Jump to content

baa99

Members
  • Posts

    2837
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    50

Everything posted by baa99

  1. baa99

    First Wave of Chinese

    https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/tourism/chinese-travellers-can-depart-china-and-travel-to-thailand-on-the-stv The report that outbound Chinese group tours will remain banned by the Chinese Ministry of Culture, due to “concerns around the Covid-19 Coronavirus worldwide”, is true. But the Chinese have NOT been given special concessions. They are NOT the only people allowed to apply for Thailand’s STV. They are NOT all businessmen coming up to “google up” bargain businesses in Thailand. The arrival of the first Chinese travellers had NOTHING to do with the lifting of the State of Emergency in Bangkok (there was any array of other comments and conspiracy theories offered following the BKK Post article). To clarify, only Chinese operated and owned tour companies remain banned from organising tour group travel. Individual travellers, tourists or privately organised “groups” by citizens or companies and organisations from other countries are allowed to depart China under the current arrangements. There is no blanket ban on departure for Chinese citizens, although there are restrictions. During 2019, most Chinese arrivals were FIT (free and independent travellers), not on tour groups. 27% of all international arrivals in 2019 were from China. Thai officials maintain that the Chinese travellers and tourists are being tested, quarantined and tracked (via and app) whilst they are in Thailand and that they are being given no special dispensations. Most have organised their own bookings, including ASQ (quarantine) and then around the country. Some have booked onward travel to Phuket and Chiang Mai following their 14 day quarantine in Bangkok.
  2. baa99

    First Wave of Chinese

    https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/southeast-asia/article/3106414/coronavirus-thailand-welcomes-39-chinese-tourists-new Chinese shanghaied by Thai authorities.
  3. https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/wireStory/thailand-admits-foreign-tourists-time-months-73718447 Thailand’s tourist industry on Tuesday took a modest step toward reviving its coronavirus-battered fortunes by welcoming 39 visitors who flew in from Shanghai, the first such arrivals since regular travelers were banned almost seven months ago. The visitors who arrived at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport are pioneers in a "Special Tourist Visa" program devised by Thai authorities to restore step by step a sector of the economy that welcomed almost 40 million foreign visitors last year and by some estimates accounts for more than 10% of the country’s GDP. Bringing in tourists from China was a natural choice. Thailand was one of the top overseas destinations for Chinese tourists in 2019, when they accounted for by far the largest number of visitors to Thailand by nationality. Just as crucial is China’s ability to keep new coronavirus infections in check, a sharp contrast to most other parts of the globe that send visitors to Thailand.
  4. baa99

    Chinese Tourist Wave?

    In 2019, I think there were 10 M Chinese tourists.
  5. https://www.thaiexaminer.com/thai-news-foreigners/2020/10/19/chinese-wave-tourists-in-2021-minister-phiphat/ New plan is to recreate Thailand as a playground for Chinese visitors followed later by other Asian tourists beginning in 2021. The news is not good for western visitors but it is, of course, yet another in a long list of initiatives that so far have amounted to nothing while Thailand’s former hiving tourist hotspots have been reduced to ghost towns and those employed left queueing at food lines. In the meantime, the Maldives reopened to tourism in mid-July without any restrictions whatsoever and is boasting 100% hotel occupancy rates as tourism on the island country in the Arabian Sea is booming. Many are former regular visitors to Thailand who have been forced to look elsewhere. The Thai Tourism Minister, Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn, has now prioritised a plan to allow quarantine free access to the kingdom to 22 Chinese regions reputedly free from the Covid 19 virus at the beginning of the new year. The latest plan envisages up to 11 million visitors in 2021. It comes after the shambolic handling of a much-hyped plan to reopen tourism to a group of 120 Chinese tourists visiting Phuket on the basis of the Special Tourist Visa programme after it was revealed, in recent days, that not a single visa application had been made to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from China. The party is now expected in Phuket later this week.
  6. It seems that no Chinese tourist applied for the STV. Even the Chinese don't want to spend 2 weeks in solitary confinement. A quarantine requirement kills international tourism. I don't think there will be a high tourist season for 2020. The Tourism Authority of Thailand sent a list of the first group of STV (special tourist visa) Chinese tourists to the Thai consulate in Guangzhou on Oct 5. Foreign Affairs Ministry deputy spokesman Natapanu Nopakun, however, said no Chinese tourists had been to the consulate to apply for an STV.
  7. https://web.archive.org/web/20091026194328/http://geocities.com/doxyblue/alltrink.html 9:10 p.m.: The 115 arrives at last, stopping where it's supposed to. Crowded yet not packed. I find a place to stand, pay my fare and pocket the ticket. With the new law against littering, I keep it on me and dispose of it at home. Getting off opposite Patpong Road, I hear a local shouting: "Hey, you threw away your ticket. Pay fine!" I turn to see a local, not in uniform, waving a bus ticket he ostensibly picked up from the ground. I check my pocket and my ticket is still there. Sniffing a scam, I hurry across Silom. Behind me, I hear: "Pay me fine. Only 1,000 baht!" He doesn't follow me. A little boy leaps out from behind a vendor's cart and zaps me with a water-gun.
  8. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-usa-spying/u-s-spy-agency-tapped-german-chancellery-for-decades-wikileaks-idUSKCN0PI2AD20150709 WikiLeaks published what it said were three NSA intercepts of Merkel’s conversations, and data it said listed telephone numbers for the chancellor, her aides, her office and even her fax machine. “The names associated with some of the targets indicate that spying on the Chancellery predates Angela Merkel as it includes staff of former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder (in office 1998-2002), and his predecessor Helmut Kohl,” WikiLeaks added in a statement. The intercepts detailed communications from Merkel in 2009 on the international financial crisis, with the crown prince of the United Arab Emirates in 2009 on Iran, and with advisers in 2011 on the euro zone crisis. The targeted phone numbers included those for the cellphones of senior officials at the chancellery and included that of Ronald Pofalla, Merkel’s former chief of staff, WikiLeaks said. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-28243933 https://www.infoworld.com/article/2609310/apple--cisco--dell-unhappy-over-alleged-nsa-back-doors-in-their-gear.html Germany's Der Spiegel newsmagazine reported Monday that the U.S. National Security Agency has for years compromised a wide range of hardware devices, including PCs, iPhones, hard drives, and network routers, as part of its spying activities. The NSA also installed back doors into European telecom networks and into BlackBerry's network operations center to spy on communications, the Der Spiegel report says. The spy agency's Tailored Access Operations (TAO) unit is alleged to have installed such hidden access methods in a variety of devices from Apple, Cisco Systems, Dell, Huawei, Juniper, Maxtor, Samsung, Seagate, and Western Digital, among others. Although the precise methods are unclear, many seem to involve installation of monitoring software or modified firmware -- some on devices intercepted in transit from vendors to their customers.
  9. It was the USA that spied on German leaders. Using USA made network equipment.
  10. Only the USA should be allowed to influence German government, society, and business.
  11. As long as there is a quarantine requirement, I won't be visiting. Most of my visits were 2-3 weeks in length. The Thai government should just provide COVID-19 health ins. by adding a 2000 baht visa charge.
  12. Always remember that Truth is not a defense in Thailand.
  13. baa99

    The Covid-19 thread

    I wonder how many Chinese soldiers died from the Chinese vaccine?
  14. Probably refers to this, https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news205.html A small object, presumed to be a tiny asteroid, has been discovered in a distant orbit about the Earth, a highly unusual circumstance, since asteroids normally orbit the Sun. The new “mini-moon” has been given the asteroid designation 2020 CD3, but in view of its strange orbit, there is a chance that the object is an old lunar spacecraft or a small discarded rocket stage. Based on its brightness, 2020 CD3 is very small, no more than 1 to 2 meters (3 to 6 feet) in size. The discovery was made on February 15, 2020 by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey, one of the most productive asteroid-searching programs currently in operation. Trajectory analyses indicate that 2020 CD3 has been orbiting Earth for at least a year and probably more, presumably after being captured by the Earth’s gravity from an orbit about the Sun. During its time near our planet, the object has completed at least three large looping orbits with periods of between 70 and 90 days. At the farthest point in these orbits, the object is about four times as far away as the Moon. Its final close approach to the Earth occurred on February 13th at a distance of about 41,000 km (25,000 miles) from Earth’s surface, above the height of the geosynchronous ring of satellites at 36,000 km (22,000 miles). It is currently about 110,000 km (68,000 miles) from the Earth, and now moving away just fast enough that it will escape the Earth’s gravitational influence in early March and return to an orbit about the Sun. https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=7728 Near Earth Asteroids, or NEAs, pass by our home planet all the time. But an SUV-size asteroid set the record this past weekend for coming closer to Earth than any other known NEA: It passed 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) above the southern Indian Ocean on Sunday, Aug. 16 at 12:08 a.m. EDT (Saturday, Aug. 15 at 9:08 p.m. PDT). At roughly 10 to 20 feet (3 to 6 meters) across, asteroid 2020 QG is very small by asteroid standards: If it had actually been on an impact trajectory, it would likely have become a fireball as it broke up in Earth's atmosphere, which happens several times a year.
  15. baa99

    The Covid-19 thread

    ... because Sweden is still in its 1st wave.
×
×
  • Create New...