Peung

22 hours ago, herfiehandbag said:

Is there really any difference between Thai and Vietnamese durian?

The difference is that Thailand can export whole Durian fruit to China, whilst Vietnam still can only export processed Durian, ( In Dec 2020 Vietnam applied to China for this permission). Since the pandemic, the China import market has been for smaller fruit (2-4 kg) which can be delivered easily by motorcycle. 

On 4/2/2021 at 6:24 PM, internationalism said:

la nina picked in november, and it was mild, so no chance for such a big rainfall

Nope...  Looking good for a decent wet season in SE Asia.  According to latest from NOAA....  La Niña is present. Equatorial sea surface temperatures are below average from the west- central to eastern Pacific Ocean. Tropical atmospheric circulation is consistent with La Niña.  

One reason that infection rates in Thailand and other SE Asian countries may turn out to be lower than in some other countries may be cultural. E.O.Wilson would argue that cultural traits such as wai-ing, not touching of heads, limited physical contact in public, removal of shoes when entering houses, frequent bathing etc, that we see throughout Thailand and the neighbouring countries may have been selected for at the community level, through the viral epidemics that have been routinely emerging in SE Asia and Southern China for 1,000's of years. 

I hope the police also apprehend the person that spray painted the Yaris. Terrible job! 

Through their research work in Lao PDR, ACIAR have shown that it is possible to get many (more than 180) different fish species to ascend low head (<10m) fish passes. This important research work is continuing in several other SE Asian countries and is likely to become a major low-level dam mitigation strategy  throughout the Region, within ten years. 

Fish ladders are a solution to lost connectivity of some fisheries,  not the solution for all.

Good use of new technology....  Gig Positioning System. 

I just googled 'Charging stations Suvarnabhumi and learned this.... 'Passengers can use the service of electronic charger without any charge'. What good is that?

For all you cynics out there who think the Royal Thai Government is doing nothing to improve the fishing industry....

Press Release

Ranong Provincial Court accepting to review the case filed by the public prosecutor for trafficking in person and other criminal offences while dismissing request to be co-plaintiff on the trafficking offence lodged by legal representative of Cambodian migrant workers

On 11 May 2016, the Ranong public prosecutor indicted the case against Mr. Ruangchai Pewngam with the Ranong Provincial Court. The defendant was accused of collaborating with Mr. Somchai Jettanapornsamran and other two accomplices who remain at large to commit trafficking in person offences since November 2014 until 22 January 2016.

1. They had allegedly lured 11 workers from Cambodia to enter Thailand promising to place them in an onshore factory for fish screening and fish head cutting, not in fishing trawler. Instead, the defendant and other accomplices have forced the 11 damaged parties to stay and work in a fishing trawler named “K. Nava Mongkhon Chai 1”. They were forced to work as crew in the fishing boat which had gone outside the Thai waters to fish in international waters. It was the labour exploitation against the 11 damaged parties.

2. The defendant and other two accomplices committed human trafficking by forced labour, depriving them of liberty in their body and withholding their passports to prevent them from escaping. It had also inflicted fear for harm on the life, body and liberty and as a result the damaged parties were forced to work in the fishing boat. The defendant and other accomplices have taken them on board the fishing boat which operated in Thai and international waters successively for a long time and it was an illegal act of exploitation.

The incidence took place in Pak Nam Sub-District, Muang District, Ranong Pronvince. Pak Nam Sub-District, Muang District, Samut Sakhon Province, Satrung Myanjoy Sub-District, Jumdongka District, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, waters under the jurisdiction of the Republic of Indonesia, Thai waters and international waters, successively. The public prosecutor has pleaded the Court to convict them for offences concerning the 2008 Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, the Penal Code, and the 1983 Act for the Amendment of the Penal Code No.13’s Section 3. The Ranong Provincial Court accepted to review the case as the Black Case no. KM 2/2559.

The legal representative of the damaged parties had also pleaded to the Court asking to be co-plaintiff. While, the Court accepted the plea and allowed them to be co-plaintiffs for offences against the Penal Code, it has dismissed the plea to become co-plaintiffs on offences against the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act citing it as a public offence.

On 10 May 2016, the public prosecutor has asked the Court to have the witness examination conducted before the schedule since the witnesses who are survivors of trafficking in person have their residences outside the Kingdom and have no permanent residences here. The Court permitted as requested and the witness examination was conducted on 12 and 26 May 2016. The Court is scheduled to review evidence on 6 June 2016.

Background

On 21 January 2016, police officials led by the Commander of Ranong Provincial Police, the Commander of Infantry Taskforce 25, Thep Kasat Tree Force and other security agencies have raided three fishing boats and inspected the living condition of Cambodian migrant workers on board. The boats had gone to fish in Indonesian waters and had just returned and parked at a private jetty in Pak Nam Sub-District, Muang District, Ranong. Led by the lead that two of the three boats exploited forced labour including

1. the K. Nava Mongkhon Chai 8 (the case of which was indicted with the Ranong Provincial Court against Mr. Banjob Kaenkaew on 21 April 2016 as the Black Case no. KM1/2559, the offences against the 2008 Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act and the Penal Code with four Cambodian crew as damaged parties) and

2. The K. Nava Mongkhon Chai 1. After the inspection and rescue, the crew have undergone screening process and 11 survivors of trafficking in persons were identified in K. Nava Mongkhon Chai 1, all of whom have been living under the care of the Ministry of Social Development and Human Security. Prior to the indictment, the Ranong public prosecutor has filed a request to the Court asking to have advance witness examination conducted including the examination of the 11 survivors of trafficking in person.

Check out schistosomiasis, it's why I won't venture near fresh water in Thailand (unless chlorinated).

Schistosomiasis which causes the disease Bilharzia, (aka Bill Harris to many East Africans) is not a big problem in Thailand. However, the liver fluke Gnathostimaisis is. The life cycle of the Gnathostoma parasite involves, snails, fish and birds/humans. The traditional fish fermenting process used in E-sarn will not kill the cysts of the parasite and people that consume raw Bla Rah are risking infection. However, cooking 'Bla Rah' before eating it does kill the cyst and so is a safer practrice. Rule of thumb here in S & SE Asia....... NEVER EVER eat raw freshwater anythings, (including molluscs, aquatic insects, shrimp/prawns, or crabs). Was at a dinner party in Bangladesh once when half the guests contracted the disease, from the host's marinated raw freshwater fish dish, based on a South Pacific sea fish receipe.

Remind me again, which part of Buddhism does the Goddess of water belong to?

Similar part to that played by Santa in Christianity.

Did you hear the one about the guy with a bomb in his bag who tried to check into a flight? In his defence he said that he had read somewhere that the odds of getting on a flight that had a bomb on it was 10,000 : 1. So he had figured that the odds of there being two bombs on a flight must be astronomical. 555.

It is significant that the talk has changed from 'fear of a red card at the end of October' to the likelihood of a 'continuation of a yellow card at the end of the year'. Since the yellow card was issued in April 2015, the Thai Government has progressed far better than many thought possible on the decades-old problems of boat registration and tracking, illegal fishing gears, environmental destruction, human trafficking and slave labour. Previous governments had failed miserably to even begin addressing the many illegal practices that were resulting in acute human and environmental misery.

Give the Thai Government some credit! They have reduced slavery in the Thai fishing industry. (In fact their investigations into this in April 2015 opened the whole 'can of worms' Bengali/Rohingya migrant trafficking issue); they have introduced a trawler registration system into which illegal trailers cannot be registered; they have passed a new Fishery Law- first one since 1947 which introduces international standards of sustainability for the fishing industry ; and they have introduced a minimum cod end mesh size of 5cm on trawlers, which will reduce the environmental damage caused by trawling. Whether these will be enough to lift the yellow card is hard to say. But IMHO it would be hard on the Thais if they were to receive a second yellow and be sent off in the european fisheries export game.

'Justice Minister Paiboon Koom-chaya said his ministry would increase compensation for the families of each victim killed by the recent blast. "It will go up from Bt100,000 to Bt150,000," he said. For foreigners, their families will get Bt300,000 extra each from the Tourism and Sports Ministry'.

Dual pricing still going on then.

If this ban is strictly enforced it will reduce the amount of fish caught. Great for the preservation of fish stocks but it will mean fish prices will likely soar.

Not necessarily. Around 50% of the catch from trawlers in the GOT are 'trash fish' i.e. destined to become animal/fish feed. Then around 25% of the trawler catch is made up of juveniles of commercially important fish species that if left to grow would become human food instead of being ground up for animal/fish feed. Only a quarter of the trawler catch is for direct human consumption. So banning illegal and destructive fishing gears could result in an increase in the quality and quantity of fish to be caught by legal means. However, the reduction of the 'trash fish' supply could result in increased fish feed prices, so as most of the fish/shrimp we eat here in Thailand is from aquaculture you could be right,. But wouldn't you rather eat a wild caught Red Snapper than a farmed Tilapia?

The Ouan Roon or the motorised push net is a small-scale fishing gear but it is environmentally damaging. If you see a small boat with two (10m) long metal tubes with skids on the front, heading out to sea, then you are looking at a push netter. The push net is operated by pushing the two tubes on their skids along the bottom. Between the two tubes is a very long and very small-meshed net. This type of gear cannot be used in waters deeper than 5 m and thats the main problem. Used in shallow waters, push nets destroy the benthos and catch a lot of juvenile fish/shrimp/molluscs etc that could grow to a much larger size.

Technically push nets have been banned for many years in Thailand. About 10 years ago the government of the time offered to buy back push nets and support fisher livelihood diversification. That came to nothing. In my opinion it is good to see the current government enforcing the ban.

I wonder why the EU play's ball just now, when they blind folded their demands for the past 30 years.......a ne way of meddling in internal Thai politics perhaps?

I assume the mass graves discovered at abandoned illegal migrant camps, and the link between the migrant slave trade and slave labor on fishing boats, prompted action on this matter. Once they started investigating the slave labor issue they had to address the illegal fishing in prohibited waters as well.

I think it was probably the other way around. When the Thai authorities started looking into IUU fishing practices they discovered the trafficking camps. But for the EU yellow card, the World would probably be none the wiser.

Enough of the sarcasm please! The Thai Meteorological Department runs an excellent weather statistics and forecasting website here... http://www.tmd.go.th/en/index.php . They even have an English language page with the same data, (not with values doubled as some cycnics might expect). The satellite section with its 25 frame animated sequence is particularly useful in looking at regional weather patterns. Give the Thais some credit for a change!

Oh and rice farmers have until August 15th to plant photoperiod sensitive rice varieties. After that they can plant other varieties and still get a crop.

Presumably this does not include cooking schools.

Nearly all Thai fishing vessels already have global positioning systems on board for navigation purposes. The sort of thing you have on your mobile phone these days. What is required for Thai fishing vessels is the establishment of a vessel monitoring system (VMS) that can be used by environmental and fisheries regulatory organizations to monitor the position, time at a position, course and speed of fishing vessels. One hopes that this is just a translation mistake in the reporting.

If these Arkanese guys are Bengali, (aka Rohingya), then this will be greeted as great news by many Myanmarese and these oppressed people can expect even more trouble.

Day 1, Question 1. "How did you manage to come up with a Constitution that allocates 25% of parliamentary seats to the Military?"

If the Bumibol dam has only 4,251 cubic metres of water this year then we really are in trouble. The capacity of this dam is 13,462,000,000 m3