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News
| News Article: Swine Flu: low fatality rate, much like ordinary flu |
A few months into the new swine flu scare, the statistics are now showing that its fatality rate is only slightly higher than ordinary seasonal flu.
In the US, the death rate is about 1 in 1000.
In Thailand, it has been about 5 in 1000.
Most of the deaths were with people who already had chronic illnesses.
Every year, some people die after contracting the ordinary seasonal flu.
For example, the US Center for Disease Control's (CDC) interim Deputy Director for science and public health, Dr. Anne Schuchat, said during a teleconference that "Our best estimate right now is that the fatality [rate] is likely a little bit higher than seasonal influenza, but not necessarily substan [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 0]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: Airport scam, extortion |
There have been many reports over the past few months about a duty free shop inside the airport putting an extra item in your bag and then the customer is later arrested for shoplifting, taken to jail, and huge sums extorted for quick resolution.
Now, one of these stories has hit the newspapers. It names the King Power duty free shop. King Power has been controversial before in other ways.
Here is the article in The Nation:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009...l_30106228.php
and in the Times Online (British):
more .. ] |
| [Comments: 1]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: Elephant traffic fines, bye to BKK elephants |
Surprising to most newcomers, elephants are a common sight on the streets of Bangkok, especially in tourist areas but actually all over, whereby their owners (mahouts) ride them to locations with a lot of pedestrian traffic, and charge people to feed the elephants, as well as sometimes other tricks.
Once, I paid to have an elephant pick me up with his trunk and gently raise me into the air ... after watching a lot of other people do the same.
Unfortunately, some slow moving elephants have cause traffic problems, sometimes there is an accident with an elephant (a very difficult situation!), and of course there are the big mounds and trails of elephant poop from time to time.
Well, those times are coming [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 0]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: New traffic violation cameras |
The police are having cameras installed at traffic lights to record the license plates (and maybe driver photos) of people running red lights.
At T intersections, it is common, even customary, for traffic in the far left lane going straight to just disregard the red light, and sometimes even the two left lanes. This is illegal.
(Once, when I followed the herd, we were all met by smiling policemen who had been hiding downstream a ways since just before the light turned red, who offered either a ticket or else pay them on the spot. All these cars pulled over caused a bit of a traffic jam.)
There was a notice of this in The Nation today.
Whether this will break the bad Thai habit of running [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 0]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: Political unrest peaked and now plummets |
What a week, and what a change in the status of the political landscape! It appears that we are entering a period of relative stability, after a huge storm has resulted in essentially the self-destruction of the "red shirts" and exiled ex-PM Thaksin, leaving much weakened support for the red shirts both nationally and internationally.
The "red shirt" opposition gave its biggest, peak effort to bring down the government and failed in the worst ways. However, more disasterously for the red shirts, it left itself in a much weaker position as a result of the many destructive efforts by its mobs which were seen in a bad light by the general public and especially the security forces and civil service across the board, indeed caused [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 0]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: Thai international travel fair |
There is a Thai international travel fair at the Queen Sirikit Convention Center which will open to the public on Saturday, March 1. I don't know yet how long it will keep going.
The Queen Sirikit Convention Center is located on Asoke-Ratchadapisek Road near the intersection with Rama 4 Road, and there is a subway stop right there, the Queen Sirikit station.
There's also a nice park there with a lake, where you can rent a bicycle or a paddle boat. [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 0]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: Stay continuously in Thailand as long as you want |
From the time I arrived in 1994 up to 2006, foreigners could stay in Thailand as long as they wanted. I think this went back long before I arrived.
Tourist visas were good for only 2 months and a visa-on-arrival was good for only one month, so many foreigners did the so called "visa runs" to the border once per month to just step over into Cambodia / Burma / Laos / Malaysia for a few minutes and step back into Thailand for a new 30 day visa-on-arrival stamp.
That changed in October 2006, a month after the military government took power. A new rule went into effect that TOURISTS could not be in Thailand more than 90 days out of any 180 day period. For example, if they had been in Thailand 86 days, exited and re- [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 0]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: Thai travel visas are now FREE |
Starting January 20, 2009, travel visas are now free, regardless of where they are obtained -- Thai embassies and consulates overseas, and at border passes for visa-on-arrival.
This is for the first time in Thai history.
The reason is to attract more foreign tourists and make clear that foreigners are very welcome in Thailand.
Due to the world economic recession plus the political problems of 2008, tourist arrivals were down significantly, resulting in economic problems in the tourism sector.
Tourism accounts for about 7% of Thailand's GNP. Exports are about 68% and domestic consumption only about 25%. When the world enters a recession, exports are hit, too.
In 2008, after [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 0]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: Hype over counterfeit bank notes |
Bad news sells, and the media often portray sensational perceptions to sell their stories. Then people parrot it on the street, blogs and webboards get going, and before long you have a big gap between perceptions and reality. An urban legend is born.
It's like the news of the protests in Thailand. People were afraid that Thais were on the streets all over in uproar, rioting, looting, etc., when actually Thailand was the same as always, except in a few hot spots which were easy to avoid.
The latest stories are about the counterfeit 1000 baht bank notes.
It must have been a slow news day otherwise, and some news agency pulled this story out of a dusty drawer and replayed it. Then after the public res [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 0]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: New Prime Minister of Thailand voted in: Abhisit Vejjajiva |
This is a brief message to summarize events over the past 2 weeks over formation of a new government.
Today, December 15, 2008, Parliament voted for a new Prime Minister.
The winner was from the previously opposition Democrat Party, Abhisit Vejjajiva, age 44. (His nickname is Mark.)
This is who the PAD wished for, and who the red shirt army are against. Abhisit, like many others, is not a proponent of the PAD's tactics nor many of their politics, but they did have opposition to Thaksin and his proxies as a cause in common.
So it is a major power switch.
How did this happen? The previous majority party and two of its coalition partners were dissolved on December 2nd by a c [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 0]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: Thai Hospitality for Stranded Tourists |
The Thai government has been extraordinarily hospitable to stranded tourists.
The Public Health Ministry ordered all hospitals, both private and government, to give necessary health care to stranded foreigners at government expense.
Last week, the Foreign Ministry said it would reimburse all stranded tourists 2000 baht (a little over US $ 50) per day, both foreigners in Thailand and Thais overseas.
($50 gets a lot in Thailand, but doesn't get much in many overseas countries.)
Those in power have always been very foreigner friendly and internationalist. So have the opposition party, but I couldn't say the same for the PAD.
So many ordinary Thais I know have expressed compass [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 1]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: PAD ends airport siege |
The PAD has announced an end to its protests and its siege of both airports and Government House, effective 10:00am Wednesday, December 3rd. It has said that protesters can go home now.
This announcement came a few hours after the Constitution Court dissolved the People Power Party and banned its top executives from politics for 5 years.
The PAD had initially announced, immediately after the court ruling, amid all the celebrations, that it would stay at the airport to put pressure on the interim government. They changed their minds soon after that, thank goodness. Why, I don't know. Maybe they realized that the public backlash to that was too strong. Maybe their own supporters on-site were starting to desert t [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 0]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: Ruling party dissolved by court, leaders banned from politics for 5 years |
This afternoon, the Constitution Court judged the ruling People Power Party (PPP) guilty of election fraud, resulting in the party being dissolved and its executives banned from politics for 5 years.
This might be the beginning of a "judicial coup", but many experts disagree.
The PAD vowed to occupy the airport until Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat resigns. He has now been removed from power.
So, you would think that the airport occupation should end now, since Somchai is out. However, the first reaction is that the PAD is now making more demands ... see next message in this posting.
Back to the court ruling:
The second largest ruling coalition party, Chart Thai, also recei [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 2]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: Short summary on political situation |
This post will try to explain the situation as briefly as possible. Many foreigners don't understand it.
In my political coverage to date on ThailandGuru.com , I haven't given much coverage to the so-called "Peoples Alliance for Democracy" (PAD), instead mainly covering political parties, elections, and political & economic developments. I now realize that I neglected coverage of the PAD. So this post will cover the PAD group better.
The PAD was formed in 2005 and its organization of street protests and other forms of opposition to the Thaksin Shinawatra government, due to the rampant corruption, abuse of power of the latter, and dismantling of the checks and balances system in Thailand, which eventually led t [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 1]
Posted By: Mark |
| News Article: Suvarnabhumi international airport closed due to protesters |
The PAD has taken over the Suvarnabhumi international airport with protesters spread around it, and is also blocking the main expressway entrance, refusing to back down until Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat resigns.
All incoming flights have now been cancelled, too. Outgoing flights ended when the blockage started Tuesday evening, while incoming flights already in the air were permitted to arrive.
Given the blows to Thailand's tourism and economy due to this, the pressure has mounted on the Prime Minister, the police and the army.
It is more difficult for the PAD's opponents to bomb them inside the airport, so it's possible that more PAD supporters may show up, and they may be more difficult to dispe [ more .. ] |
| [Comments: 14]
Posted By: Mark |
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