You’ve no doubt by now noticed that the sites got a bit of a re-design and some things got changed around last week. We wanted to highlight two changes to make sure everyone knows what changed.

The first and biggest is COMMENTS! Registration is no longer required to post a comment on any post. Of course if you already have an account you can still login to ensure your comments are attributed to you, but those who don’t can now post a comment without any long term commitment. Also, on the right you can see some of the recent comments so you’ll always know what the active discussions are. This was the most requested thing we’ve heard from people since our last redesign and we’re excited to see where it leads.

The next change is also something that was heavily requested, and that is a change to the ADS on the sites. You’ll immediately notice fewer of them, but what might not be as obvious is those smaller square ones to the right are specific to this city only and are being sold for a flat rate for a period of time rather than a confusing CPM/traffic/network model. Depending on the city, these range from $7-$175 for a full week. If you purchase one, during that time your ad will be the only one in that spot and will show on every page. We set these up both to make it easier for smaller local businesses to get their ads on our site, and also to help us bring in ads that relate better to our local audiences. Also, keeping these sites online is expensive and every little bit helps.

There are a bunch of other things we changed but we’ll leave those to you to investigate and take advantage of. Hope you like it, and we look forward to seeing you in the comments!!

Love,
The folks at MBHQ

It’s all over the news, we’re looking at maybe 100,000 dead and 1.5 million displaced in Burma* thanks to the cyclone (and these are not, in fact, the highest estimates). The Burmese government, demonstrating once again that “military intelligence” is an oxymoron, are blocking international aid efforts. While I wouldn’t object to them being guillotined with a dull blade, I don’t think that should be anyone’s primary concern right now. Help is needed. Money is needed. There’s a good possibility that your attempts to help will be blocked or worse, appropriated, by a bunch of intransigent military meatheads, BUT… being too paralyzed to do or donate anything at all is probably the worst of all options. So let your sympathies move you to donate, but use your head and send your money where it will do the most good.

So I’ve been perusing the internets trying to find the safest bets. This list is NOT exhaustive. These are just some suggestions and guidelines, not necessarily an authoritative guide. So I’m not absolving you of responsibility to check for yourself, just pointing out where you can start.

What to look for:

• Look for organizations that already have people in Burma.
• Especially, look for the words “local partners”.
• I suspect, though I am being dismal, that giving money to US-based organizations will not be very effective. The junta will be more inclined to let in regional aid (india, thailand) than anything from the US, which has been pretty openly hostile to the government there.
• Look for organizations that are buying food and supplies in as local a market as possible. That will save operating costs. One commenter (it’s in there somewhere) pointed out that the aid packages being put together in the US contain cooking tools that people in Burma are not familiar with and don’t know how to use, on top of not being the most efficient use of money.

Below are some organizations that seem to be fairly effective. I’m including my sources, since I’m really just getting a lot of this info from the good people commenting over at the New York Times. My personal pick would be Avaaz.org, since they are working through the monks and temples in Burma, and those guys seem to have proven themselves quite helpful with cyclone relief efforts on the ground. But! Their website isn’t working at the moment.

from NYT article the first:

• international red cross seems to be in there already
• doctors without borders as well
• UN world food program is in, though they report that food has been seized by the govt.
• United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF) says they have not been having problems.

from NYT bloggy article, they have a list of organizations that are trying to help, but we don’t know how successful they are or whether they’re being let in at all. The most helpful stuff actually seems to be in the comments:

“The aid agency Direct Relief (dot org) is already in Burma, and are seeking donations to support their medical aid work there. It is one of the two featured charities that Google has up in the “support disaster relief” link.”

“Immediate help can be provided via Avaaz.org, who funnel donations to local monasteries, thus avoiding the Junta with its possible delays and diversions of donations. The monks will distribute the donations directly to the people.”

“it would be more realistic to send relief material through channels of or in cooperation with countries like China, Thailand and India.”

“So, donate money to any relief organization (like World Vision, Red Cross, World Relief, etc.) operating in Burma. Allow them to buy the necessary recovery and reconstruction materials in the local/regional market.”

“CARE has been working in Myanmar for 14 years.” (Though commenters are wondering how they can ensure that a donation there will actually go to Burma and not some other project.)

“Please add Pact’s name to your list and visit our website at www.pactworld.org. We have been working in Myanmar for the past ten years, have nearly 1200 local Burmese staff on the ground, 429 of which are in the Delta working primarily in a microfinance program that is in 1500 villages. We are one of the few American organizations on the ground and have greater reach than most. We are in seven of the ten hardest hit townships and have already been twice to the Delta with UNDP to do assessments.”

Global Giving has a long list. look for the words “local partners” or organizations that are already there.

Burma-Network also has a list of charities, which has a good amount of overlap with the list I’m presenting here.

* The debate over whether to call it Burma or Myanmar goes like this:
1) Myanmar is the junta’s name for the country, call it Burma till Aung San Suu Kyii says otherwise.
2) But Burma is the name given to the nation by British colonialists anyway. Myanma (without the r) would be a more accurate name, in line with what people actually called the place 600 years ago or whatever. Locals don’t want you to call it Burma.
I say: colonialism sucks, but replacing one evil with another doesn’t solve the problem, so I’m going with the pre-junta name until a democratically elected government says otherwise, or until I meet an actual local instead of hearing it through someone who visited Burma once.

Businessweek recently posted an article that clearly and concisely explains what’s happening with the rising cost of rice. The entire thing is a fascinating read, addressing speculation, export, biofuel production, oil prices, and the impact of all this on food aid. Here’s the excerpt most directly relevant to Thailand:

At first blush, Thailand appears to be sitting pretty. The spot price of Thai fragrant rice is about $1,100 per ton, compared with about $320 at the end of last year. However, exporters make their contracts several months in advance of delivery, and Thai Rice Exporters Assn. President Chookiat Ophaswongse says several exporters face huge losses because they are buying rice from traders at today’s prices but delivering that rice to buyers at prices from early in the year, before the latest price spiral started. Some exporters have renegotiated, others have defaulted on their deliveries. Chookiat says higher prices will cause exports to fall 20%-25% in the second quarter, to about 780,000 tons per month, compared with the first three months of the year.

That article claims that there isn’t a global rice shortage so much as rising prices due to speculation. Exporting nations stop exporting because they’re panicked, but domestic speculators horde the stuff and make the prices rise at home anyway. But the scary thing is, there’s only not a real shortage yet. We’re consuming (or perhaps hording) more rice than we’re producing which means we’re dipping into the stockpiles. Not exactly sustainable. Prime Minister Samak has been proposing a sort of Rice OPEC, a pretty controversial proposition (exporters are liking the idea, importers are hating it, economists think it won’t be entirely effective).

It’s a bit frustrating watching people write about the debate the rice crisis from a macro-economic point of view, like some kind of abstraction, because, as usual, poor people (think rice-and-fish-sauce-for-dinner poor) will suffer the most from this. From Al Jazeera:

a rise of even a few cents can for millions mean a difference between surviving or going hungry.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Well, despite concerns expressed in American Embassy warden messages that “protests can escalate with little warning, disrupting transportation systems and city services and posing risks to travelers’ personal safety” the Bangkok Post reported that the olympic torch run went pretty smoothly. (Though if lack of big problems is newsworthy I might be concerned) Some pro-Tibet protesters showed up, and some pro-China protesters harassed them (something I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around). Normally I adore the generally laid-back attitude of life here but this quote from Jon Ungphakorn, a former senator working on social development issues, might take that laid-back-ness a little too far:

“We hope that the Chinese government will reconsider its actions and the way they treat Tibetans. It is nothing big, but it is necessary.”

(From the Bangkok Post article.)

He sounds like he’s asking for a spot of cream to go with his coffee. Oh it’s nothing big, whenever you’ve got a minute.

Tibet aside, I’d guess that Thai people have plenty to protest.

On a lighter note, I was brave enough to take a (disposable) camera with me to Songkran celebrations, so pictures will come soon.

We all know who got the most seats in Parliament.” And now it looks like The PPP is managing to form a coalition, which will allow them to really run things. Though, perhaps not:

Under an internal security law adopted last week, the military will have the power to intervene in the political process without consultation with the civilian government.

Last August, as the law was being drafted, Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, branded it “a silent coup.”

[from the first link]

That strikes me as just a bit more upsetting than a mere PPP victory.

The polls are about to close here (will have closed by the time I finish this post). I’m watching some Thai news that I totally don’t understand. The Thai English-language publications online seem to be focusing on corruption and vote buying (in The Nation, at least). The Bangkok Post, as well as all the International news I’m reading seem to agree that Thaksin is casting a long shadow, and the memory of him dominates the election. Corruption, authoritarian style, and restrictions on freedom of press (enabled by his ownership of a lot of the telecom and media around here) notwithstanding, he did good things for poor and rural voters who had been ignored for a long time.

From The Guardian:

The economic wisdom of those populist policies, including universal heath care and generous funds for village development, is hotly debated, but they empowered rural voters, for the first time planting the message that their vote directly affects their lives.

“I heard that if we vote for the People’s Power Party, Thaksin will come back. I want Thaksin to come back because he did a lot of good things for the country,” said 48-year-old La-aet Dansuk, who with her neighbors in Pen district in the northeastern province of Udon Thani makes shawls using natural dyes.

She recalls how her profits were boosted by a Thaksin-initiated project that brought wholesalers from Japan and Australia to her village. Now, she must travel almost 300 miles to Bangkok at her own expense to sell her goods, or deal with Thai middlemen who try to drive the price down. Sales have declined, she added.

Thaksin was an “agent of transformation,” said Thitinan, though he’s no admirer of the deposed leader. His party “awakened the silent majority in the countryside, and Thailand will never be the same.”

The turnout is estimated to be over 70%, which is kind of awesome, and the turnout for absentee and advance voting last weekend was record-setting. There’s still some doubt over what the military will do if (actually, when, if the exit polls are any indication) the People’s Power Party (basically Thai Rak Thai part 2, with a less catchy name) dominates, and The Economist is calling Thailand the Pakistan of Southeast Asia — which seems overly dire, really. Bangkok’s most trustworthy news source has some ideas, though.

boing boing and the New York Times both tell me that the Thai Police caught the swirly-faced, internationally hunted child molester who apparently abused boys in Vietnam and Cambodia, and taught English in Thailand. From the NYT article: “His was the latest highly publicized arrest of foreigners accused of abusing children in Southeast Asia. They include the British rock star Gary Glitter, who was imprisoned in Vietnam last year, and John Mark Karr, who falsely claimed to have killed the American child beauty queen JonBenet Ramsey.”

I’m kind of glad they’re prosecuting him here first. I think it’s a good good thing to show the world that SE Asia doesn’t tolerate sexual predators, after decades of having an international reputation as a paradise for such characters.

Well it seems that both won two very important goals today, the exit polls seem to suggest that the Military coup leaders are widely supported by the public AND Thaksin’s Manchester City beat rivals Manchester United.
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Today millions of Thai’s will vote on a military-drafted constitution that will limit the powers of politicians but lead to elections by the end of the year. Whilst there has been numerous reports in the press about the details of the draft, I decided to visit a selection of slums yesterday to see what the people wanted and hoped for Thailand.
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YouTube access within Thailand is still patchy, even after it was officially unblocked last month.

Access to the site was possible last week on the True network, but since then all access times out.

Anyone else experiencing this? How is access on the other Thai networks?

Update
Well my suspicions are right, it seems that some networks are actually defying the lifting of the ban and banning the site themselves. I’m not sure of the legal aspect of this approach but it sums up that Thailand’s net access is still heavily restricted compared to the rest of the world.

So far the networks stopping you from accessing the site are:

– True
– TOT

Chris kindly sent this screenshot which shows how TOT are handling their own form of privacy

The text reads ” TOT is blocking access to this site that “offends the hearts” of the people of Thailand.”

The worry here is how ISP’s are acting on their own behalf when it comes to net content.