Category: Thailand

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Thailand

Thai King to Travel to Ayutthaya

The AP reports this afternoon:

Thousands of Thais lined roads in Bangkok and near the historic capital Ayutthaya on Friday to see the country’s 84-year-old monarch on his first trip outside the capital in almost three years.

King Bhumibol Adulyadej actively worked for decades on behalf of the country’s poor but has almost disappeared from public life since he was hospitalized in September 2009 for what the palace called a lung inflammation.

Since then he has had a variety of ailments and has lived in a royal wing of Bangkok’s Siriraj Hospital, leaving only on rare occasions and always in a wheelchair.

The Bangkok Post has a story and photos of the crowds.

(All emphasis mine.)

UPDATE, May 27: The New York Times ran a story Friday about the trip.

Categories
Bangkok Thailand

Lady Gaga Arrives in Bangkok

2012 05 24 lady gaga bkk

Take note: One of the world’s biggest pop stars has arrived in the Thai capital.

Above is a snapshot of today’s Bangkok Post front page.

The Post reports:

Lady Gaga arrived at Don Mueang airport in her private jet late Wednesday, and was greeted by a large crowd of fans before her Friday evening concert in Bangkok.

She immediately tweeted:

“I just landed in Bangkok, baby! Ready for 50,000 screaming Thai monsters. I wanna get lost in a lady market and buy fake Rolex.”

There’s also a video clip of her arrival, embedded above and on YouTube here.

Regarding the singer’s choice of attire, @Binderdonedat riffed thusly:

(Style mavens and hard core Gaga fans can see more photos of her outfit here.)

(All emphasis mine.)

Categories
Thailand

Thai Airways President Fired: News Round-Up

2012 05 23 thai airways piyavasti

Here are a few stories about the firing Monday of Piyasvasti Amranand, head of the country’s flag carrier, Thai Airways.

The official MCOT reports:

The board of directors of Thailand’s national flag carrier Thai Airways International (THAI) on Monday terminated the employment contract of President Piyasvasti Amranand, a decision which stirred outrage among the company’s labour union members.

The THAI board resolved with 12 out of 13 members voting to end the employment contract of Mr Piyasvasti, effective next month and that he will be compensated with six months of his current salary, altogether estimated at Bt6 million.

Citing communication problems as the main reason to sack Mr Piyasvasti, board chairman Ampon Kittiampon explained that the panel made its decision although Mr Piyasvasti had passed his performance assessment with a high score.

Reuters says:

The board of Thai Airways International Pcl sacked its president because of disagreements over strategy, a move that could derail the flag carrier’s attempts to return to profit and which is being questioned by its labour union.

Piyasvasti Amranand, a former energy minister, became president in October 2009 when the opposition Democrat party was in power. He has shaken up the airline and launched cost-cutting measures, including reductions in the salaries of senior executives. Thai Airways is 51 percent owned by the Finance Ministry.

Bloomberg reports:

Thai Airways International Pcl (THAI) Chief Executive Officer Piyasvasti Amranand thought his annual review went well. That didn’t stop the board from firing him.

“I just want the board to explain the reason,” Piyasvasti said at a media briefing yesterday. “It’s ambiguous. The performance of the company during my term has improved in every aspect and I passed the evaluation at 86 percent.”

The board of Thailand’s biggest airline cited a breakdown in communications with Piyasvasti for terminating his contract after three years. Piyasvasti oversaw a fleet modernization and cost cuts in 2009 that helped Thai Air rebound from its largest ever loss the year before to a record profit in 2010. The carrier slipped to another loss last year as fuel costs surged.

Communication problems between Piyasvasti and the board were hampering the company’s effort to meet a profit target of 6 billion baht ($192 million) to 7 billion baht this year, Chairman Ampon Kittiampon said yesterday. Ampon confirmed that Piyasvasti passed the company’s annual performance evaluation.

And:

“The reasons that the board gave, that I have communication problems and differences of opinion with the board, are so strange,” said Piyasvasti, a former energy minister. “I am not that surprised, because the current political environment is like this.”

Elsewhere, BP asks:

Was the removal of the Thai Airways President political?

BP notes that Piyavasti’s wife, according to local media reports, is Anik Amranand:

She serves on the Board of Directors of the Democrat Party and has been an Abhisit adviser. From her parliamentary profile:

Advisor to the Leader of the Opposition (2005-2006)
Expert to the Member of the House of Representatives (2008)
Member of the Advisory Council for Democrat Party (since 2008)
Member of the House of Representatives, Democrat Party, Proportional Representatives, Changwat Cluster 6

BP: She became an MP at the 2011 election, but as you see she has been working officially for the Democrats for a while. This is her prerogative and BP is not suggesting any conflict of interest, but he was appointed by the previous government and his wife is a Democrat MP who has acted as an advisor to Abhisit. Are these not relevant? Heavens above, if the situation was reversed we would have congratulatory stories of a Puea Thai crony being removed after losing over 10 billion Baht last year,* but BP finds it odd in stories about whether he was removed for political reasons that there is no mention of his wife…..

[UPDATE: The answer to the question in the headline is a ‘yes’]

*Obvious factors of the loss are the high oil prices + bad economy so not necessarily down to him, but if he had been making record profits year after year then it would have made it difficult to sack him. He wasn’t though….

(All emphasis mine.)

(Image: MCOT.)

Categories
Journalism Tech Thailand

Self-Promotion: New WSJ Southeast Asia Real Time Story about Facebook’s Popularity in Bangkok

The story is here, and begins:

There are more Facebook users in Bangkok than in any other world city. That is the somewhat surprising finding of a global ranking of the social networking behemoth’s users based on their metropolitan areas.

Bangkok has some 8.68 million Facebook users, followed by Jakarta (7.43 million) and Istanbul (7.07 million), according to a list published by the well-known international social media analytics company Socialbakers.

Please give the piece a read and — you knew this was coming — consider “liking” it on Facebook.

Categories
Thailand

Off Topic: Thai Buffalo Feta Cheese

2012 05 16 thai buffalo feta

Anasuya (my foodie wife) and Austin (my foodie pal) and I have wondered many times:

Since Thailand is home to so many buffalo, when will cheese-loving foreign and Thai consumers be able to purchase buffalo mozzarella?

Turns out, as a 2008 DPA story says, various Thai companies have been producing local cheeses for several years. But I’d never seen Thai buffalo mozzarella in stores.

To my great astonishment, Anasuya recently brought home the packages pictured above.

That’s right — it’s not buffalo mozzarella, but buffalo feta. I’ll take it.

Anasuya purchased the items at a central Bangkok outpost of the famed Aw Taw Kaw (Or Tor Kor) market.

I did a little poking around online, and I’d forgotten about this WSJ Scene Asia story last year about Thai buffalo feta.

The piece says that the Thai king’s Royal Project group has been tinkering with various buffalo products for around five years. And, the story notes:

Today, there are 24 female Mehsana water buffalo, an Indian breed named after the western district from which they come, and they produce six to eight kilograms of milk a day each. That is used to make the aforementioned feta, and yogurt and mozzarella — all branded under the name Bubalos.

Last year, sales of the water-buffalo milk products topped 500,000 Thai baht (US$16,229). At local markets, a 200-gram block of Bubalos feta costs 145 baht (US$5)

Indeed, we are now in possession of the Bubalos feta product. We haven’t tried it yet, but I have high hopes.

It’s nice to see an epicurean dream come to fruition.

Categories
Thai politics Thailand

Thai Man Jailed for Lèse-Majesté Dies in Prison

2012 05 08 uncle sms

AP reports today:

A Thai man in his 60s who became known as “Uncle SMS” after he was convicted of defaming Thailand’s royal family in mobile phone text messages has died while serving his 20-year prison term, his lawyer said Tuesday.

The case of Amphon Tangnoppakul, a grandfather who had suffered from mouth cancer, drew attention to Thailand’s severe lese majeste laws last November when he received one of the heaviest-ever sentences for someone accused of insulting the monarchy.

And:

Amphon was arrested in August 2010 and accused of sending four text messages to a government official that were deemed offensive to the queen. He denied sending them, however, and said he didn’t even know how to use the SMS function on his telephone to send texts.

He wept during his court proceedings, saying, “I love the King.”

AFP says:

A 62-year-old Thai man considered a “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International for his 20-year sentence for royal defamation has died in jail, his lawyer said Tuesday

And:

“He had come to represent the enormous degree of injustice that was this lese majeste law and yet he wanted nothing more than to be a grandfather and to enjoy his old age,” Amnesty researcher Benjamin Zawacki told AFP.

Reuters reports:

A Thai man who was jailed for 20 years after being found guilty of sending text messages disrespectful to Queen Sirikit has died in jail a few months into his sentence, his lawyer said on Tuesday.

The case last November of Amphon Tangnoppaku, 61, who the media nicknamed “Uncle SMS”, had stoked a debate about the harsh sentences imposed in Thailand for lese-majeste, or insulting the king, queen or crown prince.

Prachatai has this:

After being convicted to 20 years in jail for allegedly sending four offensive text messages to the secretary of former PM Abhisit Vejjajiva in November 2011, his lawyers applied for his temporary release several times citing his medical need as he had been suffering from cancer among other illnesses. The latest request was made in February 2012 and it was rejected by the Appeals Court who claimed that “The illness which the defendant claims [as one of the reasons for the bail] does not appear to be life-threatening.”

There’s also a story from The Nation and The Bangkok Post.

And finally, for background info, here’s a BBC story from Nov., when Ampon was convicted.

(All emphasis mine.)

(Image: The Nation.)

Update: There’s also a story from The New York Times.

Categories
Thai politics Thailand

Blast at Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate Kills 12

2012 05 06 map ta phut blast

Reuters reports today:

Thai authorities were investigating on Sunday a blast that killed 12 people and wounded at least 105 at one of the world’s biggest petrochemical hubs.

Explosions sparked a fire at a chemical factory at the sprawling Map Ta Phut complex – Thailand’s biggest industrial estate – on Saturday, forcing the evacuation of thousands of people and workers from the area in Rayong province, about 180 km (110 miles) east of Bangkok.

The Bangkok Synthetics plant, 20-percent owned by Thailand’s largest industrial group, Siam Cement Pcl, produces butadiene and other raw materials used in the manufacturing of synthetic rubbers and plastic resins.

The blaze has been extinguished and many evacuees have returned home, said Verapong Chaiperm, governor of the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand, confirming the number of dead and wounded.

“The evacuation order has been cancelled while other nearby buildings and factories around the area are under security checks,” he said in an interview.

Authorities were investigating the cause of the explosions and were watching closely for the environmental impact of the spread of the chemicals, said Verapong

The Bangkok Post has more here and here.

A few years ago, as you’ll recall, Map Ta Phut was the focal point of a lawsuit about pollution and the Thai constitution’s environmental protection requirements.

(All emphasis mine.)

(Image: Bangkok Post.)

Categories
Thai politics Thailand

Thai MP Gives Nazi Salute and Yells ‘Heil Hitler’ in Parliament

Yet more news from the Thai parliament.

Late last month, as I noted, a graphic image of a woman was broadcast on large screens during a parliamentary session.

Now a member of parliament has given the Nazi salute and yelled “Heil Hitler” during an argument.

Thanks to Saksith at Asian Correspondent for pointing out yesterday the remarkable May 2 video, embedded above and on YouTube here.

The salute and “Heil Hitlers” start at around the three minute mark.

Here’s Saksith, translating a Thai news story:

Reports say that before parliament was about to decide [on a proposal], a little bit of chaos ensued when MP Boonyod Sukthinthai of the Democrat Party raised his hand to protest House speaker Somsak’s hasty attempts to end [the session], but the latter refused to listen and proceeded to the voting, leading to Mr Boonyod yelling loudly that he will protest until the speaker will listen to him, as he then shouted “Heil Hitler, Mr Speaker of the dictatorship! Heil Hitler!” – to which Mr Somsak still refuses to listen and requests the parliament to cast in their votes.

As Saksith notes:

This arbitrary and erratic display of Godwin’s law evidently shows the still volatile political climate that is being maintained, if not even increased by the parliamentary infighting over amendments to the constitution, to which the opposition fears potential abuse of power by the government (and most of all a carte blanche for Thaksin). Nevertheless, it also shows an unacceptable behavior by our elected representatives, who think that any rough measures for this political discourse is legitimate.

This is not the first time a Nazi-related story has made the news in Thailand. CNNGo ran a piece in Feb. about the issue.

(All emphasis mine.)

Categories
Thailand

Graphic Explains How Hot it Feels in Thailand

I’ve mentioned the recent spell of sweltering weather we’ve been suffering through here in Bangkok.

Well, we finally have a graphic that illustrates how hot it feels.

Yes, it feels like Thailand is on fire.

Thanks to Annelie (@a_nnelie) for Tweeting this pic yesterday:

(For the record, if this is a recent broadcast, I wasn’t able to locate any related story on the CNN Web site. Perhaps this graphic was related to recent drought problems, though.)

(Image: @a_nnelie.)

Categories
Thailand

Bangkok: 99 Degrees F at 4 p.m. Today

2012 04 22 bangkok hot

Just noting for the record: It is extremely hot here in the Thai capital.

It was 99 degrees Fahrenheit — that’s 37 degrees Celsius — at 4 p.m. today.

That is all.