Huge crowds of Thai people of Chinese descent went to Yaowarat Road in Bangkok on Friday to purchase goods in preparation for the Chinese New Year festival at the weekend.
In Chinese tradition, today — two days before the New Year — is called “the day for shopping”. Thai-Chinese people purchase foods, fruits and other offerings associated with the festival.
People pray to Chinese gods and commemorate their ancestors on Saturday, which is called “the day to pay respect”.
Chinese New Year Day, which falls on Sunday, is also called “the day for visiting” when people reunite with their relatives, greet each other and travel outdoors.
Young people usually hand out presents, including four oranges, to seniors on Chinese New Year Day. The seniors usually hand out two oranges and red envelops called “ang pao” to young people in return.
Meanwhile, a special event is being held to mark Chinese New Year festival on Yaowarat Road until February 15.
The event from 6pm to midnight features light decorations along the road and the installation of a 1.8-metre rabbit statue at the Royal Jubilee Gate to mark the Year of the Rabbit in Chinese astrology.
Thailand and China are marking the 48th anniversary of their diplomatic ties this year, and the Tourism Authority of Thailand is expecting a steady influx of visitors from China.
One hundred sixty years ago, in September 1863, during the January Uprising, the Russians demolished the Zamoyski Palace in Warsaw, throwing the piano once played by Fryderyk Chopin out of the building’s window. The moment made history.
Fryderyk Chopin’s music aroused patriotic sentiments even before his scores left the printing presses. Even back when he was known only as the son of the proprietor of one of Warsaw’s finest boarding houses, he would perform for his colleagues in the evenings, improvising on historical themes. Later, the guests at his salon in Paris could listen to the entire poems, only fragments of which he poured onto paper.
The nationalist, patriotic feature of his work was apparent not only to Poles. It was recognised already by Robert Schumann, the first international reviewer of the young Chopin (it was he who, with regard to Chopin’s Variations pp. 2, wrote ‘Hats off gentlemen, a genius!’).
In his review of Chopin’s Piano Concertos, he characterises the artist alluding to the November Uprising: “So he stood, supplied with the deepest knowledge of his art, aware of his power and hence armed with courage, when in 1830 the mighty voice of the peoples rang out in the west. Hundreds of young men awaited that moment, but Chopin was the first on the ramparts […]. Fate had prepared something more for the meeting of a new time and new relations: it distinguished Chopin and made him interesting through his expressive, original Polish nationality. […] if the autocratic monarch [the tsar] knew what a dangerous enemy threatened him in Chopin’s works, in the simple melodies of the mazurkas, he would ban them. Chopin’s compositions are cannons buried in flowers.”
The echoes of Kurpiński’s insurrectionist song Litwinka in op. 49 or the ‘heroic’ developments of the polonaise in op. 53 were evident immediately upon listening.
Chopin left ample evidence of his patriotic commitment. The outbreak of the 1830 uprising became a watershed moment in his musical style. When his friends, nigh forcibly, stopped him from returning home and taking up arms, he wrote that he ‘thunderbolts on the piano’ at night. He began to introduce dark tones, violent contrasts and numerous chromatic runs that break down the classical simplicity of the major-minor style.
According to his family accounts, it was also then that he wrote the Etude in C Minor, known as the ‘Revolutionary’, the violent Scherzo in B minor and even a sketch of the Prelude in D Minor, published many years later in the op. 28 cycle referring to Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier.
Chopin was well versed in the geopolitical situation, as best evidenced by a letter to Julian Fontana from April 1848, in which he writes, among other things: ‘Our people are gathering in Poznań. Czartoryski was the first to go there, but God only knows what direction events will take […] horrible things are likely to happen, but when it all ends, there will be a great, big Poland; in a word: Poland.”
When in September 1863 (14 years after the composer’s death), Russian troops demolished the Zamoyski Palace in Warsaw in retaliation for the January Uprising participants’ attempt to assassinate the governor Theodor Berg, surely nobody realised that the destruction of the piano would take on a symbolic dimension.
Cyprian Kamil Norwid, who met Chopin in Paris as a youth, immortalised this moment, raising it in his famous poem Chopin’s Piano to the status of a clash of cultures and value systems. It was an important act of including Chopin’s work in the discourse of the independence struggle, perhaps most clearly demonstrated by Ignacy Jan Paderewski in his famous speech in Lviv in 1910, on the 100th anniversary of the composer’s birth.
Indeed, the address opened the path of political activity for the future Polish prime minister: “Chopin embodies everything we have been forbidden: the colourful kontushes, the gold-lined belts, […] the clank of the nobles’ sabres and the scythes or our peasant’s, the moan of the wounded chest, the rebellion of the shackled spirit, […] the slavery’s pain, the freedom’s mourning, the tyrants’ curse and the victory’s joyful song.” It is clear why the German occupation authorities banned his songs during World War II.
In 21st-century Poland, Chopin’s music still holds a special place. Millions of Poles follow the International Chopin Piano Competition every five years as Warsaw fills with the composer’s music, from the philharmonic hall to the taxis.
Today we also understand the extraordinary universalism of Chopin’s work, whose genius finds a way into the hearts of people from all over the world and helps to build international communities of those who admire beauty and truth.
Artur Szklener
Director of the Fryderyk Chopin Institute.
*The text is simultaneously published in the Polish monthly “Wszystko Co Najważniejsze” as part of a project carried out with the Institute of National Remembrance and the Polish National Foundation.
No-fee trading app Liberator aims to open access to Thai stock market
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2023
A new stock-trading app launched on Thursday looks set to disrupt Thailand’s investment scene with no-fee trading and a community for knowledge exchange.
The Liberator application was created to broaden access to Thai stock trading and help ordinary people build the value of their investments, according to developer Liberator Securities.
Company chairman Bakban Boonlert said the app will become a community that enables users to boost their investments at low cost.
Bakban said that although up to 30,000 new investors venture into the Thai stock market each year, 40% drop out due to investment costs.
“Liberator aims to attract new investors to the capital market while promoting strong and valuable investments,” he said.
Bakban Boonlert
Bakban also thanked the Stock Exchange of Thailand and the Securities and Exchange Commission for allowing the company to launch the app.
Pavalin Limthongchai
Liberator Securities CEO Pavalin Limthongchai said the app aims to create an alternative channel for investing.
The company also plans to offer other innovations to expand its fintech business.
“We aim to attract at least 50,000 monthly active users by the end of this year,” Pavalin said.
Bangkok (January 20, 2023) – “Too many people miss the silver lining because they’re expecting gold.” – Maurice Seitter
It’s been a tough year for crypto and blockchain. We’ve experienced severe breaches of trust, resulting in an adverse hit on the public and regulators’ perception of the industry. It’s already clear that recent events have rattled investor confidence and left long-term impacts that will require the industry to take significant steps and efforts to mend.
However, there are also silver lining for the crypto industry in the past year. Beyond the market fluctuations, we look deeper into what the crypto space has achieved this year in terms of building products and services, expanding their accessibility, introducing new solutions to old problems, and learning important lessons.
BUIDLing – The Prelude to Mass Adoption
Better scalability
For years, the industry has been trying to find solutions to address blockchain scalability for higher speeds of transaction processing. Within what is described as the Blockchain Trilemma, scalability is one of a blockchain’s three desirable properties, the others being security and decentralization.
In preparation for mass adoption, Ethereum transitioned from a proof-of-work consensus algorithm to one that uses proof-of-stake on September 15, 2022. This scaling solution, known as The Merge, is arguably the biggest scalability upgrade that the industry has seen since Bitcoin’s Taproot. Also, thanks to The Merge, Ethereum’s energy consumption dropped by an estimated 99.95%.
Increased accessibility of crypto services and resources
The lack of access to crypto is a barrier to adoption that the industry has been working hard to clear: without wide access, there can be no adoption. Therefore, Binance’s yearlong efforts to increase accessibility include expanding the languages supported on Binance to 40 languages, issuing 1.7 million Binance Cards in the EEA region, and supporting more than 100 fiat currencies with Binance P2P. Currently, we welcome more than 600,000 Binance NFT users weekly and process an average of $2 billion worth of crypto daily.
Security and compliance
It became glaringly obvious this year that, in order to push the industry forward, digital asset service providers must massively improve compliance and security measures to better protect users from bad actors in the crypto space.
By the end of 2022, Binance bumped up the number of registrations, licenses, and authorizations it has secured to 14, which includes major economic hubs like Dubai and France. In order to strengthen our compliance operations, we’ve also grown our compliance team to over 750 experts, an increase of more than 500% compared to 2021. We also worked tirelessly on sharpening our security and identity verification protocols. Today, only users who have verified their identity via government-issued documents can transact in digital assets on the Binance platform – a strict yet necessary approach to make everyone in our ecosystem safer.
Global Adoption: What’s the Progress?
Share of respondents who indicated they either owned or used cryptocurrencies. Source: Statista
Despite the challenging market conditions and setbacks in sentiment and trust, global adoption marches on, – both on the level of retail users and institutions adding blockchain-based tools and services to their arsenal.
Recent numbers from data hub Statista suggest steady growth in crypto ownership and use in the majority of the 56 countries surveyed compared to last year. Thailand had 44% of crypto ownership and use, ranking as the second-largest country following Nigeria. The growth rate is almost double compared to 2019. This result aligns with Hootsuite, a global social media management platform, which reported that Thailand is in the top five countries by the number of internet users aged 16 to 64 who own some forms of cryptocurrency. While Statista reported the number of users is expected to grow to 5.12m users by 2027.
A study by Binance Research found that many traditional institutions were getting on the crypto bandwagon or continuing to leverage crypto and blockchain technology this year. These include the likes of JPMorgan, Rakuten, Tencent, Tesla, Instagram, PayPal, American Express, Nasdaq, McDonald’s, Google Cloud, Mastercard, Sony, Nike and many more. A glance at the plethora of sectors that continue to adopt blockchain technology is illuminating. The list of use cases – and ultimately intrinsic value – of crypto continues to grow.
Key Learnings of 2022
The industry needs to remain agile and responsive to disruptive events.
Much of the industry’s focus has been on driving adoption and improving technology. This approach could lead many companies to overlook the possibility of disruptive events on the industry scale catching the flat-footed. In light of unforeseen crises in 2022, it’s clear that crypto platforms have to put in even more effort to mitigate critical risks from events and refine processes by being more transparent, optimizing risk management protocols, and enhancing user trust.
Over the past two years, regulatory compliance has been a core focus at Binance. In 2022, Binance’s compliance team grew from 500 to 750 people. This is part of the organization’s ongoing efforts to strengthen its compliance capabilities. Recently, Binance announced that it has joined the Association of Certified Sanctions Specialists (ACSS), the world’s only organization bringing together sanctions compliance professionals. By joining the association, Binance will be leveraging the training materials, comprehensive databases, and deep networks within ACSS to further enhance the skills and expertise of its compliance team and continue setting the industry standard for security and compliance alongside other industry players.
What’s Next?
The crypto industry has grown unprecedentedly over the past few years. Regardless of the negative events that have transpired in 2022, we’ve achieved milestones that were unimaginable just a couple of years ago. As the world’s largest crypto exchange by trading volume, Binance is responsible for ensuring our users’ safety. We continue to draw on past learnings, pursue dialogue with policymakers, and urge others in the industry to do the same to stay on track with sustainable and secure growth of the crypto industry.
Transformation Marketing Trends to Watch in 2023 by MTX
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2023
Farida Waller
Marketers need to rethink about doing marketing by cooperating the Client x Technology x Creativity as a framework in designing marketing strategies.
The suggestion came from the new marketing course “MTX by RISE“.
The course was organised by Saroj Laohasiri, head of marketing transformation at Bluebik Group, Kornkanok Chaopricha, an entrepreneurial marketer, and Supachai Kid Parchariyanon, CEO and Co-Founder of RISE.
This course will focus on dismantling traditional marketing ideas with nine topics that will transform marketing thinking in every dimension – including marketing transformation, customer of the future, web3, and artificial intelligence – using experiential workshops and case studies.
More than 30 executives will give lectures.
Oliver Kittipong Veerataecha, group chief marketing officer at Dentsu Thailand, said: “It’s not about perfection but more about making the business interesting. New technologies pop up all the time, but understanding customer behaviour is still more important.”
Sutirapan Sakkawatra, head of marketing at SCB Thailand, said: “Know your business model. What can be digitised must be digitised and what can be measured can be improved and replaced.”
Suthipa Panyamahasup, chief personal and healthcare business officer at Osotspa, said: “With today’s wide data reach, you need to know what is rubbish and what is a real diamond. You need to know how to choose and prioritise your information.”
The three will be guest speakers. They will talk about the importance of critical thinking, having a clear end vision, and the necessity for corporations to not stay still if they don’t want to fall behind.
Transformation in the organisation needs to be done before any recession to defend against loss. Cutting unnecessary expenses and increasing efficiency is one form of transformation, Suthipa said.
At the end of the day, it is about capturing the consumer’s attention and generating revenue, Sakkawatra and Veerataecha agreed.
“MTX by RISE” is a 10-week course starting on February 28 and running till May 18. Further information is available at mtx.riseaccel.com.
Private clinics baffled by government move to restrict handing out of key AIDS medicines
In December, the Health Ministry issued a decree that private clinics could no longer hand out PrEP and PEP medicines, which are used as drugs to reduce the chances of contracting HIV from sex or drug use.
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The move by the ministry has created an obstacle for patients and added to the workload of many public hospitals.
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The Rainbow Sky Association is one of many private clinics providing healthcare services, such as blood tests for STDs and giving out PEP and PrEP drugs, following Thailand’s national strategy to end AIDS by 2030.
Nato allies pledge more arms for Ukraine, Germany holds out on tanks
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2023
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Thursday said he was “expecting strong decisions” when dozens of defence ministers meet at an airbase in Germany on Friday.
“We are expecting a powerful military aid package from the US,” he said in his nightly video address.
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization and defence leaders from roughly 50 countries will confer at Ramstein Air Base, the latest in a series of meetings since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago.
The focus is expected to be not on what the United States will provide, but on whether Germany will send its Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine or at least approve their transfer from third countries.
Polish PM ‘pessimistic’ about German permission for Leopard tank transfer to Ukraine
Poland’s prime minister said on Thursday he was “moderately pessimistic” about Germany giving other countries permission to re-export Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine.
“I am moderately sceptical, moderately pessimistic because the Germans are defending themselves against this like a devil protects himself against holy water”, Mateusz Morawiecki told reporters.
Fearing winter will give Russian forces time to regroup and unleash a major attack, Ukraine is pushing for the Leopard battle tanks, which are held by an array of Nato nations but whose transfer to Ukraine requires Germany’s approval.
A German government source said Berlin would lift its objections if Washington sends its own Abrams tanks.
Poland and Finland have already said they would send Leopards if Germany lifts its veto. In a sign of mounting frustration, Poland suggested it might do so even if Germany tries to block it.
Fear of nuclear war is the reason for Scholz’s hesitancy to send Leopard tanks to Ukraine – analyst
Enormous fear of a nuclear war is the reason why German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has so far blocked allies from sending its Leopard 2 tanks, a military analyst and former Austrian defence ministry official Gustav Gressel said on Thursday.
Speaking to Reuters in Berlin, Gressel said “the chancellery” believed it was the “prime target. I don’t know how this strange perception came about.”
“I have a bit of an impression that Scholz has lost sight of the fact that Germany is actually a part of the Nato alliance. He’s mentally not Westbound,” said Gressel who served five years in the Austrian Armed Forces.
Washington and many Western allies say the Leopards – which Germany made in the thousands during the Cold War and exported to its allies – are the only suitable option available in big enough numbers.
A German government source said Berlin would lift its objections if Washington sends its own Abrams tanks. But US officials say they have no plans yet to send the Abrams, which runs on powerful turbine engines seen as using too much fuel for Kyiv’s strained logistics system to supply at the front.
Tanks important for Ukraine to match enemy, Nato military chief says
A senior Nato military commander said on Thursday that tanks were important for Ukraine to be a match for Russia, amid protracted discussions among Western allies over whether to supply German-made tanks to Kyiv.
“I think in terms of matching what the enemy has it is important for the Ukrainians,” the head of the Nato Military Committee Admiral Rob Bauer told reporters after a two-day meeting in Brussels.
Fearing winter will give Russia time to regroup and launch a major attack, Ukraine is pushing for Leopard battle tanks.
Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Christopher Cavoli, said that Western technology was outperforming Russian technology in the war but cautioned that tanks alone were not the solution.
“It’s not just tank on tank, it’s the whole system, it’s the supplies, it’s the logistics system, it’s the maintenance system, it’s the target-finding capability and all of that comes together. So the complex of an army is much more important than any one of its individual parts,” he said.
Netherlands finalising Patriot system plan for Ukraine, to announce more support
The Netherlands is finalising plans to provide Patriot air missile defence systems to Ukraine with Germany and the United States and will announce further military support to Kyiv on Friday, Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren said on Thursday.
Dozens of Ukraine’s allies meet on Friday at a US army base in Ramstein, Germany, with billions of dollars in new weapons to be pledged.
“We are joining the United States, and Germany in their project to provide Patriots to Ukraine,” Ollongren told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. “We are working out details and will provide details in Ramstein.”
When asked whether that meant the Netherlands would provide spare parts, missiles or the system, she said the details were still being debated.
“What they need right now in this phase of the war is weapons to push the Russians back from the invaded parts of the country and more air defence because these attacks are still going on,” she said, adding that the Netherlands would make announcements tomorrow.
A major question mark remains on whether German-made Leopard battle tanks, which are held by an array of Nato nations, but whose transfer to Ukraine requires Germany’s approval, will be on the table tomorrow. Germany has so far held back.
Ollongren said she was confident a solution would be found for supplying modern battle tanks, but that the Netherlands, which leases Leopard 2 tanks from Germany, would need a green light from Berlin before deciding whether to contribute.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warned Nato on Thursday that a defeat of Russia in Ukraine could trigger a nuclear war.
“I’m not that much concerned about nuclear escalation. I think that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and the Russian leadership knows that if you go there, you accept the possibility of total destruction and I don’t think that’s a risk they want to take,” Ollongren said.
Estonia to send $122 mln arms package to Ukraine
Estonia will send military equipment to Ukraine worth some 113 million euros ($122 million) in its latest package of support for the war against Russia, the Baltic country’s defence minister said on Thursday (January 19).
“What Ukrainians need most is heavy weaponry”, Estonian Defence Minister Hanno Pevkur told a joint news conference with his British counterpart and others.
Estonia, Britain and nine other countries pledged a raft of new military aid for Ukraine, in a joint statement signed by Pevkur, British defence Secretary Ben Wallace and others on Thursday ahead of a crunch meeting on arms for Kyiv scheduled to take place in Germany on Friday.
Fearing winter will give Russian forces time to regroup and unleash a major attack, Ukraine is pushing for German-made Leopard battle tanks, which are held by an array of Nato nations but whose transfer to Ukraine requires Germany’s approval.
Lithuanian defence minister Arvydas Anusauskas said he supported a British offer of a squadron from its fleet of Challenger tanks and said he hoped other nations would follow suit, without naming any country directly.
Poland and Finland have already said they would send Leopards if Germany lifts its veto. In a sign of mounting frustration, Poland suggested it might do so even if Germany tries to block it.
Sweden to send Archer artillery system to Ukraine
The Swedish government announced a new package of military aid to Ukraine on Thursday (January 19) that will include armoured infantry fighting vehicles and the Archer artillery system.
The package is worth 4.3 billion Swedish crowns ($419 million) and will also include light, portable NLAW anti-tank weapons, mine-clearing equipment and assault rifles.
Sweden will send about 50 of its tracked and armoured Type 90 infantry fighting vehicles. It can be used to transport up to eight infantry soldiers and is equipped with a 40-millimetre automatic canon.
The government did not specify how many Archer systems it would supply.
Sweden has 48 Archer systems, which is a vehicle-mounted self-propelled gun-howitzer made by Bofors BAE that Ukraine has long expressed an interest in adding to its arsenal as it seeks to repel Russian forces.
Ahead of the package presented on Thursday, Sweden had announced around 5 billion Swedish crowns of military aid to Ukraine as well as several instalments of humanitarian supplies.
Hundreds more Canada-made armoured vehicles to arrive in Ukraine by summer
A Canadian company supplying battle-ready armoured vehicles to Ukraine plans to deliver the 200 vehicles Ottawa promised to Kyiv before summer, the firm’s Chief Executive Officer Roman Shimonov said on Thursday.
Ontario-based Roshel Inc builds armoured vehicles for government and commercial organizations, including the US State Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (Nasa).
Its Roshel Senator armoured personnel carriers, built on Ford Motor Co’s F.N F-550 large pickup truck chassis with ballistic steel and fitted with mine-protection seats and other safety features, have been used by Ukrainian soldiers in their defence against the Russian invasion that began last February.
“Ukraine right now is in full-scale war … and they have to have a way to transport their personnel safely, and our vehicle provides them with this solution,” Shimonov said.
The Senators can be used as a medical evacuation vehicle or as a tactical combat vehicle, he said.
The company has established a “sophisticated” secure supply chain and has been shipping a few armoured vehicles every day, Shimonov said in an interview at Roshel’s assembly plant in Mississauga.
Canada has provided Ukraine with billions of dollars in aid, including over C$1 billion in military supplies. Shimonov declined to share details but said Ottawa’s order of 200 armoured vehicles for Ukraine is expected to be delivered by summer.
Dancing dragons, bright lights greet the Rabbit in Samut Prakan
SATURDAY, JANUARY 21, 2023
Samut Prakan’s Wat Dhammakatanyu (Xian Lo Dai Tien Gong Temple) burst into colour, light and sound on Friday evening to mark this year’s Lantern Festival.
The province has been holding this extravaganza as part of the Lunar New Year celebrations every year for the past 10 years. The Chinese New Year falls on Sunday, while the Lantern Festival runs until February 19.
The festival saw 5,000 lanterns of different shapes, sizes and colours decorating the temple’s central shrine that houses five Chinese gods carved from stone. The lanterns were specially imported from Taiwan for the occasion.
Wat Dhammakatanyu is also famous for its twin lions carved from jade guarding the gates. These are the largest in Thailand.
Entertaining visitors on Friday was a dragon show, the lion dance show and a variety of Thai-Chinese traditional stage performances. The devout also stopped at the shrine to pray for a healthy, wealthy and happy Year of the Rabbit.
Democrat credits party’s ministers for allocating funds to livestock farmers in deep South
FRIDAY, JANUARY 20, 2023
The allocation of 1.5 billion baht to a government project that encourages cow raising by residents of the southern border region is the brainchild of Deputy Prime Minister Jurin Laksanawisit and Agriculture Minister Chalermchai Srion, a Democrat Party official said on Friday.
Metee Arun, deputy spokesman of the ruling coalition member, thanked Jurin and Chalermchai for being instrumental in providing funding from the Department of Livestock Development’s Farmer Aid Fund to the Southern Border Cowboys project, which aims to have 50,000 cows raised in the southern border provinces.
The spokesman said that the project is a part of efforts to turn the Muslim-majority border region into a national hub for halal food.
“This will help improve the well-being of farmers and animal raisers in the southern border region, while increasing their incomes and upgrading their quality of life,” Metee said.
The spokesman said on Friday that when farmers have access to funds for raising cattle, they can earn a better livelihood. He said it was the Democrat Party’s policy to improve the quality of life of people in the southern border region, as well as throughout the country.
Jurin, who doubles as the commerce minister, is also the Democrat leader and Chalermchai is the party’s secretary-general.
Bakban Boonlert
Pavalin Limthongchai
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