Category: Thailand

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Thailand

Floods hit central and northeast Thailand

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AFP yesterday: Flash floods kill seven in Thailand

The worst floods in decades in Thailand’s rural northeast have killed at least seven people and damaged homes, businesses and swathes of farmland, officials said Tuesday.

In worst-hit Nakhon Ratchasima, Thailand’s biggest province, three people died and thousands of homes were flooded along with a hospital, which has been forced to evacuate patients in critical condition.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said twice as much rain had fallen compared with last year in the mountainous province about 250 kilometres (155 miles) northeast of Bangkok.

“It’s the worst flood in 40 to 50 years in Nakhon Ratchasima,” he said.

Today’s Bangkok Post: Floods threaten six provinces:

Six Central Plains provinces have been placed on high alert against heavy flooding expected to be triggered by overflows from the North.

Provinces most vulnerable to the deluge are Sing Buri, Chai Nat, Ang Thong, Pathum Thani, Ayutthaya and Nonthaburi, Royal Irrigation Department spokesman Boonsanong Suchatpong said yesterday.

The six provinces would be unable to avoid flooding as a vast amount of water from the North and from Pasak Jolasit Dam in Lop Buri was approaching.

The department is trying to drain as much water as possible from the Chao Phraya River basin before Saturday, when the sea water level will begin to rise because of king tides.

Reuters/AlterNet: Severe floods hit Thailand, crop damage limited

Flooding in Thailand has caused only slight damage to the rice and sugar crops, officials said on Tuesday, and while rubber output is currently restricted by rain, that is normal for this time of the year.

Flash floods in northeastern Nakhon Ratchasima province have killed four people since Saturday.

Hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by the worst flooding in decades in the province and at least 2,000 families have been evacuated to higher ground, provincial Governor Rapi Pongboopakit said.

(Emphasis mine.)

Map: Bangkok Post. More images from the Post are here.

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Bangkok Thailand

Map of Bangkok featuring district names

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Andy, the author of the excellent blog Changwat, Amphoe, Tambon — a lovingly curated site that provides exhaustive information on Thailand’s administrative subdivisions — has created the cool map of Bangkok you see above. Here’s a bigger version.

The author was inspired, I’m happy to say, by a tweet I posted last year containing a link to Ork Posters, a company that produces typography-heavy U.S. city maps containing neighborhood names.

As Andy explains:

Luckily fellow Wikipedian hdamm already made a vector map for the districts of Bangkok, so all I had to do was to place the names on top of that. The main difficulty were the very small districts in the center of Bangkok, especially the tiny Samphanthawong with a long name. But nevertheless I think my map doesn’t look that bad, especially considering I just spend a few hours creating it and have no earlier record of being an artist or designer. There is probably still some room for fine-tuning the image, also a separate version with the names in the Thai alphabet might be worth considering, especially now I know the standard fonts for the Thai road signs. And of course one could do the same with any other of the 75 provinces, or for the whole country – but there the small provinces near Bangkok make it almost impossible to read.

Map above: Creative Commons licensed by Changwat, Amphoe, Tambon.

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Thai politics Thailand

What does the rising baht mean to the Thai government and exporters?

For an examination of what the rising Thai baht — previous posts here and here — means to the Thai government and exporters, I suggest this post from James Harriman at Asian Correspondent:

Panic over the rising baht:

…The Thai baht has strengthened significantly versus the US dollar over the last year, as have most other Asian currencies. As of the second week of October, the baht is up 10.8 percent against the dollar, making it the strongest performing currency in Southeast Asia. Factors driving currency appreciations in the region include interest rate differentials with the US, current account surpluses, and positive investment sentiment on local stocks and bonds.

Market watchers anticipate the US Fed will flood the market with additional liquidity in the coming months, which will put further upward pressure on regional currencies.The graph below shows the performance of regional currencies versus the dollar over the last year. All regional currencies have appreciated with the exception of the Vietnamese Dong, which has depreciated almost 10.0 percent.

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(Click through to the post to view a larger graph.)

Categories
Thailand

FT on Thai capital controls as baht continues to soar

A brief Financial Times blog post worth checking out: Thai capital controls: more to come:

The Thai government’s attempts to relieve the upward pressure on the baht by reinstating a 15 per cent withholding tax on foreign bond holders has had little intended effect so far. On Tuesday the baht continued its inexorable climb hitting Bt29.82 after opening at Bt29.92, an increase of 0.3 per cent on the day.

Now, it looks as though government officials may be considering an additional tax on short-term fund flows, following the lead of their Brazilian counterparts.

The baht has appreciated by nearly 11 per cent against the dollar so far this year, rattling the exporters who account for 65 per cent of GDP.

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Thai politics Thailand

Thailand’s finance minister appears on soap opera (cross posted to Siam Voices)

Note: This is cross-posted to Siam Voices, the new group-run Thailand blog at Asian Correspondent.

Thailand’s finance minister, Korn Chatikavanij, appeared on a Thai soap opera Tuesday night to deliver a message about the government’s efforts to help citizens pay off debts to loan sharks.

AP has the story:

“Vanida” is a sappy drama set in World War II Thailand that revolves around a love triangle between a colonel, his aristocratic fiancee and the daughter of a merchant. Debt is central to the story line, in which the colonel’s money problems get him into all kinds of trouble.

Korn has cited the show on his Facebook page to explain illegal debt collection practices, and the Finance Ministry collaborated with the show’s producers for a three-minute short that followed the main show Tuesday night.

It begins with the three main characters talking about someone who owes money and the colonel says, “Nowadays the government is helping with debt.”

Cue Korn, who enters in gray trousers, a white shirt, striped tie and suspenders.

“The Abhisit Vejjajiva government has already helped about 500,000 people tackle illegal debts,” he says heroically, as the show’s two starlets smile and bat their eyes. “For those who have registered but have yet to receive help, you can call our hot line at 1689.”

Here’s the clip, embedded below. Korn appears at about the 1:35 mark:

Korn is no stranger to the media — and he is particularly adept at social media. His Facebook page has been “liked” by more than 130,000 people. And he has nearly 55,000 followers on Twitter.

Regarding the soap opera cameo, Bangkok Pundit, in a recent tweet, says simply: “Cheesy but effective.”

(Emphasis mine.)

(Via @thaitvnews)

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Thai politics Thailand

Thaksin on Foreign Policy’s list of “Bad Exes”

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Thailand’s exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra is one of five ex-heads of state on Foreign Policy‘s Bad Exes list. A snippet:

Old job: Prime minister of Thailand, 2001-2006

New image: Since being deposed in a 2006 coup amid allegations of graft and human rights abuses, Thaksin has lived a peripatetic existence. The former billionaire businessman has served as a “special ambassador” for Nicaragua and an economic advisor in Cambodia, and was briefly owner of the Manchester City* soccer club. Thaksin reportedly lived under a false name in Germany for more than a year and has used illegally received passports from a number of other countries as well. He now makes his home in Dubai.

(Via Saksith at Siam Voices.)

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Thai politics Thailand

More on last week’s deadly explosion in Nonthaburi

Last week I mentioned, briefly, the deadly explosion in the Bangkok suburb of Nonthaburi. Four people were killed in what seems to have been an accidental detonation of a bomb that was being assembled by a reported red shirt supporter.

Here’s a detailed post from Bangkok Pundit that examines the facts and provides some analysis. Worth a read. From the conclusion:

There is evidence that Samai was a red shirt whether he was a guard or not and to link to the explosion – his room, he signed the rental papers (as per a copy shown on Channel 3’s Sahm Miti news program), he has experienced with fixing electrical appliances, and he was in the room at the time. It does not suggest a very sophisticated operation – the rent on the apartment was a mere 1,000 Baht a month and the equipment shown on TV looks very rudimentary. Nevertheless, there is evidence and circumstantial evidence to support the government’s continued position that the red shirts are behind some of the various explosions. Where to now?

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Bangkok Thailand

Krispy Kreme arrives in Bangkok

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The Financial Times: Krispy Kreme opens on a high in Bangkok:

As western corporations scratch their heads to work out how to make the most of Asia’s growth, it is sometimes worth remembering the tried and tested, like the combination of an established brand, lashings of sugar and a pinch of hype.

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts opened its first Bangkok franchise shop last week, and every day the crowds are still queuing around the block to get their hands on the saccharine treat. On Tuesday the longest wait was five and a half hours, which is better than the 27-hour marathon put in by hard-core doughnut fans on opening day.

Related: Dwight Turner’s blog post: “The Best of Bangkok’s Krispy Kreme Grand Opening Twitter Buzz.”

See also, for background info: my post from Oct. 2009: “Krispy Kreme: Coming to Thailand.”

Humorous tweet from @BKKApologist that reflects my feelings, having discovered Krispy Kreme at a shop in Charleston, South Carolina, as a 14-year-old:

I grew up an hour away from Krispy Kreme HQ in North Carolina. I can tell you where “donut mania” leads: a wardrobe full of sweatpants.

(Emphasis mine.)

(FT item via @jonrussell)

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Bangkok Thailand

Explosion in Nonthaburi kills 3, injures 10, Bangkok Post says

A developing story: Bangkok Post — Explosion kills 3, injures 10 in Nonthaburi:

At least three people were killed and 10 injured in a huge explosion which occurred in Nonthaburi’s Bang Bua Thong district on Tuesday evening.

Nonthaburi is a Bangkok suburb. It’s unclear, at this point, what caused the blast.

As I just tweeted, @tulsathit & @pranot are posting updates and images.

Categories
Bangkok Thai politics Thailand

State of emergency in Bangkok renewed for 3 months

This just in from the Bangkok Post: Emergency decree renewed for 3 months:

The cabinet meeting has decided to renew the emergency decree in Bangkok, Nonthaburi, Samut Prakan and Pathum Thani for another three months, deputy government spokesman Suphachai Chaisamut said on Tuesday.

The emergency law declared three months ago is still in force in the capital and the three adjoining central provinces, but will expire on Wednesday. It has already been lifted throughout the North and Northeast.