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Golf in Myanmar - another challenge part 1
Dear Editor;
This is for everybody to study who finds a hair in the soup or complains
about anything in Thailand. Be thankful to live there!
Freshly arrived in Myanmar, I went at the end of the
first week to a golf club, for which the place I’m working for has four
corporate memberships. Prior to deciding to get my first experience of
playing this game in the Golden Land, I had checked out the course from a
distance, meaning from the clubhouse. From there I had a great overview, as
it was elevated on top of a hill. The course looked and it still does look
great, nice layout, in good shape - so it seems - and some reasonable
difficult obstacles on the way to the holes.
Great thing I thought, at least I can improve my game and
handicap while stationed here. And playing golf should not be as dangerous
as driving around in Yangon.
Before going back to work, I inspected the clubhouse. But
(and now I make this mistake again to compare my ‘new home’ to golf
courses around Chiang Mai and Chonburi) it was absolutely unusable. Why?
Dirty lockers, the showers with dripping water only and
overall highly contagious for any form of disease. The smell that welcomed
me when I opened the locker would not make you think of placing even one of
your enemy’s personal belongings in there. And being a fan of taking
showers after playing golf, I decided in my mind to feel a bit uncomfortable
on the car ride back home, rather than take my shower there.
I am looking forward to playing next week and will let
you know if the course keeps up with its looks.
Ike Burnett
Yangon
Remains believed to be those of four American MIAs sent home from Vietnam
By Margie Mason
Associated Press Writer
Remains believed to be from four soldiers killed in the
Vietnam War were draped in U.S. flags Tuesday and saluted before a plane
finally carried them home.
Dozens of Americans and other onlookers stood in silence
in blazing heat, hands over their hearts, as aluminum transfer cases were
loaded onto a U.S. Air Force C-130 at Hanoi’s airport.
The repatriation ceremony came just after Washington
announced that the remains of four other servicemen recovered from a crash
site in Laos had been positively identified.
“The war is not going to end until all of the missing
are accounted for, or at least as many as possible,” said Jim Doyle of
Vietnam Veterans of America, who served in the Army in 1969 in Binh Duong
province. “The families deserve to know what happened to their loved ones
and put them in a final resting place at home.”
The latest remains were found in central and southern
Vietnam by a recovery team that searches for soldiers listed as missing in
action. The remains were being flown to the U.S. Army Central Identification
Laboratory in Hawaii for efforts at positive identification.
Vietnam Veterans of America President Thomas Corey, in
Hanoi to present documents to government officials about missing Vietnamese
soldiers, presided over the ceremony with Lt. Col. Thomas T. Smith, new
commander of the U.S. MIA office in Hanoi.
“I thought I would come here and I would maintain kind
of a professional attitude toward it, but I’ve got a son who’s a
lieutenant in the 1st Infantry and, to be honest, the parent part kind of
took over in a way,” Smith said after his first repatriation. “I know if
something happens to him, that his government will do whatever it takes to
find him.”
About 1,800 American servicemen remain unaccounted for
from the Vietnam War.
Message from the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany
German nationals traveling to Thailand may stay in the
country up to sixty days on a tourist visa and up to ninety days on a
non-immigrant visa. Both types of visa may be extended for thirty more days
(see website: www.imm.police.go.th).
The embassy would like to point out that visa-extensions
must only be applied for in person at the local Bureau of Immigration or at
border crossings.
Unlike some tourist-guides advise, an extension of stay
through a travel agent or others must not be asked for. In various cases,
forged entries were made into passports and a subsequent arrest of the
passport-holder occurred.
The embassy furthermore wishes to draw the attention to
the fact that it is not in a position to cover for any expenses (fees, etc.)
in cases of overstay.
The karuna dana
project needs your help
Dear editor;
I would like to ask if it is possible to insert this small text in the next
issue of Chiangmai Mail, perhaps with the title: ‘The karuna dana
project’.
The cold season is soon on the door and it can be very
cold out here in the Northern hills of the Mae Hong Song Province. If you
have some old but still in good shape blankets, cushions, socks, pullovers,
anything and everything that can make your body warm (except whisky), the
children of the Buddha Kasetra School in Kung Yuam will be delighted to
receive all that you have for them. And say thank you to your all.
Please send or bring the goods to:
Address: The Buddha Kasetra School 842 m1, t. Khun Yuam
A. 58140 Mae Hong Song, Thailand or to: to Phra Daniel Nagasiri at Wat U-Mong
Kuti n0 8 Suthep road 50200 Chiang Mai, tel: 061858612, email: taman63@hotmail.com
or website www.geocities.com/buddhakasetra_school
Thank you very much for your attention.
Peace and wisdom to you all.
Phra Daniel Nagasiri
Japan checking into reports of rowdy Japanese in China
The Associated Press
Japan’s foreign minister said Tuesday officials were
checking into complaints that Japanese tourists hired hundreds of
prostitutes for an orgy in China on a sensitive World War II anniversary.
Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said Tokyo had yet to
determine whether the reports that hundreds of Japanese men, believed to be
on a company tour, hired as many as 500 prostitutes in the southern city of
Zhuhai, near Macau.
“China is looking into it and the Japanese government
is also collecting information,” she said. “We don’t know at this
point what exactly happened.”
Chinese news reports said more than 400 Japanese male
tourists had sex with Chinese prostitutes at the Zhuhai International
Conference Center Hotel from Sept. 16-18, which is the anniversary of an
attack by Japanese forces in 1931 that China regards as the start of its
World War II occupation.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Kong Quan has called
the case “extremely odious” and asked the Japanese government to
“strengthen education of its citizens in this regard.”
The fracas has been carried prominently by Japan’s
media, which have reported the tourists were in China as part of a trip
arranged by a construction company based in the western Japan city of Osaka.
The name of the company, which has reportedly denied any
involvement in procuring prostitutes, has been withheld by the media,
however.
“If this is a fact, legally speaking at least, the
Japanese should not commit any act that would be against the law in
China,” Kawaguchi said. “More importantly, I regret the kind of act that
would damage women’s dignity would be committed in a foreign country.”
Message from the US Embassy
Machine-readable passport requirement postponed
The United States Secretary of State has granted a
postponement until October 26, 2004, as the date by which visa waiver
program travelers from 21 countries must present a machine-readable passport
at a U.S. port of entry to be admitted to the country without a visa. The
Department of State consulted with the Department of Homeland Security
before making this decision.
The countries for which the postponement has been granted
are: Australia, Austria, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland,
Ireland, Italy, Japan, Monaco, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal,
San Marino, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
Each country to which this postponement was granted made
a formal request and certified that it is making progress toward ensuring
that machine readable passports are available to its nationals and that it
has taken appropriate measures to protect against misuse of its
non-machine-readable passports.
Five other eligible countries did not request a
postponement of the effective date, because virtually all of their citizens
already have machine-readable passports. Those countries are Andorra,
Brunei, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, and Slovenia. As of October 1, 2003, visa
waiver travelers from those five countries must present either a
machine-readable passport or a United States visa.
Belgium, which is also a visa waiver country, was not
eligible to receive this extension. Belgian nationals who wish to travel
under the auspices of the visa waiver program have been required to present
a machine-readable passport since May 15, 2003. This requirement was
stipulated in the Department of Justice’s Review of Belgium’s continued
eligibility to participate in the visa waiver program in February 2003.
The secretary’s authority to postpone the effective
date for a visa waiver country’s citizens to present a machine-readable
passport is contained in the USA Patriot Act, which legislated the
requirement for visa waiver travelers.
Citizens of visa waiver program countries are permitted
to enter the United States for general business or tourist purposes for a
maximum of 90 days without needing a visa.
The solution to downloading music
Dear Editor,
I hope your country isn’t as foolish as mine (USA) in trying to prevent
the future from happening.
Presently, the entertainment industry is being
transformed by a new distribution system: peer-to-peer (p2p) networking.
Currently demonized by American entertainment companies, p2p is
entertainment’s future. For example, it will eventually enable us to watch
television programs when WE want to watch them and not when a middleman
(i.e., TV network) says we can.
Foolishly, America’s entertainment industry is fighting
p2p. The Recording Industry Association of America has tried to get the
courts to shut down companies that make p2p programs. It succeeded with
Napster but later couldn’t with all the rest. Now it is suing everyone who
freely shares music over the internet. From 71-year-old grandfathers to
working single mothers of 12-year-old girls. And the Motion Picture
Association of America and National Association of Broadcasters (of America)
are also discussing how to fight p2p.
Instead, entertainment companies need to find a business
model that will profit from p2p.
The first country to act on a workable business model
could end up dominating the global entertainment industry. Could that
country be yours?
Sincerely yours,
Scott Jensen
Marketing consultant/futurist
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