Last change of the week (maybe) for Thailand-bound tourists.
Hi kids. Easter's done, Passover is past and today is for Eid al-Fitr (Hari Raya) marking the end of Ramadan fasting.
Please do not try to ignore today's celebration of the biggest worldwide communist holiday. And force your friends and family to celebrate with you.
Pack it up! We're outta here.
After just 16 months of dealing with the Tatmadaw dictatorship of Myanmar (Burma), Thailand's biggest international operator is quitting.
 PTT Exploration and Production Plc (PTTEP) of Thailand announced it is withdrawing from the Yetagun natural gas project in coup-hit Myanmar.
 So is Petronas of Malaysia, which is maintaining rings in the same region of the Andaman Sea. US-based Chevron and TotalEnergies of France left earlier.
 The huge Thai firm refused to blame the Myanmar army coup, but things have been tough and the natural gas is running out.
 Oil exploration and exploitation are the largest single revenue track for the dictators. Except for massive drug production in the Golden Triangle, for which accurate figures are not available.
PHOTO/GRAPHIC: Gas reserves in the Yetagun field in the Gulf of Moattama off Myanmar have declined significantly.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2302870/pttep-quitting-yetagun-gas-field-in-myanmar
How much more like America can Thailand's ruling junta get?
The appointed 'prime minister' Prayut has ordered the country to calm the hell down, after a rising tide of complants about his stagflation policies.
Prayut ordered representatives of newspapers, websites and TV stations to run-don't-walk to Government House.
He complained (irony there) that he and fellow junta loyalists
 have been working continually to implement measures that both help people afford rising prices and also encourage and support those manufacturers who have been threatening to increase the prices of consumer goods due to high fuel costs and transport fees.
No media rep has the nerve to explain that the junta was doing a lousy job of it.
Last change of the week (maybe) for Thailand-bound tourists.
Literally 12 hours before the May 1 (Sunday) rules were to go into effect, they were changed.
Not enough room here for details. One example, for those flying or boating to Bangkok there will be separate lines and separate Covid quarantine camps for
the vaccinated
the partially vaccinated
the unvaccinated.
Effective immediately, now that May Day has dawned in Thailand...
... fully vaccinated foreigners attempting to enter Thailand must (repeat 'must') register for entry via the Thailand Pass and present proof of vaccination.
 Unvaccinated travellers must present proof of a negative RT-PCR test administered no more than 72 hours before their trip and have registered via Thailand Pass.
 You got that, right? Clear? But wait! There's much Much MUCH more
 If you're already confused, hold onto your hat. We've barely begun.
 The junta-owned Tourism Authority of Thailand lays out the eleventeenth set of constantly changing regulations at
https://www.tatnews.org/2022/04/thailands-latest-entry-requirements-from-1-may-2022
The 'prices' of Covid-19 are in hospitals, vaccinations and deaths.
Here are the statistics for another bad, horrible Saturday in Thailand.
The only question that all Thais have, especially the families of the victims of the murderous plague is simple: How Much Long Can This Go On?
The ruling junta, the alleged so-called 'government', the entire Thai medical community have no answer.
RIP
Naomi Judd, the Kentucky-born singer of the Grammy-winning duo The Judds and mother of Wynonna and Ashley Judd, has died. She was 76.
 The daughters announced her death on Saturday.
Question: Why does bat flu keep killing off the world's best artists?
And that doesn't mean that Everything Is Bad. For example
On Friday night, after two years of being closed to flatten the curve, Pattaya's infamous Walking Street reopened.
And the working girls went crazy.
[NOTE: Walking Street was named, almost off-handedly, in a column by after-hours expert Bernard Trink, and the name stuck.]
https://thepattayanews.com/2022/04/27/walking-street-to-close-to-vehicle-traffic-overnight-again-as-visitors-increase/
Junta goes full-CYA on tourism
Thailand's designated 'prime minister' on Saturday ordered his extremely comely assistant spokeslady to tell the Thai media that a 2021 poll by some U.S. firm or other had designated Thailand as the 8th safest place to holiday.
 Ms. Traisuree Taisaranakul said Prayut had personally read the poll on safety, produced by travel  insurance  provider  Berkshire  Hathaway Travel Protection.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2302946/
BKK goes all in on social credit
 Effective immediately, Bangkok International Airport (aka Suvarnabhumi) officials will insist that every arriving person of every sex and age pass through an automated Covid-19 check.
 The new 'communicable disease checkpoint' is advertised as infallible.
 For one year, Thailand's ruling junta has been predicting massive arrivals of foreign tourists, visitors and business investors. They are making much of a claimed "easing of entry requirements" including abolition of the bait-and-switch Test-&-Go phony bologna.
 Until now, there are
increasing rules on mask and vaccination mandates
no signs of that mass tourist influx promised by the (alleged) prime minister Prayut and a small coterie of near-fanatic junta supporters.
PHOTO: The new computer system records a photo, body temperature and face-mask obedience of every person arriving at Thailand's main international airport. (Body temperatures shown are in Celsius, or Canadian degrees. 'Normal' temps are 37 C, equivalent to 98.6 Fahrenheit.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/business/2302670/
NOTE: Persons in the above photo are dragooned "beta testers" of the new 'health system'.
Sunni vs Shi'ite, although the media won't tell you that
ISIS suicide bomber kills 50 in attack on mosque in Kabul, Afghanistan
At least 10 killed, many more feared dead after explosion
ISIS (Sunni) claims responsibility
At least two U.N. staff members and their families were inside the Khalifa Sahib Mosque at the time of the attack.
PHOTO: Two survivors of the Kabul mosque terrorist attack flee the area.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/29/asia/kabul-mosque-explosion-intl/index.html
ATTENTION OREGON ACHTUNG
Trader Joe's Suicide Packs
If You Have These Trader Joe's Frozen Items, Throw Them Out Immediately
Especially the frozen faux-Indian crap
Unless you want to die.
Trader Joe's Butter Chicken with Basmati Rice and Trader Joe's Mini Chicken Tikka Samosas — were shipped to stores in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.
PHOTO: They look delicious, as killer meals often do. These Indian dishes may kill more Americans than Jack Kervokian.
https://www.eatthis.com/news-trader-joes-frozen-items-health-alert/
Any time this weekend, into the start of the week, is an excellent opportunity to move your U.S. dollars or loonies into Thai baht.
DRUGS TRAFFICKING SHOOT-OUT
In the biggest, baddest drug shoot-out since the 1970s, black berets of the Border Patrol Police cornered 10 men carrying rucksacks at the edge of a forest at Mae Fa Luang district of Chiang Rai province.
 The border cops signalled the men to stop. Immediately they reached for rifles and handguns and opened up on the the BPP.
 Within 10 minutes, according to the after-action report, there were eight dead drug couriers on the ground. Police and army reinforcements went into search mode and came up with a total of 45 rucksacks, bulging from 4.5 million methampetamine pills.
 Lesson Learnt (Again) Don't mess with the BPP, which was formed in the late 1950s by the C.I.A., with full support of the mother of the King Rama IX.
PHOTO: Mae Fa Luang is a rugged area next to Burma, and popular with both tourists and drug mules.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2302850/
Crime of the century
Leopold and Loeb, move over
 Two pretty dumb Thai babes in central Nakhon Sawan province plotted and planned and were certain they had the world's smartest crime.
 One of them, 48 and married to a Dane, seriously wanted his 10 million baht life insurance policy pay-out and figured it would be easy.
 She conspired with her 60-year-old BFF and here's the plan they tried to carry out:
 Hire a young man with a car to run over Pratheep's husband in a fake accident, and kill him.
 It took the police several minutes to investigate, interrogate and solve the conspiracy and arrest the three of them.
 The Danish man is fine, and wasn't killed at all. He may be seeking a different S.O.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2302558/
Indonesia has personally invited Putin and Zelensky to the G-20 summit it plans to host at Bali in November.
 This has made Biden and Blinken quite angry.
https://bit.ly/3vxjm5q
SUNDAY READ
The City-Journal has a readable, historical and even contemplative essay on China:
 China's Impossible Dream of Order
Haunted by past humiliations, the nation's leaders seek to restore what they see as its rightful place in the world.
 PHOTO: The article tries to make the case that Covid-19 dealt a blow to China's aspirations for expanded soft power.
https://www.city-journal.org/chinas-impossible-dream-of-order
