zig

1 hour ago, rbkk said:

After the 500 Million doses US Govt  announced only yesterday? Or is that from stock they already hold and will redistribute? It's unclear. 

I read that those 500 Million were reserved to COVAX countries. Thailand decided not to participate in COVAX program.

1 hour ago, realfunster said:

 

I suggest it is stretch to include 'banned AZ completely' and 'mandated for a certain age' in the same sentence and with the same prefix as 'a lot of countries'.

 

AFAIK - 1 country, Denmark has 'banned AZ completely'. 

 

Happy to be corrected...

Norway has banned it too

11 hours ago, Maybole said:

Leo No8 is too sweet for me. I usually drink Tiger because it is the best of a poor lot. It is 56 Baht per 630ml bottle from Big C

Same here. It is usually Tiger or San Miguel for me.

I have had Deebot n79 for 1.5 years now. Paid like 4k for it. It is a stupid little thing that moves randomly around the room but if you let it run for a while then it manages to clean all of it reasonably well. 

Thinking to buy one with a mopping function the next time. 

I can only describe my experience, having rented a few condos over the years here.

It has always been a two months deposit for me and I have always managed to get it back, though I have heard of cases when some have not been so lucky.

I have negotiated some conditions in the contracts or added some statements that I have found missing a number of times and the landlords have always been accommodative enough to change them.

Similarly, I could always negotiate lower rent than initially quoted and also negotiate for adding or removal of some furniture or household items. I think the key is to be reasonable in your requests and understand that this is a negotiation and both sides might need to compromise. 

Anyway, this is just my experience. I hope it helps.

1 hour ago, petermik said:

The beach is being kept in pristine condition in preparation for our Chinese visitors at the end of the month....????

Which month? I read that international travel to Thailand is banned till end of June.

3 hours ago, HHTel said:

Of course, all this depends upon your governor.  They don't have to accept the restrictions and can order more restrictions if they feel it's necessary.

For example, the governor of Prachuab will not allow restaurants to open in the province, despite government 'guidelines' allowing it.

From the government press conference I understood that the provincial governors are allowed to order more strict rules if they feel that such are justified, but not less strict.

1 hour ago, Davedub said:

Thailand is ahead of Europe on this issue - well done Thailand for not caving in to corporate lobbying and pressure (and shame on Europe for doing the opposite in the face of overwhelming evidence for the harm these chemicals do)

I recall reading that paraquat and chlorpyrifos are banned all over EU. Only glyphosate is still allowed.

I have always wondered how does the government decide which shops or which types of eggs should be price controlled. There are many supermarket chains in Bangkok that sell their eggs for 70-90 baht or so for 10-pack, i.e. 7-9 baht per egg. 

On 1/9/2020 at 2:08 AM, sirineou said:

I don't meant to be argumentative just a small point, 

I think the above might be a bit exaggerated, I have being coming to Thailand for over  13 years and for the most part fot the past 10 years, except for a short time between 2015 and 2016 where it hit 36   bht it has being bouncing between 33 bht and 29 bht those are 10% at their extremes. The most extreme move from its highest of 34.6 sept 14 2014 to the lowest is about 15% . 

Is my math correct or am I missing something?

PS: July 4 2005 for a brief time it hit 41 bht in case you are using that as your standard. 

Well, it was mostly over 40 between 1998 and 2005, but then again - it was fluctuating around 25 back in 1987 - 1996. Anyone's choice as to what to compare to. 

5 hours ago, Advocate said:

I have lived and worked in 12+ countries and I have never experienced a process like TM30 or the 90 day reporting in any other country.

 

Indeed, there is no such requirement in most countries. However, there are similar requirements in China and Russia. 

21 hours ago, kwak250 said:

Didn't realise there was a discounted price ?

Is it like the secret McDonalds menu?

Happened to me once. I showed the work permit and spoke some Thai. They still refused to sell me tickets for Thai price but compromised on one Foreigner ticket for three persons... :-)

I know that the Russians who bought up a lot of property here 4 or 5 years back will be rubbing their hands now. If they cash in their chips now they will double their money. That's what i would be doing considering the only reason all this is happening is purely down to political sanctions and oil prices. When these sanctions are lifted the currency will return to stability.

They could just have kept their money in USD and still double it...

Well done driver, saved a lot of lives probably. Police possibly expected to conclude it was a mass suicide attempt.

Well, if the bus would have had a fire extinguisher like one would expect it then perhaps he could have saved the bus too...

Both grandfathers of my Swedish-Finnish friend joined SS only to fight the Russians. But parading as a SS-Nazi or Nazi today is a disgrace.

Trust the Russian news agency to distort it. The day is considered a commemoration day for the people who died for their country at WWII.

You will not see any people in SS uniforms nor glorification of Nazis in this parade. Mostly just old people who leave some flowers at the Freedom Monument. As some here have explained already, most of these troops were forcefully mobilized with only a small percentage of volunteers. And many of them indeed perceived the German army as liberators. After all, it was Russia that invaded and occupied Latvia in 1940 and started mass deportations in 1941.

When Russia took over Crimea did they call for elections? No, they installed their own puppet leaders. Did anyone watch Putin's speech prior to officially annexing Crimea? Once of his appointed leaders didn't have a suit and tie, only a black shirt. He is the leader of the motorcycle gang Night Wolves and a big supporter of Putin. Nope, Nazis don't need elections or qualified candidates.

Then there was the joke of a referendum but that's an entirely different topic all together.

There was also an interview with Girkin/Strelkov recently where he admitted that his troops had to force the government officials into town hall under gunpoint to vote in favor of referendum and other initiatives. According to him, they had no support from Crimean people, Ukrainian army nor police.

I just wonder how long they will let him talk. He has managed to refute Russian news stories already a number of times.

The Russian ..... and the best disinformation/propaganda unit the world has ever seen.

It calls the truth. The US and other Western control almost 99% of world mass-media. We can win if we will show only THE TRUTH

You must be kidding... The sheer volume of pure lies and fabricated stories shown in Russian television about Ukraine is just amazing. There are countless examples where it has been proven that the Russian television has been supplementing some stories with war videos from different parts of the world attributing these to happenings in Ukraine, or the people that are being interviewed with the same actors playing the part of Ukrainian soldiers, then rebels and then again some innocent civilians in different stories etc. etc.

I was wondering about the below sentence. What are they fining them for, if there is no crime?

<Police powers are limited unless evidence is available to confirm any of the detainees have committed a crime>

How does it not damage Saudi?

Oil is not the only source of income for Russia, Gas is just as much.

Its deliberate alright, only more like cutting its own oxygen.

As far as I know, Russia has linked the gas prices to oil prices in many delivery contracts for Europe. If oil prices drop then gas prices shall drop too...

We had a thread yesterday showing how Russia's currency is collapsing. The US doesn't need either one of those countries, and don't try the unlearned "the US is in debt to China" deal on me either.

...

Putin can't run his country on $80 oil, and with the strengthening dollar which he has to buy with his lousy panicked currency, oil could go to $50 and break Russia.

The world's biggest oil shipping company just filed bankruptcy, partly due to not properly hedging its bets on oil prices. LINK

Well, it was mentioned in some article on Bloomberg that Putin himself might be allowing or maneuvering the ruble to fall since he is only benefiting from it. Russia is selling oil and gas for dollars while all the production expenses are in rubles. Thinking about it, also most of his costs for running the country are in rubles. This way the common folks will bear most of the costs caused by his policies and he still gets to blame the West for it.

“There is no need to hire illegal foreigners. There are a lot of professional Thai tour guides who are fluent in different languages,” Mr Krich said.

Well,, there must be a good reason why these tour companies do not want to hire Thai guides. Perhaps Mr Kirch should consider the reasons

he also claims they are saving costs by hiring Foreign Tour Guides- i doubt this is the case - probably looking for professional tour guides instead.

In the past I happened to talk to a manager of one such tour company. The main quoted reason was that many Thai guides can barely speak the required languages, up to the point that tourists do not understand them at all. Some of the companies used to hire one Thai guide and one foreign guide to work in pairs which kind of legal if the foreign guide is positioned as an interpreter and not a guide. The Thai guide would often be there just for the purpose of providing a legal cover and would do nothing at all. In such cases it indeed saves the cost to keep only one of the guides who is actually doing all the work.

But he assured the starting price on the fare meter will remain unchanged at 35 baht for the first two kilometers.

----

I suppose he has not taken a taxi in a while. It has been 35 baht for the first ONE kilometer since 2008 ...