THE BATTLE FOR THE ECONOMIST

And here's the reason why copies of The Economist will not be appearing in Thailand this week.
The cover story on the Asia edition of the magazine is headlined "The Battle for Thailand", and the same story also appears within the European edition.
As I revealed exclusively yesterday, the publishers have taken the decision this week- as they did at least five times during 2009 - not to distribute copies here for what I will describe as contentious content.
The magazine has not been banned, but in this case I am certain the Thailand-based distributors would not handle this edition even if copies arrived.
I think it's interesting to note that in all except one of the six occasions last year when The Economist declined to distribute its print edition in the kingdom, the "problem" content remained accessible online. To me that says a lot about the power of the printed word in Thailand.