Cambodia watchers might like to have a look.
Author: Newley
Hi. I'm Newley Purnell. I cover technology and business for The Wall Street Journal, based in Hong Kong. I use this site to share my stories and often blog about the books I'm reading, tech trends, sports, travel, and our dog Ginger. For updates, get my weekly email newsletter.
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Quote of the day…
…computing/search/news edition:
The space-based web we currently have will gradually be replaced by a time-based worldstream.
— From “The End of the Web, Search, and Computer as We Know It,” by David Gelernter in Wired.
Worth a read.
The New York Times has the story.
Some Thailand-related, some not:
- Japan’s Role in Making Batteries for Boeing — The New York Times
- Why I Might Ditch My IPhone for an Android — BloombergBusinessweek
- Thailand to Avoid Currency War as Ghost of 1997 Crisis Looms — Bloomberg
- A Huge Pile of Gorgeous Old Thai Movie Posters — Asia Obscura (Via @wharman)
- A very different kind of TV dinner — CNNMoney/Fortune
- Two Decades On, Vusi Mahlasela Still Sings ‘To The People’ — NPR
- Glutton Abroad: Bangkok in NY — Bangkok Glutton
- Who ‘Owns’ Street Food? — The Wall Street Journal/Scene Asia
- Bones of Contention: A Florida man’s curious trade in Mongolian dinosaurs — The New Yorker
- With Tax Advantages Looking Shaky, Private Equity Seeks a New Path — The New York Times/DealBook
- C.W. Anderson: How journalists’ self-concepts hindered their adaptation to a digital world — Nieman Journalism Lab
- Will Gutenberg laugh last? — Rough Type
- Video embedded above and on YouTube here: “Animaniacs – Yakko’s World.”
(Previous link round-ups are available via the links tag.)
The AP reports:
A prominent Thai activist and magazine editor was sentenced to a decade in prison Wednesday for defaming Thailand’s monarchy, a verdict rights groups condemned as the latest affront to freedom of expression in the Southeast Asian country.
Somyot Pruksakasemsuk was convicted of publishing two articles in an anti-establishment magazine that made negative references to the crown.
The New York Times says:
A Thai court on Wednesday sentenced a labor activist and former magazine editor to 10 years in prison for insulting Thailand’s king, the latest in a string of convictions under the country’s strict lese majeste law.
The case of Somyot Pruksakasemsuk, 51, was different from previous lese majeste cases because Mr. Somyot directly challenged the law itself, saying it violated the right to free expression.
The Wall Street Journal says:
A court in Thailand sentenced a magazine editor to 10 years in prison Wednesday for publishing two articles that prosecutors said defamed the country’s revered monarchy, focusing fresh international attention on both the way Thailand’s strict lese majeste laws are applied and the extent of the country’s gaping political divides.
And Reuters reports:
A former Thai magazine editor was jailed for 10 years on Wednesday for insulting the royal family under the country’s draconian lese-majeste law, a sentence that drew condemnation from international rights groups and the European Union.
Somyot Prueksakasemsuk was found guilty of publishing articles defaming King Bhumibol Adulyadej in 2010 when he was editor of a magazine devoted to self-exiled former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
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Wait, Did I Say It Was Cold The Other Day?
Here’s the BBC’s video report and text piece.
Parts of the story seem to have first appeared in Phuket Wan last week.
Here’s a Bangkok Post story.
Reuters and the AP also have stories.
And Saksith Saiyasombut has a post at Asian Correspondent summarizing the news.
(Image: BBC.)
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I’m Back — and Cold — in NYC
I’m back in New York.
And cold.
This is the weather I left behind in Thailand:
And this is the weather here in NYC:
But I shall survive. Bring on the spring semester!
That is all.
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Some of My Favorite Email Newsletters
Last fall I began using email newsletters* to keep abreast of the day’s biggest business and economics stories.
Since I’ve been spending a lot of time in class, mostly away from news sites, I’ve come to appreciate these daily email compilations. Here are a few I like:
- Reuters Counterparties. This “curated snapshot of the best finance news and commentary” is a stand-alone Reuters Web site edited by Felix Salmon and Ryan McCarthy. You can sign up for the daily newsletter by selecting Counterparties here.
- Quartz, the new-ish business news site, has a good roundup called the Quartz Daily Brief. (The site hasn’t been loading properly for me for a few days, but you should be able to find the newsletter via the home page.)
- The Marketplace Newsletter includes links to the well known radio show‘s most most-viewed articles, provides a mid-day update on the markets, and has links to its various episodes.
- The Bloomberg Most Popular daily email contains just that — the site’s most popular stories of the day. You can sign up here.
In addition, I like two newsletters that don’t focus exclusively on business journalism, but that are generally informative:
- The Muck Rack Daily lists the stories many journalists are Tweeting about. Some pieces tend to be business-focused, but most aren’t. (Visiting the site again, I’m reminded that the Muck Rack folks posted a brief interview with me a few months back.)
- And finally, Dave Pell’s NextDraft contains reliably entertaining, interesting, and off-beat links. For example, a recent edition linked to a BuzzFeed piece on how teenagers used the Web, an AP piece on Major League Baseball teams ditching their landlines, Rend Smith’s IHT column called “Diary of a Creep,” an Atlantic piece on the “trillion dollar coin,” and a New York Magazine story on Jack Lew’s signature.
*Yes, email newsletters! Remember those? Good ol’ email: Still the Web’s killer app?
(Image via Wikipedia.)
2012 has been a memorable year for me.
In addition to writing some stories that I’m quite proud of, I departed Thailand after six years to begin studying for my Master’s in Business and Economics Journalism at the Columbia Journalism School in New York City. (I’m on winter break now and am writing this from Bangkok.)
Here’s a look back at some of my favorite posts from the last twelve months. Some entries are lighthearted, while others are more serious. At the bottom, I’ve linked to a few of my favorite pieces of non-Newley.com writing.
As you’ll see — first things first! — in March, my soccer team won our league. As the year progressed, I posted my notes from Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s speech to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand and blogged about the landmark elections in Myanmar (Burma). And who could forget what happened in May: Lady Gaga arrived in Bangkok.
In New York, I wrote briefly about some of my classes and posted my notes from three memorable talks. First, R. Glenn Hubbard and Jeffrey Liebman, economic advisors to President Obama and Mitt Romney, debated business and economics issues at Columbia. Then Bob Woodward delivered an inspirational speech to Columbia Journalism School students. And I wrote about a talk Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt gave at the 92nd Street Y.
And, finally, as the year ended, I blogged about Hurricane Sandy hitting the New York area. (Indeed, it has been quite a year: I didn’t even blog about another two significant events from the fall: President Obama’s re-election and the Sandy Hook Elementary shootings.)
March
- Newley.com in the New Lonely Planet Thailand
- Off Topic: My Soccer Team Won Our League!
- Notes from Thai PM Yingluck’s FCCT Speech
April
May
June
July
- Off Topic: A Remarkable Motorcycle Helmet
- Bangkok Street Life Inventions: Garbage Bag Poncho and Frond-Fashioned Napping Shade
August
- Programming Note: I’m Off to NYC for Nine Months
- Off Topic: An Excellent Book about Nutrition
- Spotted Today in Bangkok: The Umbrella Hat in Action
September
October
- Notes from Tonight’s Presidential Economic Advisers Forum
- Tweets from Bob Woodward’s Columbia Journalism School Talk Last Night
- New York City Fire Hydrant Poles Marked ‘Thailand’ (Updated)
- My Tweets from Eric Schmidt’s Talk with Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher
- Multiple posts: Hurricane Sandy hits NYC.
Other Writings
A couple of stories I wrote for the Wall Street Journal stand out: I reported on some “creative” watering holes in Bangkok and wrote about all things vintage Thailand*.
For Bloomberg BNA, I covered a wide range of issues, from political reforms and economic sanctions in Myanmar to a new rare earths processing plant in Malaysia. (I would link to the pieces, but they’re subscriber-only.)
And finally, this fall I penned a couple of pieces for Covering Business, a Columbia Journalism school Web site. One offered tips for business journalists who want to freelance abroad. The other was about covering tourism industry shocks.
Thanks, as ever, for reading. I always welcome feedback, so feel free to leave a comment or send me an email: newley@gmail.com.
* As I noted earlier, I was happy to see that the nostalgia story was included in WSJ Scene Asia‘s list of their top Asian travel stories of the year.
**Links to all of my stories are on my Journalism page.