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Posts
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Joined
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Everything posted by bust
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He must have insurance 😀
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Since visiting for 30 years now some good memories captured over time of some of my favorite places.
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The Public Health Ministry will open a command centre to coordinate with border hospitals over the treatment of refugee patients after the suspension of the International Rescue Committee (IRC) budget. It also plans to send mobile medical teams to provide treatment in refugee shelters every week during the period, said Minister Somsak Thepsutin. This follows the recent decision by US President Donald Trump to suspend funding for the IRC for three months. For Thailand, Mr Somsak said that includes nine refugee shelters which were established in 1984, and are now home to at least 100,000 refugees. Seven of those, located in Ratchaburi, Kanchanaburi, Tak and Mae Hong Son, were operated under IRC surveillance. A view of Umpiem Mai Refugee Camp following a halt in US foreign aid that led to the closure of health services inside Mae La refugee camp nearby on the Thai-Myanmar border at Phop Phra district, Tak province, a Thai-Myanmar border province, February 7, 2025. They service 69,789 refugees at the moment, with a budget supported by the security agencies in cooperation with the United Nations (UN) and international organisations. The ministry reported that in 2024, the seven shelters transferred 13,835 patients to Thai public hospitals, as well as providing vaccinations for 26,255 children aged 1–5. The ministry contributed about 80.8 million baht towards the refugee treatment budget last year, or some 6.74 million baht a month. Mr Somsak said the IRC's budget suspension could lead to an increased workload for hospitals located near the borders. "However, it should be emphasised the Ministry of Public Health has a duty to provide assistance based on human rights principles only. "It is not the duty of our hospitals to provide care to all refugees. Everything must still be under the responsibility of IRC. In this regard, a plan has been put in place to mitigate the impact," he said. For short-term measures, the ministry ordered the setting up of a central command centre to work with border hospitals, with a daily report to be submitted to the ministry. Mobile medical hospital teams will be sent to provide treatment in the shelters every week. Local hospitals will also provide additional support through telemedicine platforms to cut travel costs. Refugee patients who need emergency care or have chronic diseases will be transferred to hospitals without needing much documentation, he said. The ministry will also have a special budget to cover border hospitals' increased patient care costs, additional medicines and medical supplies. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs will also request a review of the suspension of aid and seek support from other international groups while sustainable health policies for refugee populations will be established, he said. https://www.irrawaddy.com/news/asia/trump-cuts-hit-thai-refugee-camps-on-myanmar-border.html#google_vignette
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Was going to watch Daytona but someone ruined it before it even started.
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Often visit the Thai Supermarkets in Campbell Street. There's a wholesaler near where I live who supply restuarants and corner store with general everyday groceries however they stock a lot of Mae Ploy products.
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Is Elon Musk orchestrating a coup? In its simplest terms, a coup is defined by the following: A sudden illegal, often violent, taking of government power, especially by part of an army Ms Swisher describes the actions of Mr Musk as a "quiet coup". The word coup has been thrown around by experts recently as the billionaire has made his way into the White House. But Dr Morgenbesser says Mr Musk's recent actions under DOGE qualify as state capture: A process where private entities use their power to influence policies and regulations to benefit their own interests Dr Morgenbesser says the best way to think of this process is "like legalised corruption". He adds that Mr Musk hasn't shown an intention to "violently remove Trump from office", but he warns that state capture is still concerning. "You have worse decisions by those that are put in power," he said. "You also have less accountability and less transparency about decisions … less decisions made in the public good and more decisions made for the benefit of sort of this kleptocratic class of billionaires." What can we expect next from DOGE? Dr Morgenbesser expects DOGE to go into some of the bigger government departments next, such as defence. Some Trump voters are already turning on 'embarrassing' Elon Musk Donald Trump was inaugurated less than a month ago, but several polls are already pointing to the fact Elon Musk and his DOGE razor gang could be becoming a drag on the President's popularity. Read more With growing criticism about the lack of information around DOGE, he says the task force will likely also "get more organised on how they sell things to the American people". And Dr Morgenbesser believes there are going to be more tech billionaires getting involved with DOGE over the next few months. "I think there's a big role to play in terms of artificial intelligence … a lot of the AI companies are going to start positioning themselves to be the answer to the problem that Musk is trying to fix," he said. "So once you gut the federal bureaucracy, you then have to retool it, rebuild it, reform it in some way. "I think companies are going to be lining up to do that, with the caveat that those companies are loyal to Trump."
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Thaitanic was in North Sydney I thought and has since closed. Thairiffic is in Newtown and still operating.
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Sydney restaurant owner told to censor her profanity-laced fortune cookies after factory mix-up A Sydney restaurant owner who sells gag fortune cookies has been told to censor her products after an awkward factory mix-up. Nahji Chu, the owner of popular Vietnamese restaurant Lady Chu in Potts Point, in Sydney's inner-city, put through an order of profanity-laced fortune cookies for Valentine's Day. She was shocked and slightly tickled to receive a response from her manufacturer who said they were no longer accepting "offensive" language after her messages were mistakenly mixed into other customer orders. "I said, 'This is a personal attack, and you're discriminating against my messages'," Chu told 9news.com.au. "It's for my customers, within the context of me and my brand… If you're getting it mixed up with other restaurants, that's not my [fault]." Some of Chu's fortune messages include, "The year of the Snake bears good fortune! Your divorce is coming soon" and "I only married you for your money you ugly c---." Chu said her Valentine's Day order was not fulfilled and she's been stuck inserting the messages into the cookies herself ahead of February 14. In an email, the manufacturer said their other customers were "quite upset" to find Chu's messages inside their custom cookies at the end of last year. "As a result, management have decided to no longer accept customised orders with offensive or expletive words," the email read. Chu was told she could order empty cookies from her supplier and insert the funny messages herself. She hit back at the manufacturer in an email after her joke fortunes were rejected. "I don't see why this is my problem. My orders are private and is my IP and if your factory gets it mixed up with other people's orders, then this is your error, not mine," she said. "My messages are private and are for my clientele and are within our context. They all get my humour." Despite complaining, Chu said she was firmly told her orders can no longer contain offensive language or profanities. She won't go to another supplier, with the manufacturer the best value for her restaurant. "Last year, I spent close to $10,000 with them," she added. For now, Chu is happy to chalk it up to a funny Curb Your Enthusiasm-style moment. "I'm gonna just take out the profanities and be creative," Chu said. "They'll still be funny and rude… just no swear words."
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Drake was not happy apparently. Who gives a shit. There were more important things happening in the world like the Gulf of Mexico becoming the Gulf of America.
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He's a politician. They are all pieces of shit.
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Casinos, high-rises and fraud: The BBC visits a bizarre city built on scams
bust replied to Mekong's topic in Regional Sanuk
Visited one in Tachileik in Shan State. Stayed only a few minutes. Felt incredibly vulnerable. Lots of dodgy characters. -
First Aussie to win a Superbowl 🇦🇺
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Think ex Israeli intelligence and the Iran Contra deal
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Disagree. Didn't you recently comment about Newbie memories being some of the best ones. Why would the board only be relevant to geriatric white blokes? I've got a son in his early 20's and I'm the first person he would come to if traveling to SEA due to my experience. On his few trips to Indo I advised him to never drink anything unless you see them open it in front of you. Few of his mates got sick from not following that advice.
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I enjoys the sounds from the rivers. More so in some of the quieter parts in border towns. The vibrancy and mystery always fascinated me. We used to sit on parts of the Moei River drinking a beer and wait for the approaching river boats. You could hear them coming for miles due to the remoteness in some places and you never knew what they would be carrying. Sometimes people, sometimes produce or timber and other times soldiers. I am sure a lot of the time concealing to real cargo.
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No expert on US politics but doesn't Congress need to approve most changes and there are certain procedures that need to be followed? In other words you can't just do shit becuase you feel like it.
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Trump’s gutting of USAID sends chill through Southeast Asia NGOs across Southeast Asia say they will struggle to continue their work without US funding. Just to add to the story the provision of HIV antivirals has come to an end meaning sex workers will more than likely recommence the spread of HIV and Aids Bangkok, Thailand – At the end of January, Cambodia’s Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance was unexpectedly informed by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) that all funding for its tuberculosis programme had been put on hold for 90 days. KHANA, as the NGO is more commonly known, detects about 10,000 tuberculosis (TB) cases each year, providing preventive treatment to some 10,000 close contacts and medical care for some 300 rural patients, according to executive director, Choub Sok Chamreun. With funding drying up, many rural Cambodians will soon lose care, Chamreun said. “Within the suspension period, these people will have a service interruption because we have been asked to stop work,” Chamreun told Al Jazeera from Phnom Penh. “We expect these people will not have services, and they could lose follow-up for their TB treatment.” “Normally … they receive support for treatment, mental health support, and regular follow-ups because [they] are living in rural communities, so they depend very much on the support from our community health workers,” he added. KHANA is just one of many charities and nonprofit organisations across Southeast Asia that are fearful for their work as US President Donald Trump moves to effectively abolish USAID under a radical cost-cutting drive spearheaded by tech billionaire Elon Musk. As the world’s largest single provider of humanitarian aid, USAID last year allocated $860m to the region alone. The agency operates in six out of Southeast Asia’s 11 countries – Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. The level of economic development varies considerably across the region, which is home to nearly 700 million people. While Singapore is one of the world’s richest countries with a gross domestic product (GDP) per capita of about $85,000, nations such as Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar lie in or around the bottom quartile of economies and rely heavily on foreign aid. Many of these projects are administered through small NGOs that work with local communities, such as KHANA. Much, if not all, of that assistance is now on the chopping block as Trump and Musk, who has called USAID a “criminal organisation”, work to dismantle the agency at lightning speed. As of Friday, all direct hire or permanent USAID staff are to be placed on administrative leave and have 30 days to return to the US if they are stationed overseas. Multiple media outlets have reported that Trump plans to keep fewer than 300 of the agency’s some 10,000 workers to run a skeleton version of the agency, which is currently being led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an acting capacity. Critics have slammed the gutting of the agency via executive action as unconstitutional since the status of USAID as an independent body was enshrined in law by the US Congress. A staffer at an NGO in Thailand that works with Myanmar refugees said the organisation had already shuttered most of its healthcare centres. The staffer, who asked not to be named, said the nonprofit had consolidated its work to just two centres, discharging patients in stable condition and using its limited non-US funds to transfer critical patients to Thai hospitals. While the organisation will continue to treat tuberculosis, HIV and malaria, and a small number of patients in-house, many of its operations will need to be taken over by the Thai government, the staff member said. Refugee camps along the Thai-Myanmar are heavily dependent on US government funding, and some such as the Mae Lae Refugee Camp told Al Jazeera they have only weeks of food left. Emilie Palamy Pradichit, the director of the Bangkok-based Manushya Foundation, which describes its mission as advancing human rights and social justice, painted a grim picture of the situation in Thailand. “We have 35 activists and their families facing transnational repression relying on our rapid response fund since January,” Pradichit told Al Jazeera. “We have until the end of the month, and if we don’t receive those funds, we won’t be able to keep them at those safe houses … We are putting them at risk.” “This is the end of development aid as we know it,” Pradichit said. Pradichit’s pessimism was shared by a USAID employee who previously worked in Southeast Asia. “All of the implementing partners [contractors and NGOs] are clueless because there is no information. All that’s been received is a stop work order, and there’s been no follow-up. The smaller contractors or NGOs are going under,” the USAID employee told Al Jazeera, asking not to be named due to fears of professional repercussions. “The assumption right now is this 90-day [suspension] is not real. They’re bleeding the programmes dry because, per USAID regulation, for an NGO, you’re not allowed to have more than a 30-day reserve of funding,” the employee said, explaining a stipulation that organisations must follow to receive USAID support. Some members of the NGO community, and even some supporters of USAID, have acknowledged the agency does need reform to improve its operations and efficiency, but say shutting the agency is not the answer. “Some of the things Musk and Rubio have said are correct. They’ve [USAID] been getting so much money … But the local organisations are getting crumbs,” an employee with a Thailand-based NGO, who asked not to be named, told Al Jazeera. “A lot is not making it to the front line. They [USAID] are powerful instruments to development but need reform. But the way they are shutting down is clumsy and hurtful because the ones that need [funding] the most are the small NGOs.” “The impacts are going to be felt for some time, and some will be irreparable,” the employee added. Phin Savey, the secretary-general of the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, Cambodia’s oldest human rights organisation, said many of its programmes may have to be suspended until he can find alternative sources of funding. “Without USAID, we want to keep working, but for most activities, we need the budget,” Savey told Al Jazeera. “The activities that we can do without money is just monitoring the situation of human rights violations, land grabbing or political rights [violations].”
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Been several deaths related to stilettos not necessarily by Katoeys.
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Perhaps a newbie memory in the making 😊 Guys lucky. A decent hit with a stiletto to the head can be fatal.