Khuensai Jaiyen, 65, managing director since 1991, the year SHAN was founded, continues to be its president. “It is effectively an advisory position,” he says. “My job is to encourage, to warn and be consulted. I’m also writing news articles, and editorials for it, because I cannot simply leave the organization that I had co-founded. But the whole show now is being run by Sai Oh and Yiphongmueng. And that’s the way it should be.”

Sai Oh, 27, is a graduate of Bangkok’s Ramkhamhaeng University. He had majored in multimedia Journalism. He is also heading the agency’s new program: Shan online radio that was launched in August.

Yiphongmueng, 38, is a graduate of International Relations, Dagon University. He has been with SHAN since 2007.

SHAN, known for its annual drug reports (until 2012) and its monthly Independence journal (until 2010), is the only news agency publishing its news in 4 languages: Shan, Burmese, Thai and English.

It was founded on 26 December 1991 by Khuensai Jaiyen (1948-………) and Saengchuen Soikhamhueng (1952-2011).