khunjeff

7, and getting the 8th next week.

This is only for visa services. There has been no announcement of any changes to US passport application procedures.

Thai VietJet is a Thai airline with Thai crews, and the incident apparently took place in Thai airspace.

There are no tax dollars involved - the costs are all paid by applicants.

I don't quite get this. The airline can certainly choose not to sue her for the costs they incurred, but shouldn't the decision about whether to charge her with a crime be up to Thai prosecutors?

The call centers, appointment systems, and online support systems are designed and run by contractors (not that that's necessarily any better).

Section 5 of the decree refers to "income under section 40 of the Revenue Code derived in the previous tax year from an employment, or from business carried on abroad, or from a property situated abroad, and brought into Thailand."

Could you tell me where you're reading that? The decree states that certain remitted income is exempt from taxation for some LTR holders, and that the DIRGEN of the Revenue Dept can set rules and conditions for that exemption. It would seem bizarre if one of those rules for exemption could be "sorry, there aren't any exemptions." It's up to the Department and the Ministry of Finance to implement the decree, but I don't see that they have the authority to simply overrule it. Am I missing something?

No, you do not. You'll follow the signs to one of the transit screening areas, go through security, and proceed upstairs to the departures level where you can go to the gate for your next flight.

There is a special transit procedure at BKK for passengers making connections to certain domestic destinations. Baggage for those pax will be transferred to the next flight, and they will clear customs at their final airport, not in Bangkok. They will not go landside during their transit. There's a similar system at DMK.

The FBI does not protect presidents, current or former - that is entirely the responsibility of the Secret Service.

What I meant was that up until recently, the scam was basically all run for the benefit of Thais. Now, Chinese zero dollar tour operators have joined the fun, but for a different clientele. (Whether they all go to the same scam gem shops, or whether there are separate ones for the zero dollar folks, I have no idea.) Much longer. I first arrived here over 30 years ago, and it was already a long-running business back then.

Just Google "Thai gem scams", and learn that bringing credulous tourists to overpriced jewelry stores in exchange for kickbacks has a long and illustrious history in Thailand - and that up until very recently, 99% of the perpetrators were Thai tour guides and tuk-tuk drivers. So please spare me the sanctimonious outrage.

Yeah. I disagree with these decisions and I'm not a big fan of Roberts himself, but I don't see how the Chief Justice directing the work of the Court could be considered "interfering".

The US embassy (OP is American) will keep his current passport during the renewal process and then return both the old one (with holes punched through the cover) and the new one by mail. So, he will indeed be without a passport for a few weeks.

It still exists at all Thai airports, and I haven't heard any discussion about ending it. The airports in the UK and EU where the policy was changed had installed new-tech scanners that could supposedly differentiate between various liquids, but even most of those airports have brought back the old limits due to issues with the new scanning machines.

"A crisis that climaxed 20 years ago this week changed global investing. "It’s been called the Asian financial crisis, or the “Asian flu.”" It was referred to as a "flu" because Thailand got "sick", and the rest of the world proceeded to catch the same "illness". https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/25/on-20th-anniversary-of-asian-flu-markets-still-feeling-the-effects.html

That depends entirely on the particular country and its laws and procedures - it is not universally true.

Diplomat.

So now we have two completely different versions of what happened: a man stole a tractor and was pursued and beaten to death by a mob, or he was riding his own tractor and died of natural causes or narcotics. The only thing the stories have in common is that an off-duty policeman foolishly tried to shoot out the tires of the vehicle, something which Thai cops do regularly - perhaps having seen it in Hollywood movies - and apparently don't realize is dangerous and ineffective. It's also perplexing to read that the cop joined the pursuit in front of the Siam Hotel, which was torn down over a decade ago, and that he couldn't catch up with an e-taek on a motorbike, even though the maximum speed of that type of vehicle is probably no more than 15km/hr.

I've used JVK (also known as JWD) several times, both for international moves in and out of Thailand, and for a couple of domestic moves here. They've always done a good job. I've also used Santa Fe, and they're good as well.

The fact is that we don't actually know yet what form this might take. The very vague details given so far indicate that it will only be for visa-exempt travelers, much like the US ESTA. But the OP and others speculate that it could be more akin to an electronic arrival card - like what is used in Malaysia and Cambodia - in which case they could choose to make it mandatory for all arrivals. With this little information available, and no certainty as to whether it will really be introduced at all, there's not much point in speculating. The difference between an ETA and an e-visa has always been pretty vague. For countries that have reciprocal visa waiver agreements, it's been convenient to say "yes, you need advance permission to travel, but no, it's not a visa", so they can introduce new requirements while still claiming to be sticking to the letter of their agreements. But it's really a question of semantics, and how each category is defined in a particular country's laws.

I was there yesterday at 430pm and was wondering what all the ambulances and police cars were for - now I know...

The Cambodia e-visa application (they don't have an ETA, though they now have an electronic arrival card) doesn't require any of that. It has a field to upload proof of accommodation, but you can just leave it blank.