13th best place to start a small buisness - CNN

While Singapore is still number 1, Thailand has made moves in the right direction:

This year, Thailand moved six places up the ranking from 19th position, thanks to recent reforms in registering property, protecting investors, trade and paying taxes.

These days, transferring property takes only two days and two procedures. Thailand also strengthened the rights of minority shareholders, making it easier to sue corporate directors, and introduced corporate income tax exemptions for small companies.

But significant obstacles to running a small business remain: starting a business takes 33 days, completing paperwork for taxes eats up 264 hours a year, and recovering debt from a bankrupt business takes nearly three years. The average recovery rate from an insolvent firm doesn't look good for creditors either, at 42.4 cents on the dollar.

First Thai Gold Medal

Good to see Thailand on the board with a Gold from Ms. Prapawadee in weight lifting. Her mom passed out during the competition.. hope she's ok.

True WiFi hotspots for free?

This could be some great news for Bangkokians.

The BMA will give away 500,000 free WiFi cards to the public at more than 50 travel centres and leading department stores. The sites, to be available free for a year, require access cards.

Anyone seen these cards yet? More..

UPDATE: Yeah too good to be true. Finding one of these free cards is next to impossible. The speeds, availability, and hoops necessary to jump thru make this pretty much a joke.

Bangkok Plastic Surgery Clinic Introduces Buttock Enlargement Service

This service is relatively new in Thailand as full hips were not so popular before. However, ever since the Latino craze swept the entertainment world, the ideal body image has shifted to fuller, curvier looks as opposed to stick-thin ones. Bangkok Plastic Surgery Clinic, one of the top surgical service providers in Thailand, saw the potential of this trend and without hesitation engaged itself in delivering the safest and best service to answer the trend.

Link

Train from Singapore to China?

Imagine the growth engine of a route from Singapore to China. Looks like it could happen:

Work on the 48km connection between Sisophan in Cambodia and Poipet near the Thai border will start early next year and be completed by 2010, said Minister of Public Works and Transport Sun Chanthol.

The link between Cambodia and Thailand is part of plans for a 5,500 km railway linking Singapore to Kunming, which was was first proposed by Asean in 1995.

Swiss man given 10 year visa (prison stay required)

Oliver Rudolf Jufer, 57, who had pleaded guilty to five counts of lese majeste, or insulting the monarchy, had faced a maximum sentence of 75 years in prison. TIME

Jufer was caught by surveillance cameras on Dec. 5 spray-painting black paint over five outdoor posters of King Bhumibol Adulyadej in the northern city of Chiang Mai...

His shirt says, "Just got out from court. Chiang Mai Prison."

I think it sends the appropriate message. While some may find it a bit harsh, it was a voluntary action, and disrespectful to a proud institution.

UPDATE: He was pardoned (and deported) by the generous King of Thailand.

YouTube unblocked

From Bangkok Post...

Authorities in Thailand temporarily blocked video sharing service YouTube on Friday and Saturday, though it remains unclear who did the blocking and why.

On Friday people trying to watch videos at http://www.youtube.com were instead greeted with an error page. By Saturday morning, rather than the error page, the site was redirected to http://www.mict.go.th, the ICT Ministry's web site. However, the block was removed around noon on Saturday.

ICT Ministry spokesperson Dr Vissanu Meeyoo was contacted by phone and denied any knowledge of a block. He said that in any case, it was unlikely the MICT was involved as everyone there was simply too busy with the telecommunications law seminar on Friday to arrange or authorise the alleged block.

A thread on the popular geek site blognone.com did some analysis of the block early on Saturday morning. It showed that the DNS (Domain Name Server) was still pointing to the correct address, but rather than data from YouTube, the "server" had returned HTTP error number 301, a permanent redirect, sending the browser to the MICT web site. This would indicate that the sessions were being hijacked.

The HTTP response said that the server was running Apache/1.3.31 (Unix) with the modhwforward10 module. Such a module does not officially exist. This peculiar fingerprint has been seen in the past when web sites critical of the government are blocked and suddenly go offline.

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Pridiyathorn Devakula quits (Yeah!!)

This is the guy who started:
...the Finance Ministry’s tough capital inflow control measures implemented in a bid to stem the appreciation of the baht, which led to a 15 per cent crash in the stock market crash in December.
And to top that..
Next came the government’s proposed changes to the Foreign Business Act, a move many said spelt doom for the country’s property industry. That..aimed to halt the longstanding practice of foreign companies using nominally Thai-owned firms to comply with the law. If the proposed amendments become law, a company would now be considered foreign if offshore investors hold more than 50% of either shares or voting rights. (thailand property guide)
Good riddance!! Beat it!! Don't come back!!