PM believes he can go the distance

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PM believes he can go the distance
Srettha: ‘No conflict’ in coalition

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin says he intends to remain in office until he completes his four-year term, insisting there is no conflict among parties in the coalition government.

He made the remarks before cabinet ministers, key coalition party figures and government MPs were scheduled to attend a dinner at the ruling Pheu Thai Party’s headquarters on Tuesday. The dinner was intended to strengthen unity among coalition parties.

“There is no conflict [among coalition parties]. But there may be differences of opinion, [which is normal],” Mr Srettha said.

He said the dinner would give him an opportunity to talk with MPs from other coalition parties.

“I am still new to politics, so I want to take this opportunity to listen to their suggestions or complaints and thank them for their support of the government in parliament,” the prime minister said.

Responding to reporters’ questions about how long he plans to stay in office, Mr Srettha said: “I intend to remain as prime minister until I complete my four-year term. I am confident in that time, people’s lives will improve.”

Anutin Charnvirakul, leader of the Bhumjaithai Party — a key coalition government partner — said he would attend the dinner.

He added that a lunch meeting held two weeks ago was only attended by several key figures from coalition parties.

Afterwards, they agreed that the meeting, scheduled for yesterday evening, should be held to bring key coalition party figures and government MPs together to improve ties, said Mr Anutin, who is also deputy prime minister and interior minister.

“[Last night’s] dinner [was] a chance for anyone who has misgivings or any bad feelings to clear the air,” he said.

Social Development and Human Security Minister and Chartthaipattana Party leader Varawut Silpa-archa said the dinner would underscore the solidarity between coalition parties and boost the public’s confidence.

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Watch: What maps don’t show about this Asian nation

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Indonesia is probably larger than you think it is – much bigger than it looks on the world map.

And with a population of about 275 million people, it’s also the third-largest democracy in the world.

The BBC’s Frances Mao explains why its election is a key one to watch in a geopolitically crucial region.

Video by Isabelle Rodd

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Thailand temperatures to climb by 3-5C

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PUBLISHED : 14 Feb 2024 at 05:56

Thailand temperatures to climb by 3-5C
Tourists walk in front of the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok on Tuesday. Temperatures in Thailand will rise by 3-5C, with Bangkok set to range between 32-37C by Monday, according to the Thai Meteorological Department. (Photo: Somchai Poomlard)

Temperatures in Thailand will rise by 3-5C, with Bangkok set to range between 32-37C by Monday, according to the Thai Meteorological Department (TMD).

The TMD said the temperature rise is due to a downtick of a cold air mass in the upper part of Thailand. The weather may be hottest at noon in the North, Northeast, Central and East.

From Wednesday until Monday, the temperature will rise around 3-5C in the North and Northeast. Downpours are expected in around 20% of areas in both regions from Saturday to Monday.

In Central regions, the temperature will also rise by 3-5C, with downpours expected in 10-20% of areas and gusty winds in the lower part of the region, ranging from 33-37C from Friday to Monday.

The East and eastern sides of the South will face a temperature rise of 3-5C, with downpours and gusty winds in 10-30% of areas in both regions. Downpours are also expected in 10-20% of areas on the western side of the South, with temperatures reaching between 31-37C.

In Bangkok and adjacent provinces, temperatures will rise by 3-5C. From Friday to Monday, downpours and gusty winds are expected in 10-20% of areas, with temperatures reaching between 32-37C.

The highest temperature in Mae Hong Son and Uttaradit in the North, Sukhothai in the Central region, Tak in the South, and Udon Thani in the Northeast may reach 44C.

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Temperatures to climb by 3-5C

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In: South-East Asia

PUBLISHED : 14 Feb 2024 at 05:56

Temperatures to climb by 3-5C
Tourists walk in front of the Grand Palace and Wat Phra Kaew in Bangkok on Tuesday. Temperatures in Thailand will rise by 3-5C, with Bangkok set to range between 32-37C by Monday, according to the Thai Meteorological Department. (Photo: Somchai Poomlard)

Temperatures in Thailand will rise by 3-5C, with Bangkok set to range between 32-37C by Monday, according to the Thai Meteorological Department (TMD).

The TMD said the temperature rise is due to a downtick of a cold air mass in the upper part of Thailand. The weather may be hottest at noon in the North, Northeast, Central and East.

From Wednesday until Monday, the temperature will rise around 3-5C in the North and Northeast. Downpours are expected in around 20% of areas in both regions from Saturday to Monday.

In Central regions, the temperature will also rise by 3-5C, with downpours expected in 10-20% of areas and gusty winds in the lower part of the region, ranging from 33-37C from Friday to Monday.

The East and eastern sides of the South will face a temperature rise of 3-5C, with downpours and gusty winds in 10-30% of areas in both regions. Downpours are also expected in 10-20% of areas on the western side of the South, with temperatures reaching between 31-37C.

In Bangkok and adjacent provinces, temperatures will rise by 3-5C. From Friday to Monday, downpours and gusty winds are expected in 10-20% of areas, with temperatures reaching between 32-37C.

The highest temperature in Mae Hong Son and Uttaradit in the North, Sukhothai in the Central region, Tak in the South, and Udon Thani in the Northeast may reach 44C.

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Chronology of activist Tantawan’s actions

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PUBLISHED : 14 Feb 2024 at 05:07

Chronology of activist Tantawan's actions
Youth activist Tantawan Tuatulanon

Youth activist Tantawan Tuatulanon hit the headlines recently after repeatedly honking her car horn at a royal motorcade on Feb 4. She went on to conduct an opinion poll on Feb 10, asking people whether they thought royal motorcades caused traffic problems.

The 22-year-old activist was subsequently charged for causing a public disturbance.

She had previously conducted an opinion poll on Feb 8, 2022 also asking people whether they thought royal motorcades caused traffic problems.

In the recent case Ms Tantawan and a male friend appeared in a video clip shared on social media on Feb 7 honking the car horn at the royal motorcade of HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, who was travelling on an expressway in Bangkok.

It appeared in the video that the motorcade was not blocking traffic and Ms Tantawan and her friend were trying to cut into the convoy’s lane.

When approached by a police officer, the pair aggressively objected.

A few days later on, Ms Tantawan and her activist group ran the opinion poll at the BTS Skytrain’s Siam Station in front of Siam Paragon, asking people whether royal motorcades could be deemed an inconvenience.

Ms Tantawan is the daughter of Sommai and Kalong Tuatulanont. She told the media she studied marketing at a university in Singapore before returning to Thailand during the Covid-19 pandemic.

She became interested in Thai politics after following news about the now-defunct Future Forward Party, since rebranded as the Move Forward Party (MFP), in 2020, before attending her first protest in August of that year.

Ms Tantawan registered as a volunteer protest guard with a WeVo group, led by Piyarat “Toto” Chongthep.

She then joined the Mok Luang Rim Nam group led by Sophon Suraritthamrong and started a movement after the disappearance of Wanchalearm Satsaksit, another political advocate who faced lese majeste charges and took refuge in Cambodia.

She claimed she later enrolled in Ramkhamhaeng University as a law student after quitting the other university in Singapore.

Ms Tantawan has been accused of twice violating the lese majeste law, or Section 112 of the Criminal Code.

The first accusation happened during the sticker poll at the Siam Paragon department store on Feb 8, 2022. She was later granted bail.

The second accusation was for hosting a livestream on her Facebook page when members of the royal family arrived at Ratchadamnoen Avenue on March 5, 2022.

Her bail was suspended on April 20, 2023, after the court saw she had tried to enter the arrival area without permission, and the questionable Facebook post was shared on her account.

She staged a hunger strike for 37 days during her detention at the Central Women’s Correctional Institution before Pita Limjaroenrat, MFP MP-list and then-leader, bailed her out.

Mr Pita was ordered by the court to keep an eye on her behaviour.

Ms Tantawan was arrested yesterday.

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Commentary: What to do about rising medical costs in Singapore

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PRIVATE VS PUBLIC HEALTHCARE

What can be done?

For government hospitals, you would expect costs to be lower than in the private sector as it is able to benefit from economies of scale and to negotiate better prices for equipment and drugs.

But is it really the case? There are some surprising results when comparing public and private sector prices.

For example, for some tests, the prices of which are available in catalogues at doctor clinics and online, government prices before subsidy are higher than those from private providers.

For testing of Vitamin D levels in blood, it costs S$106 at the specialist outpatient clinics at government hospitals compared to S$95 at private specialists.

For flu jabs, it is S$33 at polyclinics and S$32 at Raffles Hospital, both prices before the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

A 2D echocardiography (non-invasive imaging test to analyse the heart) is also higher at government compared to private hospitals.

These private sector prices include mark-ups that might be as high as 50 per cent, which means that their actual costs are probably much lower.

Managing costs in the public sector is challenging because there is a major difference in the motivation to do so compared to private hospitals.

The latter is driven by the profit motive which provides a powerful incentive because any reduction you can achieve shows in the bottom line. The mantra in private practice is to cut down waste and improve efficiency. Hence a private practitioner will try to see as many patients as possible, which results in a lower cost per patient.

A public doctor is unlikely to be driven by the same motivation but might prefer to do other things such as research or other medical-related activities, but which will not improve his unit cost per patient.

There is nothing wrong with this behaviour and the point isn’t who is the better doctor. They are driven by different motivations concerning costs that explain why public sector costs may not be lower than that in the private sector.

This being the case, it is critical that the public sector implements effective measures to manage costs because individual players in the system may not.

The government has started, in Healthier SG, with budget allocations for hospitals based on the population being managed rather than the number and type of cases treated.

With a fixed budget, hospitals should hopefully be more cost conscious.

But it should do more to learn from private sector practices, in the way staff are deployed, their job scope and the way work is organised to bring down costs to comparable levels.

It should be noted that the discussion above is about the cost of providing medical services.

What is charged to the patient is a completely different matter, and there is, similarly, a world of a difference between the two sectors.

While private hospitals may be relentless about cutting costs, they will charge whatever the market can bear, regardless of their actual costs. Hence patients may end up paying sky high prices, even as costs are managed, as might have been the case mentioned at the beginning of this article. There may be a need for some form of price control in the private sector, to prevent them from running away uncontrollably.  

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Commentary: Indonesian President Joko Widodo will be a hard act to follow

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IMPLEMENTATION OVER IDEOLOGY

I interviewed Widodo twice, the last time during his 2019 re-election campaign, in an airport lounge. He was returning from one of his blusakans, a visit to the villages to listen to voters, and showed up dressed in an inexpensive-looking shirt and sneakers.

He emphasised “implementation” over “ideology” and the need for flexibility in a leader. He described himself as willing to play any role – director, producer, actor, “even the audience”. The frontrunner to replace him, former general Prabowo Subianto, has recast his image in a similarly approachable mould.

Throughout his tenure, Widodo made a priority of containing the deficit, which averaged less than 3 per cent of gross domestic product during his terms.

He inherited a plan for universal healthcare and pushed it hard, extending coverage from 56 per cent to 94 per cent of the people in a population of 280 million. That’s the largest programme of its kind in the world, yet public health spending still comes in at barely 1 per cent of GDP.

Widodo was also very conscious of keeping inflation low, saying rising prices hurt the poor the most. Food price inflation, a scourge that has toppled many a leader, trended steadily down on his watch.

But during his time in office, the economy did not enjoy the 7 per cent growth he had promised. Indonesia grew at a rate of 4 to 5 per cent a year, faster than most emerging nations certainly, but no faster than its Southeast Asian neighbours.

One of his top advisers told me that he kept urging Widodo to run a bigger deficit, in order to push growth faster, but the president remained cautious, choosing stability over a dash for growth. This might be explained by the way that 1998, the year riots provoked by the Asian financial crisis left Jakarta in flames, still lingers in the minds of many Indonesians.

Stability seems to suit them. In a 2023 Edelman survey of leading developed and developing nations, 73 per cent of Indonesians said they expected to be better off in five years – among the highest readings for any country.

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Motels under strict monitoring to ensure safe Valentine’s Day

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Motels under strict monitoring to ensure safe Valentine's Day
Roses at the ready: People flock to Pak Khlong Talat flower market on Tuesday to buy roses for Valentine’s Day. (Photo: Somchai Poomlard)

Screening of people visiting motels and night-time entertainment venues will be more stringent to ensure the safety of minors on Valentine’s Day, according to the Royal Thai Police (RTP).

Pol Col Chanchai Rattanapanich, deputy spokeswoman of the RTP, on Tuesday revealed that national police chief Pol Gen Torsak Sukvimol has expressed concern over the safety of young people this evening, Valentine’s Day.

All agencies under the RTP have been instructed to monitor and prevent crimes against children especially sexual crimes and quarrels, focusing on precarious areas in particular, she said.

Road checkpoints near entertainment venues, motels, pubs and internet cafés will be beefed up to screen motorists and teenagers to minimise the risk of violence and catch people in possession of illegal objects, as well as prevent illegal street racing.

Stringent measures will be carried out at entertainment venues to prevent illegal opening hours, underaged customers, obscene performances and illicit drug use.

Motels across the country have also been urged to avoid admitting minors.

The police meanwhile urged parents to keep an eye on their children and alert them to various potential risks, as well as being wary of accepting food or drinks from strangers that could potentially contain date rape drugs.

According to Pol Lt Gen Trairong Phewphan, chief of the RTP’s Forensic Science Office, more than 300 cases of drug-facilitated sexual assault have been reported since 2021. Most cases happened in Bangkok.

Date rape drugs may cause seizures, a slow heartbeat, slow breathing and can even lead to a coma.

Meanwhile, to promote safe sex among Thai youth, AIDS Healthcare Foundation Thailand (AHF) and the Nawamintharachinuthis Horwang Nonthaburi School yesterday held an event called “Condoms are Always in Style”.

Also marking International Condom Day 2024, the event aimed to raise awareness among Thai youth about the importance of using condoms, which can prevent HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, as well as unplanned pregnancies.

According to Kristian Arayawongchai, the AHF country programme director, recent data showed worrying numbers of 9,230 new HIV infections among Thai youth, half of them in the 15-24 age group, while the latest rates of condom use were seen to be low.

The event featured interactive activities, including games illustrating the risks of unprotected sex and the benefits of condom use.

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BMA eyes first Green Line debt payment

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PUBLISHED : 14 Feb 2024 at 04:00

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administrative (BMA) will notify the Interior Ministry regarding an extra budget for the first tranche of debt, worth over 23 billion baht, owed to the Green Line electric rail service operator.

Governor Chadchart Sittipunt said yesterday the ministry will be notified about the Bangkok Metropolitan Council’s (BMC) approval of a payment to the Bangkok Mass Transit System Plc (BTSC) for electrical and mechanical (E&M) installation work and operation services.

The BMA and its business arm, Krungthep Thanakhom (KT), owe the BTSC 30 billion baht for hiring the BTSC to provide its operation and maintenance services.

To compensate for the debt, the BMC last week approved the BMA’s use of the additional expenditure from the annual budget for the debt payment. Mr Chadchart said the BMC resolution will be announced in the Royal Gazette after receiving his signature.

The BMA, in consequence, will discuss the process, including the amount of payment in each instalment and duration, in a way that is most efficient and beneficial to the public, as suggested by the BMC. Discussions with KT regarding the payment duration are expected to be wrapped up in a couple of weeks, said Mr Chadchart.

Meanwhile, talks chaired by the deputy governor, Wisanu Subsompon, were held last week on transferring railway projects from the BMA to the Transport Ministry.

Three railway projects that the BMA had earlier supervised — the Silver Line (Bang Na-Suvarnabhumi airport), the first section of the Grey Line (Watcharaphon-Thong Lor), and the Light Blue Line (Din Daeng-Sathon) — are expected to be transferred back to the ministry as some sections of those projects were constructed on the ministry’s railway areas.

The ministry’s management is expected to help with the 20-baht fare rate policy and seek investment initiatives to lead to further infrastructure projects.

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