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In addition to the passport fee, there is a fee for posting the old & new passports from the Embassy to you, unless you pick up the passport. Unfortunately, it is not possible to pay this fee online, so you have to go to the bank to get a draft. You might just do both payments by bank drafts and save yourself any annoyance with online payment.

One of my palms, similar to the last of the photos, was attacked by beetles years ago but recovered. These days the problem is gray squirrels.. They nibble on the new fronds which eventually yellow and drop prematurely. They killed a half dozen coco palms in the neighbor's garden. Now only one is left. The chewing damage is quite distinctive. We trap the squirrels using banana as bait.

That's true. What's happened is that migration from the mainland over several centuries led to intermarriage with indigenous people, many of whom self-identify as ethnic Chinese, as mentioned in the article which you cite. Today, ethnic Chinese people identify as Taiwanese, a political rather than ethnic question. Again from the article, the people coming from China in 1945-50 are known as "waishengren", possibly 1.2 mn or 15% of the island's population at the time. Among the other 85%, the locals, was a certain number who were not happy to be under KMT management. As a result, martial law continued for many years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Terror_(Taiwan).

Pelosi is for democracy. She admires the bravery of young HK people opposing oppressive rule BY law imposed by Beijing. Admittedly, trashing the Legislative Council was excessive, but that was but one incident in a long, mostly peaceful campaign. As for January 6th, 2021, she opposes self-described militias and hangers on invading the legislature to abort a democratic process to confirm the will of the people. People who are against democracy in HK typically characterize demonstrations as "riots", which are punishable under rule BY law by prison sentences. In contrast, rule OF law protects the individual from capricious edicts of the state.

Part of China's problem is Xi Jin Ping and his program to reassert CCP power. The biggest tech companies represent a potential threat to his power exercised through the CCP. His solution has been to clip their wings, and for other private companies to install party functionaries in their management. Vietnam is more laissez faire.

But people in Taiwan increasingly identify as Taiwanese. When Chiang Kai Shek occupied Taiwan, a lot of local people were unhappy and had to be suppressed. Taiwan was only ruled by Chinese at the end of the Ming Dynasty (1644) and then again after Chiang's defeat. Only after his death could democratization take hold by degrees as the Kuomintang mentality recedes.

That economy claim is based on an historical trend continuing, but as brokers say, "past performance is not an indicator of future results". China is more likely to remain a regional power for some time to come, and may decline thereafter.

The boosters for China in this thread evidently use a common tactic called "whataboutism".

For a long time, the local party apparatus would have Chinese women aborted if pregnant with a second child.

It's not that simple. Just look at the current volatility in the US markets. Some continue to buy the dip, even discredited meme stocks. Others are happy to use these rallies to prune their portfolios. As for China, there have been major busts in the last decade, but that did not get attantion from the general public abroad since only foreign institutions have access.

There has to be a discounted price to Chinese stocks because of the absence of the rule of law. In China it's rule BY XI's law. The stocks of the education tutoring stocks were halved overnight, for example, after a government edict.

The delisting on US exchanges may still happen, because certain issues have not really been resolved. The FASB (Financial Accounting Standards Board) is sending people to Hong Kong to see whether the proposed solution will work, but meanwhile China is giving their own interpretation of what was agreed. A digital currency may give the Chinese government much closer control of people, which seems to be a mania of Xi in particular. Stopping the flight of capital is just one aspect.

I read a few years ago that the figure was 325%. The local governments have been saddled with taking care of Covid while the source of 30% of their finance, property sales, has been hobbled by Xi. Bailout by the central government is unlikely. So far there have been anemic gestures to puff up credit.

Wealthy Thai-Chinese families of recent vintage which have known significant investment in China could potentially undermine the Thai economy, depending on the extent of their borrowing from Thai banks and any downgrading of their local debt and selloff of their company shares if a worldwide recession develops into a prolonged stagnation and then deflation. We are not anywhere near that now. Years ago I used to meet someone I knew from university who had moved to Hong Kong to run some investment funds. Concerning China, he said that he would invest in anything except property.

So this means that we do not need to do the first 90-day report after reentering by mail or in person?

It's better to go with someone to serve as lookout in the passenger seat to spot oncoming traffic on curves, especially on rural roads in the hills.

In the Pibulsonggram era (from 1930s) there were laws to reserve certain professions to Thais, such as farming, barbering, and similar modest occupations, but there was no prohibition from banking or rice milling. With wealth came power.

If you read the history section of the following, the Emerald Buddha was in the Lanna kingdom of Chiang Mai when the crown prince of Lan Xang came to rule Chiang Mai due to the lack of a male heir there, because his mother, the queen of Lan Xang, was the daughter of the late king of Chiang Mai. Subsequently the Emerald Buddha was taken to Luang Prabang when the crown prince acceded to the Lan Xang throne. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_Buddha So Chiang Mai has a superior claim to Luang Prabang's over rights to the Emerald Buddha.

10 years ago or so Bumrungrad gave a video disk of the colonoscopy. My doctor in Boston was impressed. In recent years they just issued printed reports. The latest (2018) had a map of the colon indicating where various snapshots were taken. I got the impression that they used an advanced scope with NBI (narrow band imaging). https://ensem.samitivejhospitals.com/colonoscopy.html https://www.asge.org/home/about-asge/newsroom/media-backgrounders-detail/new-endoscopic-technologies

The problem was that Russia in the 90s was not of interest to Western business people except oil companies, while China dangled the illusion of a market of 1.3 bn souls. Greed won out. Meanwhile the Russian economy was dismembered under the influence of American economic ideologues.

The Chinese first choice must be without firing a shot. Second would be a rapid, near stealth, takeover where the world would have to acquiesce because China would then control the supply of high end semiconductors. This second option could become ineffective if EU and US have already built enough fabs at home to live without the supply from Taiwan. If Taiwan has not seriously upgraded its defense capabilities with sufficient effective weapons tailored to a number of scenarios, plus a lot of military training, it would be difficult to hold on for long. China has been busy preparing to deny US et al access to Taiwan in a confrontation.

Might be true, unfortunately.

There is an effect of climate change causing inflation because of droughts and shortfall in harvests, but also in finance banks are loath to finance fossil fuel projects, so now the supply of petroleum and natural gas is limited. The lack of follow on investment in existing fields is now compounded with the disruption of Russian supplies.

Today I was watching BBC News interviewing a French farmer in her field of dried up maize. She scooped the powdered soil which reminded me of the 1930s Dust Bowl in the Oklahoma plains.

Here's the list of interactions - see Box 2. Statins are on the "temporarily withhold" list. https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/antiviral-therapy/ritonavir-boosted-nirmatrelvir--paxlovid-/paxlovid-drug-drug-interactions/