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. 

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

I fear there will be more of this kind of thing, as the common people become even poorer.

 

Yes, as they were only carrying 3,000 baht, crooked Bangkok taxi drivers may have to rob more of them. 

Suggest that people photograph the important bits of passport with their mobile phone. If you are stopped in Hua Hin, tell the police, that the original is in the Indian Embassy or equivalent. Probably get off for a 1,000. 

I shall miss the contemporary mural images; 911, the Arms Race, Batman, Neo from the Matrix, (a master stroke considering that the film is a parody of the life of the Buddha). These images suggested that to me that Buddhism was moving with the times, unlike some alternative philosophies.

Good luck to them both. I wish I could have a Baht for every time they will be asked 'Now Mai'? when they come back.

He's really for it in her next life.

I am fed up with Thai press inaccuracies. Was it 7 or 11 cashiers?