khunjeff

Big Joke and Torsak are both full (four-star) Police Generals, not (three-star) Lieutenant Generals! Even if someone didn't know this, they could see it clearly from BJ's shoulder board in the photo.

"But she and her four colleagues, who are all members of the [Lawyers'] council, have agreed that they cast the province in a negative light and that the message in the advertisement is degrading to women, as it likens them to food, which constitutes a libel" The billboards may be clever or stupid depending on your point of view, but how they could constitute "libel" is utterly beyond me.

Its "reach" is exactly the same now as it was in 2018 - there have been no extensions to the system since it opened. The ARL has had insufficient rolling stock since the day it opened, which is why the frequencies are so poor. Neither the SRT nor CP have shown any interest in spending money to buy more trains. Meanwhile, the stations are still gloomy and stifling, the guards still blow their whistles in passengers' ears, the seats are still narrow and uncomfortable, and the exteriors of the trains show no signs of ever having been washed. Very unlikely anytime in the foreseeable future. The express trains never made economic sense, and would still run mostly empty if they were brought back. That being the case, CP should finally convert the unused baggage cars on the former express trains to accommodate passengers - it's ridiculous that those trains run with one empty car, even years after the express service was discontinued.

So, downsizing by 700 personnel, or about 1/4 of 1% of total strength, and "saving" 34M baht, or about 1/6 of 1% of the budget - and this will take years to implement. Are we supposed to be impressed?

Is this really true? Despite a lot of bloviation by authorities, I don't think I've heard of any instance of a foreigner being prosecuted for an illegal nominee relationship.

So once again the smugglers have escaped and the trafficking victims have been arrested, in contravention of international standards. Be prepared to go back on the Trafficking in Persons watchlist.

Almost every Thai parking facility explicitly allows double parking, but with the requirement that the car be in neutral so that it can be pushed out of the way if necessary.

My recollection is that it went far beyond skimming - they were stealing something like half the tolls for many months. The government brought in soldiers to man the toll booths for a while, and then the story just disappeared.

There are hundreds of different designs out there, but yes, virtually all of them include elephants in both directions (as in the photo) to make the sewing easier - the design is the same regardless of how you orient the fabric.

About time - those pickers were regularly exploited by brokers, and many of them actually lost money after paying exorbitant fees and expenses out of their own pockets.

Beer, whether local or imported, is not part of any of these tax reduction schemes.

"See, this is why we need to buy a new frigate from China."

The renovated canal area looks nice, but I've never seen more than about one block of the walkway in active use - the rest is always deserted. Part of the problem is that it's impossible to move from one section to the next without going up some stairs and running across a busy road, with no light or crosswalk at the natural crossing point.

So they don't intend to actually enforce any of this, other than by maybe sending a ticket through the mail at some future date. And how exactly will that move traffic along today? Also, I don't know anyone who would characterize license plate readers, CCTV cameras, and 3-minute timers as an "AI system". Yes, the problem isn't too many vehicles on the roads, it's tourists using the wrong vehicles. Uh huh. And signs have proven to be so effective...

Is the "ombudsman" looking after the interests of the police, or the public? Reasonable people can disagree about what the cutoff in the number of pills should be, but Vichai's argument seems to be "drugs are bad, therefore we should keep exactly the same enforcement regime that we've always had" (and which has done such a great job in reducing crime and abuse 🙄 ). And his "fear[] that corrupt police may exploit the regulation, accepting bribes to ignore the quantity of drugs in possession" kind of ignores the fact that if you assume police will accept bribes, then no enforcement mechanism will work...

I'm not sure why this wasn't already prohibited, but the bigger question is whether there will actually be any enforcement. (And given that the indented area in the photo has no sign saying "no parking" or "official vehicles only", it's not surprising that people were "misusing" it.)

I too used Santa Fe from Saigon to Bangkok, and also got a recent quotation from them for a local move within the city (they now have a subsidiary called Sanelo for non-corporate moves). They offer insurance at a price of 1.5% of the declared value of the items, which is the same rate offered by JWD/JVK and Asian Tigers. All three of these companies provide excellent, professional service, but will likely be more expensive than local firms.

So he went to a meeting aimed at preventing young women from having babies and proposed that the government urge young women to have babies?

How can he speak for how other airlines might price their flights? I'm sure they haven't colluded, since that would of course be illegal 🙄

"All deposits at federally insured credit unions are protected by the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, with deposits insured up to at least $250,000 per individual depositor." https://ncua.gov/newsroom/press-release/2020/deposits-are-safe-federally-insured-credit-unions

They replaced all of the baggage scanning equipment last year. The vast majority of countries in the world have exit immigration - the US and the UK are rare exceptions.

Obviously the manager of an individual branch can make up whatever absurd rules he or she likes, but no, this is not an "all Thai banks" policy and is not even the rule of any Thai bank. What they don't understand is that they're stuck with the paperwork whether they like it or not. The Bank of Thailand signed an agreement with the US Treasury Department a number of years ago obliging all Thai banks to comply with FATCA, so no bank - and certainly no branch - can opt out of that, no matter what the manager wants; they must make every new customer fill out the US paperwork to determine whether they meet the definition of a "US person". They also misunderstand what's involved in having "US persons" as customers - the reporting is all done electronically at the HQ level, with essentially no work required by the branch.

That seems to be the case: "When travelling abroad and using credit cards for purchases at international stores, individuals will be presented with the option of paying in the local currency of the country or baht. If the user chooses to pay in baht, an additional 1% fee will be charged." Of course, choosing to pay in baht overseas via DCC is already a terrible idea, since it will be quite a bit more expensive than opting for local currency. And no, this is not a way for Thai banks to cover currency conversion costs. If you choose DCC overseas, the bank in that country will do the conversion. If you choose local currency, conversion will be done by Visa or Mastercard. In neither case will the Thai bank do any conversion or bear any exchange rate risk - the transaction will be submitted to them in baht. https://www.nationthailand.com/blogs/thailand/economy/40036058

That's true if you take out cash using your debit card. You will not pay a fee if you use the cardless withdrawal option on the ATM.

It's adorable that the health minister seems to believe he has the power to enact legislation - his proposal hasn't even been discussed or voted on, so it's a bit rich to say "Thailand plans..."