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The Great Medical Glove Scandal

29/11/2021

Thailand launches crackdown on huge international fraud

Thailand’s Central Intellectual Property and International Trade Court has begun cracking down on scams involving rubber medical gloves by jailing a Thai employee of the ‘Paddy the Room’ trading company.
In a deal worth US$2.7 million, the firm allegedly exported some ten million pairs of used rubber medical gloves from Thailand to the United States. The gloves were found to be pre-used and repackaged, according to a report by CNN. Some were said to be dirty and even bloodstained. Their original source has not been disclosed.
But Paddy the Room is just one of hundreds, even thousands, of other outstanding cases of fraud in SE Asia. Some involve middlemen and agents pocketing hefty deposits from overseas entrepreneurs hoping to cash in on the huge worldwide demand for medical gloves for protection against Covid, while others focus on unauthorised production and repackaging of medical gloves and unlawful usage of trademarks, including SkyMed and Sri Trang.
Chasing the scammers is an expensive and time-consuming business, says a British businessman who is now suing a Thai company for the return of his deposit – or delivery of the gloves.
“Because we are not based in Thailand, we have to work through a local lawyer. The expenses mount and we aren’t really in control of what’s happening,” says the man. “It’s very frustrating.”
A warrant for the arrest of the alleged fraudster in this case has been issued and some of his assets in Thailand and overseas have been seized. Using a third country to avoid jurisdiction is a common ploy.

Forest in the city

29/11/2021

Bangkok’s largest open space, the Benjakitti Forest Park, an urban wonderland of ponds, swamps, water channels, man-made hills and skywalks, is already open to visitors.
Located next to the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center and linked to the lake and grounds of the original Benjakitti Park, this magnificent addition to the city’s ‘green heart’ extends over an area of 259 rai that was once the site of a massive tobacco manufacturing facility.
Costing 652 million baht to build, the forest park project is a joint enterprise involving the Finance Ministry Treasury Department, the Royal Thai Army, and the Arsom Silp Institute of the Arts, which is responsible for its design.
An unusual feature of the project is a crucible-style open theatre area for outdoor events and concerts. And for those who like to have a bird’s eye of the park, there is a series of skywalks criss-crossing the central area.
The forest, which includes both existing and newly planted trees, will provide a new ecosystem to support a biological community while its meadows will act a sponge to soak up excessive water during the rainy season.
Because of recent storms, the grass has flourished in many places and needs a crop. Oddly, few people are currently taking advantage of the park’s partial opening. No doubt that will change during the upcoming dry season.

YESTERYEAR – BANGKOK IN 1956 ‘WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE WHEN AMCHAM THAILAND WAS BORN’ (PART 2)

27/11/2021

Freda and Albert Lyman at the office of Tilleke & Gibbins in Wang Lee Building

The American Association

In 1946, there were about 30-40 resident Americans. By 1949, that number had jumped to 300 or so. There were other Americans whose names are too dim to recall or of whom I have read about but do not remember. An informal census by the American Association of Thailand found that in October 1949 there were about 300 American men, women and children resident in Bangkok.
Most of these men and women, among the 60 or so American civilian businesspersons in the early 1950s in Siam, were instrumental in the establishment in 1956 of the American Chamber of Commerce in Thailand (AmCham) and its forerunner from 1947, revived in 1949, the American Association of Thailand (previously the American Businessmen's Association) which met at Herman Seiler's American Club on Phya Thai Road before shifting to the Oriental Hotel in 1950.
Actually, in late 1955, preliminary steps were taken to create the United States Club of Thailand. That effort quickly faded and based on the idea of my father in September 1955, was replaced by an initiative to create an American Chamber of Commerce in Thailand following the template used by the Dutch who formed the Netherlands Chamber of Commerce some months earlier.
That idea took root and, supported by the US Embassy, in early 1956 an organizing committee was formed with Reeve Hankins as Chairman. The AmCham was created drafting its constitution as an adaptation of the constitutions of the Manila and Tokyo American Chambers. I cannot find the records but I believe that my father was its Secretary, and for sure, was its legal counsel.
Based on an initiation in October 1949 of the male-dominated American Association of Thailand, American spouses, upon the call of Mrs. John E. Puerifoy, wife of the then American Ambassador, decided in May 1955 to form the American Women’s Auxiliary of the American Association of Thailand.
A year later, just as AmCham was being formed, The American Women’s Club was officially chartered at a ceremony officiated by the wife of Prime Minister Phibun Songkhram. Its first meetings were held at my family’s home, my mother being its recording secretary and soon after, its presidentThe American Association

In 1946, there were about 30-40 resident Americans. By 1949, that number had jumped to 300 or so. There were other Americans whose names are too dim to recall or of whom I have read about but do not remember. An informal census by the American Association of Thailand found that in October 1949 there were about 300 American men, women and children resident in Bangkok.

Yesteryear – Bangkok in 1956 ‘What Life Was Like When AmCham Thailand Was Born’ (Part 1)

27/11/2021

The following is the first in a three-part series featuring a presentation by David Lyman, Chairman & Chief Values Officer, Tilleke & Gibbins International Ltd at The American Chamber of Commerce in Thailand's Membership Monthly Luncheon. April 26, 2006

All those years ago . . .

It has been said that Bangkok in 1956 was an overgrown village. Not so. Greater Bangkok, then still the Venice of the East, was a bustling metropolis of one million people, more or less.
But for many Western and Asian expatriates, it was an enchantress, as it had been for decades before and as it is even until this day. For those of us here then, my family having moved to Thailand seven years before in early 1949, Bangkok and its people and attractions were magnets enticing and holding us in their tropical and alluring sway.
As you will learn, never fully being what it seemed or appeared to be, Bangkok was delightful, exotic, seductive, mysterious, pleasure loving, traditional, quite Asian, “Old Siam" as my father would say, yet beginning to change to emulate the cities of the Western expats, particularly the growing number of Americans who were migrating to Thailand.
Few of us are still around today who remember those early days, and we are becoming fewer. I can readily think of Dr. Harvey Oei, Kusa Panyarachun, Alex Mavro, Mike Gerson, Mark Hitcraft, Arlette Cykman, Kurt Mueller, Janek and Michele Luksaiewicz,
Walter Meyer, and Khun Ankana, consultant and long the Front Office Manager of the Oriental Hotel.
There are others whose names, to my embarrassment, escape me and who have probably retired quietly but are still breathing. Limited by audience attention span, these personal remembrances which I recount here just scratch the surface of expatriate life in those days long ago. And if they aren’t exactly correct, well, as someone once said, “Never let the facts stand in the way of a good story.”
And besides, I am probably free of immediate challenge from those of you who were not born yet in 1956. And that’s the way histories are written.

Peter Kells Last of the Raj

27/11/2021

Peter pores over a large collection of photos from his younger days in India

The number of Brits who lived and worked in India before its independence from Britain in 1947 is rapidly dwindling. Longtime Bangkok resident Peter Kells is one of the few. Now 80, Peter was born and raised in Calcutta, worked there in various capacities and holds great affection and appreciation for that vast country and its people.
Tall, imposing and a natural raconteur, Peter’s life experiences doing deals in some of the world’s most colourful and dangerous places – Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Libya, to name a few – are unique and go a long way to explaining his nickname, James, as in James Bond

Name: Peter Kells.
Nickname: James after 007, and also Chang by my Thai friends as I love elephants as I grew up with them in India.
Born: May 10, 1941 in Calcutta, West Bengal, India.
Education: Up until 10 years old at Christian schools in Calcutta and from 11 to 18 at a UK boarding school which I hated. Left with 4-5 GHSE ‘B’ grades and returned to Calcutta and no higher education!
Family: Ex-wife in Watford, UK. Four sons; the eldest (51) is married an Estonian girl and they have a boy and girl, and live in Guildford, UK.
The second (49) is a trained Michelin star chef in London at the Connaught Hotel and has lived in Thailand for 17 years. He’s married to a Thai lady and they have two girls. He worked at the Oriental, Hilton Millennium, Sheraton in Pattaya, Antanara in Phuket, Sofitel in Bangkok, Chatrium and now works at the Amari Watergate. They have a house in Pattaya.
The third (45) has a boy and girl, lives in Watford and was married to a Latvian girl.
The fourth (41) is a chef who trained at the Connaught in London. He worked in Australia for 12-14 years at his own restaurant. He now works in Orlando, Florida, as executive chef of a top end British-style gentlemen’s club. He’s not married.
Where did you spend your early life? Born and bred in Calcutta where my father worked for over 40 years as an electrical engineer, putting up the first electric street lights around the mid-1930s.
Tell us about your parents and their life. My father was from a poor working class family in the Leeds area of England, the eldest of 12 kids. His father was a coal miner. During the Depression in the 1930s he got a job in Calcutta as chief engineer for Calcutta Electric Supply Co Ltd. The whole family returned to the UK in 1963.
My father, a self-educated man who as the eldest son looked after the family and two sisters during the Depression until he returned UK. He never settled in Britain and died seven years later.
My mother was the youngest daughter of a middle class family from Harrow area. Her father was a Circuit Judge in India under the Brit Raj. She was into all the colonial social life of Calcutta - they say opposites are attracted to each other.

When the sleepy village of Bangsaray was HOOKED ON BIG GAME FISHING

17/11/2021

M.R. Phongamorn Krisadakorn, affectionately known as ‘Stig’, who established the Bangsaray Big Game Fishing Resort, with his wife Khunying Urai and ‘catch of the day’ back in the 1960s

With its rich prize of marlins, sharks and sailfish, the beach resort enjoyed a golden period when it attracted adventure-seeking fishermen from Bangkok – and partygoers ready to celebrate the day’s catch in style

By Colin Hastin

With its rich prize of marlins, sharks and sailfish, the beach resort enjoyed a golden period when it attracted adventureseeking fishermen from Bangkok – and partygoers ready to celebrate the day’s catch in style

For a brief period in the 1960s and 70s, the seaside village of Bangsaray just south of Pattaya had its moment of sporting fame as the country’s centre of big game fishing and host to a popular annual international fishing tournament, pitting wits, patience and brawn against slippery denizens of the deep.
It was also a place of partying and great social standing, with expats mixing with Thai dignitaries and even royals from Bangkok.
Today, Bangsaray is far better known as a favorite destination for foreigners to either live full-time or just as a few months’ escape from the winter back home, while young Thais have discovered the charms of this quaint and largely unchanged fishing village in all kinds of trendy retro-restaurants and coffee shops, and even a restored boutique hotel that once went by the name of The Fishing Lodge.
Sadly, big game fishing in Bangsaray is just a memory, with only tenuous links to its heydays captured in faded photos of happy fishermen and a few moldy examples of their catch preserved in glass boxes on display at the Bangsaray Club. The days when hundreds of enthusiasts would congregate at this seaside venue - known back then as the Bangsaray Big Game Fishing Resort - for a full day’s outing on the ocean waves and nights of partying are long gone.
While it’s unclear whether the decline of the sport was due to overfishing in the Gulf of Thailand, exacerbated by the illegal use of explosives, or simply a lack of interest to push it forward, it should not be forgotten that the biggest game fish ever caught off Bangsaray was a hammerhead shark weighing over 320 kilos, reeled in by an obviously very strong fisherman in 1972. The monster was apparently too big to gauge its full weight on the club’s equipment.
Catches at the actual tournaments were extremely modest by comparison, the largest hooked at one event being an 8.3 kilo dusky jack, landed by a certain June Numchuanchai after a hard, 30-minute fight, earning her (or more likely, him) the individual title, with more than double the points of the nearest rival.

Chef Nok takes charge in Phuket

17/11/2021

By Agneta Bekassy De Beka

Ask Chef Kanittha ‘Nok’ Rawangsri, who runs the kitchen at popular Phuket restaurant Wagyu Steakhouse, which piece of meat she prefers to prepare, she replies without hesitation: “The Tomahawk. It’s so rich in taste.”
Chef Nok is one of a growing number of Thai women responsible for the quality of the food we eat in hotel restaurants– in her case the Swedish-owned hotel Twinpalms Phuket on Surin Beach.
And when it comes to meat Chef Nok knows what she’s talking about. Few chefs on the island have had her range of experience here and overseas.
She arrived at Twinpalms Phuket in 2011 as a trainee in the kitchen, having already worked in the same position at the Oriental Mandarin in Bangkok..
In 2015, Chef Nok travelled to Sydney, Australia, to learn more about fine cooking from Chef William (Bill) Granger, whose ‘Bills’ restaurants can be found in Australia, Japan, UK, Korea and Hawaii.

‘The UK understands the importance of the region for better economic and security reasons’

17/11/2021

Interview with new British Ambassador H.E. Mark Goodin

It wasn’t exactly the most auspicious of times when Mark Gooding took up his posting as Britain’s new Ambassador to Thailand at the beginning of July. The Covid-19 pandemic was arguably at its peak, with strict lockdowns and curfews, as well as tough restrictions on travel both domestically and overseas. Adding to the woes was confusion over which vaccines were acceptable for travel to the UK.
“When I arrived in July, there was an issue with many Brits having difficulty accessing vaccines in Thailand, so over the past four months we have worked with other embassies here and the Thai government to expand the vaccination programme and get foreigners, including British people, access to vaccines,” explained 46-year-old Mark.
Five months later, the situation has changed dramatically, with the majority of British nationals in Thailand now double-vaccinated, the acceptance of the four major vaccines - especially welcome after the inexplicable delay in registration of British vaccine AstraZeneca - and Thailand’s removal from the UK’s ‘red list’ enabling two-way travel between the countries.
“This shows that countries need to work together internationally, sharing information and ideas. Then we can limit the virus’s spread and help treat people who catch it.
“We’re working with the Ministry of Public Health to increase the volume of testing, not just in terms of total numbers but in the case of Thailand, the question is about testing for variants of concern.”
To underscore this trans-national approach, the ambassador points out that the UK donated 415,000 doses of Astra Zenicha vaccines to Thailand back in July. And he singles out the British Chamber of Commerce Thailand (BCCT) for its work on assisting Brits here to access vaccines. “The chamber is one of our links with the British community here, and they did a great job,” he said.
he ambassador comes to Thailand with exceptional credentials with considerable experience of the region. After earning a Master’s Degree in Modern Languages from Oxford University, he joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) in 1999, and has spent his career working mostly on Europe and Asia. His previous roles include Director Covid (Repatriations), Director EU (Future Partnership), and Deputy Director Europe, Minister Counsellor (Political) at the British Embassy in Beijing.

Cycling across the United States, a Thai couple are far from lonely

17/11/2021

By Mick Elmore

Pochara and Sasila

Clinton, Iowa – After two months’ cycling across the American west meeting a lot of good people but rarely other cyclists, earlier this Bangkok-born Pochara Prataganang and Sasila Sukha suddenly found themselves joined by many thousands of them crossing Iowa in the nation’s heartland.
The couple had signed up for the Register’s Annual Great Bicycle Ride Across Iowa (RAGBRAI) as part of their extended bicycle journey across the continental United States.
“It’s awesome,” said Sasila about the huge event. “This is about how people love to do the same thing. Everybody is so happy,” adding that people don’t mind the long lines for food in the small towns along the way because there is a healthy camaraderie among the cyclists.
After the week-long 725 km ride through the corn and soybeans of Iowa the couple continued east with plans to complete their trip on Coney Island in New York later this year. Their cross-country ride will be more than 5,000 km by the time they reach the Atlantic Ocean.
They timed the cross-country trip to join RAGBRAI the last week of July. “It worked out well,” Pochara said.
Although it is “the longest, largest and oldest recreational bicycle touring event in the world,” according to the Register’s officials, the event comes from humble beginnings.
In 1973 Des Moines Register writers John Karras and Don Kaul and Public Relations Director Don Benson invited the public to join them across the state and 114 riders completed it that first year. Public demand brought it back in 1974 and since then only 2020 had no ride when it was canceled due to Covid-19.

When a swarm of ‘Murder Hornets’ that stung me ended up on the dinner plate of my happy rescuer

17/11/2021

During training recently for the 100-mile Thailand UTMB (Ultra Trail du Mont Blanc), my buddy and I came face to face with a swarm of Giant Asian Hornets aka Murder Hornets while descending the steepest part at Doi Pui, a 1645m mountain in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand.
Thinking I could run around them, I veered left toward the side of a ridge that is actually a 500m drop off a cliff. At that moment I felt the first stings in my ear and on the back of my head. The pain sensation was like having a red hot electrified nail being hammered into your flesh.
Immediately disoriented and fearing that I might trip or simply run off the cliff, I was forced to turn toward the nest, which was at the base was in a tree on the trail. I fell down hard and was stung many times in seconds and had to go into full survival flight mode.
The hornets were relentless and chased me for at least 2-300m before finally letting up. All I could say at that moment was "that's fckd up"! It was an extremely painful and dangerous ordeal that hurt like crazy! My buddy, who had fled out of sight, had returned to get me, so we could walk down to a nearby hill tribe village to try and find a ride to the hospital about one hour away.
We immediately found a savior, who drove us to the emergency of the nearest hospital. I was stung 15 times and my friend Glen eight times. After blood tests and medicine by IV drips, he was allowed to return home. However, the doctor told me I must stay in hospital for 1-3 nights due to risk of kidney failure. Thankfully, I stayed just one night and only had to see a doctor each of the next two days. Within four days both of us had fully recovered.
One week after our scary encounter with the Asian Giant Hornets, Glenn and I went back up the mountain to thank the hill tribe villager who drove us to the hospital one hour away in Chiang Mai. His name is Ya.
He met us with a big smile on his face saying "gin, gin". Unsure about what he meant we replied ‘gin?’ We knew what gin (to eat in Thai) was, but in the context of murder hornets, we weren't sure.
So we asked him, you ate them? “Yesss, gin!!!” What he told us was an incredible surprise and had us screaming and laughing with pure delight! We yelled “hero, superman!!” with high-fives all around. Pulling out his mobile phone, he showed us the photos, exclaiming “aroy mak-mak (very delicious in Thai)!!
Ya explained that he had gone back up the hill to catch the hornets for a good meal and in doing so ended the Asian Giant Hornets menace in the middle of the popular hikers and trail runners trail. A new Thailand Trail Running legend was born! Thanks Ya!

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