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3 hours ago, josthomz said:

Your calculations are meaningless. 
 

To begin with you are extrapolating data from Indonesia into Thailand, which as far as I know are two very different countries impacted in very different ways by COVID-19. 
 

Second of all you are extrapolating data from the medical community into the general public. They treat those sick with COVID-19, prevalence of COVID-19 among the medical community (doctors, nurses, hospital staf,…) has always been way higher than among the general public. And let’s not even talk about viral load. 

 

Let's see what happens in the next one year, if Thailand were to open its borders.  I am interested in knowing if I am right or wrong.  But I am not going to gamble with 1000 dollars. ????

You are assuming what those doctors faced will not exist in the community.  And you are assuming their deaths are directly related to their possibly higher exposure to the virus.  Shall see how valid these assumptions are when Thailand opens up again.  Not saying you are wrong or talking nonsense.  You are making a conclusion based on assumptions like I do.

You should be aware that opening up the country means no quarantine, and negligible or no test, because with these two, you can foresee the tourism industry to be as dead as it is now.  Without these, there are likely to be lot's of infected people in the community with various levels of severity.  Get a massage, the interaction with an infected person may be much more intense and longer than what a doctor has, and without a mask or a shield.

As a person who comes from a science/engineering background, I do not eliminate a possibility without concrete proof that it is invalid.  Anything that is not proven invalid is *likely* to be valid to me, especially if it has happened elsewhere.  Completely eliminating a possibility by guessing the correlation between various events, which is not well understood, is very risky.

14 hours ago, placeholder said:

This is from that Wall Street Journal article you linked to:

"Around 90% of Indonesian doctors—roughly 160,000 in all—have been vaccinated with Sinovac’s shot, according to the medical association, so the vaccinated doctors who died are only a tiny percentage of the total."

There's also this:

"...So far in June, 26 doctors have died."

26/160000 = 0.0001625

I do not know how many Sinovac doses will Thailand use.  It was reported Thailand has received 10 million so far.

Let us assume it will eventually get 20 million doses, for 10 million people.

0.0001625 x 10000000 = 1625

So, when the country reopens, with 10 million sinovac vaccine recipients, 1625 people may die, every month.

When the country is closed, which is the current status, the average monthly covid deaths is about 900.

With 900 deaths a month, many foreigners residing in Thailand are in panic.  What will they do if it reaches 1625 a month? ????

34 minutes ago, humbug said:

malaysia uncovered a similar plan called 'Forest City', where up to 500,000 buyers would be only chinese and over the 20 year national strategy, in secret the legal status of the chinese buyers would be slowly altered, until 20 years later, they all

 would become malaysian citizens,

the new malaysian government, uncovered the plan from the previous government, and scrapped it immediately

Well, I am just about 30 minutes of drive from that Forest City......

No, most of them have little interest in becoming Malaysians.  What can they gain by becoming citizens?  This is not Kuala Lumpur or Singapore.  This place may rank high in income level in Malaysia, but it is mostly due to income brought in by Malaysians who travel to Singapore everyday to work.  Foreigners who cannot speak Malay have little space here.  They only work in a small number of industries, mainly education, and factories or transport companies that require foreign talent.  Chinese are not perceived to be good in these areas, in this place.  So, they being employed for these jobs is rare.  Their businesses do not flourish either, as only a small number of hardcore China supporters would go to such shops (Chinese do not sell things cheap).  They rely mainly on businesses from other Chinese who come with them.

Chinese go to Malaysia mainly for the same reason they go to Thailand - to relax in a cheaper place, and to allow their kids to get to western countries through international schools in these places.

Uncovered?  Mahathir has a very clear agenda - making sure Chinese in the country are not richer than others........ ????  He does not want more expensive houses to be owned by Chinese.  For a few decades, he had been trying to bring income equality among races in the country.  He had achieved that quite well in Putrajaya.  Elsewhere, he made progress.  He had been very particular about most shops being Chinese owned (local Chinese), and had tried hard to end this.  How could he allow a place with expensive apartments to be mostly owned by Chinese who suddenly appeared from nowhere......?

1 hour ago, JamieM said:

So what money will they live on for the year? air? come on be serious your suggestion is not practical as it does not take into account living expenses bills, the cost of a car, immigration requirements etc etc 

 

Also would be interested if you could show me a high quality condo in Bangkok for 3 million they are like unicorns.

(meaning they don't exist)

I quoted the abandoned Posh 12 condo project in another post earlier today.  You can look for it on Google, and take a look at its StreetView.  The banner on its front wall clearly says starting price was 1.89m THB.

A lot of Chinese buyers do not stay in Thailand.  They buy apartments/condos like they do in China - leaving them empty.

The old ones may stay long, but at 5000 CNY of monthly expenses per person (actually lower, as 5000 includes house rental), one person spends only 10k USD a year in Thailand.  This is not a fictitious number.  It is very close to the numbers quoted by Chinese in YouTube videos filmed in Thailand.  My planned monthly budget (excluding house rental) in Thailand is equivalent to about 3200 CNY, or 6k USD a year, so the number is realistic.

The young ones, you keep hearing those interested in going to Thailand asking, how to earn income.  Obviously, they are going to derive their income from within Thailand, often from Chinese tourists.

How much do Chinese residents spend in Thailand every month?  From information collected the past few months, usually 3000 CNY (500 USD) to 5000 CNY (800 USD).  There is one rich (generally agreed) person claiming she spends 30000 CNY (5000 USD) a month, but this is rare, and this person runs businesses in Thailand.  Even this very high monthly expense gives rise to only 60k USD a year, slightly more than the 50k USD annual limit.  Probably 95 percent spend much less than this.  Well, they have to spend much less.  How many Chinese families in China earn 5000 USD a month?  Those who do are most likely high middle income families, who are paying $$$$$$ for their 3 or 4 million CNY Chinese apartment, and so are unable to spend 5000 USD a month elsewhere, unless they got rich through the old houses in major Chinese cities.

As for quality, 3 or 4 million CNY Chinese apartments where rich Chinese live in are not very different from normal Thai apartments.  You can expect normal Chinese who are not so rich to find 2-3 million THB studios very acceptable in terms of quality.

2 hours ago, JamieM said:

 

Well Chinese law means they can only transfer $50,000 a year out of China (to any other country) any more than that is illegal so anyone transferring more than that (for buying a condo or any other reason) is a criminal according to Beijing and the only way to move it is by illegal means.

 

That's why this story doesn't make sense unless they are planning to lure Chinese criminals into Thailand.

 

50000 USD is 1.5m THB.  The restriction is for 1 calendar year.  Transfer 1.5m THB in December, and another 1.5 m THB in January.  This is already 3m THB, enough for many Thai apartments.  Is there anything illegal? ????

Besides, buying an apartment under construction does not need the full amount to be paid in one go, I believe.  If it takes three years to build, then three transfers can send 4.5 m THB.

And then, there is a choice of multiple people doing transfers.....  Ask a parent to transfer 1.5m, self 1.5m, relative 1.5m, in December and January.  That is 9m THB already.

To add one more reason.

* Thai apartments are being marketed in China by Chinese property companies.  These companies handle the sales.

The past one year, I watched quite a lot of YouTube videos from Chinese nationals residing in Thailand.  It is possible Chinese nationals have bought a lot of apartments.  Some "bought" landed properties, both legally (basically long-term rents), and illegally (through companies and human proxies).

There are a few reasons :

* Some are trying to escape from China, especially for the education of their kids.  Because to them, the Chinese education is so bad that any international or private school in Thailand beats it hands-down.  Some say the air and food qualities in major Chinese cities, especially Beijing, are a joke.  These intend to stay in Thailand for ten years or longer.  So, they naturally buy.  Some rent a house near the school.  They buy an apartment in a tourist area for AirBnB to (help) sustain their lives in Thailand.

* Some got rich when being evicted from their old houses in major Chinese cities.  The compensations are usually in millions or tens of millions of CNY.  Some of them complain that they do not get enough money to buy an equivalent house at the same place.  Some migrate to suburban areas with lower house prices, so they have free cash.  A few who can accept foreign lives use the money to buy "vacation" homes outside China.  2 million CNY, which is a pretty common compensation, is almost 10 million THB, enough for the vast majority of Thai apartments.

* Some migrate to outside China.  Most of these are likely to have received tons of money from the evictions.  These should be mostly staying in landed properties in Thailand.  But they are likely to buy apartments to generate income.

* Youngsters who cannot afford apartments in the Chinese cities they are staying in.  They are likely to be renting or staying with parents.  They have seen how apartment prices in China went up hundreds of percent over the past ten years.  Now most of them cannot afford.  They think Thai apartments, which are currently affordable, are also going to give such a lucrative return.  So, instead of using their income to buy their own Chinese apartments and live in there, they buy Thai apartments far-away.  In China, it seems easy to borrow money, as credit control appears to be very loose compared to even developing countries.  This may be the reason many of them got into financial difficulty.  It is probably also the reason why some Chinese can pay tons of money.  It is not their money.  They do not care much about financial security (almost all Chinese these day demonstrate this behavior).  They think salaries can only go up, house prices will only appreciate, there will only be more and more well paying jobs, and the trends will continue for decades non-stop.  Non-Chinese usually have seen upturns and downturns in their own countries, so they are more conservative.

Just about a year ago, a Chinese complained about the Bangkok Posh-12 apartment project being abruptly terminated, and her 2-3 million THB virtually lost.  That may be one of the examples of a project sold mostly to Chinese nationals.  They have basically no clue what is happening outside their country (some do not even know what is happening in their own country....), just blindly charge forward, following the footsteps of other Chinese, and believing in whatever information disseminated in (their) public domain.  This may be a reason why they snapped up so many Thai apartments.........

if investigations concluded the incident was due to poor bus maintenance.

I heard the incident was due to reckless driving of the driver, causing an accident and run (too fast)

According to news reports, several passengers who survived said the brakes of the bus stopped functioning. Upon noticing this, one passenger reportedly helped pull the handbrake, while another dealt with the steering wheel. Whether or not the bus was already traveling too fast before the malfunction was not reported though.

Frankly, the law enforcement and judicial systems in Thailand have become jokes in the region. Thais should ask themselves why hardly any or no country treats Thaksin as a criminal. And everyone is amused by using a cooking show to remove a prime minister. I guess this NACC action may create yet another joke for others. Thais, especially the so-called educated ones, should divert attention to what makes the country progress. We the neighboring countries are entertained by the seemingly illogical actions and happily grabbing everything that leaves Thailand because they are sick of the dramas.

You won't need enroll in the program (whatever that means). There will be the new automatic lanes for biometric passport holders and other lanes for non-biometric passport holders. I also don't see how this only benefits Thai and ASEAN passport holders. Surely you just walk through and that's it.

I doubt that the Thais will have a record of the all of the worlds biometric passports. Although all the information will be in the passport, there would still need to be some verification that it is actually a valid passport.

The passports carry or should carry signed user data. There is or should be a root signer (probably at ICAO) that issues signed certificates to individual countries. Each country should be using its own certificate/key to sign the data of individual passport holders, and store the data in the passports. Given a passport, the gate/machine is able to determine whether or not it is valid using the publicly-available certificate of the root signer (like what a web browser does when connected to an HTTPS site), and together with a fingerprint read by its attached scanner, it can determine whether or not the person at the gate is the owner of the passport.

- The Singapore system, which is fully automatic; no stamp / no immigration officer at all. This system started a good 10 years ago and works quickly and efficiently. In it's early stages it was for Singapore passports only, i'm not sure if it now handles other passports.

It used to read only smartcards. But ICAO-compliant electronic passport holders who have long-term passes in Singapore have been able to use it since a couple of years ago. Many countries have similar systems. A frequent user should be able to go through a gate in 15-20 seconds, if the system does not malfunction, and the finger is neither too wet nor too dry. I use such machines four times a day, in two countries, so I have used them thousands of times.

Frankly, many people in other parts of Asean do not believe the conviction of Thaksin is not politically-motivated. That is why Thaksin has been able to enter Malaysia, though probably secretly, welcomed in Cambodia, and possibly also in Singapore. Elsewhere, he is still welcomed in several European countries, the middle-east, east-asia and south-pacific.

The terminal at LCTKL is currently undergoing renovation

According to The Star, the expansion work at LCCT has already completed:

<h3 id="story_date">Wednesday May 20, 2009</h3> <h1 id="story_title">LCCT expansion work completed</h1> <h2 id="story_byline">Story and photo by CHARLES FERNANDEZ</h2>

MALAYSIA Airports Hold-ings Berhad (MAHB) has completed the expansion work on the low-cost carrier terminal (LCCT) at the KL Inter-national Airport (KLIA) in Sepang, which included new international departure and arrival halls, a public concourse, government offices, a curbside and a parking area.

However, by 2011 the current LCCT will be converted into a cargo-handling terminal once the new terminal is completed.

Construction of the new RM2bil LCCT is expected to start by the middle of this year and scheduled for completion by the third quarter of 2011....