Thailand has no cases of flesh-eating virus, and that's official.
Fishwrap is an April Fool's-free zone, at least for today.
23 Ramadan Punta Arenas Chile Fajr0613 Sunrise 0809 Maghrib/Iftar 1926
Pink Line railway work halted after accident
Before you criticise someone, walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when you do criticise them, you're a mile away and you have their shoes.
Never trust a man with three names.
-- Francis Ford Coppola, movie mogul
I promise. Again. Just like I promised one year ago right before the election...
But this time, promised Thai prime minister and minister of finance Srettha Thavisin yesterday... this time I really promise that
Next Wednesday I will have 'Good News' about my promise to give everyone 10,000 baht in a digital wallet.
The actual promise: We'll start paying you before New Year's Eve.
(Call it US$275 or about 371 loonies. The Canadian version sounds better.)
Sregttha promised yesterday that this time, it was not April Fool's.
https://shorturl.at/fFQW0
She's b-a-a-ck!
After two years of down-time and recuperation Ratchanok Intanon showed up for the Spain Masters tournament and won it.
The 29-year-old Yasothon native paid tribute to her late mother.
Olympics.com https://t.ly/9l7gn
This crane (above) at a remote Chinese factory in Rayong province in the southeast toppled over and killed a Chinese foreman and six Burmese workers.
The accident touched off major confrontations between workers, Sin Ker Yuan Company supervisors and Social Security officials.
As a stopgap, the company agreed to pay 1.2 million baht (call it US$33,000) to each of the dead workers' families, and officials from from the Social Security Fund assured all workers that they are covered, regardless of nationality.
Khao Sod (Fresh News) https://t.ly/nN76X
Four children played in an Udon Thani mudhole.
There's no warning or fence; it's an excavation for a new housing estate, but the pond is 3 metres deep.
The kids dared each other, and fairly rapidly
three of the children, 7, 6 and 4 years old drowned.
Khao Sod (Fresh News) https://www.khaosod.co.th/breaking-news/news_8166013
Gold, baht strengthen
Gold yesterday hit a record high price of 38,900 baht per one baht of gold. A baht of gold is 14.71 grammes, or just under half of a troy ounce (0.473oz t to be exact).
Analysts forecast fearlessly and obviously that the Bangkok gold price will rise to 40,000 within this month of April.
Meanwhile, currency:
The Thai baht hit 36.45 per U.S. dollar at currency exchnges.
That is either a slightly stronger baht over the weekend, or a slightly weaker dollar. Or both.
Very detailed report: https://goldprice.org/gold-price-thailand.html
https://www.khaosod.co.th/update-news/news_8166818
Pink Line rail work suspended
After parts of the Yellow Line monorail fell on the roadway (Fishwrap, yesterday) the Minister of Transport Suriya Juangroongruangkit personally ordered a seven-day suspension of all work on the MRT Pink Line extension.
Construction crews pouring concrete missed, and poured it onto a passing Beemer -- which broke the vehicle's windshield and injured a 3-year-old in his car seat.
The Northern Bangkok Monorail Company stated quickly that it takes full responsibility.
The Thai Department of Disease Control reported yesterday that-allows-file-overwrite-so-update-now
Yes, there are reports of necrotising fasciitis -- the flesh-eating bacteria -- from Japan but
No, there's not a case of the bacteria in Thailand. But there's a hundred rumours.
One of them is that Covid-19 vaccines prevent the rotting disease -- which is a wild-a**-guess at best.
Since 2019, there have been 106,021 cases in Thailand, causing 1,048 deaths.
But this year, insists DDC, not even one case.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2768049/
ASSANGE USA BRITAIN EXTRADITION
America goes stubborn after warning by High Court of (formerly 'Great') Britain
And now America will never, ever get Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a U.S. court
The Limeys asked the Yanks to assure them that Assange will receive a fair trial under American law, without capital punishment
And all Americans from Joe Biden on down went, literally dumb.
So, as they threatened, High Court judges will give the Aussie yet another appeal-trial against extradition.
PHOTO: Assange's wife Stella faces the adoring Britpress.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/26/uk/julian-assange-us-extradition-appeal-intl-gbr/index.html
U.S. authorities claim that Assange, 52, put lives at risk by publishing secret military documents and have for years been seeking his extradition on espionage charges.
British judges ruled that Assange had a “real prospect of success” on three of the nine grounds of appeal: that his extradition is incompatible with freedom of expression; that, if extradited, Assange might be prejudiced at trial due to his nationality; and that, if extradited, he would not enjoy adequate death penalty protection.
Latest update on that American port
Reopening the Port of Baltimore could take weeks as colossal wreckage cleanup gets under way.
You don't have to be a conspiracy theorist, although it helps.
CISA says -- it's got a ring to it, eh?
But the kindest explanation is that the amount of incompetence is staggering.
TECHNOLOGY
Microsoft and OpenAI are planning to build a $115 billion supercomputer with the goal of answering all the world's questions... Incorrectly. (Tom's Hardware)
We have staff and volunteers at Fishwrap full capable of doing that for half as much.
AI: XAI and X Will Release Grok 2 This Week. (NexyBigFuture)
It is Claimed to Surpass GPT4 and Claude 3.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/03/xai-and-x-will-release-grok-2-next-week-and-it-is-claimed-to-surpass-gpt4-and-claude-3.html
Barnes and Noble is dropping support for its Nook tablets... For models more than ten years old. (Liliputing)
If you have the original Nook Color from 2010 and you're still using it, well, first congratulations on not dropping it in all that time, and second, it will keep right on working for all the content you have bought and downloaded.
https://liliputing.com/bn-is-ending-support-for-nook-ereaders-tablets-from-2013-and-earlier/
AMD's upcoming Zen 5 chips could be over 40% faster than Zen 4. (WCCFTech)
That's a lot, but AMD's progress over the past five generations has been impressive.
https://wccftech.com/amd-zen-5-cpu-core-architecture-over-40-percent-faster-than-zen-4/
Hi Dina! Have got the time?
LIMA: Government agents broke into the home of President Dina Boluarte to investigate whether she has enriched herself with luxury watches -- Rolex and so forth.
So... kind of like the media persecution of Thailand's General and dictatorship kingmaker Prawit Wongsuwan for his million-dollar watch collection, who has been indicted for nothing.
Said Dina
I came to the presidential palace with my hands clean and I will leave with my hands clean as I have promised the Peruvian people.
VIDEO of the break-in:
America’s Newspaper of Record - https://t.ly/UDq54:
Biden Condemns Jesus For Rising Again On Trans Day Of Visibility.
Five Hardest Working Countries in Asia
NOTE: Insider Monkey is the name of the website and Fishwrap is helpless to change it.
5. Mongolia
4. Lebanon
3. Qatar
2. UAE (United Arab Emirates)
And the Number One Top hardest working Asian citizens are in
1. Bhutan, where an average work week of an employee is 54 and a half hours.