mfd101

They could continue 'sweeping' for another 12 months and collect another 120000 ...

Well, so far the Baht is stronger against the US (0.029678) & the Oz dollars ...

Proving that China is just as capable as any 'Western' country to waste money & investments by the truckload.

The Great Disruptor - horrible though he is - having a positive effect on the Europeans, all of them slowly getting up off their large flabby backsides.

The post-everything world. A country with no past has no future.

So we're not going to make the 40000000 target this year? Or was that 400000000?

The DTA between TH & Oz is difficult & complex to read, but I think the bits on pensions are clear: (1) Federal superannuation for former federal government employees can be taxed ONLY in & by Oz; (2) All other pensions are at least theoretically taxable in TH even if already taxed in Oz (but taking in to account the taxes already paid in Oz, which may mean no tax to be paid in TH). So the old age pensions are assessable in TH but will often involve no further tax to be paid.

And now Turkey is entering the game, on Zelensky's & Ukraine's side. This will jolt the Europeans in to action. A little down the track & Trump will be irrelevant for Ukraine's defence. Only one loser in that: Trump & Usofa.

Says it all.

I wonder if Trump could find Ukraine on a map.

The only good thing coming out of all of this is that the Europeans are now wringing their hands and starting to think seriously about actually building their own defence capabilities. The preliminary outcomes are interesting: UK has announced it will send troops to Ukraine (but anxiously awaiting others - the Scandinavians probably, I think). And Macron has said - surprisingly in my view - that France won't. The only point of sending them (in my view) would be if they're ready & equipped to fight. 'Peacekeeping' when there's no real peace is ridiculous. Meantime the poor Ukrainians continue to slug it out.

Ah, so that's why the Russian attack 3 years ago came from the north and making straight for Kiev!

Shouldn't that be: "lifted off of the people"?

Fine in Bangers. And here at the edge of the jungle and the end of the world I have my b/f, whose English has improved considerably over the 13 years of our togetherness and was already OKish when we met as he served in a bar in Bangers & had an English half-BIL.

Um, you're referring to Thai & Lao? or Thai & Khmer? See my response above.

You have less than half a point. While Lao & Thai are closely related in origin, they are NOT - for the most part - mutually intelligible. As to Khmer & Thai they are completely unrelated languages (Austroasiatic & Kra-Dai).

So Thais would have been better off (today) if they HAD been colonized by the British ...

Nonsense. Most of the poor & uneducated peoples of Isaan speak at least 2 languages (Thai/Khmer and Thai/Lao are the most common). In my family here the old people speak Khmer for preference and (mostly) poor Thai. Their offspring are fluent in both. Their grandchildren (mostly) still understand Khmer but refuse to speak it because of the rabid Thai nationalism taught in schools. As for English, zilch.

Desperately poor people do desperately stupid things.

I guess at least 50% of Thais consume no imported goods whatever. Too poor & no interest in what the rest of the world has to offer. So no obvious effect on them at all.

As we see on a daily basis in Thailand, corruption breeds incompetence. Russia not much different.

And all that after they've only just finished & opened & used the new and vastly costly Parliament Building. Built beside the river ...

That’s not the consensus. So what is the alternative consensus? 2-state solution? That was all ready & agreed in the 70s but, at the last minute, Yasser Arafat couldn't bring himself to sign the piece of paper. If there is a different consensus now, noone seems to have heard of it. Or if they have heard of it, noone wants to implement it, least of all any Arab state, not to mention the Palestinians themselves. It's very difficult to negotiate with your opponent when killing them all has become your God-given mission.

The reality is there is no solution. Meantime Trump's creativity will continue to entertain us all. And it might even strike sparks off the Saudis & Egyptians. Alternatively, emigration to The West - spread across 20 or so countries - might be an option, though noone will be offering. The intellectual elites from amongst the Palestinians left for The West two generations ago.

Next she'll be off to Washington DC to discuss the future of Israel with the Great Disruptor.