AndreasHG

Seoul should support Kiev in developing tools to induce North Koreans to defect en masse. North Korea is one of the poorest countries on Earth, with a terrible human rights record. Drone dropping leaflets with information on how to defect safely and what awaits defectors in South Korea, would be a good start.

I already acknowledged the mishap in a previous post. I cannot amend my original post because it is now frozen. And yes, reporting by post is a viable option. I don't know what SAE is. So far (in two years with a retirement VISA), I only did my 90 days report either in person or online. What is SAE? Thank you in advance for your clarification.

I do believe that God has already chosen Trump. Certainly, no more than ayatollah Ali Hosseini Khamenei has been chosen by God to rule upon Iran, or Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Amir al-Mu'minin (i.e. the 'Commander of the Faithful'), has been chosen by God to rule upon Afghanistan. No more and yet, all of them equally chosen by God. As a general rule, the less a leader's legitimacy comes from the popular will, the more likely the leader rules because chosen by God. Therefore, God must be the one who chose Trump in 2016, since he lost the popular vote. But don't despair: a good example of the validity of this general rule is Louis XVI, who governed France by the will of God, but was beheaded by the will of the people.

I hope that the whole investigation does not end up scapegoating some of the officials and private individuals involved in this sad incident. The real problem is the laws that allow the circulation of vehicles, weighting many tons or carrying dozens of people, well beyond their reasonable age limits. In Thailand, vehicles that in other countries would be considered vintage and collectible, are allowed to travel fully loaded and to carry out commercial services. If busses and trucks first registered in 1970 can still be legally used to transport people and goods, despite not being equipped with ABS, ASR, and all the modern technologies and devices capable of ensuring maximum safety, Thais will always be exposed to high risks when they travel by road. If obsolete busses and trucks are allowed to travel on Thai roads, no transport company equipped with modern busses or trucks will be able to compete in the Thai market. Outdated bus and truck operators will always outcompete modern bus and truck operators, because their paid-for-in-full vehicles give them a decisive competitive cost advantage. Change will undoubtedly come at a cost: the cost of safety, the cost of saving human lives. But if the Thai authorities are serious about tackling the road safety issue, they should start by progressively banning the oldest and most obsolete vehicles from the roads. And what better starting point than busses and heavy trucks, which are the most lethal vehicles not only on Thai roads, but on any road?

You're right. I never mailed. I only did it online or in person.

You can, but only if it is not the first 90 days report after re-entering the country from overseas. The first 90 days reporting, after you enter Thailand from a trip abroad, has to be done in person.

So, you all know each other, isn't it? You confirm you all work for the same Troll factory in St. Petersburg.

Even with regards to women, Russia still has the third shortest life expectancy in Europe. Only Moldova and Azerbaijan do worse than Russia. With regards to the US, I can't care less. And you shouldn't care either, because the USA is no match for your country Ivan, just like it is no match to mine. The difference is that in my country we know what our place in the world is. On the other end, Russia, and the Ivans who populates it, suffer of grandiose delusions which, together with vodka, constitute the national antidote used to endure your daily misery. Hence, drink Ivan, drink... ...and when drunk forget your misery and dream about being at the helm of a world power.

And yet, in USA people live much longer than in Russia. Sorry pal...

Nevertheless, the Thai Baht keeps on strengthening, closely tracking the gold appreciation. The charts below show that the price of gold in THB has been relatively constant from April '24 onward, while in USD ita has appreciated significantly. This implies that the THB appreciated against the USD (and other major currencies). There are other factors at play too (FDI, export resiliency and growing tourist inflows), but the link to the gold price is stronger than any rate cut the BOT may introduce.

What has this to do with the life expectancy at birth of Russians? But to answer your question: the US males life expectancy at birth is 76 years, 10 years more than Russians, despite having 800 military bases around the world. And if Russia had 800 military bases around the world, it would have zero budget for health care, education, pensions and welfare, and Russian males' life expectancy would drop from 67 years to 36 years only. The same as in the stone age.

He feels no hate for Israel. @john donson is just one of the handful of Russian trolls active here... ...ignore him and move on.

I have recently been diagnosed psoriasis in Bumrungrad Hospital in Bangkok. Actually, I have been diagnosed as affected by psoriasis more than 20 years ago, by coincidence, in the same hospital. This time, I sought the help of an allergologist and a dermatologist for a severe skin allergy, I strongly suspected I had, without any clue of the cause. But both the dermatologist and the allergologist ignored my itchy allergy and focused instead on my psoriasis (which is, I guess, where the money to be made is). The dermatologist offered me straight away to undergo a monoclonal treatment which, according to her, would have addressed all of my skin issues. This is the quotation I received (paying out of my own pocket, i.e. without any insurance): Scapho 300 mg / 2ml pre-filled injection pen: 24,000.00 THB Nursing charges: 180.00 THB Other Hospital charges: 485,00 THB Physician Fee, Outpatient care: 1,500.00 TOTAL per DOSE: 26,175.00 THB (or approximately $790.00) Recommended doses were: one on week 0, 1, 2, 3 and 4, followed by one each month afterwards. Total cost in the first 4 weeks: 130,875,00 THB ($3,950.00). Monthly cost afterwards: $790.00. Cost for the first year of treatment: $12,640.00. Cost for any of the subsequent year: $9,480.00. These costs exclude any additional laboratory test which may be required during the treatment. As an alternative, she stated that UV-B therapy was also available, but she did not elaborate. Since I positively knew my issue was an allergy, I changed hospital and, after a throughout investigation lasted 2 months, and a lot of additional expenses, we identified the cause as being a severe (and painful) allergy to clindamycin, which was promptly added to the list of antibiotics to which I am allergic. And since my psoriasis is really mild, I keep on using Enstilar foam when needed to keep it at bay. Approximately $80.00 per bottle in any European pharmacy (paying out of my own pocket, but a physician prescription is required). I consume approximately 1 bottle per year. Unfortunately, it isn't yet available in Thailand. I hope this post may be of help.

The only way to really know what Israel is, is to visit the country, spend some time with its people, eat ist food, travel around renting a car, possibly work with Israelis and, since you're there, enjoy the nightlife. It's the only country in the Middle East where I would settle and that I would turn into my home without hesitation. And I am just an average European, not Jewish, Christian by education but agnostic to the bones.

It's a sign of Putin's desperation. His most concrete hope is that Trump wins in November. If Trump loses, Putin loses with him...

LOL Russia is spending an untold amount of resources in an unjust and unprovoked war against a poorer and smaller neighbor, and in megalomaniac imperial projects around the world. In the meanwhile, due to the gloomy state of Russia health system, life expectancy at birth in Russia is the second lowest in Europe right before Moldavia. A Russian male life expectancy at birth is of only 67 years, 14 years less than Spain and Italy, 13 less than France, the UK and the Netherlands, 12 less than Germany. All social indicators point to a country in a miserable state, trying to punch way above its real weight. If you really care about your fellow Russian countrymen and women, you would be screaming for change, for better health care, better pensions, safer roads and railways, better education, etc. (which is what Westerns do with their governments). But you are Russian, the poisoned fruit of a culture that despises human life, cheers at the death of thousands, and considers its children, men, women and elderlies expendable cannon fodder, to be sacrificed for the great imperial ambitions of your mentally sick Khan. I can't help but feel a fully justified hubris when I compare my world to yours, and I fully understand why Ukrainians want to join us. I, a non-Russian, care more about the lives of Russians than you do. Shame on you Ivan!

The leaflet South Korean activists drop on Pyongyang is particularly damning. It shows how many kilograms of rice or wheat can be bought for the price of Kim Jong Un's IWC watch ($13,400) or Kim Ju-ae's (his fatty daughter) Dior leather jacket (a few more thousands of US$). Not a good sight for someone who closely followed the epilogues of Nicolae Ceaușescu's, Muammar Gaddafi's and Saddam Hussein's lives. Hence the threat to burn Seoul and its 10 million inhabitants to ashes. Kim Jong Un would rather be known as the regime's propaganda leaflets portray him, gloriously riding a white horse while trampling an American flag.

The Thai baht is appreciating also due to the strong inflow of FDI. The tension arising in the US-China relationship is diverting investments away from China and into, among other countries, Thailand. US tech giant Google recently announced its plan to invest US$1 billion in a data centre and a regional cloud service in Thailand, followed by several more digital companies. The Board of Investment (BOI) received requests of investment privileges for 46 data centres and cloud service projects worth around 167.98 billion baht. Thailand has also attracted a diverse range of domestic and international investments in the EV sector, with a cumulative investment volume of around 200 billion baht (49 billion from China-based EV manufacturers, including BYD, and 150 billion from Japanese manufacturers). Probably in anticipation of an appreciation of the Thai baht, foreign investors' holdings of Thai shares rose by 70 billion baht in the first eight months of 2024 to 5.18 trillion baht. Finally, the appreciation of the local currency has not put a dent yet to Thai exports (+7% in August) and to the influx of foreign tourists (despite a soft third quarter, the Tourism Authority of Thailand is targeting 36 million visitors and an income of ฿1.81 trillion, some 32% up on last year, by the end of the year), contributing to the further strengthening of the Thai baht. Given the above, I doubt marginal changes of the BOT interest rate may effectively change the trajectory of the Thai baht v/s other currencies.

Yet another day of ordinary madness on Thai roads...

Weak on immigration? Trouble in Paradise? It's ironic that the UK had to leave the EU to achive nothing. While the current Italian government achieved, what was sold to the UK brainwashed masses as unachievable in the EU, by firmly staying within the EU. And please don't mention the ECJ ruling. Even the illiterates understood by now, that the ECJ ruling has nothing to do with the off shoring of the immigration processing.

Given the way you use social media, I can't but fully agree with you.

Indeed: but 75 years later, when the world seemed to have finally turned page, competition is based on economic advancements and not upon size of the landmass upon which an empire rules. Today, in the XXI century, Russia and China fight following a XIX century playbook: What can possibly go wrong for Putin and Xi Jinping, and for the poor Russians and Chineses they drag in the sinkhole with them?

Have you ever heard about the Lend-Lease program, to bail Stalin out from hole he dug for himself? Or you're just another poor kid grown up in Eastern Europe and fed with Soviet propaganda? Without the $11.3 billion, or $236 billion in 2024 dollars, in goods and services the U.S. sent to the Soviets from 1941 through 1945, the USSR would have been dead in the water. Russia provided the only thing available to the country: Cannon fodder. Millions of men and women sent almost barehanded in waves against the German army, in the infamous "meat assaults", resulting in the highest human casualty toll of the whole WWII. Only the Japanese army showed a comparable lack of regards for human life, the Russians proved capable of. The Russians are so lucky lacking corporations and technologies, that their warfare is limited to "meat assaults" since ever: under the Czar in WWI, under Stalin in WWII, and now under Putin against Ukraine. By the way, the electronic device you are using to type these idiocies was manufactured by a corporation. Do yourself a favor, be consistent, leave the civilized world behind and go back to the cave in the jungle you belong to.

It's the same story over and over again: Russia cannot compete with the rest of the world in terms of economic development, scientific achievements, creation of high added value products, and therefore it devotes itself to doing what it does best: destroying what other countries have created. Europe feels being in the crosshair, but it's not alone. Russia is actively campaigning against malaria vaccination, directly causing the death of thousands of Africans (https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/14/world/africa/russia-africa-disinformation-malaria-.html). Russia cannot compete when it comes to medical research. The only things Russia exports to Africa are weapons and mercenaries. Since 2022, Russia has sponsored 80 documented disinformation campaigns in 22 African countries, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies. And it's the tip of the iceberg. All this happens under the careless watch of Russian citizens, who shamelessly spend their holidays in Thailand, regardless of the damage that their regime causes to the world wellbeing and to disadvantaged communities. And the vaunted Thai neutrality takes on the appearance, everyday ever more, of complicity with a criminal regime.