“It’s the first book of its kind to present developments in Thailand in the format of a collation of news stories, which makes it easy for readers to gain knowledge enjoyably” – Dr. Wissanu Krea-Ngam
Over 1,800 photographs, illustrations and cartoons, as well as 2,300 headline stories
Editions Didier Millet and Post Publishing, today (9 November), announced the publication of a landmark book that presents major events in Thailand since 1946 as it was reported through headline news, and which will be in bookstores by 18th November 2009.
Called “Chronicle of Thailand: Headline News Since 1946”, the publication presents dramatic happenings during the reign of HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej through 1,800 photographs, illustrations and cartoons, as well as 2,300 headline stories in a handsome 444-page book.
“It’s the first of its kind and highly readable,” said Dr. Wissanu Krea-Ngam, Chairman of the Editorial Advisory Board of the book and former Deputy Prime Minister. “We wanted to help people get a quick feel for key developments in Thailand since 1946 in a way that remained factual and neutral. Presenting information in the format of a collation of news stories makes it easy for readers to gain knowledge enjoyably, while still allowing them to interpret events for themselves,” he said.
“The book offers, in a visually exciting format, a view of events as they unfolded, including the coronation of His Majesty, the Vietnam War era, the October 1973 uprising, economic booms, great sporting moments, unforgettable tragedies, as well as quirky aspects of daily life that just happened to make the headlines,” said Dr. Wissanu.
“The book offers, in a visually exciting format, a view of events as they unfolded, including the coronation of His Majesty, the Vietnam War era, the October 1973 uprising, economic booms, great sporting moments, unforgettable tragedies, as well as quirky aspects of daily life that just happened to make the headlines,” said Dr. Wissanu.
Noted historian Associate Professor Tongthong Chandransu, who is also a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the book, said, “By presenting Thailand’s modern history through a collection of news stories that are organized by year, ‘Chronicle of Thailand’ puts key political developments into the context of other events happening at the time – whether it be social, or cultural or sporting. It helps one better understand the mood of the times, through words and pictures, and brings to life key developments in our country’s history in a way that is fun to read.”
“For example, as you flip through the years, you can quickly get a feel for the sweep of developments and see how similar incidents around key issues like communism, terrorism or coups lead to differing outcomes, reflecting the progress that our country is making. You can easily trace the roots of longstanding issues, as with, for example, Khao Phra Viharn,” he said.
“It’s also entertaining because we have included amusing tidbits that made the headlines, even though they may not have been of great historical significance,” said Assoc. Prof. Tongthong.
He said that, “The strong visual layout and dramatic photographs should help make ‘Chronicle of Thailand’ a useful companion for people from all walks of life, including those with a casual interest in Thailand, as well as academics, journalists, and students.”
Kingdom in 2007. Editions Didier Millet has also produced ‘Chronicle of Singapore’ and ‘Chronicle of Malaysia’.
“The book’s international distribution and availability on Amazon.com will help non-Thais understand Thailand better, too,” he said.
The co-publisher, Editions Didier Millet, has produced a string of successful books on Thailand, including ‘The King of Thailand in World Focus’, and ‘Thailand: 9 Days in the Kingdom’. The latter was produced on the occasion of the 80th birthday anniversary of HM the King, and gathered 55 world class photographers to record daily life in the ‘Chronicle of Thailand’’s Editorial Advisory Board also includes Dr. Borwornsak Uwanno, Secretary-General of the King Prajadhipok Institute, and Mr. Vitthaya Vejjajiva, former Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Gold Sponsors of the book are Bangkok Bank and Central Group of Companies. Other sponsors include the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Bureau of the Crown Property, PTT plc, CH. Karnchang pcl, Bangkok Expressway pcl and Thai Tap Water Supply pcl, as well as Jim Thompson, James HW Thompson Foundation, Four Seasons Hotel Bangkok, and Bangkok Public Relations Ltd.
The official launch of the book is scheduled for 18th November 2009 and will be presided over by Mr. Anand Panyarachun at a reception at the Four Seasons Hotel.
‘Chronicle of Thailand’ is available from 18 November 2009 at leading bookstores in Thailand, priced at Bht 1,450.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Thursday, November 12, 2009
US arms sales hit record of $38bn in 2009
US government-togovernment arms sales rose 4.7% to a record $38.1 billion this year, and are expected to total almost as much in 2010, the Pentagon agency that administers them said on Friday.
Arms deals, often sensitive because of regional politics, may become even more so for the administration of President Barack Obama, who won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize last month.
Some critics say Mr Obama should rein in arms transfers, partly to avoid regional arms races. But overseas sales are increasingly important to US contractors seeking to offset Pentagon belttightening at home.
Many if not most of the sales pacts signed in fiscal 2009, which ended on Sept 30, are part of a boom in conventional weapons sales that started under former president George W. Bush.
The 2009 figures represent over a quadrupling from a sales low point in fiscal 1998, according to Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieringa, head of the Defence Security Cooperation Agency.
The sales are indicative of a drive to strengthen US partners and thus boost US national security, Vice Adm Wieringa said in an Oct 22 blog posting on his agencys website.
The 2009 tally, revised after that posting, was up from $36.4 billion in fiscal 2008 and $23.3 billion in 2007, said the security agency. It administers the Pentagons Foreign Military Sales Programme, a key part of US alliancebuilding.
Sales are expected to top $37.9 billion in fiscal 2010, which began on Oct 1,Vanessa Murray, an agency spokeswoman, said in a written reply to Reuters.
The top buyers in fiscal 2009 were United Arab Emirates ($7.9 billion),Afghanistan ($5.4 billion) and Saudi Arabia ($3.3 billion), followed by Taiwan ($3.2 billion), Egypt ($2.1 billion), Iraq ($1.6 billion), Nato ($924.5 million), Australia ($818.7 million) and South Korea ($716.6 million).
Rachel Stohl, co-author of a new book,The International Arms Trade , said Mr Obama, who took office on Jan 20, seems to be sticking with the Bush administration mantra of sell, sell, sell, rather than a more cautious approach.
William Hartung of the New America Foundation,aWashington-based research group focused on US defence and foreign policy issues, said Mr Obama should pay more attention to regional arms-race dangers, human-rights records and shun sales to countries that can illafford them.
Top US arms makers such as Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, General Dynamics Corp and Raytheon Co are hoping to boost foreign sales to hedge against US budget pressures that could slow big-ticket Pentagon arms purchases.
Overseas sales lower the unit price of US armed forces weapons and keep components available that would be otherwise hard to find, said Remy Nathan of the Aerospace Industries Association,which lobbies on behalf of US arms makers.
Demand is booming, fed in part by regional tensions fanned by nuclear and ballistic missile programmes in Iran and North Korea.
In September, for instance, the Pentagon told Congress of a possible sale to Turkey of the most modern model of its Patriot anti-missile missile in a package valued at up to $7.8 billion.
The Gulf states and Saudi Arabia are extremely worried about Irans pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability,Alexander Vershbow, US assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs, said last month.They want to buy Patriots or other systems over the coming years. So right now,demand exceeds supply because of the real sense of threat they feel, he said.
Other big sales could come from the best market in decades for fighter aircraft,with multi-billion-dollar competitions under way or planned in India, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, Greece and elsewhere, said Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group, an aerospace consultancy.
Arms deals, often sensitive because of regional politics, may become even more so for the administration of President Barack Obama, who won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize last month.
Some critics say Mr Obama should rein in arms transfers, partly to avoid regional arms races. But overseas sales are increasingly important to US contractors seeking to offset Pentagon belttightening at home.
Many if not most of the sales pacts signed in fiscal 2009, which ended on Sept 30, are part of a boom in conventional weapons sales that started under former president George W. Bush.
The 2009 figures represent over a quadrupling from a sales low point in fiscal 1998, according to Vice Admiral Jeffrey Wieringa, head of the Defence Security Cooperation Agency.
The sales are indicative of a drive to strengthen US partners and thus boost US national security, Vice Adm Wieringa said in an Oct 22 blog posting on his agencys website.
The 2009 tally, revised after that posting, was up from $36.4 billion in fiscal 2008 and $23.3 billion in 2007, said the security agency. It administers the Pentagons Foreign Military Sales Programme, a key part of US alliancebuilding.
Sales are expected to top $37.9 billion in fiscal 2010, which began on Oct 1,Vanessa Murray, an agency spokeswoman, said in a written reply to Reuters.
The top buyers in fiscal 2009 were United Arab Emirates ($7.9 billion),Afghanistan ($5.4 billion) and Saudi Arabia ($3.3 billion), followed by Taiwan ($3.2 billion), Egypt ($2.1 billion), Iraq ($1.6 billion), Nato ($924.5 million), Australia ($818.7 million) and South Korea ($716.6 million).
Rachel Stohl, co-author of a new book,The International Arms Trade , said Mr Obama, who took office on Jan 20, seems to be sticking with the Bush administration mantra of sell, sell, sell, rather than a more cautious approach.
William Hartung of the New America Foundation,aWashington-based research group focused on US defence and foreign policy issues, said Mr Obama should pay more attention to regional arms-race dangers, human-rights records and shun sales to countries that can illafford them.
Top US arms makers such as Lockheed Martin Corp, Boeing Co, Northrop Grumman Corp, General Dynamics Corp and Raytheon Co are hoping to boost foreign sales to hedge against US budget pressures that could slow big-ticket Pentagon arms purchases.
Overseas sales lower the unit price of US armed forces weapons and keep components available that would be otherwise hard to find, said Remy Nathan of the Aerospace Industries Association,which lobbies on behalf of US arms makers.
Demand is booming, fed in part by regional tensions fanned by nuclear and ballistic missile programmes in Iran and North Korea.
In September, for instance, the Pentagon told Congress of a possible sale to Turkey of the most modern model of its Patriot anti-missile missile in a package valued at up to $7.8 billion.
The Gulf states and Saudi Arabia are extremely worried about Irans pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability,Alexander Vershbow, US assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs, said last month.They want to buy Patriots or other systems over the coming years. So right now,demand exceeds supply because of the real sense of threat they feel, he said.
Other big sales could come from the best market in decades for fighter aircraft,with multi-billion-dollar competitions under way or planned in India, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, Greece and elsewhere, said Richard Aboulafia of the Teal Group, an aerospace consultancy.
Magnificent seven
In the most important, most revered event since the invention of the brontosaurus trap,Microsoft shipped the most incredibly fabulous operating system ever made; the release of Windows 7 also spurred a new generation of personal computers of all sizes at prices well below last month's offers.The top reason Windows 7 does not suck: There is no registered website called Windows7Sucks.com
Kindle e-book reader maker Amazon.com and new Nook e-book reader vendor Barnes and Noble got it on; B&N got great reviews for the "Kindle killer"Nook, with dual screens and touch controls so you can "turn" pages, plays MP3s and allows many non-B&N book formats, although not the Kindle one;Amazon then killed the US version of its Kindle in favour of the international one, reduced its price to $260(8,700 baht), same as the Nook; it's not yet clear what you can get in Thailand with a Nook, but you sure can't (yet) get much, relatively speaking, with a Kindle;but here's the biggest difference so far,which Amazon.com has ignored: the Nook lets you lend e-books to any other Nook owner, just as if they were paper books; the borrowed books expire on the borrower's Nook in two weeks.
Phone maker Nokia of Finland announced it is suing iPhone maker Apple of America for being a copycat; lawyers said they figure Nokia can get at least one, probably two per cent (retail) for every iPhone sold by Steve "President for Life" Jobs and crew via the lawsuit,which sure beats working for it -$6 (200 baht) to $12(400 baht) on 30 million phones sold so far, works out to $400 million or 25 percent of the whole Apple empire profits during the last quarter;there were 10 patent thefts, the Finnish executives said, on everything from moving data to security and encryption.
Nokia of Finland announced that it is one month behind on shipping its new flagship N900 phone, the first to run on Linux software; delay of the $750(25,000 baht) phone had absolutely no part in making Nokia so short that it had to sue Apple, slap yourself for such a thought.
Tim Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web, said he had one regret:the double slash that follows the "http:"in standard web addresses; he estimated that 14.2 gazillion users have wasted 48.72 bazillion hours typing those two keystrokes, and he's sorry; of course there's no reason to ever type that, since your browser does it for you when you type "www.bangkokpost.com" but Tim needs to admit he made one error in his lifetime.
The International Telecommunication Union of the United Nations, which doesn't sell any phones or services, announced that there should be a mobile phone charger that will work with any phone; now who would ever have thought of that, without a UN body to wind up a major study on the subject?;the GSM Association estimates that 51,000 tonnes of chargers are made each year in order to keep companies able to have their own unique ones.
The Well, Doh Award of the Week was presented at arm's length to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; the group's deputy secretary-general Petko Draganov said that developing countries will miss some of the stuff available on the Internet if they don't install more broadband infrastructure; a report that used your tax baht to compile said that quite a few people use mobile phones but companies are more likely to invest in countries with excellent broadband connections; no one ever had thought of this before, right?
Sun Microsystems , as a result of the Oracle takeover, said it will allow 3,000 current workers never to bother coming to work again; Sun referred to the losses as "jobs," not people; now the fourth largest server maker in the world, Sun said it lost $2.2 billion in its last fiscal year; European regulators are holding up approval of the Oracle purchase in the hope of getting some money in exchange for not involving Oracle in court cases.
The multi-gazillionaire and very annoying investor Carl Icahn resigned from the board at Yahoo ; he spun it as a vote of confidence, saying current directors are taking the formerly threatened company seriously; Yahoo reported increased profits but smaller revenues in the third quarter.
The US House of Representatives voted to censure Vietnam for jailing bloggers; the non-binding resolution sponsored by southern California congresswoman Loretta Sanchez said the Internet is "a crucial tool for the citizens of Vietnam to be able to exercise their freedom of expression and association;"Hanoi has recently jailed at least nine activists for up to six years apiece for holding pro-democracy banners. Iran jailed blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakshan for 10 months - in solitary confinement.
Kindle e-book reader maker Amazon.com and new Nook e-book reader vendor Barnes and Noble got it on; B&N got great reviews for the "Kindle killer"Nook, with dual screens and touch controls so you can "turn" pages, plays MP3s and allows many non-B&N book formats, although not the Kindle one;Amazon then killed the US version of its Kindle in favour of the international one, reduced its price to $260(8,700 baht), same as the Nook; it's not yet clear what you can get in Thailand with a Nook, but you sure can't (yet) get much, relatively speaking, with a Kindle;but here's the biggest difference so far,which Amazon.com has ignored: the Nook lets you lend e-books to any other Nook owner, just as if they were paper books; the borrowed books expire on the borrower's Nook in two weeks.
Phone maker Nokia of Finland announced it is suing iPhone maker Apple of America for being a copycat; lawyers said they figure Nokia can get at least one, probably two per cent (retail) for every iPhone sold by Steve "President for Life" Jobs and crew via the lawsuit,which sure beats working for it -$6 (200 baht) to $12(400 baht) on 30 million phones sold so far, works out to $400 million or 25 percent of the whole Apple empire profits during the last quarter;there were 10 patent thefts, the Finnish executives said, on everything from moving data to security and encryption.
Nokia of Finland announced that it is one month behind on shipping its new flagship N900 phone, the first to run on Linux software; delay of the $750(25,000 baht) phone had absolutely no part in making Nokia so short that it had to sue Apple, slap yourself for such a thought.
Tim Berners-Lee, who created the World Wide Web, said he had one regret:the double slash that follows the "http:"in standard web addresses; he estimated that 14.2 gazillion users have wasted 48.72 bazillion hours typing those two keystrokes, and he's sorry; of course there's no reason to ever type that, since your browser does it for you when you type "www.bangkokpost.com" but Tim needs to admit he made one error in his lifetime.
The International Telecommunication Union of the United Nations, which doesn't sell any phones or services, announced that there should be a mobile phone charger that will work with any phone; now who would ever have thought of that, without a UN body to wind up a major study on the subject?;the GSM Association estimates that 51,000 tonnes of chargers are made each year in order to keep companies able to have their own unique ones.
The Well, Doh Award of the Week was presented at arm's length to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development; the group's deputy secretary-general Petko Draganov said that developing countries will miss some of the stuff available on the Internet if they don't install more broadband infrastructure; a report that used your tax baht to compile said that quite a few people use mobile phones but companies are more likely to invest in countries with excellent broadband connections; no one ever had thought of this before, right?
Sun Microsystems , as a result of the Oracle takeover, said it will allow 3,000 current workers never to bother coming to work again; Sun referred to the losses as "jobs," not people; now the fourth largest server maker in the world, Sun said it lost $2.2 billion in its last fiscal year; European regulators are holding up approval of the Oracle purchase in the hope of getting some money in exchange for not involving Oracle in court cases.
The multi-gazillionaire and very annoying investor Carl Icahn resigned from the board at Yahoo ; he spun it as a vote of confidence, saying current directors are taking the formerly threatened company seriously; Yahoo reported increased profits but smaller revenues in the third quarter.
The US House of Representatives voted to censure Vietnam for jailing bloggers; the non-binding resolution sponsored by southern California congresswoman Loretta Sanchez said the Internet is "a crucial tool for the citizens of Vietnam to be able to exercise their freedom of expression and association;"Hanoi has recently jailed at least nine activists for up to six years apiece for holding pro-democracy banners. Iran jailed blogger Hossein "Hoder" Derakshan for 10 months - in solitary confinement.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)