Hi. I'm Newley Purnell. I cover technology and business for The Wall Street Journal, based in Hong Kong. I use this site to share my stories and often blog about the books I'm reading, tech trends, sports, travel, and our dog Ginger. For updates, get my weekly email newsletter.
Well, then, today’s your lucky day:
Spotted this afternoon at Bangkok’s Chidlom BTS Sky Train stop. Thanks to A for the tip.
Yes, that’s the Red Devils’ Park Ji-Sung holding a can of Mister Potato brand chips, flanked by a wai-ing Javier Hernandez and Wayne Rooney. (More details on the promotion, in case you’re curious, are here.)
Considering my enduring love for both soccer and snack foods, I simply couldn’t resist snapping a photo of this ad.
Regular programming will resume shortly.
I have a new story today at the WSJ‘s Southeast Asia Real Time blog. It’s called “Despite Floods, Thailand Poised for Tourism Record,” and begins:
Thailand’s vital tourism industry has suffered terribly from the massive floods that continue to drain slowly from Bangkok’s suburbs. Remarkably, however, the country is poised to set a record for the most yearly international arrivals, underscoring the tourism sector’s resilience despite a string of recent crises.
Give it a read.
The AP says:
Thailand’s king called for his countrymen to unite in response to the worst floods in half a century. The revered monarch spoke on Monday to mark his 84th birthday and amid deep political divisions plaguing the country.
King Bhumibol Adulyadej spoke at the ceremonial Grand Palace for about five minutes after being driven from a nearby hospital where he has been staying for more than two years. Cheering well-wishers lined the route, waving flags and chanting “Long live the king.”
The Bangkok Post has more.
I wanted to share this cell phone picture of a T-shirt I spotted at a market in Bangkok’s Silom neighborhood last night.
Yes, it says “RE TWEET ME.”
Further proof — as if any were needed — of Twitter’s global influence.
Naturally, I Tweeted the pic, and Twitter user @_JustMelissa posted the excellent image below in response.
She wrote:
@newley love it! It’s like this one. I had to stalk this kid all the way down Silom for this picture.
So there you have it: Bangkok’s Silom ‘hood is a hotbed for Twitter-focused sartorial irony. Who knew?
Reuters reports today:
Thailand’s self-exiled, fugitive former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra could be reissued his Thai passport within weeks as a “New Year present” from the government, the country’s foreign minister said on Friday.
Thaksin, who lives in Dubai to avoid jail in Thailand, should be granted a regular Thai passport because no court order was issued to revoke it when he fled in 2008, Surapong Towijakchaikul said.
“We are considering returning the passport to former prime minister Thaksin and we expect to be able to do so within weeks,” Surapong told reporters.
“To be fair we are reviewing the laws and we found that the action is possible … it could be a New Year’s present.”
Thaksin, a twice-elected telecoms billionaire who once owned English Premier League soccer club Manchester City, is one of the world’s most well-known fugitives and travels on passports issued by Nicaragua and Montenegro.
(All emphasis mine.)
The Bangkok Post has more.
I have a story today on the Wall St. Journal‘s Southeast Asia Real Time blog called “Repairing Ayutthaya’s Ancient Temples.”
It begins:
The famed temples in Thailand’s ancient city of Ayutthaya were the country’s most prominent tourist sites to be hit during recent severe flooding. The water has now largely drained from the area, and most of the structures are open to visitors. But efforts to assess the damage and begin needed repairs have only just begun.
Click through for the rest.
The WSJ reports:
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrived in Myanmar on Wednesday on a historic mission to gauge whether the government’s recent steps toward reform are real, even as dissident groups stepped up their efforts to keep the U.S. from lifting sanctions soon.
Ever since Myanmar’s new government launched a series of limited but important reforms this year—including a partial release of political prisoners, a loosening of restrictions on the Internet, and the legalization of labor unions—observers have been both excited by the prospects of change and skeptical about government intent in the resource-rich Southeast Asian nation.
Now U.S. officials face renewed pressure from exiled dissidents and human rights activists who fear the emerging thaw between U.S. leaders and Myanmar’s government is moving too fast. Their offensive includes a series of new reports released in recent days documenting human rights abuses in the country, especially in areas controlled by ethnic insurgent groups that have fought on-again, off-again wars with Myanmar military’s for years.
The NYT says:
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived here on Wednesday to measure the depth of the political and economic opening the country’s new government has unexpectedly begun.
After years of abysmal relations between the United States and Myanmar, the Obama administration has promised to respond to progress — Mrs. Clinton’s trip being the most significant reward so far — even as it presses for more significant steps to end the country’s repressive rule and international isolation.
Those include freeing hundreds more political prisoners, an end to often violent repression of democracy advocates and ethnic groups, and clarification of the country’s illicit cooperation with North Korea on developing ballistic missiles and, possibly, nuclear technologies.
And there’s a lot more where that came from.
Meanwhile, check out ABC News Radio affiliates, Slacker Personal Radio, or Aol Radio for my brief dispatches from Bangkok.
Thanks to reader D for passing along this infographic showing the scale of Thailand’s ongoing flooding.
The graphic was created by David McCandless, of the well known data visualization site Information is Beautiful.
For a bigger image — and to see how Thailand’s flooding compares to other disasters, click through to the The Guardian’s DataBlog. The post begins:
Floods. Amazon deforestation. Earthquake destruction. Satellite maps somehow don’t always help us to fully imagine the size of these disasters. Is there a better way to visualize the scale of destruction?
Here I’ve been playing with the ranges of various natural and unnatural disasters, pulling data from various media reports and the US Geological Survey.
Last night Thailand’s Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong gave a talk at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand (FCCT) on the country’s economy following the floods.
The FCCT site has more info on Kittiratt and provides some background information on the talk.
Below is what I tweeted last night. I have no additional observations to share at this time, but I thought these short notes — though perhaps none of them are surprising — may be interesting to those who follow Thai economic matters.
These are in reverse chronological order.
(All emphasis mine.)
A quick follow-up on my post yesterday about Thailand’s latest lèse-majesté case, in which a man has been sentenced to 20 years in jail for sending SMS messages deemed offensive to monarchy:
Today’s Bangkok Post reports:
People who press “share” or “like” buttons on Facebook in response to lese majeste-related content can violate the Computer Crime Act, Information and Communication Technology Minister Anudith Nakornthap has warned.
Although the clicks were only aimed at showing support for people who posted messages or to oppose the ill-intentioned messages, they could be considered an infraction of the law, the minister said.
The information and photos of on-line participants in such topics can be exploited by web operators who can reuse them in making “fake Facebook” pages, said Capt Anudith.
The Facebook users will then become supporters of a group or network that offend the monarch.
He advised people who pressed those buttons in Facebook to delete all their reactions and comments.
“If they don’t delete them, they can end up violating the Computer Crime Act for indirectly distributing inappropriate content,” Capt Anudith said.
(All emphasis mine.)
Meanwhile, AFP says today:
Thailand has asked Facebook to delete more than 10,000 pages which it that are “offensive” to its monarchy.
The news came a day after a Thai court jailed a man for 20 years for sending four text messages deemed insulting to the monarchy, alarming critics who say the kingdom’s strict lese-majeste laws hamper free speech.
“We have informed Facebook and sought their assistance in deleting content which is offensive to our monarchy,” the country’s information minister Anudith Nakornthap said.
Back in 2007, of course, the government blocked YouTube in Thailand due to content that ran afoul of lèse-majesté laws.
Question: Would the Thai government consider blocking Facebook in Thailand if the company doesn’t remove the material?