Fire in Pattaya, Thailand: Pattaya walking street evacuated and 100 run for their lives

At 3am, on the morning of November 17, Pattaya rescue services raced to Walking Street after receiving reports of a fire at the Natcha Disco.

Three fire appliances were on the scene as over one-hundred customers had escaped the blaze.
Police officers closed the road but fire-fighters soon discovered the problem had been tackled by Nathca security staff using fire extinguishers.

Witnesses said that the fire appeared to be coming from a first floor window in a room not used by the public.

Investigators believe the cause to have been a short circuit on the CCTV control panel. A forensic team has been instructed to carry out an investigation.

There are no reported injuries although there has been an estimated one-million baht’s worth of damage.

More about →

Internet Scam News: Cops gave the best advice to dumbass men falling for an internet sex scam, Philippines

It’s 2016 and the whole world might be going to shit, but that doesn’t mean that internet scams are getting less obvious or more sophisticated. Which is why it’s hysterical that Maine cops recently had to give advice for avoiding an internet scam to a bunch of men who were being blackmailed for masturbating on a webcam. Apparently in Bangor, Maine, USA police had been receiving multiple complaints from men who were the victims of the same internet scam.

An attractive woman from the Philippines sends a friend request on Facebook and they begin messaging. The conversation starts to get sexual, as things do. She (or the bot) asks the guy to jerk off and send her a video. Once he does, she asks him for anywhere between $300-$600. When the guy refuses, the bot uploads the video to his Facebook profile so all of of his friends can see.

So the Bangor police department put out a little PSA on its Facebook page and gave the men of the town some simple steps to follow if they receive this request. Chief of Police Mark Hathway recommends going to the “closest mirror” to look at your face. Then, “give yourself an honest review and realize that there is no reason in the world that an attractive lady from the Philippines wants to be your friend.” After that, the men should, “return to the computer and delete the friend request.”

AH-mazing. There are a few final steps like, “continue looking at lawnmowers, motorcycles and jacked up trucks that are for sale in your region of the country” and “realize that you just saved yourself from showing the world what no one really needs to see, and a whole lot of cash.”

It’s the perfect response from a law enforcement professional fed up with having to deal with dumbass men actually thinking that some hot woman on the other side of the world wants to see them naked.

The Facebook post also warns that there is no “repair kit for stupid mistakes.” A Bangor, Maine police department isn’t equipped to get your money back after it enters the digital abyss. “This is a scam and you will look stupid being shown around the office doing something that you really cannot take back,” the post reads. The police closed the post, like every Facebook post they add, with “Keep your hands to yourself, leave other people’s things alone, and be kind to one another.”

Every Bangor PD Facebook post is just as amazing as this one. Take the weekend for example, when the department shared a picture of a midnight patrol officer passed out on the couch while watching a football game at another officer’s house. It said Officer Keith Larby was “overheard praising the chili and spirits just before his discovery of ‘Mee-maw’s afghan.'”

These are scary times for Americans, whether it’s the incoming Trump administration or scam bots from the Philippines that get unassuming men to masturbate on camera for cash. Let’s hear it for small American police departments with a little sense of humor.

http://www.thefrisky.com/2016-11-16/cops-gave-the-best-advice-to-dumbass-men-falling-for-an-internet-sex-scam/

More about →

Nuclear power for the Philippines?

If you tend to get your information and form opinion from Facebook, this is definitely not for you. The Philippines will, hopefully, with both a sense of necessity and urgency, enter into a fact-based discussion on generating electricity using nuclear energy.

The dialogue on nuclear as a power-generating source is emotional, contentious and propaganda-based. Unfortunately, what passes for “academic studies” seem to be written by people who often have the ethics of a methamphetamine addict trading sex for drugs.

Dr. Kristin Shrader-Frechette is a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences and Department of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Her credentials are impeccable, and her research work analyzes the ethical problems in risk assessment, public health and environmental justice, especially those related to radiological, ecological and energy-related risks.

In analyzing 30 papers on the economics of nuclear power for possible conflicts of interest, she found, of the 30, 18 had been funded either by the nuclear industry or pronuclear governments and were pronuclear; 11 were funded by universities or nonprofit non-governmental organizations and were antinuclear.

Shrader-Frechette’s 2011 book What Will Work says nuclear power is not an economic or practical technology. However, the examples are always in developed countries or nations with abundant energy- producing resources, such as natural gas or raging rivers for hydropower.

The pros and cons of nuclear energy are reasonably well defined, although the total economics of nuclear power are subject to intense debate. What we do know is that an energy-scarce nation, like France, has been generating 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear beginning in 1956.

The scare tactics after insolated incidents, such as Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, keep the facts off the table. More people are killed in traffic accidents each day in Metro Manila than died at Fukushima. Not a single person died from exposure to radiation at Fukushima.

In fact, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation—hardly a mouthpiece for the nuclear industry—released a report that their scientists have found no evidence to support the idea that the nuclear meltdown will lead to an increase in cancer rates or birth defects.

The debate on rehabilitating or replacing the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) must go forward. While the developed countries really do not care if Filipinos live in mud huts, we need to advance our own self-interest agenda, and nuclear power might be part of it.

However, the first critical discussion must be whether the Morong, Bataan, location is suitable for any nuclear plant. The public must be assured that it is safe. The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) has both the initial resources and expertise to make that judgment. If the DENR would function as it is supposed to and not with the attitude of somewhere between the Spanish inquisition and the Russian mafia—as it has in the past— we might get something accomplished.

The location of a nuclear-power facility is the first hurdle that must be crossed even if a brand-new power plant were to fall from the sky. We cannot ignore the reality that the Philippines is energy poor even with the substantial steps made in the direction of using alternative sources to fossil fuels.



E-mail me at mangun@gmail.com. Visit my web site at www.mangunonmarkets.com.

More about →

Duterte gov't calls off auction for South Line of North-South Railway in the Philippines

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno says the Tutuban-Sorsogon railway will now be financed through official development assistance (ODA) from China or Japan

By Chrisee Dela Paz

The Duterte administration has called off the public-private partnership (PPP) auction for the South Line of the North-South Railway Project (NSRP), and will instead finance the project through official development assistance (ODA) either from China or Japan.

Budget Secretary Benjamin Diokno made the announcement at the sidelines of the 22nd Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Transport Ministers Meeting in Pasay City on Thursday, November 17.

“We will instead look for financing – either Japan or China. With the government, we can borrow with a lower cost. We don’t need return on investment,” Diokno said.

He said that the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA) Board has raised the cost of the railway project to “between P250 billion and P260 billion” from P170.7 billion. (READ: PH bids out biggest PPP: P171-B North-South railway deal)

“We also changed the costing because what we want is narrow gates. It is now between P250 billion and P260 billion,” Diokno added.

The railway project is one of the 9 projects that the NEDA Board chaired by President Rodrigo Duterte approved on Monday.

Operations for PPP?

The railway PPP deal will involve commuter lines connecting Tutuban in Manila to the southern peripheries of Metro Manila, and a long-haul network to the Bicol provinces. The South Line will also include an initial terminus in Legazpi City and a branch line eventually connecting to Matnog in Sorsogon.

It was in July 2015 when the administration of former President Benigno Aquino III started inviting interested bidders to participate in the auction of the project.

The Aquino administration even targeted to award the railway PPP deal in March 2016, but the project did not move forward since the previous administration released the invitation to bid notice last year.

“Kami na lang magpapagawa (We will just be the one to develop it) just like the SCTEX (Subic-Clark-Tarlac Expressway) model,” Diokno said. The construction of SCTEX was funded through Japan ODA, while its operation and maintenance was auctioned off.

“Later on, we will let the private sector manage it like the SCTEX model,” he added.

Once the Philippine government has secured funding, the budget chief said it will take “4 years to construct the project.”

Transportation Secretary Arthur Tugade was also sought for comment but could not be reached as of press time.

The big-ticket railway deal will involve:

The 56-kilometer Commuter Rail service, for daily riders on the Tutuban, Manila to Calamba, Laguna route
The 478-kilometer Long-Haul Rail service, for travelers on the Tutuban, Manila to Legazpi, Albay route.
The South Line of North-South Railway may also have the following extensions:

The 58 kilometers from Calamba, Laguna to Batangas City, Batangas; and
117 kilometers from Legazpi, Albay to Matnog, Sorsogon
Meanwhile, the government already inked a $2.37-billion loan from Japan for the North Line of North-South Railway deal in November 2015.

The North Line of the railway project involves a 36.7-kilometer railway connecting Tutuban, Manila, and Malolos, Bulacan. – Rappler.com

More about →

Duterte Plans NEW Billion Dollar Airport Terminal and Rail link at Former U.S. Base - Clark, Angeles City Pampanga, Philippines

The Philippines plans to award at least $1 billion of contracts to build an airport and a railway to transform a former U.S. military base into a commercial hub as part of President Rodrigo Duterte’s push to distribute wealth outside congested Manila.

The Bases Conversion and Development Authority wants these and other major infrastructure projects for the area to be awarded by the second half of 2017 and for most to be completed as early as 2019, its Chief Executive Officer Vince Dizon said in an interview in Makati City. The authority will decide by the first quarter of next year whether to invite bids to build or operate the infrastructure, or do both, he said.

“We want the investment community to know that this government isn’t just about addressing crime and drugs,” Dizon, 43, said Nov. 11. “We’re also here to build, build and build.”
Duterte, who won the presidential election six months ago, is lifting infrastructure spending to a record and allocating resources away from the capital, Manila, where traffic and transport logjams cost the economy at least 2.4 billion pesos ($49 million) a day. His government is attempting to fast track development of the planned Clark Green City, which was carved out of the former Clark Air Base used by U.S. forces during World War II. It received just one bid last year to develop part of the proposed alternative capital city.

At 9,450 hectares (23,000 acres), Clark Green City would dwarf the main financial district of Makati in metropolitan Manila, home to the nation’s stock exchange and banks’ headquarters.
Building infrastructure outside the capital is key to attracting investment and boosting the country’s growth potential to as much as 9 percent, Rosemarie Edillon, deputy director general at the National Economic and Development Authority, said Thursday. Third-quarter economic growth was 7.1 percent, the fastest in Asia.

The state body will invite bids for a new 15 billion-peso airport terminal in Clark, north of Manila, according to Dizon. It will include a new international terminal that will double Clark airport’s current capacity to 8 million passengers under the first phase of a 30-year plan developed by Aeroports de Paris, he said.

It will also invite bidders for some projects identified during Duterte’s state visit to Beijing in October. These include a cargo rail line costing as much as $700 million, running from Clark to the Subic coastal area northwest of Manila, an industrial park and facilities for telecommunications and utilities.

If the investments materialize, Clark Green City would bring a new lease of life to an area that now comprises a main industrial zone with factories for companies including semiconductor-maker Texas Instruments Inc. and plane-engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce Holdings Plc and an airport with limited international flights. Under the government’s plan, the existing Clark airport would be converted to a VIP terminal when the new aerodome is up.

Dizon said Bases Conversion will continue to bid out rights to develop more plots of land in Clark, a process started under former President Benigno Aquino.

Duterte’s government may choose to fund infrastructure projects through loans obtained at cheaper rates and then offer contracts to companies to run them, Dizon said. Under Aquino, the preference was to let private companies handle the projects at the onset, and such an arrangement remains an option, the executive said.

More about →