Asianet Pakistan Private Limited

Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn stressed the need for collaboration across borders, sectors, and communities to achieve food security, sustainability, and resilience, at an event marking the 80th anniversary of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the 2025 regional observance of World Food Day on Oct 16.

The princess — who also serves as the FAO Goodwill Ambassador for Asia and the Pacific — highlighted how more than half of the world’s undernourished population lives in Asia, where many still face hunger and lack access to nutritious food.

Smallholder farmers continue to struggle with limited resources, while communities remain vulnerable to climate-related disasters.

She noted that climate change has worsened natural disasters, destroyed harvests, and displaced countless people, while water scarcity and unsustainable practices have further degraded agricultural lands.

These burdens, she said, fall hardest on smallholder farmers who lack the support they need.

“Hand-in-hand means governments working together to craft policies that protect the vulnerable and promote sustainable farming; businesses partnering with farmers to strengthen supply chains, reduce food loss and waste, and ensure fair prices; and researchers sharing innovations so that even remote farmers can benefit from climate-smart agriculture,” she said.

“We must develop agri-food systems that are resilient to climate change, inclusive of all people, and able to provide every individual with safe, affordable, and diverse nutrition. At the same time, we must safeguard biodiversity and natural resources to ensure that future generations inherit a healthier, more sustainable planet,” she said.

“As FAO Special Goodwill Ambassador, I am committed to this cause,” she continued. “But true progress depends on all of us — governments, international organisations, farmers, businesses, and communities — joining hands to strengthen and transform our agri-food systems into engines of health, prosperity, and sustainability.”

Dr Alue Dohong, FAO assistant director-general and regional representative for Asia and the Pacific, added that 2.6 billion people cannot afford a healthy diet, facing the triple burden of hunger, malnutrition, and obesity.

Yet, he said, innovation and partnership offer hope for “better production, better nutrition, a better environment, and a better life for all”.

He also expressed deep gratitude for the princess’s enduring support.

Chartthaipattana Party (CTP) director Nikorn Chamnong yesterday suggested an extraordinary parliamentary session be held in mid-November to accelerate the deliberation of charter amendment bills to guarantee that a charter rewrite referendum can take place alongside the next general election.

Mr Nikorn, a former secretary to the House committee on the referendum bill, said the three charter amendments are set for the first reading on Oct 14-15, but time constraints could make it impossible to hold a charter referendum along with the general election as planned by the government.

If parliament passes the charter amendment bills in its first reading on Oct 15, a House committee would likely spend until Dec 12 reviewing the bills, with the second reading possible on Dec 17. A 15-day gap is required before the third reading, likely placing final approval toward the end of December.

The election of MPs law requires that a general election be held within 45 to 60 days after a House dissolution. If the House is dissolved on Jan 31 next year, the snap poll would fall around March 29.

Under the existing referendum law, a referendum must be announced at least 90 days before it is held, making it impossible to hold a charter referendum and a general election on the same day.

Although the amended version reduces that window to 60 days and allows concurrent voting, the bill has yet to come into force.

Mr Nikorn suggested that an extraordinary parliamentary session be held in mid-November to accelerate the second reading, while the third could take place once the next session begins. This would allow sufficient time for a referendum to coincide with the general election in March 2026, he said.

He also warned that the charter amendment bill proposed by the People’s Party (PP) could face legal obstacles as it calls for a 100-member constitution drafting assembly (CDA) elected directly by the public.

According to Mr Nikorn, the direct election of charter drafters is deemed to contradict the Constitutional Court’s latest ruling that charter drafters cannot be directly elected.

Asked whether the timeline might require delaying the planned House dissolution, Mr Nikorn said if those factors are not addressed, the House dissolution timeline may be affected.

Former deputy national police chief Pol Gen Surachate Hakparn on Tuesday petitioned the House committee on national strategy and reforms to investigate national police chief Pol Gen Kittharath Punpetch for alleged misconduct and abuse of power.

The petition, accepted by committee chairman Rangsiman Rome, claimed that Pol Gen Kittharath acted unlawfully and in bad faith when he ordered a disciplinary probe in April this year to look into a Chulalongkorn University law exam scandal.

Pol Gen Surachate said that the investigation falsely named him as a suspect in a criminal case despite the police chief being fully aware that he was never charged in connection with the alleged theft of exam papers.

Even though this was later corrected, the damage was done to his reputation and he had already filed a defamation lawsuit with the Criminal Court, he said.

He claimed that the probe against him was an attempt to block his possible return to the police force. He added that he has now filed two criminal defamation lawsuits against Pol Gen Kittharath and plans to take the case to the corruption and misconduct court.

The controversy dates back to March this year, when cyber police arrested figures connected to the Betflik online gambling network, ultimately uncovering communications among officers about removing exam papers from Chulalongkorn’s evening law programme.

Kanittha Lertbanjerdwong, also known as Dr Nid, was identified as a key intermediary who claimed to be Pol Gen Surachate’s personal secretary.

According to the investigation team, evidence indicated she delivered stolen exam papers to Pol Gen Surachate’s legal team for completion before returning them to examination authorities.

Ms Kanittha was arrested in April while Pol Gen Surachate maintained he was never involved in any way.

Mr Rangsiman said the panel will examine the complaint and review all evidence to ensure transparency and fairness, adding that Pol Gen Kittharath might be summonsed to answer questions.

Authorities are preparing for the repatriation a 24-year-old Thai chef who died after falling ill on a roadside in Cambodia, amid reports he had been denied medical treatment at a local hospital there.

The deceased was identified as Methacharn ‘Mean’ Yorsang, 24, a native of Phra Phrom district, Nakhon Si Thammarat province.

According to the Thai Overseas Assistance Coordination Centre, Methacharn was found lying sick and helpless on a roadside in Cambodia with no money or identification documents. He was reportedly turned away by a Cambodian hospital near the border, denied meical treatment, shortly before he died.

About 8am on Wednesdsay, the Thai-Cambodian Border Coordination Centre confirmed it had arranged with Cambodian authorities to repatriate his remains through the Khlong Luek border checkpoint in Aranyaprathet district, Sa Kaeo province.

His relatives were travelling to the border and would decide on funeral and legal arrangements after receiving the body on Wednesday afternoon.

A representative of the Thai Overseas Assistance Centre said that when the case was first reported on Tuesday, Methacharn had still been conscious and responsive and complained of severe abdominal and chest pain.

He had reportedly attempted to walk to the Poipet border checkpoint in hope of returning to Thailand but was denied entry. He later died after seeking treatment at a Cambodian hospital and being rejected.

Further investigation by local reporters revealed that Methacharn was the subject of an active arrest warrant issued by Phaya Thai police in 2025 on charges of fraud and violating the Computer Crime Act.

Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul has defended a major reshuffle within the Finance Ministry and denied there being any political motive behind the transferral of key officials.

The reshuffle followed cabinet approval of seven high-level civil service transfers. Ranking high was the reassignment of Pinsai Suraswadi, son of senior Pheu Thai Party figure Plodprasop Suraswadi, from director-general of the Revenue Department to deputy permanent secretary.

Mr Anutin clarified that the reshuffle was proposed by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas, adding that his role as prime minister was simply to acknowledge the decision.

“I didn’t look at the names. The prime minister’s authority is to give acknowledgement,” he stated.

Mr Ekniti said the reshuffle was to fill vacancies. When prodded, he denied Mr Pinsai’s transfer was influenced by his family ties.

Other cabinet-approved transfers include: Akkarut Sonthayanon from deputy permanent secretary to director-general of the Treasury Department; and Kulaya Tantitemit from director-general of the Customs Department to director-general of the Revenue Department. Phanthong Loykulnunt is also being transferred from inspector-general to director-general of the Customs Department.

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has confirmed the city is fully prepared for rising water levels, insisting there will be no repeat of the 2011 catastrophic floods.

Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt has assured the public that the city is geared up to handle the combined threats of northern runoff, high tides, and heavy rainfall, saying that current water levels are significantly lower than those during the 2011 floods.

During a river inspection with media crews, Mr Chadchart reviewed flood prevention measures along the Chao Phraya River, including sandbag barriers, leak repairs near Rajini School, and embankment reinforcements near Wat Rakhang.

He confirmed that Bangkok is coordinating closely with the Royal Irrigation Department, National Water Command Centre, and Office of National Water Resources.

As of Oct 6, major dams in the Chao Phraya Basin — Bhumibol (89% full), Sirikit (96%), Kwae Noi (100%), and Pa Sak (73%) — still have capacity to hold a combined 2.04 billion cubic metres of water.

Flow rates at key stations remain below critical thresholds, with C.298 in Pathum Thani recording 2,421 m³/sec, far below the 3,930 m³/sec seen in 2011.

High tides between Oct 9-12 may raise river levels, especially in low-lying areas, but are not expected to breach permanent flood defences.

Rainfall from Oct 6-14 will be influenced by weakening low pressure from Tropical Storm Matmo and a shifting monsoon trough, bringing scattered heavy rain to Bangkok and surrounding regions.

Bangkok has implemented vital strategies. For northern runoff and tidal surges, there will be a regular inspection of flood barriers, and emergency response teams will be deployed to monitor the flood situation.

Other measures involve lowering canal levels, preparing drainage systems, and mobilising equipment and personnel.

The city has reinforced 80km of permanent flood barriers and addressed 22 of 32 vulnerable “gap zones”, with sandbagging completed at 75 locations using 198,700 bags and 1,656 m³ of sand. Mobile pumps and 24-hour monitoring teams are also in place.

For 320 households in 11 communities outside flood barriers, district offices have provided sandbags, temporary walkways, and emergency support.

“We’re confident in our flood management systems. This year’s situation is under control and nothing like 2011,” Mr Chadchart stated.

Meanwhile, the Thai Meteorological Department forecasts continued rain across northern, northeastern, eastern, and southern provinces, with warnings for flash floods and waterlogging due to accumulated rainfall and rising river levels.

Cooler air from China is expected to signal the transition to the early winter season.

Major cryptocurrency tokens, including bitcoin and BNB, reached record highs this week amid government turmoil around the world that drove up alternative asset prices, which elated China’s crypto community as the country reconsiders digital assets such as stablecoins.

Bitcoin passed the US$126,000 level on Monday, a new all-time high for the world’s largest cryptocurrency token, before falling more than 1% to below US$124,000 on Tuesday.

BNB, the native token of the world’s largest crypto exchange Binance, also hit its own record of US$1,268 on Tuesday. The latest crypto boom propelled Binance founder Changpeng Zhao’s personal fortune to US$89.7 billion, according to a Forbes billionaire ranking.

Still, Zhao on Tuesday denied that figure, saying on social media platform X, formerly Twitter, that it was “way too high”.

While the reaction of Chinese crypto enthusiasts to bitcoin’s new high was muted on mainland social media, many celebrated the token’s latest achievement on X and envisioned an unprecedented crypto bull market.

The latest gains came as global investors flocked to assets outside major currencies such as the US dollar, which has been under pressure amid a week-long US government shutdown.

Gold prices also set another record by approaching US$4,000, having gained more than 50% since the beginning of this year.

Bitcoin’s surge “signals its role as a hedge against fiscal uncertainty, as the US government shutdown wavers confidence in safe assets”, said Nick Ruck, director at LVRG Research.

Bitcoin and gold have attracted the so-called debasement trade from investors “seeking refuge from a volatile monetary landscape”, Ruck said. Debasement trade, a term that recently gained popularity, refers to the trading strategy where investors turn to alternative assets to hedge against fiat currency devaluation.

With bitcoin prices gaining 10% over the past week amid the US government shutdown, the token’s “safe-haven appeal is reasserting itself”, digital asset trading firm QCP Capital said in a note on Monday.

The value of bitcoin has nearly doubled over the past year amid a digital asset industry boom driven by US President Donald Trump’s favourable policies towards the sector, including the US Genius Act, which aims to establish a regulatory framework for stablecoins.

These moves recently spurred intense discussions in China, where experts have called for the country to reexamine its ban on crypto amid rising US influence in digital finance.

While Beijing has given no indication that it will loosen its grip on cryptocurrency, offshore yuan stablecoins have emerged as an area of potential importance for the global competitiveness of the Chinese currency.

Conflux, a government-backed blockchain operator, has been allowed to experiment in the field as Beijing sought to secure a position in the new global financial order, its founder told the Post last week.

Sabine Hossenfelder is one of the people I regularly watch on the YouTube platform. She is a physicist but also veers into other areas such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. For her latest video — In Which I Lose Faith In Quantum Computing — she makes a number of interesting observations. In short, apart from some very specific applications, quantum computing, even if it is scalable from current technology, has limited application. It also has the potential of bringing down a number of current companies highly focused on this technology, or at least some of their divisions. Artificial intelligence takes up a lot of the space that quantum computing could do well in, but for the present at least, AI does it better. The next 10 years, or less, will be important to see how both of these directions develop, or not. If you are interested at all in physics, maths and occasionally quantum computing, then Sabine Hossenfelder provides some interesting perspectives.

– I’ve learned a new word this week — workslop. This is the machine-learning equivalent of spam. As noted in earlier articles, AI can make people lazy. According to an ongoing study by Stanford’s Social Media Lab and behavioural research business BetterUp Labs, 40% of US workers are reporting that workslop has crossed their desk over the past month.

– So, people are sending impressive looking, AI-generated material, containing little in terms of actionable facts and figures. Someone often then needs to go through this and turn it into something useful. According to the report, the amount of work involved in the process of sorting the wheat from the chaff, or facts from hallucinations, costs around US$186 (6,000 baht) per employee per month in lost productivity. Those receiving workslop break down as being annoyed, with a third claiming to be confused and a quarter claiming the received material offended them. People also saw those sending the material as untrustworthy, 42%, with a third concluding the sender was less creative and intelligent than they first thought. Many said such material was more trouble than it’s worth. Workers sent 18% of workslop directly to managers, with 16% of such material coming from managers.

– If you expand this study across the world, study not yet done, this will be occurring in more than just the US. If you also look at some of the latest ads for IT, companies are asking for people with AI tool experience presumably because senior management believes it will boost productivity and reduce costs. People use AI tools, but if and when they generate poor outputs someone then must fix it. A recent study by the UK government found no clear productivity improvement from introducing Microsoft 365 Copilot to the Department for Business and Trade. Then there is research by MIT which reports that about 95% of organisations see no measurable return on investment from generative AI efforts. So, on one side there are those pushing AI and on the other, workers using it and generating rubbish. This will not end well. One exception I’ve seen is in code generation, but unless you check the results and just hand it on, that can lead also to failure.

– Some of you will have seen the Boston Dynamics robots doing parkour. I remember at the time being impressed. I recently watched a video on how robotics has progressed since then. Some of the new Chinese robots are getting very capable, like being knocked down and immediately getting back up again and even performing a cartwheel. The target here is apparently more on industrial work. Then there are robot faces that can mimic expressions with such detail and accuracy that people are calling it eerie. I found it to be so-so. Over to Europe, and they are working on a robot with simulations of muscle movements. They currently look like some kind of ghoul but the final result will be a robot that moves like a human.

– I also watched a discussion with one of the fathers of AI, Geoffrey Hinton. He explained that any gross level of physical work will soon be replaced by a combination of AI and robot forms. In contrast to some positions, he said that AI would be able to do creativity well because of something he called strange anomalies. He gave the example of two identical AI’s looking at different parts of the Internet. Instead of being independent, they would share interesting findings giving them more weight. Doing this at a trillion times faster than a regular human, they can find strange associations missed by us. Try putting the question, “What is the similarity between an atom bomb and a compost pile?”, to your favourite Chatbot. Hinton, who won the Nobel Prize in Physics, did suggest that the last ability to fall would be our advantage in small manipulations, noting that plumbers should be safe for a while yet.

– And finally, there will be no Tesla phone but rather from next year, a number of new phones will have a dedicated Starlink chip built in to support a direct connection to Starlink satellites. Yes, I was looking forward to a new Tesla phone myself.

The government’s “Khon La Khrueng Plus” co-payment scheme, worth 44 billion baht, is expected to bolster GDP in the fourth quarter, said Finance Minister Ekniti Nitithanprapas.

The cabinet on Tuesday approved the budget for the scheme, which will be effective from Oct 29 until the end of this year, with the aim of preventing the economy from becoming trapped in contraction in the current quarter, the minister said.

Mr Ekniti, also a deputy prime minister, said the cabinet’s approval of the scheme reflects the government’s policy as declared to parliament, and recognises the urgent need to stimulate the economy.

The scheme is intended to increase household income and reduce expenditures, thereby enhancing people’s purchasing power for everyday consumption, he said.

This is especially important as the Thai economy faces a risk of contraction and slowdown in the fourth quarter.

The Khon La Khrueng Plus initiative is positioned as a flagship measure, complementing the recent top-up in welfare card balances that the cabinet also approved last week, to promote a more distributed and lasting economic recovery.

According to Mr Ekniti, Khon La Khrueng Plus will provide 20 million entitlements, under which the government will contribute half of the spending.

The aim is to aid small and micro businesses by stimulating consumer demand. Over the medium to long term, the programme also targets tax-registered citizens, who will receive 2,400 baht each, as well as support for local vendors via technology and training to reduce costs and modernise trade.

“The government emphasises that this scheme is intended to act as the engine to drive Thailand’s economy and prevent a negative trajectory,” he said.

Unlike the previous version [for persons aged 18 and above], eligibility in this round is extended to all persons 16 and above, recognising that younger generations have purchasing power and engage in online commerce.

“The government will also raise its daily subsidy contribution from 150 to 200 baht, thereby increasing purchasing power and driving short-term economic stimulus.

“Meanwhile, subsidies for those in the tax system will rise to  2,400 baht, in contrast to the general subsidy of 2,000 baht. The scheme will run from Oct 29-Dec 31, and those who have registered but not yet used their entitlement must make their first transaction by Nov 11 to retain their eligibility,” Mr Ekniti said.

He said the purpose of the scheme is to help ease living expenses for 20 million people, requiring citizens to also contribute 44 billion themselves — thereby injecting a total of 88 billion into the economy.

Furthermore, at the previous cabinet meeting, the government also approved top-ups for 13.4 million welfare card holders, 1,700 baht each, funded by another 23 billion baht budget allocation, Mr Ekniti said.

This means that by year’s end, more than 100 billion baht will have been mobilised to stimulate the economy, which is expected to raise GDP by an additional 0.3-0.4%, he said.

While economic growth was forecast at 0.3 % for the quarter, these measures could see it double that target, he said.

“The government will sequentially roll out stimulus measures each week to push the Q4 GDP to expand by at least 1%,” he said.

A 51-year-old man accused of committing multiple home burglaries while naked has been arrested in Nakhon Ratchasima.

Chaliaw Khramkrathok was arrested while riding a motorcycle in Chok Chai district on Tuesday afternoon.

He was named in arrest warrants for multiple burglaries in the area since March this year.

According to police, the suspect has a house in Chok Chai district but tried to avoid arrest by living outside in paddy fields.

He had broken into several houses in March and four in September, police said.

Mr Chaliaw stole personal valuables and cash and was often naked when he committed the thefts. He was filmed by security cameras.

He told police that he took off his clothes because he did not want to be recognised by his clothing. Sometimes he stripped off because his clothes were soaked by rain.