Alternative routes Bangkokians can take to avoid New Year traffic
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022
The Highway Police Division has come up with alternative routes Bangkokians can take when driving out of the city during the New Year holidays.
In an announcement on Facebook, the division offered the following options for motorists heading to eastern seaboard provinces:
• Highway No 7 motorway • Highway No 304 through Bangkok’s Min Buri and Nong Chok districts • Highway No 34 through Bangkok’s Bang Na district to Chachoengsao’s Bang Pakong district • Elevated Bang Na-Chon Buri Expressway • Highway No 3 (Sukhumvit).
For people heading Northeast, the following options are available: • On Phahonyothin Highway, take a right turn at Phu Khae junction to Highway 21 (Phu Khae-Lom Sak), take a right turn again at Muang Khom intersection to Highway 2256 or turn left to Highway 205. Both lead to Highway 201 towards Chaiyaphum province. • Those heading to Nakhon Ratchasima can use Highway 304 through Chachoengsao and Prachinburi. • Drive to Sa Kaew’s Aranyaprathet district before taking Highway 348 towards Buri Ram province.
Motorists heading North can: • Take the Eastern ring road (Highway No 9) to Klong Luang in Pathum Thani before shifting to Highway 3214 and Highway 347. Then take a left turn at the Bang Pahan intersection in Ayutthaya towards the Asian Highway heading North to Ang Thong. • Take the Western ring road (Highway No 9) before changing to Highway 340 and merging with Highway No 1 (Phahonyothin) on the way to Nakhon Sawan.
People heading South can take Highway No 35 (Rama II) and Highway No 4 (Phetchkasem).
Nation Group executives convey concern for Princess
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022
Nation Group chairman Marut Arthakaivalvatee led a ceremony wishing a speedy and full recovery for Princess Bajrakitiyabha Narendira at King Chulalongkorn Memorial Hospital in Bangkok on Saturday morning.
The Princess – the daughter of His Majesty the King and HRH Princess Soamsawali – is being treated at the hospital for a heart-related ailment.
Marut was accompanied by Adisak Limparungpatanakij, a special advisor to Nation Group and Aeumsree Boonhachairat, an advisor to its chief executive officer.
The Nation Group executives offered a vase of flowers before a portrait of the Princess and wrote messages conveying their wishes for a quick and full recovery.
Staff at Nation Group are worried about her condition and hope she will recover soon, Marut said, adding that the company plans to hold a religious ceremony for her.
The Royal Household Bureau said in a statement on Thursday that the Princess had fainted while training her dog for a contest in Nakhon Ratchasima province on Wednesday evening. She was subsequently hospitalised.
Taekwondo’s Panipak named Thailand’s top athlete 2nd year running
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022
Taekwondo Olympic gold medallist Panipak “Tennis” Wongpattanakit has been named Thailand’s “best female amateur athlete” for two years running now that she bagged the latest on Friday.
The award was handed out at a ceremony celebrating Thai athletes and sports personnel on National Sports Day, which is marked on December 16 every year. The event was held at Hua Mark Indoor Stadium in Bangkok.
This year saw 39 awards in 12 categories handed out to medallists and upcoming stars.
Badminton prodigies Kunlavut Vitidsarn and Pitchamon Opatniput came away with “best male” and “best female youth” amateur athletes of the year awards respectively.
Meanwhile, Thailand Volleyball Association was handed two trophies, one for its president Somporn Chaibangyang, who was named “best executive”, and another for Danai Sriwacharamaytakul as “best coach”.
Sprinter Puripol Boonson came away with the “best male youth amateur athlete” award, and Moto2 rider Somkiat Chantra the “best male professional athlete”. Golfer Atthaya Thitikul was named this year’s “best female professional athlete”.
Using Line can become too expensive for influencers in the new year
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022
The closure of Line Idol, a social media channel tailored for influencers to connect directly with fans, can hit content creators with a bill of more than a million baht each.
This estimate was provided on Friday by Rawee Tawantharong, president of the Society for Online News Providers.
Social platform Line Thailand recently announced it was shutting down the Line Idol channel from December 31 and suggested that users switch to the paid service Line Official Account (Line OA) instead.
However, the free channel Voom is still available for influencers, bloggers, publishers, media or businesses looking for a free social-media channel to promote their content or products.
As for the Line OA channel, Rawee said influencers with hundreds of thousands of followers may end up having to shell out lots of money because they will have to pay for each promotional message they send out.
“These content creators pay between 5,000 and 10,000 baht per month to use Line Idol, but if they switch to Line OA, they will have to pay 0.04 for each message they send, which works out to 40,000 for 10 messages to 100,000 followers. At this rate, it can cost a million baht or more each month,” he said.
“I believe it’s time for Thailand to develop its own social-media platform, so content creators are not hit when foreign companies change their policies after making profits from data created by Thai people,” Rawee said.
The government and related agencies need to act fast as we are losing our ‘digital sovereignty’, he added.
Cool weather forecast for North and Northeast, rising waves in South
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022
Cooler weather has arrived in the North and Northeast, with temperatures dropping 6 to 8 degrees Celsius from today until Tuesday as a cold front from China extends into the upper half of Thailand, the Thai Meteorological Department said.
Strong wings are also likely.
Temperatures in the Central and East regions, including Greater Bangkok, will fall by 3 to 5 degrees Celsius.
The meteorological department also said the northeast monsoon across the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea will intensify over the next few days. As a result, some areas of the South will see heavy rain. Flashfloods are a danger, it warned.
Waves in both the Gulf of Thailand and the Andaman Sea are forecast to rise to between 2 and 4 metres. They will surpass 4 metres during thundershowers, the department said. It urged coastal residents to prepare for surges. Ships should proceed with caution and small boats should remain on short, the department said.
AIS Playbox users told they won’t get to watch World Cup finals on the service
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022
SBN has notified its customers that it is still unable to broadcast the last two matches of 2022 World Cup through its AIS Playbox service despite True Corp’s announcement that it would allow IPTV operators like AIS to broadcast the last two matches for free.
True announced on Friday that it would allow other IPTV operators to broadcast the final two matches for free. These are Morocco vs Croatia for 3rd place on Saturday, and France vs Argentina for first place on Sunday. Operators need to submit a written request to the company, which holds the exclusive broadcasting rights of the World Cup on the IPTV platform.
True also required other IPTV operators to specify how they will prevent infringements of intellectual property, such as illegal broadcasts via websites or mobile apps.
On November 25, Super Broadband Network (SBN) was issued an order by the Intellectual Property and International Trade Court to halt the broadcast of the football tournament following a request from True. True said that SBN could be violating its rights.
On Friday night, SBN told its customers that it had sent letters to True, the Intellectual Property and International Trade Court, and Sports Authority of Thailand, asking for the right to broadcast the last two matches of the World Cup. The letters cited True’s announcement. SBN said it had yet to receive an answer.
Trains added to northern, northeastern routes for New Year exodus
SATURDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2022
Six more trains will be added on the northern and northeastern routes for Bangkok residents visiting and returning from their hometowns during the New Year Holiday season, State Railway of Thailand (SRT) said on Friday.
The agency will also add cars to other trains so that they can handle more passengers, said Ekarat Sriarayanphong, its director of public relations.
With additional cars and trains, SRT will be able to handle up to 100,000 passengers per day during the holidays, Ekarat added.
The state agency will suspend two trains operating on day-trip routes and use their cars for the northern and northeastern routes for the holidays.
The six additional trains are:
Outbound on December 29
1. Train no. 955, departing Bangkok at 10.30pm and arriving in Uttaradit at 7.30am.
2. Train no. 967, departing Bangkok at 9.15pm and arriving in Udon Thani at 8.10am.
3. Train no. 977, departing Bangkok at 9.45pm and arriving in Ubon Ratchathani at 9am.
Inbound on January 2
4. Train no. 962, departing Uttaradit at 7.40pm and arriving in Bangkok at 4.10am.
5. Train no. 934, departing Ubon Ratchathani at 7.30pm and arriving in Bangkok at 6.25am.
6. Train no. 936, departing Udon Thani at 9.10pm and arriving in Bangkok at 7.30am.
Cambodia’s Phka Rumduol jasmine variety has been crowned the World’s Best Rice for the fifth time at the TRT (The Rice Trader) World Rice Conference in Phuket, Thailand on November 17.
Phka Rumduol is a type of long-grain jasmine rice and is one of the varieties exported under the “ Malys Angkor ” certification mark. The Cambodian Agricultural Research and Development Institute says it released the variety for farmer use only in 1999, after 10 years of development and testing.
Phka Rumduol had previously won the award four times, for three consecutive years from 2012-2014, and then again in 2018 in Hanoi, Vietnam. The jasmine variety took second place three years in a row from 2015-2017.
This reputation will further help promote the quality of Cambodian rice”
The Thai Rice Exporters Association (TREA) has urged farmers and researchers to improve their strains after Thailand lost its crown to Cambodia in the World’s Best Rice Awards 2022.
Thailand’s Hom Mali rice, which had come top for the previous two years, fell to second. Hom Mali lost by only one point. Fragrant rice varieties from Vietnam and Laos were awarded third and fourth, respectively.
Hom Mali holds the record with seven awards.
One of the judges said the Hom Mali rice this year is not as fragrance as it used to be.”
Ambitious FTI project to use plastic for paving roads makes headway
FRIDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2022
Nongluck Ajanapanya
The Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) has completed the first phase of the pilot study into its project to use recycled plastic waste for road construction, and started the second phase, which involves practical application of the experimental results on real roads.
FTI chairman Kriengkrai Thiennukul told a press conference on Friday that this innovative road development project is one of the real examples of how Thailand is taking actual action to address the current environmental crisis.
He added that the second phase of the project, which will begin next year, will collaborate with the Department of Rural Roads to use recycled plastic on roads along a predetermined route.
This will help ensure that the country’s innovation is viable and ready for widespread adoption.
Thailand will be one of the first countries in the world to come up with such an innovative project to manage plastic waste pollution on this scale, Kriengkrai said.
The recycled plastic roads will provide Thailand with a new potential business model based on the bio-circular-green (BCG) economy, he said.
Peerapong Jitsangiam, head of the research team from Chiang Mai University’s Department of Civil Engineering, explained that the idea of using plastic as part of road construction was born after the researchers discovered some similar qualities between single-use plastic and asphalt.
He pointed out that it can be soft when heated and solidify when cooled. So, the team has spent the last 12 months attempting to quantify the appropriate amount of plastic waste to mix in the asphalt concrete mixture required to construct a road.
The researchers have moved on to the trial stage to assess the level of safety and durability of this new method of road building, constructing a road less than one kilometre long at Chiang Mai University for actual use during the pilot first phase.
Peerapong said the outcome was satisfactory. There was no microplastic leakage to harm the environment, and the road’s durability is superior to using only asphalt.
“This not only helps with reducing problems associated with plastic waste management, but also cuts the cost of road construction. Such a practice in road construction will prevent many of the environmental issues,” he said.
Veera Kwanloetchit, president of the Plastics Institute of Thailand and secretary of the PPP Plastics project, lauded the accomplishment, which is in accordance with the government’s goal of reducing 50% of plastic waste in Thailand’s ocean by 2027.
“Thailand ranks 10th in the world in terms of waste discharge into the sea. We generated approximately 2.76 million tonnes of plastic waste per year as a result of our consumption. Only 500,000 tonnes of plastic waste were recycled, with the remainder ending up in incinerators, landfills and the environment. As a result, having a green innovation method of managing plastic waste will sustain our country’s prosperity,” he said.
Nicholas Kolesch, vice president of the project at the Alliance to End Plastic Waste, which provided most of the funding for the study, expressed his delight at the successful completion of Phase 1 of this historic research project.
He noted that this would pave the way for a more sustainable path, connecting people and strengthening economies while preventing plastic waste from entering the environment.
“The fact that the results of this study will be made open source allows for a faster rate of valorisation of plastic waste globally, particularly post-consumer materials that are difficult to recycle and of low value,” Kolesch said.
The study on innovation in road development using recycled plastic waste is part of the “Recycled Plastics in Roads Study” project to construct and strengthen roads using recycled plastic waste in line with the circular economy principle to achieve sustainable development.
The aim of the project is to provide knowledge on how to take advantage of post-consumer plastics and transform them into a core material for building and strengthening asphalt roads.
In addition, it helps reduce environmental problems and waste volume by utilising hard-to-recycle post-consumer plastic waste to become value-added resources for sustainability.
The FTI’s member companies and alliances launched the recycled plastic road development project in 2021. The project is funded by the Alliance to End Plastic Waste.
Meanwhile, the Thai Ministry of Transport, Chiang Mai University, and PPP Plastics have collaborated to turn knowledge about using plastic waste for road paving into action and to solve environmental problems in a sustainable manner.
The project is a demonstration of what public-private collaboration can do to identify and fund practical solutions that can be applied in many countries, FTI’s chairman said.
Kriengkrai Thiennukul
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