TallGuyJohninBKK

I'd answer your question above, but doing so would be off-topic for this thread as regards COVID. As regards this thread and its topic, I've always supported and endorsed relevant laws being followed and enforced, and those NOT following pertinent laws should be held to answer. In this case, the Chinese law breakers were let off without serving a day in custody, despite the SUSPENDED sentence that was handed down. IMHO, they should have been given and served the sentences they received without suspension. But the Thai courts decided otherwise, and it was within their legal authority to make that decision.

Not exactly the best way to encourage international earthquake aid relief....

Also, regarding the past presidential cycle with Trump and Harris, at least according to the following article, the most of the largest billionaire donors and the largest amounts given by them went to Trump and Republican causes... Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg were large donors to Harris, but trailed far behind Musk: https://tech.yahoo.com/business/articles/10-biggest-billionaire-donors-kamala-200000585.html The 10 biggest billionaire donors to Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and others this election November 5, 2024 ... "Musk has spent at least $118 million of his own cash on efforts to help Republicans this election cycle, while his America PAC has spent just shy of $150 million to support Trump, according to a Sunday filing. That PAC, which Musk founded earlier this year, has also dropped millions of dollars on Congressional races." By comparison, Gates gave $50 million to Harris. And regarding Bloomberg, the article aptly notes: "Billionaire Michael Bloomberg is one of the few donors who have given as much to support Democrats as other wealthy individuals have Republicans. [emphasis added] Until recently, Bloomberg had donated just $47 million to efforts supporting Harris’ election bid. However, Democrats close to him recently convinced him to support Harris’ campaign with a $50 million donation to a nonprofit supporting her candidacy." https://tech.yahoo.com/business/articles/10-biggest-billionaire-donors-kamala-200000585.html

MAGAs and Musk have their own unique and special take on trying to buy U.S. election outcomes, and they've been working hard it at: As example from the OP: "Musk even traveled to Wisconsin two days before the election to personally hand over $1 million checks to two voters" Or before that: Elon Musk spends $277 million to back Trump and Republican candidates https://www.cbsnews.com/news/elon-musk-277-million-trump-republican-candidates-donations/ Musk keeps giving select voters $1 million checks. How is this legal? April 1, 2025 "CNN — Neither state nor federal courts have stopped Elon Musk from handing out $1 million checks to voters, first in Pennsylvania during last year’s presidential campaign and now in Wisconsin, where Musk is backing a conservative candidate for the state Supreme Court. ... How did we get here? WOLF: This is the second straight election in which the world’s richest man and a campaign superdonor has handed out million-dollar checks essentially to random people. How can this possibly be legal? GHOSH: The moment that we’re in is the logical and unfortunate result of the culture of how elections are financed in this country that was unleashed by the Supreme Court in the Citizens United decision." https://www.cnn.com/2025/04/01/politics/elon-musk-million-dollar-checks-campaign-finance-what-matters/index.html Or with Trump last year: Trump pressed oil executives to give $1 billion for his campaign, people in industry say “This is a scandal” and “an indictment of the system” — but probably legal, one legal watchdog told POLITICO. 05/09/2024 ... The oil industry has a long list of policy actions it would want Trump to take, including dismantling parts of President Joe Biden’s green agenda and rolling back pollution regulations that threaten to crimp their profits. As POLITICO reported Wednesday, oil executives are also preparing some highly specific requests for Trump, including executive orders they hope he would sign if reelected. https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/09/trump-asks-oil-executives-campaign-finance-00157131

From the OP report: "Despite their prison sentences, the court decided to suspend their jail time for one year, in light of the mitigating factors" [emphasis added] That means, they got sentenced legally, but won't actually have to serve any time at all. That last pgh of the OP report is what's called in the news business "burying the lede." (the key/most important thing) The bottom line of it is -- they walk away with little consequence and China is satisfied. Not a single day in custody served, and less than $200 fines. I suspect, they'll all now be headed quickly back to homeland China.

Chadchart, prior to becoming a politician, was a civil/structural engineer by academic qualifications and trade. What happened at the State Audit building must make him literally sick to his stomach: "He completed a bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering (First Class Honors) from Chulalongkorn University and then received a Master's of Structural Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Doctorate of Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in the USA with Ananda Mahidol Foundation Scholarship in 1987." "Chadchart used to work as a structural engineer in a private company. Later in 1995, he joined the Faculty of Engineering, Chulalongkorn University as an associate professor and an assistant to the president. In addition, he has served as a director in many state enterprises such as The Transport Company Limited, Mass Rapid Transit Authority of Thailand and Aeronautical Radio of Thailand Limited..." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chadchart_Sittipunt All that said, the BMA's potential culpability in all this hasn't been established, one way or the other, AFAIK.

Crossy, maybe your memory and knowledge on this is better than mine... But I seem to recall, the SRT's ARL rail line some years back having operational problems because of substandard steel track elements having been used. And the SRT then having to curtail service for some periods of time while they replaced the original tracking??? "Though funding for this work was made available back in 2012 the tender has not been done as one of the problems with the line is that cheap chinese steel (a corruption issue) was used and there has been major problems with track deterioration especially at turn outs - which resulted in speed restrictions a year ago. The whole track will need to be replaced in the next few years." https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic-g293916-i3687-k7360486-Airport_Rail_Link_express_Phaya_Thai_line_maintenance_work-Bangkok.html https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/1181893/airport-link-boss-hits-back-over-safety Not an inspiring track record of rail transit when the Thai government is the operator: Airport Rail Link a model of failure THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18, 2014 "...from the time the Thaksin administration signed the first contracts in 2005 to its official opening in 2014, no one seems to have had any sensible plans for this infrastructure project. Surprisingly, maintenance and safety requirements were not a priority of the existing plan, which also fails to encompass the financial losses. Everyone behind the project should be held accountable for these failures. They must have known about the running limit of the trains, and that the delivery of spare parts from its maker, Siemens, takes seven or eight months. Such simple facts should not escape capable managers. But, instead, the ARL board’s mishandling of the situation threatens to cause not only safety concerns but also severe inconvenience." https://www.nationthailand.com/perspective/30243536

One thing I haven't seen clarified in all this -- is just WHAT level of government had building inspection / code compliance responsibilities for the State Audit building project. Normally, for commercial projects, it would be the building staff from the BMA, which is under Chadchart's domain. But in this case, the Audit building project was commissioned by and funded by the national government, which may mean that they, instead of the BMA, had jurisdiction over code compliance. The lack of clarity about that makes it hard to know where to point the finger. :Perhaps it's in their interest to leave the details of such things vague and un-addressed.

Meanwhile, AFAICT, the government has already ceased their prior nightly televised EQ updates. They had been nightly at 7 p.m. But in looking tonight, I didn't find a version for today in any of the usual places. However, I did catch this in one of Thai PBS's broadcasts tonight -- a recap tally bulletin board from the collapsed State Audit Building site, translated from Thai with Google Translate: (obviously, the "2015" year reference by Google is a translation mistake that should be "2025". As of 3 pm this afternoon: 96 victims, consisting of: --15 fatalities --9 injured (and rescued) --72 still unaccounted for I'm wondering how long it's going to be, (if and/or when) the authorities start adding the still unaccounted for numbers into the deaths tally? Or maybe the government will decide to leave those just permanently unaccounted for?

AFAICT, this week, the Thai government and leadership seem to be in one GREAT HURRY of a rush to put the whole EQ thing behind them, out of sight and out of mind. And that includes the collapsed State Audit office building. If you look over the past two days, they're unusually busy talking about how international tourism and events can continue uninterrupted and talking about the upcoming Songkran holidays.

No, they were not employees of IT, at least not directly. They apparently were employees of one of the Chinese companies involved in the project. I don't believe any of the news reports have named which one exactly. But presumably they were from the JV partner China Railway....

Let go by Thai police pending further/future proceedings (ya right....) on the legal case that was filed against them.

FWIW, in reading other materials already posted elsewhere here, it sounds like the design used by the Chinese company developer for the State Audit building was an "unconventional" one, to say the least. It sounds like the builder was trying to show some kind of proof of concept construction method that obviously failed spectacularly. Via Google Translate: Thailand's new audit office building main structure successfully capped China Railway Ten Bureau Group 2024-04-03 "The main building of the new audit office building is 137 meters high, and the structure is in the form of "core cylinder + beamless floor". The core cylinder adopts the slide mold construction technology, the beamless floor plate adopts the lifting mold installation process, and the outer frame adopts the climbing construction process. In order to ensure the quality of super-high-level concrete, a project technical research group was established at the beginning of the start to study key technologies. Slip mode construction technology The slider construction technology uses the slider device to slide the 1.2-meter-high tool-type template along the concrete surface, controlling the thickness of each layer of concrete not exceeding 25 cm, and achieving an effective slide of the template. In the process of sliding, the measurement correction is done, and the horizontal deviation of the slide mode working platform is controlled within 1 cm. After the concrete pouring is completed, a professional care agent is used for smear and maintenance. This technology realizes the scientific control of the work of template slippage, system installation, and concrete pouring in the construction of the slider. ... Climbing construction process The outer frame adopts fully automatic attached lifting scaffolding for overall improvement, with fast construction speed, high safety performance and a large amount of turnover materials. https://archive.ph/0NVlV

So the steel subcontractor here was another defacto Chinese company operating in Thailand (Rayong), and supplying the other Chinese company that was the defacto main builder of the collapsed high-rise: "Sin Ker Yuan's directors, Jianqi Chen, Su Longchen, and Sompan Pankaeo, were set to be charged for violations related to producing products that do not meet standards"

The news reports said the Thai police confiscated the documents, but let the 4 or 5 Chinese walk out after being interviewed, pending potential further legal proceedings on the charges that were filed against them. Call me skeptical, but I'd wager the legal case against them will never meaningfully be pursued. China wouldn't like it. "Chinese ambassador to Bangkok Han Zhiqiang brought a Chinese expert in tunnel collapse and earthquakes from the Chinese Ministry of Emergency Management to meet Mr Anutin on Sunday. After the meeting, the interior minister said the Chinese expert observed the collapse site." https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2991159/7-day-deadline-for-probe-into-chinese-built-high-rise-collapse