S

S.H.A.N. to produce an English-language paper

Shan Herald Agency for News that has for years been publishing a quadrilingual newspaper is presenting a separate tabloid for its English readers beginning this month. 

Tengharn Walingta, the publisher, explains the rationale behind the move. "We have for years been under heavy pressure from our readers to devote more pages to our Shan and Burmese sections," he says. "As we have fewer fans for our English and Thai sections, we found out that producing them as single papers actually helped us to add more pages to Shan and Burmese without incurring extra costs." 

S.H.A.N.'s monthly paper, Independence, use to have 40-44 pages per issue. "Now we have 32 pages for Shan and Burmese, and 8 pages each for English and Thai." 

The first issue of the Thai paper, renamed Salween Post, was published last month. The next issue is expected in the next month. 

"We chose the name because the Salween is the river that belongs to both peoples and both countries of Thailand and Burma," says Phueng, S.H.A.N.'s Thai staff. 

According to a research made by Internews, a California-based news organization that supports open media worldwide, the number of news items on Burma is still strikingly low. 

Between 1996-2001, there have been 2,374 items about Burma in the Australian media, for instance, on different topics: 

Apart from publishing newspapers, S.H.A.N. also produces online news both in English and Thai and manages the website http://www.shanland.org that launched the widely acclaimed License to Rape: The Burmese military regimes use of sexual violence in the ongoing war in Shan State.