Spilornis

Multiple motor bike and van travellers have crossed Iran without incident Youtube is full of them. I suspect they flew a drone or got too near a military facility. Or could it have been this.... (dumb to say the least) "Lindsday was conducting a research project during their journey, asking people what constitutes a "good life". She was due to present her findings at a conference in Brisbane in July. Their final social media updates painted a positive picture of their experiences in Iran. One post showed Lindsay meeting with a religious leader at the Madrasa Naseriyeh in Isfahan." https://www.gbnews.com/news/british-couple-detained-iran-distressing-situation

The A 320 Neo is the most in demand aircraft in the world. My guess is 2028 at the earliest for delivery. The range has the potential to revolutionise medium distance flights (six hours) by eliminating hubs

Five year de facto relationship will get her a "fair share" under UK law. (The test is whether or not it is considered reasonable that the testator should have made provision for her in the will.) Lawyers will take most of it if it goes to court. I'd settle but the GBP200k alleged debt complicates things. If I were the kids I'd want some proof before I admitted that claim to the settlement pot. BTW these claims are made much easier if the deceased had made a will saying I'm not leaving any money to X because of ABC

The form is the norm these days but in Thailand's case it's also the precursor to the tourist fee. Let's hop the website/app is more friendly than some others. Indonesia is a pain to say the least. Also would be useful if you could opt to retain info for your next visit or dare I say if Countries had common questions that you could prefill before their "special local" questions

Nothing new. Even India is not meeting replacement rates with numbers being kept up for the next ten years or so by longer lifespans. Immigration aside which will support those countries with desirable economies the world's population will halve in the next fifty years. It's one of the reasons I've become less concerned with "climate change". China will be the world's test case for rapidly reducing population. It has already started despite longer lifespans because of the now abandoned one child policy.

One wonders if Chinese travel agents have made block bookings that they then hoped to onsell to China residents? Can't see tourists being put off by a threat of being recruited by "job scammers".

Never heard of bird strikes impacting landing gear. They cause engine failure but rarely fatal in a two engine jet. Landing gear deployed and locked is flying 101. Something strange has happened

Brings back memories of the long threads on various types of farming. Learnt a lot from the pork thread but my favourite was the thread on rubber tree farming. Hope those guys and their families are doing well. It was certainly a tough market in which to make money

Nothing new in these stats. For the first time in modern history the world's population birth rate went negative (below 2 per woman) during the last few years. (India went negative. The few positive countries are mainly in Africa) The world population numbers increased due to people living longer but this is just a blip in the sense that the temporary bulge will disappear in around 30 years. In simple terms within the space of 70 years world population figures will halve. Without immigration Western countries and developed Asian economies will drop by even more. Is this a good or bad thing... well it's both but the 22nd century will certainly be different to the twentieth century

The self check in systems are great if they work and the airport is designed for the process. If you just stick kiosks into the check in area and leave the old counter structures it's a recipe for chaos if KLIA2 in KL is any example

Is this just a stop en route to another country or does it include the right to pick up new passengers in say Bangkok and proceed to a third country. The latter would be a big change

Yes ... very easy but not much capital appreciation and hard to sell

This is the old scheme that was scrapped in 2020. Now the visa is minimum US$150k deposit plus you have to buy a property https://www.thestar.com.my/news/nation/2024/06/19/new-three-tier-category-for-mm2h-here-to-stay Needless to say it's not proving too popular. They had another scheme between 2020 and 2024 which was even worse. It had less than 100 applicants as I recall

Here's a video on the automated baggage storage system allowing early check in at Changi airport https://www.channelnewsasia.com/watch/changi-airport-terminal-2-introduces-fully-automated-baggage-storage-facility-early-check-ins-video-3999491 My old favourite used to be city check in facilities. Very few of those left these days

It's all about the ability of the automated baggage systems to store and automatically process the luggage in the 24 hour period. Judging from its operation in Singapore it's not cheap and is often only available to business class passengers. In the past this was done manually for transit passengers with long layovers but now there are automated holding cages.

There's presently 24 F1 races. The market is relatively saturated. Singapore is by miles the go to South East Asia event. I could see India hosting a race. Don't forget Sochi has been "off the calendar" for a few years. Not sure what happened to Vietnam who were "on track" pre-pandemic. Formula E already has four races in the region out of its 11 race season so that's probably not an option. Out of interest how does the MotoGP in Thailand go? The one in Malaysia doesn't get much local coverage

Malaysia has had a lot of tech investment over the years by the big players but it's never been the cutting edge stuff (think hard drive assembly etc). The new arbitrage is in data centres. An AI search takes around four times the processing power of a typical Google search and thus the need for new data centres is exploding. The catch is when built they require almost zero labour to operate and are electricity hungry (thus the attraction of countries with low cost power). Better than nothing perhaps but the ideal is to get a seat at the "real" hi tech table. https://www.straitstimes.com/business/south-east-asia-emerges-as-global-data-centre-hot-spot-as-ai-usage-rises

Hong Kong dropped its paper form in the last few days citing a possible tourism boost as one of the reasons for doing so. I don't mind the electronic forms but it would be nice if they were relatively standard between countries allowing automatic pre-fill. Singapore's form is relatively painless whereas Malaysia's is a bit more cumbersome. Indonesia with its separate customs declaration is over the top

Many e visa approvals are computer generated these days. It's only if an answer to a particular question raises a flag that a human looks at your application. If these visa approvals are computer generated I'd expect approval within 24 hours. Will be interesting to see how it plays out

Correct The "tax clearance" issue for travel has been around for many years but in the last few weeks they have revived it. Not sure about Thailand but in Malaysia the tradition is that things like tax, speeding fines etc are not paid until the authority offers a discount month. As an aside Malaysia has just started to track Singaporean vehicles with outstanding traffic fines. It seems that those law abiding Singaporeans aren't as squeaky clean when it comes to paying Malaysian fines

Gaya is only a few miles from Bodh Gaya one of the holiest sites in Bhuddism. It has the "descendant" of the tree under which the Bhudda sat and derived his "wisdom". Not a Bhuddist myself but very peaceful and well worth a visit

At it's simplest it's all riding on new battery technology. Unfortunately while there have been a lot of promising developments the massive breakthroughs predicted about ten years ago are yet to be produced in marketable quantities.

It's a freight service that they are trialling . Takes ten days and is designed to compete with sea freight https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/new-freight-train-service-between-selangor-and-yunnan-set-to-spur-malaysia-china-trade

Condos and Land are completely different issues. The space for building more condos is relatively unlimited and tying up a foreigners money in bricks and mortar (especially newly built condos) is great for the local economy. Sure you have to maintain some balance and try and avoid overheating but in general it's manageable. Landed properties and rural land are comparatively scarce and keeping them for citizens is reasonable. A tax on unoccupied condos might get some of the overhang moving. There seems to be no pressure to reduce prices to meet the market as we would normally see in the West. I live next door to a 15 year old upmarket condo building (US$1m per apartment). Of the forty floors , 3-4 apartments are occupied. Most are still concrete shells not fitted out. I can't understand it but .. it is the way. My own local real estate investment is at best zero return over 12 odd years but the lifestyle return has been enormous so I'm happy

Was listening to a demographer on the BBC a few weeks ago. World birthrates dropped below 2 per female last year for the first time. The raw population numbers are increasing due to people living longer. By 2050 numbers will start to decrease and then fall dramatically by 2100. Migration will cover up population declines in some countries but places like Japan and China will see their population halve in the next fifty years. Great for the planet but it will challenge the "Economic Growth is Good" syndrome that the world has relied upon for nearly the last two hundred years