By rights, Than Shwe, Myanmar's dictator, should be a worried man. As an exiled dissident wrote this week, the country he rules is among the world's poorest, has suffered the longest civil war anywhere, and displaces, by the opposition's count, more people per head of population than any other country. He is understandably (if silently) reviled by his own people, and shunned by the West, where it has long been hoped-or even assumed-that the days of any regime as corrupt, inept, brutal and unpopular as the one he heads must be numbered. So it is disconcerting to have to admit it: General Than Shwe is on a roll.
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