Ital-Thai construction falls into multi-billion dollar trouble

Good morning, Fishwrap readers at every corner of the globe.
It's the start of yet another work-week so please report to the mine face sappest.
8 Ramadan Desoto Lakes FL USA Fajr 0512 Sunrise 0622 Maghrib/Iftar 1827

GLOBAL WARMING EVs
Makes sense, in a way. Both of them make very decent vehicles at their Thai plants, for sale and export.
Nissan, Honda Begin EV Tie-up Talks.
Beating Tesla is a done deal. Beating the Chinese, especially BYD is a whole new staircase. Amid Competition From Tesla, BYD
https://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/2024/03/15/
Below: Presidents of the firms held 'cordial' talks and a short media briefing last Friday.   

2.5PM CHAMPION
The Sunday award for Most Polluted City on Earth went to Mae Sai, the busy and popular district capital in the far north of northernmost Chiang Rai province.
With a late update for this (Monday) morning.
 It was business as usual for most residents, despite advice that they should stay indoors.

 Most, however, were wearing face masks.
Trasak Srithiphan, advisor to Chiang Rai Chamber of Commerce, is calling on the government to declare a state of emergency in Mae Sai district
ThaiPBS: https://t.ly/rIDIX

Can things get worse? Why yes, yes they can.
This (below) is an actual photo of The Rose of the North, beautiful Chiang Mai, late on Sunday afternoon.
According to the IQAir website, the AQI reading in Chiang Mai was 200, unhealthy for humans and other animals.
 Followed by Tashkent in Uzbekistan at 193, 154 in Lahore in Pakistan, 160 in Beijing, 157 in Wuhan, 155 in Yangon, 154 in New Delhi, 154 in Dubai, 153 in Hang Zhou and 151 in Calcutta.

Of course he was! Right?
Thaksin insists he was genuinely sick when admitted to the Police General Hospital.
Former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra claimed yesterday that he did not feign illness and was genuinely sick when he was admitted to the Police General Hospital for treatment, but he is in high spirits, which helped his health to improve.

Good point (as Rangsiman often offers).
Move Forward MP Rangsiman Rome (photo) questioned yesterday whether the government has lied to the public about the health of Thaksin -- given his rather frantic three-day schedule visit to Chiang Mai.

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin flew to Chiang Mai after saying he wants to have a coffee with the convict.

Truly UNEXPECTEDLY ECONOMY CONSTRUCTION
Ital-Thai (ITD) reveals it is in dire trouble
Italian-Thai Development Corporation Limited (ITD, founded 1958)
Thailand's biggest, most active construction firm, with countless projects at home and abroad, is currently 106 Billion-with-a-'b' baht in debt -- call it 3 billion U.S. dollars, rounded off.
The company can't pay off its projects, can't afford to bid on new work, can't pay its workers.

Its scummy, obese ex-convict (poaching and so on) ex-CEO Premchai Karnasuta and board members are rather frantically begging banks for loans, "until we get on top of our financial situation again."
Ital-Thai and its stakeholders are trying to pass this off as a 'Cash Flow Issue.'

Related, a bit
Siam Piwat, which owns several up-scale malls and shopping areas has just announced that it's going to Start a Trend:
Pa Khao Ma, essentially a large sarong for men, and it has opened three brand-new Absolute Siam stores to push them.
Sales Slogan: The checkered loincloth woven into Thai culture.
Khao Sod (Fresh News) https://shorturl.at/flxGK

NEWS FROM THE FUTURE... NEAR FUTURE
 Putin Wins Election in a Landslide! https://t.ly/_IT_k
Voting in the Russian presidential election will end Sunday. At that point, Putin's victory will be announced and he will start his 5th term as president, with a vote tally of... whatever the Kremlin decides it should be.

It takes five (5) writers and (presumably) one excellent FP copy editor to explain that
Canada Needs Real Foreign Intelligence
The muddled approach to espionage has been a disaster.
Read it all, take it slowly, consider.
Also at

https://twitter.com/csiscanada/status/1765769547901026787

TECHNOLOGY
Tech sector layoffs are a thing of the past... 2001 and the Dot Com crash to be precise. (CNBC)
US tech companies laid off (i.e. fired) more than 260,000 workers last year, and another 50,000 already this year. What's more, they're not hiring.
It's worse than any time in the last 20 years. Brush up on your COBOL and be prepared to move to Nebraska.

Sony's PS5 Pro could be out in time for it to be not available for Christmas. (The Verge)
And also to have no games to play.
It's not a huge upgrade - around 50% faster graphics, same CPU - but that should help with any games that are just not quite smooth enough.
And we almost forgot to mention, there are no games.

Just shoppin' (Liliputing)
Walmart North America is now selling the M1 MacBook Air for $699.
Which would be a great price except that's the 8GB model and, of course, you can't upgrade it.
https://liliputing.com/walmart-is-selling-the-macbook-air-with-m1-for-699/

Someone out there is worth $70 billion, and nobody knows who it is except that it's not Craig Wright. (WCCFTech)
Bitcoin was invented by the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto. Australian "computer scientist" Craig Write claimed to be the person behind the pseudonym, but just had his claims thrown out in court as being laughably without merit.

Thai Enquirer
Move Forward Party Chachoengsao MP Jirat Thongsuwan posted a video showing two soldiers withdrawing cash from multiple ATM cards.

Today is Monday Number 213 of the medical-emergency panic and no one expects you to produce a masterpiece on a Monday
So swivel 'round, put your feet up and manducate this long-read article on Freedom of Speech.

Oil: George Caleb Bingham, Stump Speaking 1853–54.
 Oil on canvas courtesy Saint Louis Art Museum
Most of the Very Important bloviators who think they're speaking and writing in favour of free speech literally do not know what they are talking about.
No! "Free Expression" is not Free Speech. If you're speaking, shouldn't you at least know the meaning of your words?
 Perhaps it is the case that free speech is destined always to be controversial, always on the defensive, precisely because it is so rare and difficult an ideal to sustain. It is easy to approve of it in theory, but even easier to find it infuriating in practice.
Wilfred M. McClay: https://newcriterion.com/issues/2024/3/the-singularity-of-speech

SOFT POWER ELEPHANT PANTS
Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai of the ruling Pheu Thai Party claims that Thailand has patent rights over elephant pants and he has instructed the Customs Department to stop the influx of the pants from China.
 And anyhow, Phumtham added, Thai-made elephant pants are of superior quality.

HEALTH SURVIVAL
In the U.S. state (province) of New Mexico, which is neither "new" nor Mexico, a man just died of the black death.
 Seriously -- he died of the bubonic plague.
Lots of scary-plague stuff at the link but here's the scary part: This U.S. state has regular plague patients!  

If you believe Harvard Studies any more...
 A blow to Veganism
If Veganism were healthy, Vegans would look healthier
 Harvard doctor says animal products are essential for mental health.
 The brain needs meat.
Some Vegans may appear, or actually may be healthy, but every one of them has a mental health issue, or several.
That's what is says here, from the Harvard Study.

There's a difference between knowing how the brain works and using it.
 A woman claiming to be a neuroscientist was on Twitter/X last week, asking (seriously)
 How did people get airplane tickets before the internet? Did you call the airline and they mailed you the tickets physically?

The urge to ridicule this dumb broad is darned near overwhelming but James Lileks gave it a try:
 You see tweets like the neuroscientist's all the time from the young and the baffled, the generation who grew up with the internet all around them like a benevolent god who asked nothing of them except watching five seconds of an ad before the video starts.
https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2024/04/like-olden-times/