crobe

I count several US guys amongst my group of friends, and I'm pretty sure that every one of them would back me in saying that the US Government does very little for "humanitarian" reasons. They lie, bully and badger their way with any country they please. The Thais are bang on the mark to be suspicious. Once you let the bastards in, it'll be a hell of a lot harder getting them out. Tell them to sod off I say.

As another Brit who has many US friends including some in NASA, may I add a couple of words that you may understand

Complete <deleted>

Crobe

In response to concerns that the US may be planning to abuse the project for security purposes, Chawalit said a committee would be established to examine all equipment brought in.

"We will ensure that the equipment is for use in climate research only," he said. "A Thai official will always be present on an aircraft deployed by Nasa here."

The US will not allow anyone, least of all a Thai committee, to 'examine' their equipment.

ill-informed rubbish

I personally accepted, verified, tested and integrated NASA instrumentation for a satellite project in Europe a few years ago - this meant from the instruments being made in the US industry (such as ITT) all the way through to managing the joint NASA/European team for spacecraft level testing

The Thais will not be able to see any ITAR restricted documentation, but seeing the equipment itself will in no way be out of bounds.

Crobe

As another rebuttal of the NASA campaign being a covert cover for anti Chinese espionage, it is interesting to note that the lead scientist organising the campaign is Johnny Luo - or to give him his full chinese name Dr Zhengzhao Johnny Luo, who only move to the states after completing his BSc in Beijing in 1997.

Crobe

"It remains unclear what the implications will be of this sudden US military interest in regional development and security issues"

Unclear and sudden, huh?

The author of the op-ed is pandering to his Chinese masters. He uses words such as " discussion" and "transparent".

This request by NASA to use U-Tapao for a whopping 2 months for a climate study is being blown way out of proportion.

It almost reads like a column in the Global Times.

I think no one believes the "climate study" story anymore.

Despite the fact that this has been done in other countries as well?

If is not a climate study, what is it? A spy mission over the PRC?

They have other "agencies" doing that already.

The oil in the gulf and between China and Vietnam is a good reason.

Considering what the USA does in Pakistan, Irak, Iran, Syria, Libya, Tibet etc etc etc I would not like a climate study there. Why not have an office for it at an university or in Bangkok and fly their things from an civil airport, Don Muang for example? Everything in the open. Maybe with webcams and direct download for us hobby-weather-scientists? They do such things with other civilian projects. If it has nothing to do with Military it shouldn't be a problem?

In the original internal NASA briefing the decision was U-Tapao, University or Institute - so they could have held it at a civilian airport, but I believe that they opted for U-Tapao because they already know this facility and are sure of its security (to make surer things don't go missing).

They are also using up to 4 aircraft (including a DC8) in the air almost constantly, utilising the airport fairly extensively during the period, so it would be pretty disruptive to any normal commercial airfield.

For office accommodation they could use either existing office space in U-Tapao, or the GISTDA facility at Sri Racha which is only 40 miles away - but again as they are doing almost constant operations during the flights proximity to the Air Traffic Control could possibly be helpful.

As to the Nation insinuating that this is partly a clandestine mission, they were intending to organise a media day, VIP tours and even school visits during the campaign - not sure if these will happen now...

Crobe

And conveniently a new indictment against Thaksin appears

Just enough trouble to keep everyone on their toes and brother in Dubai,

Not enough to mean real action and so in 3 years she can campaign on a record of "stability under enormous pressures"

Maybe more luck than planning but I would take luck every time...

Crobe

One more time the Thais look like bozos on the international scene.

True lost the bid, fair and square. Now because of some moral high ground (thai for "the law doesn't apply to us"), they want to be able to air the competition anyway. Their boss even called on the NBTC to implement a "must carry" rule to prevent such disputes in the future and protect customers' rights to access all free-TV programming. Under such a rule, everyone can access free-TV broadcasts via any signal-receiving platform.

Some people really need to learn when to shut up. I don't know what they asked the UEFA but if everybody can freely broadcast the competition, how the UEFA is going to make a cent from broadcasting rights ? But then they will always have the explanation that foreigners don't understand Thailand ....

You really don't understand the must-carry rules.

Most countries that have multiple platforms (Satellite, cable, terrestrial) and a mix of free to air and pay-tv services have such must carry rules in place - Thailand has been neglecting to do this for too long.

In Europe the BBC free-to-air signal is picked up by cable suppliers in Belgium and Netherlands and rebroadcast, so it will be interesting to find out if these have been blocked under the "UEFA Rules" or whether they still broadcast the BBC when it is showing the Euro 2012 matches.

If they are then the statement that the signal cannot be given to True as it may be picked up by neighboring countries would be a farce - and additionally, that concern would have gone out of the window if True had paid Grammy for the rights, so pretty much a non-argument

Crobe

An interesting story and ripe for conspiracy theories.

This falls nicely into the hands of the present Prime Minister, possible Defence Minister and notable absentee when reconciliation bills are discussed in parliament, and new court cases against Thaksin opened.

Although widely disregarded as an airhead, clone, puppet and only elected due to looks and being the sister of Thaksin, the PM has been quietly cultivating ties with the Army and eminent individuals, and waging a closet campaign for power within the PTP against the Chalerm faction who are ultra-loyal to her brother.

The new indictments may cloud the potential for a return of Thaksin, as any deliberations, hearings, appeals, and subsequent verdicts may take 3-4 years to complete the process, by which time another election is to be held, and one on which the current PM campaigns less on her closeness to her brother and more on her own popularity

Maybe an aptitude for guile runs in the family

Crobe

Just one question - is your wife Thai??

If you are both non-thai then it will be very difficult as you need Thai partners for most businesses.

If she is Thai then the easiest way is to form a limited partnership (her 51%, you 49%), otherwise you will need to have a certain amount of Thai employees signed up, and Thai partners, in order to register a limited company.

My wife and I have such a partnershio for the last 7 years, and we have sufficient capital in the business for what we need - you will also need capital of around 3m-5m (in order to be able to employ people).

Such a partnership has benefits in terms of tax status for the partners.

The best advice I can give you is to find a very trustworthy and reputable accountant, who can prepare your company papers and will also take care of your tax affairs, including corporate tax and VAT.

Some of the larger firms charge more, but an initial consultation in English is sometimes free.

Crobe

The NBTC cannot fine Grammy because it does not have the power to regulate purely pay-tv services, and so there is a political element in this as it wants re-write the rules to bring such operators into its ambit.

Although it can slap a fine on True for not following its instruction to show the free to air channels, I would think that this decision could be up for judicial review, and NBTC may lose as they were in fact ordering a company to do something against the copyright owners, and this is a thorny issue at the moment in both internal and international politics.

NBTC also has the power over the terrestrial channels (3,5,7,9) and should be slapping them also with a fine for selectively denying content which is forbidden under the terms of their license.

The fact is that if Grammy had not decided to let the terrestrial channels have the feed for free then this would have been just one private company (Grammy) beating another private company (True) to an exclusive content deal.

In many countries there is a select list of sporting occasions that have to be broadcast free to air, but these are usually involving the national teams, national sporting events, or international tournaments where the home country is competing - such as the Olympics.

That is not the case here, and it would be doubtful if the NBTC were to be allowed to have the power to demand a free to air allocation for tournaments not held in Thailand, that do not have any Thai national interest taking part - but this seems to be what the NBTC is trying to do here.

A case of petty civil servants wishing to increase their power base.

Crobe

Romney is a shoe in. If you see polls to the contrary, look to the source and it will be either Time, CNN/ORC, or some other liberal outlet.

Latest polls

Rasmussen Obama 46 - Romney 47

Gallup Obama 46 Romney 47

Fox news Obama 43 - Romney 43

Monmouth/SurveyUSA/Braun Obama 47 Romney 46

When you make statement like " a shoe-in" you leave yourself looking an idiot when the actual facts are different.

With the margin of error and so many undecided, there is no evidence that either candidate is a shoe-in at this point

However, I am pleased that you think that Fox news must be some liberal outlet - your politics must be slightly to the right of...well of anyone

Crobe

c'mon guys, its pretty much a given that she will take over the defence portfolio very soon... as the man in Dubai will need someone who cant answer a question, cries on demand and never shows upto work when he orders the military onto the streets to break up protests against him....

Dontcha all see it yet? She's only PM so he can pull the strings from Dubai.

I do not claim to be an expert on Thai politics in relation to the military - but I did marry into a Thai military family, and from what I understand it is not a given that ordering the military onto the streets against the protesters would work this time...there are many factions at work and even if Mr T were to return and take over the Prime Ministership, it is not sure that he would be reqarded as legitimate - or his orders.

Crobe

What a piece of absolute bull this supposed "article" is, it is full of unfounded speculations and errors.

To say that it is "unlikely" that Obama will lose the November election at this stage is either facetious or the author has a crystal ball that the American electorate do not have access to - as I believe the polling is currently neck-and-neck.

The paragraph on NASA is littered with factual errors

"The request by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or Nasa, to use U-Tapao as a meteorology centre is a new one."

No - it is not, it was made 18 months ago to the Abhisit government

"Although Thai agencies including the Royal Rainmaking Project discussed this weather-monitoring proposal with Nasa officials a while ago, they have not yet made any public announcement"

Again - no they haven't - the main agency in this area is GISTDA who have not been consulted, and NASA has not made direct representations outside of the government interface

"Once the news made headlines, it immediately stirred up deep-seated suspicions among Thais and other countries as to its "real intent and purpose".

No it didn't - an editorial in the nation stirred up false suspicions in order to sell news copy.

"This kind of bilateral non-traditional security cooperation has been previously conducted with Japan, Hong Kong and other countries. But they are not the US"

No - similar scientific co-operation has been conducted with Japan, Taiwan, China, S. Korea, some European institutes, and previously with the US - but all of these were not security co-operations, purely scientific.

"The proposed operations would take place over two-month periods beginning in August"

No - the proposed campaign would take place only after agreement from the Thai authorities and ideally outside of the rainy season so that the results from the atmospheric testing have less risk of disruption

As I read the rest of the article I got more and more frustrated with the standard of journalism here, if they wanted to comment and have an opinion, at least base it on some scientific fact, or do the job properly and contact the institutes in Thailand (GISTDA etc) or interview people outside Thailand who have previously participated to these campaigns...

Lazy journalism from an op-ed idiot

Crobe

"Nasa has insisted the SEAC4RS campaign or Southeast Asia Composition, Cloud, Climate Coupling Regional Study is for the purpose of understanding the complex meteorological system. "

I would not allow Nasa to do such, as it may over shadow Thailand own Royal Rain Project.

This Americans have no respect.

This is the sort of blinkered and inward looking attitude that is holding Thailand back and means that with the opening of the AEC in 2015 Thailand are going to be in much worse state than its closest competing neighbours (Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam), and why in science it has been slipping below all of these countries in recent years

Would you prefer that NASA do these test in Malaysia at Malacca and share the data with them, would that satisfy your isolationist and nationalist ego?

Crobe

*Deleted quote edited out*

You are wasting your time attempting to reason with some people. They are not willing to listen. It is easier for some to grab hold of a simplistic explanation than to think about an issue as it is too difficult for their limited abilities. You might as well go bang your head on a wall. I guarantee that if the thread goes on, we'll soon be treated to someone claiming that this is part of a massive cover up of events that involved his having an anal probe by aliens when they were living in a trailer park.

I do however, appreciate your reasoned explanation(s). It is a humbling experience that brings to mind the frustrations people had when they tried to explain that the earth was not flat.

much appreciated

I too enjoy reading your posts - well informed, well written

Crobe

I forgot to mention

The surgery cost around 70,000 baht four years ago, not sure what the price is now, but it should not have gone up too much

Crobe

Sorry for not replying to this earlier,

I have Dupuytrens and have had surgery both in the UK and in Thailand.

I had the last surgery at Bumrungrad hospital in Bangkok, and I found this was better and healed faster than the surgery in the UK, however, it was private.

The surgeon was Dr Somrung and I can recommend him.

The surgery only takes one day - they ask you if you want to stay in if you have the general anaesthetic, but you don't have to - on my last visit I had a more localised one by needle in the neck and was awake for the operation.

They usually put around 40 stitches in per surgery, and these take 1-2 weeks to heal up enough to be removed, during which time the hand is bandaged up, and the arm in a sling

After the stitches are removed there is usually a plaster cast to keep the fingers straight and this has top stay on for around 6 weeks - after that it is exercising the fingers and a splint at night to stop you contracting your hand while you sleep - it is usually around 3 months until the process is complete.

Crobe

anyone heard of HAARP ???............. if not , goole it , could this be the reason for using u-tapao ???

HAARP was (supposedly) under the direction of US Air force and other military and it not involve NASA.

Most of the space defence funding is channeled through the Air Force (space command) rather than through NASA, so the conspiracy theorists should turn their attention to these cooperations rather than NASA programs - whose budget now does not even cover the civil programs

In fact the Air Force spaceplane, the X37B, is due to land in the next 2 weeks after about a year in orbit, and this is due to land at vandenburg, but there is a small possibility that adverse weather conditions could force a landing elsewhere, and U-Tapao does have the runway to take it, but this is a very remote possibility for even the most ardent conspiracy theorist - however, if you wish, you can spend your nighttime searching the skies on the approach to Sattahip if you have nothing better to do.

I am probably close enough to hear it

Crobe

Could this research not be carried-out by Thailand's own space-science industry ? Hub of meteorological-research !

Probably not at this time, although the newer developing countries are advancing in their meteorological research quite rapidly now.

What is disappointing is the focus on the military aspect as this is pure civil research which should be more geared towards working with GISTDA and the other scientific agencies, and helping them develop the capabilities so that NASA does not need to do such "field-trips" anymore.

The military focus comes about because U-Tapao is owned by the Thai navy and therefore any contacts have to come through military channels - even though this air base is now used as both a civilian airport and as a civil aircraft maintenance base.

There has always been a bit of ambivalence in Thailand about the US involvement in U-Tapao as this was used as the staging point for B52s in the Vietnam war (because of its long runway), and any new usage by Americans will always be looked at through the prism of increasing military presence, whether this would be a consequence or not.

crobe

I think it is of great military significance, as the US is pulling some of its Marines out of Japan and moving them to Darwin Australia where they have already built facilities to house them, in fact it is a massive Military base. They are also moving one of their fleets to that area and building up their presence in the Pacific. Further to this they are negotiating with the Philippine Government to move back to Subic Bay and to Angeles City where they originally had another huge military presence and at one time had nuclear silos on the Air Base.

This all seems to be coming about only recently after the Chinese were found to be increasing the size of their already huge army, North Korea not playing the game messing with Nukes and Ballistic Missiles, China threatening to take some islands off Japan, and the Thai Government agreeing with China to allow China to build fast rail from China to the border south and to the ports around Thailand.

The Americans are naturally worried and I can't blame them the way the world is today, they have to protect their Allies and their Interests.

While I agree with what you say generally, I think you attribute too much geo-political thinking to the way in which NASA chooses these campaigns - having known a lot of them over the years, although they are advised which sites are possible by the state department, there is not much joined up thinking in terms of overall American strategic interest.

I would hazard a guess that the decision was made on:

- Where is it possible to get the data for this region?

- Who has a nice big airbase that we could use?

- Are they still friendly with us?

- Where is a good place for a holiday?

Remember this is the agency where the head (Charlie Bolden) went to the Middle East and stated that the US should be more co-operative with countries in the region regarding space development, and promptly got lambasted in his home press...technically he was right, but geo-politically a bit naive.

Crobe

I had always assumed that existing satellites are usable for weather pattern research so it is unclear what ground based research planes or facilities could add to those. That NASA has severely bent the truth in the past is not news, though, and while mentioned as "an independent agency of the US government" it is not independent of US Military branches as I understand it.

The satellite data available gives a lot of information, but there is a great value in combining concurrent data at different levels - ground level sensors, airborne sensors on aircraft, balloons and radiosonde rockets, plus the satellite data.

One of the main benefits of this is to do a cal/val campaign where the current data is used to calibrate the sensors on the different mechanisms, including the satellites - so that degradation, orbit decay etc. can be calculated in (there have been erroneous calculations of data because satellite decay was not factored in).

NASA has a dual civil/military role, and that is why it is arranging the campaign as a military-military agreement instead of NOAA, which would have been a more appropriate agency to be performing the testing.

Crobe

Could this research not be carried-out by Thailand's own space-science industry ? Hub of meteorological-research !

Probably not at this time, although the newer developing countries are advancing in their meteorological research quite rapidly now.

What is disappointing is the focus on the military aspect as this is pure civil research which should be more geared towards working with GISTDA and the other scientific agencies, and helping them develop the capabilities so that NASA does not need to do such "field-trips" anymore.

The military focus comes about because U-Tapao is owned by the Thai navy and therefore any contacts have to come through military channels - even though this air base is now used as both a civilian airport and as a civil aircraft maintenance base.

There has always been a bit of ambivalence in Thailand about the US involvement in U-Tapao as this was used as the staging point for B52s in the Vietnam war (because of its long runway), and any new usage by Americans will always be looked at through the prism of increasing military presence, whether this would be a consequence or not.

crobe

I presume you are not Thai...

It could be that you talked to the technical manager but once this got to the HR they pointed out some procedures that have to be followed.

They may have to interview or at least consider some Thai candidates for the position - after all IT is not such a restricted profession and they would need to have some proof that you are the best person for the position in order to obtain a work permit for you.

Not saying that this is the case here, but I have known it happen before - but I still would not get your hopes up

I believe there is no legitimate seller of itunes cards in Thailand (or for that matter in Singapore).

There is a shop in TukCom in Pattaya selling US cards at 100% markup, i.e. $25 card for 1590 baht

In the days when Burma was part of the British Empire they used to drive on the proper side of the road - and they changed to the wrong side in the 70's? Thailand also drives on the correct side of the road. In India they drive in the middle, so it will not mattter at the border.

The French influence in Vietnam must have caused them to drive on the wrong side of the road?

please elaborate your oxymoron claim why the right side is the wrong side is it based on the British thinking "right or wrong... my country" ?

for the record: the majority of vehicles on this planet drive on the (correct) right side. exceptions like India, Thailand and a few other countries (mostly insignificant remote islands) drive on the (wrong) left side.

You obviously include Japan as one of the "insignificant remote islands"