Bokelskere.no

In logged-out, overdammed, ultrapolluted Thailand, one could find a plastic-strewn garbage heap anywhere, and now I saw that Thai garbage dumps even extended into neighboring countries, just as rapacious Thai logging operations were chewing their way into the Burma border jungles.

Ne Win stole like Marcos, tortured like Papa Doc, purged like Stalin, and dug his claws in like Ceausescu. And he was clever enough to outlive them all.

Burma went from a parliamentary democracy with a free press and freewheeling commerce to an Eastern Bloc-styled police state overnight.