What effect will global warming have on Thailand
14 april 2008
By Chang noi
Over the last three years, most scientists and most political leaders have reached rough agreement on climate change at a global level. The UN’s Climate Change panel showed the world has got one degree hotter in the last century, and the trend is accelerating. Sea levels are rising. Weather is changing. Things will get worse. Since the UN panel reported last year, most of the criticism and new research suggests its analysis was too conservative.
So what will this mean for Thailand? Over the last twenty years, the average temperature has trended upwards by about one degree. What will happen next? The changes we can expect are fairly clear, though the timing is uncertain because prediction is very complex, and because much depends on what happens elsewhere in the world.
First, the good news. Warming is going to happen quicker near the poles rather than the equator, and over big land masses rather than near the sea. Isan may get a bit hotter. But generally Thailand will warm slower than elsewhere.
Overall the world will also get drier. Here again, Thailand either escapes the worst, or at least the picture is unclear.
The peninsula will get wetter. Over the rest of the country, some models predict more rain and some predict less.
But the rainfall will become more erratic. The wet season will be wetter, and the dry season drier. There will be more flooding and flash flooding from huge downpours, and more drought and shortage outside the monsoon season. Variability from place to place will increase, with one province swamped and its neighbour parched. Variability from year to year will also be more wayward. The dry El Nino years will be drier, and the wet La Nina years will be wetter. In short, both more floods and more droughts will make water management much tougher. (It’s pretty obvious this is already happening).
That much seems certain. But there is also a black hole in our knowledge about likely climate changes in this region. The sun warms the earth most in the tropics. That heat is circulated elsewhere by massive sea currents. Nobody is sure how these might change. Because the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic is crucial to keeping Europe warm, there has been a lot of research about it. The results are cautiously optimistic. But on Nino-Nina, almost nothing is known. The current is interlinked with the monsoon, but how this whole complex will be affected by global warming, nobody seems to know.
Global warming is already melting the Himalayan glaciers which feed all the great rivers of Asia, including the Mekong and Salween. As this melting gets worse, the river flow will initially increase, contributing to floods. Later the flow will diminish, exacerbating off-season droughts. This is another area where predictions are very vague.
Warming will raise the ocean levels. The UN’s (conservative) prediction is a rise of 20 to 80 cms in this century. In Thailand, this will not flood much land, but will cause salination along the lower reaches of all the waterways of the lower delta. It will also increase seasonal flooding in Bangkok and other towns. The OECD ranked Bangkok seventh in the world among cities where climate change will affect people and property.
Here again there is a black hole of knowledge. This prediction of rising sea levels is based almost wholly on thermal expansion of the volume of water. But what happens when the great ice sheets of Greenland and Antarctica melt? Nobody is quite sure. Some predict it might raise the sea level by another 5 or 7 metres. Then the water will be up to the second-floor windows in Bangkok, and Suvarnabhumi terminal can be put to the use for which it seems to have been designed, as a horticultural greenhouse.
Salination will affect some very valuable agricultural land. But overall, the impact on Thailand’s agriculture seems moderate by global standards. In temperate areas, crops are highly sensitive to changes in heat and moisture, so climate modelers predict big falls in output in the temperate zone. But year-to-year variation has always been a feature of monsoon-based agriculture. Crops have learnt to be reasonably tolerant, and the impact should be less.
There are many other impacts, especially through disease (the recent resurgence of malaria and dengue may be a forerunner). But overall, the prospects for Thailand do not look too bad. Or, to put that another way, many other places will be devastated before Thailand. But this is the point. The impact of global warming on Thailand will not come so much from the direct physical changes, as from the social and economic overspill from elsewhere.
Thailand is surrounded by places that are right on the sharp end of climate change. Bangladesh faces the same rainfall changes, ocean rise, and glacier melt effects detailed above. But because it has 100 million people practicing precarious agriculture a few centimeters above sea level in the delta of a great Himalayan-glacier-fed river, the impact will be disastrous. Vietnam’s rice bowl in the Mekong delta is similarly vulnerable. Nobody knows what will happen to the delicate flows of the Tonle Sap which sustain Cambodia.
Northwest China already has a severe water shortage. It is also destined for higher temperatures and lower rainfall, and hence will be another early disaster zone.
The debate on climate change is (quite rightly) dominated by natural scientists and focused on physical changes. But the ways these changes play out will be through economic, social, and political processes. Markets anticipate change. People fight for resources, or migrate for survival.
The current crop price chaos is an early ripple. Europe has recently realized that one of the first impacts will be “climate migrants.” Here in Thailand, the recent intrusion of Rohingyas, originally from Bangladesh, is another early ripple of a bigger wave.
Before Thailand burns up or sinks beneath the waves, it will be hit by the economic and political overspill of climate change.
Source : The Nation
4/30/2008
Thailand exempt from global warming and climate change
Thailand shockingly callous to climate change threat
31 mar 2008
By Chang Noi
Today the next round of UN-hosted global negotiations on climate change begins here in Bangkok. They could not have come to a place less interested.
Open any international newspaper today, you are buried in stories about climate change. In Thailand? The Nobel Prize for Gore and the UN Climate Panel rated a couple of stories. The Bali Conference registered a slight news tremor. That’s about it. Of course, we have an excuse: we have been glued to the tragicomedy of Thai politics over the past three years. But now that’s over and the only thing left is the cleaning staff sweeping the trash off the stage.
We also have the excuse that climate change is a big country problem which will need a big country solution. Five countries put over half of the carbon in the air. Thailand could do something heroic about emissions but the poor planet wouldn’t notice. Gore’s Inconvenient Truth was just so American in every respect that it seemed to create exclusive ownership of the problem.
Put the Thai for “global warming” into Google and you get 825,000 hits. But even the top-listed are just translations on the general principles. There’s almost nothing on what it might mean for Thailand. Greenpeace composed a report on Thailand three years ago which is excellent in outline. But it was scraping for data to move beyond very basic principles, and by now its findings are outdated.
The Thailand Environment Institute (TEI) has been concerned about global warming for several years. It advises firms how to use energy more efficiently. It raises awareness among schoolchildren. It contributes to research. But the impact of such an NGO is limited by its size, its funding, and the society’s interest. Last year TEI claimed to help 140 firms save a total of 150 million baht in energy costs. In the macro scale of energy economics, that’s not even a drop in a bucket.
TEI also collaborated with the UN on a report on environmental issues in the Mekong basin. Rightly the report focused on immediate problems of water, land, and food. The whole climate issue was not just secondary, it was totally absent. No mention of what might happen if/when the Himalayan glaciers melt (big floods for a short time, followed by big droughts for a long time). In India and China, where there are rivers fed by the same glaciers, the concern is much greater.
Apirak Kosayodhin is the only public figure to have embraced the importance of the issue. But the mayor of Bangkok doesn’t have the power or resources to do very much, and anyway Apirak has tripped over the trash on the political stage.
Thailand has some committed academics and technocrats interested in the global issue. But they are very few, and they are outnumbered by the ostriches. When the UN published data on the rise in global sea levels, some Thai scientists came out to say they were falling here. They did not manage to explain how the sea surface could bend from one zone to another.
This blithe disinterest is no big surprise. The problem has been created by the big rich countries in the temperate areas of the world. The research is being done in these same rich counties. It tends to concentrate on the problems of those countries. From Bangkok, melting ice-sheets seem a long, long way away.
On top, we have just had one of the longest and best cool seasons ever. Though we should be into the pre-Songkran furnace, we are still being cooled by evening breezes. Of course this abnormality is part of the problem, part of the increasingly erratic behaviour of weather systems worldwide.
In late February, the Met Department announced we were going to have a real scorcher of a hot season. It predicted exactly which week the mercury would go north, and exactly how hot we would be fried. As the predicted week approached, and the cool winds refused to go away, the Met Dept did a U-turn of which any Bangkok taxi-driver would be proud. This was not an El Nino year (dry) but a La Nina one (wet). We will not fry, we will flood. This tells us one very important thing. The Met Dept hasn’t got a clue. We cannot blame them. Climate change is destroying old forecasting models and old truths. But that’s the point. The local climate is not something we know much about. But it’s not something we can any longer ignore.
Yet the political establishment is doing just that. Have you heard a minister mention climate change or global warming? From Samak that’s no surprise. Throughout his political career, he has shown no interest in the environment and treated activists as trouble-makers. But how about the minister of environment? Her first instincts on coming to office was to float projects to destroy more forests. No surprise. She belongs to the contractor class. Resources are there to be destroyed for profit. Dams are good.
Since then she has got a bit excited that Thailand might be able to profit from selling carbon credits and producing bio-fuels. This shows an admirable entrepreneurial spirit. Unfortunately, these are two of the most problematic issues in the political economy of global warming. Carbon credits allow rich countries to conspire with poor countries to cheat the systems being designed to cope with the carbon monster. Bio-fuels may be a solution far worse than the problem they hope to solve.
The UN has produced some figures that should do away with all this complacency, ignorance, and freeloading. Thailand stands 22nd in the world as a carbon polluter. Since 1990, Thailand’s emissions have increased faster than every other country in the world but one.
At the same time, the worldwide models that try to predict what changes are coming show that Thailand may get whacked pretty hard. More on that next time.
Source : The Nation
31 mar 2008
By Chang Noi
Today the next round of UN-hosted global negotiations on climate change begins here in Bangkok. They could not have come to a place less interested.
Open any international newspaper today, you are buried in stories about climate change. In Thailand? The Nobel Prize for Gore and the UN Climate Panel rated a couple of stories. The Bali Conference registered a slight news tremor. That’s about it. Of course, we have an excuse: we have been glued to the tragicomedy of Thai politics over the past three years. But now that’s over and the only thing left is the cleaning staff sweeping the trash off the stage.
We also have the excuse that climate change is a big country problem which will need a big country solution. Five countries put over half of the carbon in the air. Thailand could do something heroic about emissions but the poor planet wouldn’t notice. Gore’s Inconvenient Truth was just so American in every respect that it seemed to create exclusive ownership of the problem.
Put the Thai for “global warming” into Google and you get 825,000 hits. But even the top-listed are just translations on the general principles. There’s almost nothing on what it might mean for Thailand. Greenpeace composed a report on Thailand three years ago which is excellent in outline. But it was scraping for data to move beyond very basic principles, and by now its findings are outdated.
The Thailand Environment Institute (TEI) has been concerned about global warming for several years. It advises firms how to use energy more efficiently. It raises awareness among schoolchildren. It contributes to research. But the impact of such an NGO is limited by its size, its funding, and the society’s interest. Last year TEI claimed to help 140 firms save a total of 150 million baht in energy costs. In the macro scale of energy economics, that’s not even a drop in a bucket.
TEI also collaborated with the UN on a report on environmental issues in the Mekong basin. Rightly the report focused on immediate problems of water, land, and food. The whole climate issue was not just secondary, it was totally absent. No mention of what might happen if/when the Himalayan glaciers melt (big floods for a short time, followed by big droughts for a long time). In India and China, where there are rivers fed by the same glaciers, the concern is much greater.
Apirak Kosayodhin is the only public figure to have embraced the importance of the issue. But the mayor of Bangkok doesn’t have the power or resources to do very much, and anyway Apirak has tripped over the trash on the political stage.
Thailand has some committed academics and technocrats interested in the global issue. But they are very few, and they are outnumbered by the ostriches. When the UN published data on the rise in global sea levels, some Thai scientists came out to say they were falling here. They did not manage to explain how the sea surface could bend from one zone to another.
This blithe disinterest is no big surprise. The problem has been created by the big rich countries in the temperate areas of the world. The research is being done in these same rich counties. It tends to concentrate on the problems of those countries. From Bangkok, melting ice-sheets seem a long, long way away.
On top, we have just had one of the longest and best cool seasons ever. Though we should be into the pre-Songkran furnace, we are still being cooled by evening breezes. Of course this abnormality is part of the problem, part of the increasingly erratic behaviour of weather systems worldwide.
In late February, the Met Department announced we were going to have a real scorcher of a hot season. It predicted exactly which week the mercury would go north, and exactly how hot we would be fried. As the predicted week approached, and the cool winds refused to go away, the Met Dept did a U-turn of which any Bangkok taxi-driver would be proud. This was not an El Nino year (dry) but a La Nina one (wet). We will not fry, we will flood. This tells us one very important thing. The Met Dept hasn’t got a clue. We cannot blame them. Climate change is destroying old forecasting models and old truths. But that’s the point. The local climate is not something we know much about. But it’s not something we can any longer ignore.
Yet the political establishment is doing just that. Have you heard a minister mention climate change or global warming? From Samak that’s no surprise. Throughout his political career, he has shown no interest in the environment and treated activists as trouble-makers. But how about the minister of environment? Her first instincts on coming to office was to float projects to destroy more forests. No surprise. She belongs to the contractor class. Resources are there to be destroyed for profit. Dams are good.
Since then she has got a bit excited that Thailand might be able to profit from selling carbon credits and producing bio-fuels. This shows an admirable entrepreneurial spirit. Unfortunately, these are two of the most problematic issues in the political economy of global warming. Carbon credits allow rich countries to conspire with poor countries to cheat the systems being designed to cope with the carbon monster. Bio-fuels may be a solution far worse than the problem they hope to solve.
The UN has produced some figures that should do away with all this complacency, ignorance, and freeloading. Thailand stands 22nd in the world as a carbon polluter. Since 1990, Thailand’s emissions have increased faster than every other country in the world but one.
At the same time, the worldwide models that try to predict what changes are coming show that Thailand may get whacked pretty hard. More on that next time.
Source : The Nation
4/11/2008
Guidelines for the drug campaign
Guidelines for the government's next 'war on drugs' campaign
By Chang Noi
17 march 2008
The interior minister has announced he will revive the “war on drugs” of 2003. The prime minister has endorsed this proposal. The 2003 campaign resulted in around 3,000 deaths (2,921 according to the Kanit panel). There are some uncertainties about this figure, but that is the number which the government itself claimed. The current government has promised to be more careful in the execution of the policy, so perhaps it would help to establish some principles.
First, policy makers should not get involved in incitement to murder. When announcing the policy to governors and police chiefs in 2003, Thaksin referred to the results already achieved in two trial provinces: “Sometimes people were shot dead and had their assets seized as well. I think we have to be equally ruthless. If drug traders don’t stop, there is a chance they will be dealt with in every way, both life and limb.” He continued, “With the traders, you must use hammer and fist, that is, act decisively and without mercy. If some drug traders die, it will be a common thing.”
Seven weeks later, when over a thousand had already died, Thaksin repeated that drug dealers had only two choices—to go to jail or their own funerals.
It makes no difference whether the three thousand were killed by the police, by other drug dealers, or by the tooth fairy. Some people were being incited to kill other people. This should not be repeated this time round. Unfortunately the interior minister has already said it would be “natural” if even more died this time, so maybe it’s already too late.
Second, this same murderous intent should not be passed down the administrative chain. On 21 February 2003, the National Centre for Drug Suppression in the Ministry of Interior issued a document headed, “Policy and operational directives to overcome drug crimes.” This document ordered provincial governors and police chiefs to “suppress” 25 per cent of the names which had already been entered onto black lists. It specified, “Cases which may be set against the target are suppression of traders and manufacturers in three ways, namely arrest, extraordinary killing, or loss of life (death for various reasons).”
The Thai translated here as “extraordinary killing” is wisaman katakam, which means killing by officials in the course of duty, such as self-defence. However, the term is commonly applied to cases where the police take the law into their own hands (and, for that reason, is often mistranslated as “extrajudicial killing”). For good measure, the document adds the very vague idea of “loss of life” without apparent cause. Within the culture of the Thai police, it would be hard to avoid the obvious implications of an instruction worded in this faction. This time around, the authorities should be more precise.
Third, the authorities should avoid the terrible simplicity of black lists. The local police were encouraged to draw up black lists as long as possible, and then incentivised (with money rewards) to eliminate as many of them as possible. While some of the names may have been suspected drug dealers, others probably qualified by being enemies of those drawing up the lists, or just simply defenceless. As the English journalist Andrew Marshall found, those at greatest risk were the innocents on these lists. If police pulled them in for questioning, they might prove their innocence and thus reduce the chance of the police reaching their numerical targets. The logical solution, as some police admitted to Marshall, was to kill such innocents without questioning.
Such lists reduce people to anonymous figures, stripped of their humanity. The dead bodies displayed in news reports during the 2003 campaign were anonymous entries on a list rather than real warm people. Only when a young girl was killed by a stray bullet, and a courageous TV cameraman seized the opportunity to plead for his father’s life, was this terrible anonymity breached. Maybe the prime minister and interior minister should ask around the Cabinet if any among the ministers had experience of being on those black lists.
Fourth, some effort is needed to prevent the emotions surrounding the subject of drugs overriding the principles of justice. Of the three thousand killed in 2003, around one half seem to have been totally innocent. That is the conclusion of Kanit na Nakhon’s investigation. These killings were patently unjust. Among the other half, none were major traders. Most seem to have been petty dealers at the lowest level of the distribution chain. They may have been guilty, but did not warrant a sentence anywhere near the death penalty. The simple principle behind the campaign was to kill lots of little people in the hope of discouraging some of the big people behind the trade. In short, a deliberate blood sacrifice.
Many people supported the 2003 campaign. They seem to have accepted that this method was justified. But why is this method acceptable in the case of drugs, but not for other crimes?
Suppose for example that the prime minister had applied the same logic to the “war on corruption” which was announced in parallel with the “war on drugs.” Suppose he had said, “If some corrupt people die, it will be a common thing.” Suppose the authorities had drawn up black lists, and the Interior Ministry sent down an order for 25 per cent of the names to be eliminated by “arrest, extraordinary killing, or loss of life (death for various reasons).” People who then or since then have been accused of major corruption (land deals, hidden assets, fire truck purchases, airport scandals, wholesale vote-buying, etc., etc.) would have appeared on those black lists. And then....
Of course, that would be horrifying. But somehow the swirl of emotions created around the issue of drug-dealing allowed the police, provincial authorities, and ordinary observers to override basic justice and basic human empathy.
It’s hard to be optimistic this time round. If the prime minister can imagine away the deaths in 1976...
Source : The Nation
By Chang Noi
17 march 2008
The interior minister has announced he will revive the “war on drugs” of 2003. The prime minister has endorsed this proposal. The 2003 campaign resulted in around 3,000 deaths (2,921 according to the Kanit panel). There are some uncertainties about this figure, but that is the number which the government itself claimed. The current government has promised to be more careful in the execution of the policy, so perhaps it would help to establish some principles.
First, policy makers should not get involved in incitement to murder. When announcing the policy to governors and police chiefs in 2003, Thaksin referred to the results already achieved in two trial provinces: “Sometimes people were shot dead and had their assets seized as well. I think we have to be equally ruthless. If drug traders don’t stop, there is a chance they will be dealt with in every way, both life and limb.” He continued, “With the traders, you must use hammer and fist, that is, act decisively and without mercy. If some drug traders die, it will be a common thing.”
Seven weeks later, when over a thousand had already died, Thaksin repeated that drug dealers had only two choices—to go to jail or their own funerals.
It makes no difference whether the three thousand were killed by the police, by other drug dealers, or by the tooth fairy. Some people were being incited to kill other people. This should not be repeated this time round. Unfortunately the interior minister has already said it would be “natural” if even more died this time, so maybe it’s already too late.
Second, this same murderous intent should not be passed down the administrative chain. On 21 February 2003, the National Centre for Drug Suppression in the Ministry of Interior issued a document headed, “Policy and operational directives to overcome drug crimes.” This document ordered provincial governors and police chiefs to “suppress” 25 per cent of the names which had already been entered onto black lists. It specified, “Cases which may be set against the target are suppression of traders and manufacturers in three ways, namely arrest, extraordinary killing, or loss of life (death for various reasons).”
The Thai translated here as “extraordinary killing” is wisaman katakam, which means killing by officials in the course of duty, such as self-defence. However, the term is commonly applied to cases where the police take the law into their own hands (and, for that reason, is often mistranslated as “extrajudicial killing”). For good measure, the document adds the very vague idea of “loss of life” without apparent cause. Within the culture of the Thai police, it would be hard to avoid the obvious implications of an instruction worded in this faction. This time around, the authorities should be more precise.
Third, the authorities should avoid the terrible simplicity of black lists. The local police were encouraged to draw up black lists as long as possible, and then incentivised (with money rewards) to eliminate as many of them as possible. While some of the names may have been suspected drug dealers, others probably qualified by being enemies of those drawing up the lists, or just simply defenceless. As the English journalist Andrew Marshall found, those at greatest risk were the innocents on these lists. If police pulled them in for questioning, they might prove their innocence and thus reduce the chance of the police reaching their numerical targets. The logical solution, as some police admitted to Marshall, was to kill such innocents without questioning.
Such lists reduce people to anonymous figures, stripped of their humanity. The dead bodies displayed in news reports during the 2003 campaign were anonymous entries on a list rather than real warm people. Only when a young girl was killed by a stray bullet, and a courageous TV cameraman seized the opportunity to plead for his father’s life, was this terrible anonymity breached. Maybe the prime minister and interior minister should ask around the Cabinet if any among the ministers had experience of being on those black lists.
Fourth, some effort is needed to prevent the emotions surrounding the subject of drugs overriding the principles of justice. Of the three thousand killed in 2003, around one half seem to have been totally innocent. That is the conclusion of Kanit na Nakhon’s investigation. These killings were patently unjust. Among the other half, none were major traders. Most seem to have been petty dealers at the lowest level of the distribution chain. They may have been guilty, but did not warrant a sentence anywhere near the death penalty. The simple principle behind the campaign was to kill lots of little people in the hope of discouraging some of the big people behind the trade. In short, a deliberate blood sacrifice.
Many people supported the 2003 campaign. They seem to have accepted that this method was justified. But why is this method acceptable in the case of drugs, but not for other crimes?
Suppose for example that the prime minister had applied the same logic to the “war on corruption” which was announced in parallel with the “war on drugs.” Suppose he had said, “If some corrupt people die, it will be a common thing.” Suppose the authorities had drawn up black lists, and the Interior Ministry sent down an order for 25 per cent of the names to be eliminated by “arrest, extraordinary killing, or loss of life (death for various reasons).” People who then or since then have been accused of major corruption (land deals, hidden assets, fire truck purchases, airport scandals, wholesale vote-buying, etc., etc.) would have appeared on those black lists. And then....
Of course, that would be horrifying. But somehow the swirl of emotions created around the issue of drug-dealing allowed the police, provincial authorities, and ordinary observers to override basic justice and basic human empathy.
It’s hard to be optimistic this time round. If the prime minister can imagine away the deaths in 1976...
Source : The Nation
Making serious money
How Thailand's wealthiest are making serious money
By Chang Noi
24 march 2008
Who is making money, serious money? And how? A few weeks ago, Forbes published its list of Thailand’s forty richest for 2007. Who are they, and how did they make their fortunes?
The best way to make money today is by manufacturing something to pour down people’s throats. Top came Chaleo Yoovidhya, maker of Kratingdaeng/Red Bull, with 126 billion baht, narrowly edging out Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, maker of Mekong Whisky and Chang Beer, with 114 billion. The Singha beer family appeared lower down the list.
Chaleo’s wealth is based on one single product—the extraordinary international success of Red Bull. Charoen is very different. He is the big success story of the 1997 financial crisis. He was not ruined by foreign debt because much of his business was still based on cash, and because foreign banks were wary of his non-transparent methods. His cashflow held up because crisis-hit consumers downtraded to his cheap products. Other businessmen, bankrupted by falling sales and the rising weight of dollar debt, were desperate to sell spare assets. Charoen had the cash to buy at very favorable prices.
Mostly he bought property—lots of it. In Chiang Mai alone he acquired the Kalae shopping centre, Chiang In Plaza, Anusan market, Suriwong Hotel, Imperial group’s hotels, and a prime plot of riverside land belonging to the Chutima family. By the aftermath of the crisis, Charoen’s property company TCC Land was “one of the largest landlords in Thailand.” Charoen has also become Thailand’s first latifundist, with 100,000 rai of agricultural land across 54 provinces, mostly under plantation crops of sugar, oil palm, tapioca, and rubber.
How else to make money? There are three agribusiness corporations in the Forbes Thai top forty, including Charoen Phokphand in 3rd place with 97 billion baht, and two sugar firms.
Among other industrialists, the most successful are auto parts firms. Before the crisis there were several hundred Thai parts makers. All but a handful were wiped out by the crisis and by the inflow of foreign capital. The few who survived have done very well indeed. Thai Summit of the Juangroongruangkit family (remember Suriya) and the Summit Group of the Jurangkool family come 5th and 7th on the list, while the Sitthiphon group is lower down.
Other industrialists include Mahagitsiri, Sahaviriya steel, TUF fish canning, and Osotsopha consumer goods. But the striking thing is that two-thirds of these top billionaires are in service businesses. Central and King Power in retail. Channel 3, Channel 7, Thai Rath, and Major Cineplex in entertainment. Land & House, Preuksa, and Amata in property. Italthai in construction. Bangkok Airways and Precious Shipping in transport. Heineke in hotels and retail; Shinawatra and Benchararongkul from mobile phones.
Like Charoen and the auto-parts makers, many of these service entrepreneurs are very new arrivals in the upper ranks of the Thai plutocracy. They are prospering because Thai consumers are spending more on services as incomes rise. Top Thai entrepreneurs are focusing on services because they have been competed out of manufacturing by multinationals, and because ownership laws relating to land, media, and so on still give some protectionin this sector.
These new families have also been boosted up the rankings by a landslide of the formerly rich since the 1997 crisis.
A first ranking of top Thai business families was made in 1979 and another in 1997. In both years, the most prominent group was bankers. But now Sophonphanich, Wanglee, Lamsam, Phatraprasit, Chakkaphak, and Uachukiat have slid away. Only the Ratanarak family of Bank of Ayudhya and Chaiyawan family of Thai Life Insurance remain.
Gone too are many families who pioneered industrialization, often by teaming up with US or Japanese capital. Phonprapha, Asadathon, Bulasuk, Laohathai, Techaphaibun, and Liaophairat no longer make the charts.
What old money has survived? Of the top 40 in 1979, only eight have survived in the same ranks today: CP, Bank of Ayudhya, Singha, Osothsopha, Italthai, Sitthiphol, Central, and Mitrphol sugar. From the 1997 list, there are a few more survivors including Shinawatra, Ucom, Sahaviriya, and Land & House.
Over half of the families in the top forty are new arrivals on such a list, and still very unfamiliar compared to names like Sophonphanich, Techaphaibun, or Lamsam. They have often come up very fast in the aftermath of the 1997 crisis. One of the most intriguing is Vichai Raksriaksorn, head of the King Power duty free empire. Try googling his name. You get little except that he sometimes plays polo with Prince Charles.
Vichai started with a shop in Hong Kong airport in the early 1980s. He could not get into Don Muang airport because of a ring allegedly controlled by ACM Sombun Rahong. He opened the in-town duty-free shop at Ploenchit in 1989, and launched ventures in Cambodia, China, and Macao. After Sombun Rahong’s political career faded in the mid 1990s, Vichai secured the necessary air force contacts. He started a shop in Don Muang in 1995. In 2006, he got an extraordinary exclusive contract for handling duty free and other retail at Suvarnabhumi Airport. He has bought 384 rai from the Chan Issara family near the airport where he is making a polo field, golf course, and upscale housing development. He has also developed a 31-rai plot near Victory Monument with an office building, duty free mall, and hotel.
In 1997, Forbes reckoned Thailand had ten families over the billion dollar mark. Now there are only three. Some of that decline is illusory. The Shinawatra family is now attributed only US$ 300 million by Forbes, but that’s because the rest of their wealth is now well hidden. But the overall decline is real.
Compared to neighboring countries, Thailand’s billionaires are modest. In China there are ten entrepreneurs with more than Chaleo or Charoen. In Malaysia there are five, and in Indonesia two. From India, the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal could theoretically buy all Thailand’s top forty twice over, and still have a lot of change.
Source : The Nation
By Chang Noi
24 march 2008
Who is making money, serious money? And how? A few weeks ago, Forbes published its list of Thailand’s forty richest for 2007. Who are they, and how did they make their fortunes?
The best way to make money today is by manufacturing something to pour down people’s throats. Top came Chaleo Yoovidhya, maker of Kratingdaeng/Red Bull, with 126 billion baht, narrowly edging out Charoen Sirivadhanabhakdi, maker of Mekong Whisky and Chang Beer, with 114 billion. The Singha beer family appeared lower down the list.
Chaleo’s wealth is based on one single product—the extraordinary international success of Red Bull. Charoen is very different. He is the big success story of the 1997 financial crisis. He was not ruined by foreign debt because much of his business was still based on cash, and because foreign banks were wary of his non-transparent methods. His cashflow held up because crisis-hit consumers downtraded to his cheap products. Other businessmen, bankrupted by falling sales and the rising weight of dollar debt, were desperate to sell spare assets. Charoen had the cash to buy at very favorable prices.
Mostly he bought property—lots of it. In Chiang Mai alone he acquired the Kalae shopping centre, Chiang In Plaza, Anusan market, Suriwong Hotel, Imperial group’s hotels, and a prime plot of riverside land belonging to the Chutima family. By the aftermath of the crisis, Charoen’s property company TCC Land was “one of the largest landlords in Thailand.” Charoen has also become Thailand’s first latifundist, with 100,000 rai of agricultural land across 54 provinces, mostly under plantation crops of sugar, oil palm, tapioca, and rubber.
How else to make money? There are three agribusiness corporations in the Forbes Thai top forty, including Charoen Phokphand in 3rd place with 97 billion baht, and two sugar firms.
Among other industrialists, the most successful are auto parts firms. Before the crisis there were several hundred Thai parts makers. All but a handful were wiped out by the crisis and by the inflow of foreign capital. The few who survived have done very well indeed. Thai Summit of the Juangroongruangkit family (remember Suriya) and the Summit Group of the Jurangkool family come 5th and 7th on the list, while the Sitthiphon group is lower down.
Other industrialists include Mahagitsiri, Sahaviriya steel, TUF fish canning, and Osotsopha consumer goods. But the striking thing is that two-thirds of these top billionaires are in service businesses. Central and King Power in retail. Channel 3, Channel 7, Thai Rath, and Major Cineplex in entertainment. Land & House, Preuksa, and Amata in property. Italthai in construction. Bangkok Airways and Precious Shipping in transport. Heineke in hotels and retail; Shinawatra and Benchararongkul from mobile phones.
Like Charoen and the auto-parts makers, many of these service entrepreneurs are very new arrivals in the upper ranks of the Thai plutocracy. They are prospering because Thai consumers are spending more on services as incomes rise. Top Thai entrepreneurs are focusing on services because they have been competed out of manufacturing by multinationals, and because ownership laws relating to land, media, and so on still give some protectionin this sector.
These new families have also been boosted up the rankings by a landslide of the formerly rich since the 1997 crisis.
A first ranking of top Thai business families was made in 1979 and another in 1997. In both years, the most prominent group was bankers. But now Sophonphanich, Wanglee, Lamsam, Phatraprasit, Chakkaphak, and Uachukiat have slid away. Only the Ratanarak family of Bank of Ayudhya and Chaiyawan family of Thai Life Insurance remain.
Gone too are many families who pioneered industrialization, often by teaming up with US or Japanese capital. Phonprapha, Asadathon, Bulasuk, Laohathai, Techaphaibun, and Liaophairat no longer make the charts.
What old money has survived? Of the top 40 in 1979, only eight have survived in the same ranks today: CP, Bank of Ayudhya, Singha, Osothsopha, Italthai, Sitthiphol, Central, and Mitrphol sugar. From the 1997 list, there are a few more survivors including Shinawatra, Ucom, Sahaviriya, and Land & House.
Over half of the families in the top forty are new arrivals on such a list, and still very unfamiliar compared to names like Sophonphanich, Techaphaibun, or Lamsam. They have often come up very fast in the aftermath of the 1997 crisis. One of the most intriguing is Vichai Raksriaksorn, head of the King Power duty free empire. Try googling his name. You get little except that he sometimes plays polo with Prince Charles.
Vichai started with a shop in Hong Kong airport in the early 1980s. He could not get into Don Muang airport because of a ring allegedly controlled by ACM Sombun Rahong. He opened the in-town duty-free shop at Ploenchit in 1989, and launched ventures in Cambodia, China, and Macao. After Sombun Rahong’s political career faded in the mid 1990s, Vichai secured the necessary air force contacts. He started a shop in Don Muang in 1995. In 2006, he got an extraordinary exclusive contract for handling duty free and other retail at Suvarnabhumi Airport. He has bought 384 rai from the Chan Issara family near the airport where he is making a polo field, golf course, and upscale housing development. He has also developed a 31-rai plot near Victory Monument with an office building, duty free mall, and hotel.
In 1997, Forbes reckoned Thailand had ten families over the billion dollar mark. Now there are only three. Some of that decline is illusory. The Shinawatra family is now attributed only US$ 300 million by Forbes, but that’s because the rest of their wealth is now well hidden. But the overall decline is real.
Compared to neighboring countries, Thailand’s billionaires are modest. In China there are ten entrepreneurs with more than Chaleo or Charoen. In Malaysia there are five, and in Indonesia two. From India, the steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal could theoretically buy all Thailand’s top forty twice over, and still have a lot of change.
Source : The Nation
Thai couple faces lèse majesté charges
Thai couple faces lèse majesté charges for not standing for royal anthem in cinema
Prachatai09 April 2008
A Thai man and his female friend have been charged by police with lèse majesté for not standing for the royal anthem at a movie theatre in Bangkok late last year.
On April 5, 2008, Pathumwan District Police called to Chotisak Onsung, 26, and his friend, asking them to visit the police station to hear the charge for the offence alleged by Navamintr Witthayakul, 40, who was among the cinema audience.
The lawyer for Chotisak and his friend, Songkran Pongbunjan, said that on Saturday, April 5, he met the police investigator to request a postponement to April 22 at 1.30pm because it was too soon for his clients to see the police that day.
Songkran said that according to the police investigator all witnesses had already been questioned, and a police committee had taken opinions from individuals and academics and decided to proceed the case. However, a panel under the National Police Committee will make the final decision on whether to pursue the case or not.
According to Songkran, Chotisak and his friend are likely to seek help from the Lawyers' Council's human rights committee.
On September 20, 2007, Chotisak and his friend went to a cinema in Central World shopping complex in downtown Bangkok. They were urged by Navamintr to stand up for the royal anthem which precedes every movie shown in Thailand's cinemas, and they had a heated argument with the man. They claimed that they were physically abused. Afterwards they filed complaints at Pathumwan police station against Navamintr for verbal and physical abuse, damage to personal property and coercion, while Navamintr filed a lèse majesté complaint against them.
Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code stipulates the penalty for a lèse majesté offence as 3-15 years' imprisonment.
Translated by Ponglert Pongwanan
Source : http://www.prachatai.com/
Prachatai09 April 2008
A Thai man and his female friend have been charged by police with lèse majesté for not standing for the royal anthem at a movie theatre in Bangkok late last year.
On April 5, 2008, Pathumwan District Police called to Chotisak Onsung, 26, and his friend, asking them to visit the police station to hear the charge for the offence alleged by Navamintr Witthayakul, 40, who was among the cinema audience.
The lawyer for Chotisak and his friend, Songkran Pongbunjan, said that on Saturday, April 5, he met the police investigator to request a postponement to April 22 at 1.30pm because it was too soon for his clients to see the police that day.
Songkran said that according to the police investigator all witnesses had already been questioned, and a police committee had taken opinions from individuals and academics and decided to proceed the case. However, a panel under the National Police Committee will make the final decision on whether to pursue the case or not.
According to Songkran, Chotisak and his friend are likely to seek help from the Lawyers' Council's human rights committee.
On September 20, 2007, Chotisak and his friend went to a cinema in Central World shopping complex in downtown Bangkok. They were urged by Navamintr to stand up for the royal anthem which precedes every movie shown in Thailand's cinemas, and they had a heated argument with the man. They claimed that they were physically abused. Afterwards they filed complaints at Pathumwan police station against Navamintr for verbal and physical abuse, damage to personal property and coercion, while Navamintr filed a lèse majesté complaint against them.
Article 112 of the Thai Criminal Code stipulates the penalty for a lèse majesté offence as 3-15 years' imprisonment.
Translated by Ponglert Pongwanan
Source : http://www.prachatai.com/
4/05/2008
Burma's pointless plants a needless burden
Burma's pointless plants a needless burden
AWZAR THI
Column: Rule of Lords, UPI Asia Online
[ http://www.upiasiaonline.com ]
HONG KONG, China, April 3, 2008
HONG KONG, China, Around the suburbs of Rangoon small scraggly bushes now occupy plots of land that once were used for growing vegetables or beans. They look miserable. Unattended among weeds and debris, they show no signs of growth and bear few leaves. Some are used for hanging laundry. Others catch plastic bags in the breeze.
They are also a flagship state project. The order to grow these physic nut plants, which belong to the same family as castor oil, is said to have come directly from Burma's military supremo, Senior General Than Shwe. His supposed idea is to alleviate the country's fuel shortages through biodiesel, although some speculate that the order may have had as much to do with astrology as the economy.
People all around the country have been given seeds and pressed into planting them along roads, football fields, schoolyards and government compounds. Some bear the signboards of government departments, police stations and military units. Television broadcasts reassure viewers that the bushes will soon bear a great bounty, and demonstrate how simple it is to extract their oil and use it for fuel.
Reality suggests otherwise. The saplings are almost universally neglected. Without regular care, plants grown years ago still bear no fruit; no fruit, no biodiesel.
In some places villagers have also been obliged to work on commercial physic nut ventures. In late 2006, for instance, U Tin Kyi was called to work on the acreage adjacent to his farm that had been planted by a company under ownership of an army general's son. He pointed out that all the plants had died and that he should be able to go back and work his own crops. The local officials did not take kindly to his stating the obvious and had him jailed for four months.
Ill-conceived and mismanaged schemes can be found the world over. But while in an open society they can be challenged and halted, under autocratic rulers of the sort that exist in Burma they are both far more prevalent and dangerous.
Social scientist James C. Scott identifies why. He suggests that some of the biggest man-made disasters of the last century have four key elements: one, the administrative reordering of society and nature; two, overconfidence in modernity as a measure of progress; three, coercive government, and four, weakened civil society. In these circumstances, when mistakes are made lessons are covered up, not learned; people are pushed too far, and tragedy follows.
This is what happened in China when in the 1950s the rural populace was forced into collectives. Agricultural output plummeted. Regional officials fell to giving increasingly ludicrous figures on grain produced and stored, while locals were in some instances compelled to uproot healthy paddy and plant seedlings alongside roads that Mao and his entourage would travel so that the "great helmsman" might see emerald-green vistas. Millions died in the famine that followed.
Similar patterns have been seen in Burma during recent years, although they have not so far pushed the country over the precipice. Farmers in some areas have been forced to uproot beans and peanuts in order to grow second or third crops of rice on land with inadequate water. Others have had to purchase seeds for summer crops, which once planted have grown at different speeds and to different heights. Many have struggled without fertilizer or outside assistance.
The physic nut plants are unlikely of their own accord to precipitate the sort of hunger in Than Shwe's Burma that occurred in Mao's China, but while officials at every level continue to conceal the truth in order to please their superiors, as they must, these bushes continue to place a needless burden on people who are already struggling for one square meal a day. They may not spell ruin but they are a waste of precious time, land and water.
The pointlessness of dotting the landscape with plants in which no one has any special interest may be missed by the people at the top who give the orders, but it is understood by everyone else. To the extent that Burma prevails it is not because of bureaucratic meddling but despite it. While the physic nuts are on display along the roads and thoroughfares where more senior officers are expected to travel, on the backstreets, in small gardens and on the banks of waterways, vegetables continue to be sown.
--
(Awzar Thi is the pen name of a member of the Asian Human Rights Commission with over 15 years of experience as an advocate of human rights and the rule of law in Thailand and Burma. His Rule of Lords blog can be read at http://ratchasima.net.)
http://www.upiasiaonline.com/Human_Rights/2008/04/03/burmas_pointless_plants_a_needless_burden/1607/Asian
Human Rights Commission19/F, Go-Up Commercial Building,998 Canton Road, Kowloon, Hongkong S.A.R.Tel: +(852) - 2698-6339 Fax: +(852) - 2698-6367
AWZAR THI
Column: Rule of Lords, UPI Asia Online
[ http://www.upiasiaonline.com ]
HONG KONG, China, April 3, 2008
HONG KONG, China, Around the suburbs of Rangoon small scraggly bushes now occupy plots of land that once were used for growing vegetables or beans. They look miserable. Unattended among weeds and debris, they show no signs of growth and bear few leaves. Some are used for hanging laundry. Others catch plastic bags in the breeze.
They are also a flagship state project. The order to grow these physic nut plants, which belong to the same family as castor oil, is said to have come directly from Burma's military supremo, Senior General Than Shwe. His supposed idea is to alleviate the country's fuel shortages through biodiesel, although some speculate that the order may have had as much to do with astrology as the economy.
People all around the country have been given seeds and pressed into planting them along roads, football fields, schoolyards and government compounds. Some bear the signboards of government departments, police stations and military units. Television broadcasts reassure viewers that the bushes will soon bear a great bounty, and demonstrate how simple it is to extract their oil and use it for fuel.
Reality suggests otherwise. The saplings are almost universally neglected. Without regular care, plants grown years ago still bear no fruit; no fruit, no biodiesel.
In some places villagers have also been obliged to work on commercial physic nut ventures. In late 2006, for instance, U Tin Kyi was called to work on the acreage adjacent to his farm that had been planted by a company under ownership of an army general's son. He pointed out that all the plants had died and that he should be able to go back and work his own crops. The local officials did not take kindly to his stating the obvious and had him jailed for four months.
Ill-conceived and mismanaged schemes can be found the world over. But while in an open society they can be challenged and halted, under autocratic rulers of the sort that exist in Burma they are both far more prevalent and dangerous.
Social scientist James C. Scott identifies why. He suggests that some of the biggest man-made disasters of the last century have four key elements: one, the administrative reordering of society and nature; two, overconfidence in modernity as a measure of progress; three, coercive government, and four, weakened civil society. In these circumstances, when mistakes are made lessons are covered up, not learned; people are pushed too far, and tragedy follows.
This is what happened in China when in the 1950s the rural populace was forced into collectives. Agricultural output plummeted. Regional officials fell to giving increasingly ludicrous figures on grain produced and stored, while locals were in some instances compelled to uproot healthy paddy and plant seedlings alongside roads that Mao and his entourage would travel so that the "great helmsman" might see emerald-green vistas. Millions died in the famine that followed.
Similar patterns have been seen in Burma during recent years, although they have not so far pushed the country over the precipice. Farmers in some areas have been forced to uproot beans and peanuts in order to grow second or third crops of rice on land with inadequate water. Others have had to purchase seeds for summer crops, which once planted have grown at different speeds and to different heights. Many have struggled without fertilizer or outside assistance.
The physic nut plants are unlikely of their own accord to precipitate the sort of hunger in Than Shwe's Burma that occurred in Mao's China, but while officials at every level continue to conceal the truth in order to please their superiors, as they must, these bushes continue to place a needless burden on people who are already struggling for one square meal a day. They may not spell ruin but they are a waste of precious time, land and water.
The pointlessness of dotting the landscape with plants in which no one has any special interest may be missed by the people at the top who give the orders, but it is understood by everyone else. To the extent that Burma prevails it is not because of bureaucratic meddling but despite it. While the physic nuts are on display along the roads and thoroughfares where more senior officers are expected to travel, on the backstreets, in small gardens and on the banks of waterways, vegetables continue to be sown.
--
(Awzar Thi is the pen name of a member of the Asian Human Rights Commission with over 15 years of experience as an advocate of human rights and the rule of law in Thailand and Burma. His Rule of Lords blog can be read at http://ratchasima.net.)
http://www.upiasiaonline.com/Human_Rights/2008/04/03/burmas_pointless_plants_a_needless_burden/1607/Asian
Human Rights Commission19/F, Go-Up Commercial Building,998 Canton Road, Kowloon, Hongkong S.A.R.Tel: +(852) - 2698-6339 Fax: +(852) - 2698-6367
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