Monthly Archives: May 2018

12% boost in March car sales: Toyota

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12% boost in March car sales: Toyota

Auto & Audio May 02, 2018 01:00

By THE NATION

AUTO SALES in Thailand grew by 12.1 per cent in March with 95,082 vehicles sold, according to figures from Toyota Motor Thailand Co Ltd (TMT).

In March, 34,765 passenger cars were sold marking an increase of 3.8 per cent compared to the same month last year, while 60,317 commercial vehicles were sold, up 17.5 per cent.

Toyota was the top-selling brand in March, with sales of 26,717 units (up 21 per cent), followed by Isuzu with 18,811 units (up 16.2 per cent) and Honda with 10,197 units (down 19.2 per cent).

From January to March, Toyota is also the leader with an aggregate of 64,234 units (up 9,3 per cent), followed by Isuzu with 44,316 units (up 6,3 per cent) and Honda with 28,435 units (down 5.8 per cent).

Vudhigorn Suriyachantana-nont, executive vice president of TMT, said sales growth in March was a direct result of new models being launched during the first quarter as well as the promotions offered at the Bangkok International Motor Show in late March.

“Auto sales grew in the first three months of 2018 due to the ongoing economic recovery as well as the various sales promotions from the start of the year that helped boost the auto market,” he said.

With strong demand from the Bangkok International Motor Show continuing to April, in addition to stronger consumer confidence in the general economy, the market is expected to continue expanding, he added.

“With increased exports and growth in tourism, despite the continuous strengthening of the baht and low prices for agricultural products, the automobile market has not been affected much,” Vudhigorn said.

Honda, Greyhound cater to Bangkok bikers at CUB House

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Honda, Greyhound cater to Bangkok bikers at CUB House

Auto & Audio April 27, 2018 12:11

By The Nation

AP Honda and Greyhound Co Ltd have open the CUB House, a “co-creation lifestyle space”, on Ekamai Soi 3 in Bangkok.

AP Honda president Yoiji Mizutani said the CUB House brings together motorcycles, food and beverages.

“We opened in mid-April and have received a tremendous response beyond our expectations,” he said. “This is another successful project and is a destination that bikers must visit.”

The site also has motorcycle styling shops such as H2C, Bikers, G Craft, Kitaco and Moriwaki.

Forty CUB House branches are planned across the country by 2020.

Portofino adds comfort and rear seating to Ferrari performance

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Portofino adds comfort and rear seating to Ferrari performance

Auto & Audio April 22, 2018 01:00

By Kingsley Wijayasinha
The Nation

Though the test drive lacked a chance to push the car to its limits, the quality of the interior allowed our reviewer a comfy and ergonomically sound frontseat nap

With its flashy Italian design, heart-pounding performance and motorsports heritage, Ferraris may seem like the ultimate choice for a heavy adrenaline rush.

However in real life, normal people don’t need that rush or eye-popping performance all the time, and many look for other things, too when buying an exotic car – ride comfort, for example.

And I ain’t kidding when I say there’s a comfortable Ferrari around – it’s called the Portofino.

The successor to the much liked (and hated) California T that many say isn’t a true Ferrari, the Portofino, which will be officially launched in Thailand later this year with a starting price of about Bt20 million, comes with a large number of improvements that die-hard Ferrari fans will be happy about.

Named after a small port city in Italy, the Portofino, a two-box fastback, is the entry-level Ferrari fitted with a V8 engine. But it’s not a two-seater like you’d expect, and comes with two doggy seats at the rear for kids or small adults (apart from dogs, of course).

The Portofino also comes with a powered retractable hardtop that instantly turns it into a luxury convertible. Step into the cockpit and you’re greeted by a rich mixture of leather and high-quality materials, in addition to attractive Ferrari styling.

But what will surprise you further is the ease of getting in and out. Forget the traditional “butt-in-first” technique of getting into a Ferrari – with the Portofino, it’s as easy as getting into a normal coupe. In fact, getting in and out is easier than for everyday cars like the Mazda MX-5 or a Mercedes-Benz SLC. There’s plenty of space as well, enough for two large-sized front occupants to get abundant headroom, shoulder room and legroom.

It’s also stylish and fully-equipped inside, with a 10.2-inch touchscreen display, new multi-function steering wheel with incorporated turning light buttons (no combination stalk), and even a passenger display that shows driving info such as vehicle speed, engine speed and driving mode (a good way to entertain your passenger). However, for a car that costs this much, it’s surprising that the power window on the passenger side is one-touch automatic only for down, not up (not sure how much money is saved there).

The first test drive event of the Portofino was held earlier this year in Europe, and Cavallino Motors, the official Ferrari importer for Thailand, made sure Thai media were invited. In fact, over the years, Cavallino has been increasing the number of invites, a move highly welcomed by the Thai automotive media.

A second event was held for the Portofino in Dubai earlier this month, a regional event to which I was invited along with another Thai journalist.

With racing tracks being available in Dubai (as well as Abu Dhabi), I was expecting some driving events there. It’s a Ferrari after all, right?

The Portofino is powered by an award-winning lag-free turbocharged engine carried over from the Cali T that generates as much as 600 horsepower at 7,500rpm and a whopping 760Nm of torque right from 3,000rpm. Acceleration from 0-100km/h takes 3.5 seconds, 0-200km/h in 10.8 seconds – and Ferrari claims the top speed is over 320km/h.

Even though my request for the event details went unanswered until a few days before the trip, I had high hopes of the experience in Dubai. It’s a Ferrari event. They are motorsports people. They understand what driving is about. They know what to do.

I was wrong.

It was a huge disappointment to find out that the five multi-coloured Portofino cars in the media drive event would be crawling after a Maserati Quattroporte lead car, whose only purpose in life was to keep all drivers safe from any kind of accident, big or small, throughout the entire day. There were no circuits or tracks included in the day’s programme, and the highest speed limit on the Dubai highway is 120km/h.

Inviting an auto journalist to drive a 320km/h car in a 120km/h environment in a caravan is close to an insult. And worse is that the caravan was moving much slower than the rest of the traffic. Even trucks were overtaking the Portofinos (check out the video). It started to resemble a public relations photo-shoot stint rather than a proper test-drive event.

I was so upset that I told the fellow Thai journalist that he can drive for the whole day, I’d just be a passenger. But after the first stop, he convinced me to drive a little and I finally agreed.

After 15 minutes of averaging about 60km/h from the first stop (which didn’t have a toilet), we reached a gas station for relief, and that’s when I returned the key to my buddy.

“You can continue, I’m done with this… ,” I mumbled.

Later in the day, when the group stopped for lunch, I had another offer to take a spin with the Portofino in the driveway of a high-end desert resort. I was told that a Ferrari photographer would help take pictures and video, but I also turned that down.

No matter how disappointed I was with the way the event was organised, I discovered that the Portofino really does shine in one department just as it was intended to – comfort.

The Portofino’s adaptive damper system does wonders keeping the occupants comfortable by ironing out all the road vibrations, and with the super-slow cruising on the way back, I soon fell asleep. It was a good sleep, with a nice, ergonomic position offered by the comfy passenger seat, and with a peaceful atmosphere (the engine speed was under 3,000rpm all the way).

While the driving event didn’t allow drivers to experience and understand much about the Portofino’s performance and characteristics, this entry-level Ferrari has what it takes to attract new customers to the brand who are looking no only for performance, but for the whole package including luxury, versatility and comfort.

Ferrari Portofino specs

Engine: V8 turbocharged

Displacement: 3,855cc

Bore and stroke: 86.5×82.0mm

Compression ratio: 9.45:1

Max power: 600hp/7,500rpm

Max torque: 760Nm/3,000-5,250rpm

Transmission: 7-speed DCT

Ratios: n/a

Final drive ratio: n/a

0-100kmh:  3.5secs

0-200km/h: 10.8secs

Top speed: above 320km/h

Average fuel economy: 9.3km/litre

Average CO2: 245g/km

Suspension (f/r): double wishbone/multi-link

Steering: electrically powered rack-and-pinion

Turning circle: n/a

Brakes (f/r): vented disc/vented disc

Dimensions (mm)

Length: 4,586

Width: 1,938

Height: 1,318

Wheelbase: 2,670

Track (f/r): 1,633/1,635

Weight: 1,664kgs

Wheels: 20-inch alloy

Tyres: 245/35 ZR20 (front), 285/35 ZR20 (rear)

Fuel tank capacity: 80 litres

Price: starting at approx. Bt20 million

Official importer: Cavallino Motors Co Ltd

Twitter urges users to change ‘unmasked’ passwords

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Twitter urges users to change ‘unmasked’ passwords

Tech May 04, 2018 06:54

By Agence France-Presse
San Francisco

Twitter on Thursday urged its more than 300 million users to change their passwords, saying they had been unintentionally “unmasked” inside the company by a software bug.

The social media site said it found no sign that hackers accessed the exposed data, but advised users to change their passwords to be safe.

Twitter practice is to store passwords encrypted, or “hashed,” so they are masked to even people inside the company, Twitter chief technology officer Parag Agrawal explained in a blog post.

“Due to a bug, passwords were written to an internal log before completing the hashing process,” he said.

“We found this error ourselves, removed the passwords, and are implementing plans to prevent this bug from happening again.”

The San Francisco-based internet company did not specify how many passwords were exposed or how long the glitch made data vulnerable to snooping.

“Out of an abundance of caution, we ask that you consider changing your password on all services where you’ve used this password,” Agrawal told users.

“We are very sorry this happened,” he said.

The stumble comes as the sector faces intense scrutiny over the protection of personal data online, in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal which saw information from tens of millions of Facebook users hijacked and misused.

Twitter shares ebbed about a percent to $30.36 in after-market trades that followed word of the password mishap.

Better to change

Going public with a security slip and getting users to take precautions is preferable to remaining mum and hoping no data was taken, according to independent technology industry analyst Rob Enderle.

“When in doubt, it is better to have people change passwords than to be wrong,” Enderle said.

“With security, it is always better to err on the side of caution.”

The analyst thought it unlikely people would abandon Twitter simply for being asked to change passwords.

“Openly admitting our mistakes quickly, learning, and moving on,” Twitter co-founder and chief executive Jack Dorsey said in a tweet that including a link to Agrawal’s blog post.

“I love my teammates.”

Out of the red

Twitter last week reported its second consecutive quarterly profit, boosting the outlook for the platform after years in the red.

The social network earned $61 million in the first three months of the year, helped by strong growth in advertising revenue and modest gains in users.

First quarter revenues rose 21 percent from a year ago to $665 million, and the key metric of monthly active users increased by six million from late last year to 336 million.

Dorsey said while discussing earnings that recent changes made to the service have helped “engagement,” a measure of how often people turn to the social network and how long they stay.

While Twitter has built a solid core base of celebrities, politicians and journalists, it has failed to match the broader appeal of Facebook and other social platforms, hurting its ability to bring in ad revenues.

The network has stepped up efforts to boost its user base and engagement, adding streaming video partnerships, doubling the character limit on tweets to 280 and making it easier to create “tweetstorms” by stringing messaging together.

NASA’s newest Mars lander to study quakes on Red Planet

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NASA’s newest Mars lander to study quakes on Red Planet

Tech May 04, 2018 06:50

By Agence France-Presse
Tampa

NASA is poised to launch its first lander to Mars since 2012, an unmanned spacecraft called InSight that aims to listen for quakes and unravel the mystery of how rocky planets like Earth form.

It is scheduled to launch on Saturday at 7:05 am Eastern time (1105 GMT) from Vandenberg Air Force Base in California, and if all goes as planned, it should land on the Red Planet November 26.

Since the Earth and Mars likely formed by similar processes 4.5 billion years ago, the US space agency hopes the lander — officially known as Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) — will shed light on what made them so different.

“How we get from a ball of featureless rock into a planet that may or may not support life is a key question in planetary science,” said Bruce Banerdt, InSight principal investigator at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

“We’d like to be able to understand what happened.”

On Earth, these processes have been obscured over billions of years by earthquakes and the movement of molten rock in the mantle, he said.

But Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun and Earth’s smaller and less geologically active neighbor, may yield more clues.

Quake sensor

InSight aims to rest in an isolated spot and detect “marsquakes,” which NASA described as “like a flashbulb that illuminates the structure of the planet’s interior.”

The lander will gather information using three instruments, including a seismometer, called the Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure, made by the French Space Agency.

Banerdt called the seismometer “the heart of the mission.”

After landing, the spacecraft’s robotic arm will gently pull it out and set it on the ground, according to video images released by NASA.

Scientist expect to pick up as many as 100 quakes during the mission, which should last at least 26 Earth months, or one Martian year.

Most of the quakes are expected to be less than 6.0 on the Richter scale.

Studying how seismic waves pass through the crust, mantle and core of Mars can help scientists learn more about what the layers are made of and how deep they are.

The second key instrument is a first-of-its-kind on Mars self-hammering probe that will monitor the flow of heat in the planet’s subsurface.

Called the Heat Flow and Physical Properties Package, it was made by the German Space Agency with the participation of the Polish Space Agency.

The probe should go 15 times deeper than any previous Mars mission, to a depth of 10 to 16 feet (three to five meters), said NASA.

A third instrument will help scientists on Earth keep precise track of the lander’s location as Mars rotates.

The US spent $813.8 million on the spacecraft and rocket launch, while investments on the instruments from France and Germany amount to $180 million, according to NASA.

A pair of mini-spacecraft that are also launching on the rocket cost NASA $18.5 million.

Known as Mars Cube One, or MarCO, the briefcase-sized satellites “will fly on their own path to Mars behind InSight,” and test tiny new deep space communications equipment, NASA said.

Delay due to glitch

InSight was initially supposed to launch in 2016 but a problem with the seismometer was discovered in late 2015. One component cracked slightly during tests to replicate the large temperature extremes on Mars, which dipped to -120 Celsius (-194 Fahrenheit.)

Engineers decided it could not be patched, and NASA granted more time for them to properly fix the problem by shifting the launch window to 2018.

Launch weather officer Kristina Williams told reporters the weather forecast for Saturday morning is expected to be foggy, but that there were no other constraints to liftoff.

If Saturday’s launch is delayed for any reason, another opportunity opens Sunday.

NASA’s pair of Viking landers in the late 1970s had seismometers but only one of them worked. It was much less sensitive because it was bolted on top of the spacecraft.

In contrast, InSight’s seismometer will be picked up with a robotic arm and placed directly on the ground.

InSight aims to be the first NASA instrument to land on Mars since the Curiosity rover which arrived in 2012 and is still working.

Zuckerberg unveils plans for Facebook dating service

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A man tries out Facebook's augmented reality camera software during the annual F8 summit at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California on May 01, 2018./AFP
A man tries out Facebook’s augmented reality camera software during the annual F8 summit at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California on May 01, 2018./AFP

Zuckerberg unveils plans for Facebook dating service

Tech May 02, 2018 07:41

By Agence France-Presse
San José, United States

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Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg announced Tuesday the world’s largest social network will soon include a new dating feature — while vowing to make privacy protection its top priority in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal.

Zuckerberg unveiled the plans as he addressed Facebook’s annual developers conference in San Jose, California — emphasizing that the focus would be on helping people find long-term partners.

“This is going to be for building real, long-term relationships, not just hook-ups,” Zuckerberg said in presenting the new feature, noting that one in three marriages in the United States start online — and that some 200 million Facebook users identify as being single.

Under the new feature, users will be able to create a separate “dating” profile not visible to their network of friends, with potential matches recommended based on dating preferences, points in common, and mutual acquaintances.

Zuckerberg did not specify whether the feature would be free of charge, in line with Facebook’s core offer — but the announcement was enough to send shares in the online dating giant Match.com tumbling by 17 percent.

The 33-year-old CEO also said the dating offer was built from the ground-up with privacy and safety in mind, as he underscored the firm’s commitment to boosting privacy protections.

Facebook’s closely-watched developer conference comes as the giant faces intense global scrutiny over the mass harvesting of personal data by Cambridge Analytica, a British political consultancy that worked for Donald Trump’s 2016 election campaign.

Facebook has admitted up to 87 million users may have had their data hijacked in the scandal, which saw Zuckerberg grilled at length by the US Congress last month.

“We need to make sure that never happens again,” Zuckerberg told the audience.

‘Clear history’

In a related move, Facebook Tuesday announced an upcoming feature called “Clear History” that will allow users to see which apps and websites send the network information, delete the data from their account, and prevent Facebook from storing it.

The social network has already moved to limit the amount of data it shares with third-party applications and plans further steps to prevent a repeat of the Cambridge Analytica debacle, Zuckerberg said.

Facebook is also reviewing applications overall as well as auditing those that accessed large amounts of data to make sure access isn’t abused, he said.

“Security isn’t a problem than you ever fully solve,” Zuckerberg said, outlining the slew of efforts by Facebook to battle election interference, misinformation, spam among other challenges.

“This is an arms race; we are going to be working to stay ahead of our adversaries forever.”

Message translation

Facebook separately announced Tuesday that its popular Messenger app would soon be able to translate missives in real time, deploying artificial intelligence to enable text conversations between people using different languages.

The feature will launch in the United States with English and Spanish translations of conversations in the Marketplace section of Facebook, and will be extended to general Messenger use in coming weeks, the service said in a blog post.

Facebook joins internet giants Amazon, Microsoft and Google in offering artificial-intelligence based translation features — most prominently Google’s Pixel ear buds which promise real-time translation across dozens of languages.

The slew of announcements at the developer-centric “F8” conference also included the arrival of a stand-alone Oculus Go headset aimed to get more people using virtual reality.

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Economy May 05, 2018 01:00

By The Nation

SIX SUBMIT BID PAPERS

Six companies yesterday submitted their bid documents for exploration and production rights in the Bongkot and the Erawan gas fields.

They were PTT Exploration and Production Plc (PTTEP), Chevron Thailand Exploration and Production, Mubadala Petroleum (Thailand) Limited, OMV, Total E&P Thailand, and a consortium of several firms.

The Department of Mineral Fuels’ deputy director general Sarawut Kaewtathip said that all six submitted documents for the Erawan field. Only five handed in documents for the Bongkot field, withTotal E&P Thailand abstaining.

SKILLS ALERT SOUNDED

Skills shortages will continue to impede growth and could have a significant impact on major Asia-Pacific economies by 2030, a study by Korn Ferry revealed yesterday.

“Companies must work to mitigate this potential talent crisis now to protect their future,” said Michael Distefano, president of Korn Ferry Asia Pacific. “Left to run its course, this shortage will severely impact the growth of markets across the region.”

Thailand puts on best face as prime Asean centre for beauty pageants

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Pawina, confident on the industry's outlook
Pawina, confident on the industry’s outlook

Thailand puts on best face as prime Asean centre for beauty pageants

Economy May 05, 2018 01:00

By KWANCHAI RUNGFAPAISARN
THE NATION

THAILAND is increasingly becoming the prime centre for the staging of international beauty contests in Asean, a trend that a key industry player says is in line with the government’s Thailand 4.0 model to promote the tourism sector and related businesses.

Pawina Bamrungrot, managing director of Miss Aura International Co Ltd (MAI), said that the holding of beauty pageants is a business that falls under the tourism industry. Benefits to the country include money generated from sponsorships, transport, media activities and advertising, Pawina said.

“We estimate that more than Bt500 million per year is being generated by Thailand’s hosting of beauty contest activities, working out at between Bt15 million and Bt20 million for each content,” she said.

“That can be a starting point for boosting other related businesses, such as business travel, hotels, air and land transport service, as well as advertising and public relations. The move will reinforce the government policy, backed by the private sector, to mobilise the tourism sector in Thailand under the Thailand 4.0 economic model.”

Pawina said that MAI has expertise in hosting beauty pageants both in Thailand and beyond. The company also owns the copyrights from ERM Thailand for hosting more than 18 major beauty pageant contests all over the world.

“These factors show that we are more than just an organiser of beauty pageant contents,” Pawina said. “If you look at the overall beauty pageant contest industry in Asean, we (Thailand) are at the centre of it in the region. MAI represents Thailand as an organiser of local beauty pageant contests.

“We also hold the right for hosting international beauty contests in Thailand. Today, MAI as a leader in international beauty pageants, aims to develop the beauty industry continuously in Thailand and beyond. We are ready to move the industry forward to a world-class level.”

MAI, which also organises modelling competitions, is gearing up to host Miss Tourism Queen International 2018 from May 8-17. The final round of the contest will be held on May 16 at the Royal Thai Navy Convention Hall.

Pawina said the company is more active than ever with introducing diversity in the contest formats to respond to global trends. “The beauty pageant business in the international market today has reached the stage where the competition is more aggressive,” Pawina said. “Copyrighted and non-copyrighted beauty pageants alike have adjusted their ways of organising the contests to respond to the global trend. MAI will continue to develop new forms of contest activities, and judging criteria to respond to the global trend. The contest information will be fully publicised through social networks to cover worldwide target groups and promote Thailand’s image in this industry.

“As the business leader in organising domestic and international beauty pageants and modelling competitions, and the holder of ERM copyrights, we are ready to sell our franchises to international buyers.

“Last year, we sold five franchises of international beauty pageants including Miss All Nation, and Miss Tourism Queen. We also sold 10 franchises in Thailand including Mister Manhunt International, and Miss all Nation. Our revenue target for the year 2018, which includes ERM copyright sales and MAI’s competition organising is set to grow by 5 per cent, for an increase of Bt30 million,”

She said the aim of the Miss Tourism Queen International 2018 “is not only to seek the most beautiful and talented girls, but also to create a good image of Thailand” and to help strengthen the economy. “We are ready to help promote Thailand’s tourism industry and help the government achieve the target of driving Thailand towards the top 10 of tourism countries,” Pawina said.

Reforms in line for Article 44 nudge

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Kobsak Pootrakool, Minister of the Prime Minister's Office, outlines the government's reform commitment.
Kobsak Pootrakool, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, outlines the government’s reform commitment.

Reforms in line for Article 44 nudge

Economy May 05, 2018 01:00

By WICHIT CHAITRONG
THE NATION

THE government is set to wield its sweeping powers under a constitutional provision more often to speed up a series of economic and other reforms over the coming months, a senior government official said yesterday.

The use of the contentious Article 44 under the interim constitution – a power vested with the junta chief – was likely to be used more frequently to clear a path through regulatory obstacles, Kobsak Pootrakool, Minister of the Prime Minister’s Office, told a press conference.

“The government will consider applying Article 44 in the next two to three months in order to turn many proposals under the reform agenda into tangible practices,” Kobsak said.

His comments came after he chaired a meeting of the committee responsible for driving the national reforms.

Kobsak also met with senior officials from all ministries as part of his efforts to seek cooperation from them for the reforms – on the social, economic and political fronts – to be pushed through under the government’s controversial 20-year national strategy.

Among these aims, the government would pare the large public sector into a lean structure, he said.

For the next few months, the government will implement a so-called quick-win strategy for 30 projects to be pushed ahead, Kobsak said. These include initiatives such as allowing farmers to grow and make use of protected trees, such as for teak and Siamese rosewood timber, on their land, he said. The government will initiate about 110 flagship projects and activities related to the reform agenda, Kobsak said.

The government will also draft 80 items of legislation and amend about 100 existing laws that are deemed obsolete, said Kobsak.

“If the government needs to make changes to the current laws, it may opt to use Article 44 to speed up the process since the passage of legislative amendments via the National Legislative Assembly takes too much time,” he said.

After that, the government planned to start series of reforms before the next election early next year, Kobsak said. The first group of reforms would cover five key areas, he said.

Kobsak marked out the public sector as the first target for the reforms, with the aim of improving public services. He cited as an example a proposal to allow people to file complaints with any police station, instead of just the station where a criminal case has arisen, as is the current practice.

The government may also set up a higher education ministry as part of reforms in university education.

The Ministry of Tourism and Sports and the Ministry of Science and Technology would be among the first ministries to be reformed, Kobsak said.

Efforts to improve people’s living standards made up the thrust of the second area of reform. The use of social enterprises and community banks would be promoted, among other measures, Kobsak said.

In the third area of focus, the government would tackle corruption and set up a watchdog centre. A related measure would see the government would create a software application that enables people to report irregularities at government offices, Kobsak said.

He identified a fourth group of reforms as efforts to narrow the widening gap between rich and poor. Measures would include new taxes and a redistribution of land ownership. A fifth area of focus concerns the promotion of a form of democracy that encourages the participation of ordinary people. This would lead to what Kobsak called political decentralisation.

Asked about the approach for reform of influential ministries, such as Interior and Defence, Kobsak said the process would take time for the large ministries.

He claimed the junta-backed government had carried out a series of reforms but people could not remember them.

Kobsak’s comments appear at odds with what many people perceive as the economic and political realities in Thailand. This gap in perception is evident from the growing complaints about the government’s poor economic performance and a lack of civil liberties and associated widespread violations of human rights.

A group of political activists has called for an early election and demanded opportunities for people’s participation in public affairs. The oft-delayed poll has been put back to early next year. Critics have also taken aim at the 20-year national strategy as being among the tools the junta can use to maintain its hold on power.

Singapore stages startup summit

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ศาสตร์เกษตรดินปุ๋ย : ขอบคุณแหล่งข้อมูล : หนังสือพิมพ์ The Nation

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/Economy/30344617

Singapore stages startup summit

Economy May 04, 2018 17:53

By The Nation

Dr Koh Poh Koon, Singapore’s trade minister, and Dr Pansak Siriruchatapong, vice minister of the Ministry of Digital Economy and Society, recently hosted the Global Innovation Alliance Bangkok event which included a memorandum of understanding (MOU) signing ceremony between the government and private sectors of Thailand and Singapore.

Thanasorn Jaidee, president of True Digital Park, Thailand’s first and Southeast Asia’s largest digital hub, signed the MOU with Edmas Neo of the Action Community for Entrepreneurship (ACE) Singapore, to integrate the two countries’ startups.

True Group said the collaboration would bring an exchange of in-depth information to establish its “True Digital Park – ACE Singapore Centre” at the True Digital Park, which would advise both Thai and Singaporean startups, organise activities to equip firms with the necessary know-how. It will also provide opportunities for Thai and Singaporean startups to expand their business and increase competitive advantage in Southeast Asia.