Myanmar becomes Burma, again

Bagan, Burma
The pagodas of Bagan, Burma.

There has been no official announcement, but the Abbott Government seems to have decided to revert to Burma’s old name.

In 2012, former Foreign Minister Bob Carr declared that Australia would join the overwhelming majority of countries, international organisations and regional institutions that publicly called Burma by its official name, the Union of Myanmar, which had been adopted by the country’s military regime in 1989. In December 2013, however, DFAT’s public website was revised. The ‘Myanmar Country Page’ is now called the ‘Burma Country Page’.

It’s a curious change with far-reaching implications as discussed by Dr Andrew Selth in a recent post for the Lowy Institute’s Interpreter.

Read the full article here.