public opinion, the increasingly catch-all “les majeste” rule. Brynner’s singing and dancing routine has long been considered by the authorities to insult the institution of the Thai monarchy, and to distort Thai history. The [...]
