Rising Thai Floodwaters Reach Bangkok

Flooded highway interchange at Pathum Thani north of Bangkok on October 20

Knee high floodwaters began inundating outlying sections and neighborhoods of the Thai capital this week as officials warned resident to move their belongings to higher ground.

Knee-high floods began to appear in some outer districts of the city, a day after authorities said they would take the risky move of releasing some waters that had been building up in recent days behind barricades fashioned along the city's northern outskirts. The idea is to let some waters run through the canals that crisscross Bangkok to escape to the sea, but it was unknown whether the operation could be executed without inundating large parts of the capital.

In Thailand, more than 200 major highways and roads are now impassable, while several key industrial estates have been inundated. Damages are expected to tally at least $6 billion and shave up to two percentage points off gross domestic product, according to economists' estimates. Humanitarian groups said parts of the affected provinces-- covering about a third of Thailand -- are inaccessible, with some towns under water more than six feet high.

There are several industrial parks around Bangkok that provide components for products from companies such as Toyota [NYSE: TM], Apple Computers [NASDAQ: AAPL] , Honda Motors [NYSE: HMC] and Sony [NYSE: SNE] that have halted production at their Thai facilities due to the ongoing flooding, further disrupting supply chains already in disarray from the March 2011 quake and tsunami that struck Japan.

State Railways of Thailand (SRT) passenger tran traversing flooded are near Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya, Thailand on October 19, 2011. Lerdchai Seangsong photo

Some of the expressways in and out of the capital had literally become parking lots as the high overpasses were the only high ground that the motorists were able to find. Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra and over government officials have warned that the floodwaters could take as long as 6 weeks to fully receede.
Earlier this month, the Kingdom's State Railway of Thailand shut down freight and passenger service to two northern cities while more recently it offered tourists refunds on tickets rendered unusable due to suspension of service because of the floods.

Georgia Company Offsetting the Trade Imbalance With China, One Pair of Chopsticks at a Time

In a rather curious bit of role-reversal, a Georgia company is exploiting a shortage of wood in China and abundant resources in southern Georgia to export chopsticks to Asia.

“Right now we are making about two million pairs of chopsticks per day but we are increasing," says Jae Lee, president of Georgia Chopsticks. "End of this month, we’ll have seven machines coming in, so it’ll increase to like four million per day. End of this year, we’ll produce 10 million per day.”

Lee, a Korean-American, says the global market for chopsticks is huge because about one-third of the world’s population uses them. Japan alone goes through about 23 billion pairs of the disposable utensils each year.

Most chopsticks are made in China, where several hundred manufacturers turn out 63 billion pairs annually. But they are running short of wood.

Wood is something the U.S. town of Americus - where Georgia Chopsticks is located - has plenty of.

“Rural Georgia and the cities of rural Georgia, they’re blessed with tons of natural resources," says David Garriga, who heads the local economic development council. "The Pacific Rim, especially areas of China and Japan, they’ve run out of wood, but we have an abundance of it.”

The sweet gum and poplars that are abundant throughout southern Georgia are ideal for the production of chopsticks. The straight, pliable and lightly colored wood doesn't require bleach or chemicals to modify their colors.

Every pair of chopsticks made at Lee's Cochran, GA based company is exported to Japan, China or Korea where they are sold in supermarkets. Sumter County Chamber of Commerce head David Garriga said that he has been contacted by other businesses from the Pacific Rim interested in doing business in and around Americus, GA. The most recently available figures list the unemployment rate in Sumter county in the neighborhood of 12.5% (contrasted with Georgia's 9.7%).

In recent years, there has been something of a trend where businesses from China and elsewhere in the Pacific Rim have been looking to do business in the Southeastern USA. While labor costs are higher than in China, this is offset by lower costs for the property, utilities and certain tax credits that Chinese entrepreneurs are taking advantage of. Industrial real estate in the USA can be fetch not even 25% the costs in China while maintaining a presence in the USA also helps them respond more rapidly to any number of supply-chain issues.

Korean model in cheongsam

While exporting chopsticks to the People's Republic of China is somewhat ironic and good news for the people of Sumter county, Ga, I feel that the trade imbalance with China hasn't truly been adressed until the United States begins exporting cheongsams to mainland China.

Happy Chinese New Year's From Not Another New England Sports Blog!

I'm a tad late with this, thanks in large part to my not being Chinese, but Chinese New Year (or Lunar New Year) began on Feb 3rd.

And you know what that means, right? Well....aside from several consecutive days of dragon parades, festivities, family reunions, feasts and decorations throughout many parts of Asia (including our largest creditor) as well as Chinatowns throughout the world- that means 'tis the season for some seasonally appropriate Eye candy from the Far East, of course!

If you're not familiar with the choengsam or qi pao, I was able to provide a fleeting introduction during last year's Chinese New Years. Now granted the model for the garment last year was nothing short of absolutely stunning, but the angle of the photo failed to adequately highlight what I thought was the best part of the cheongsam.

This time around, I was able to find one that did, as you can see above, the vertical slit which can allow the wearer to show some leg if she's so inclined. And in this case, I think we're just a little better off for her doing so.



In case you're wondering, this is the year of the rabbit. Supposedly those born in the year of the rabbit are calm, sociable, level headed and gregarious.

If you're curious about your Chinese Zodiac, you can check here (scroll down for your date of birth). I remember a few years back having lunch at a rural diner in upstate New York. They had these placemats which a pretty detailed chart showing the years and personality traits of the Chinese Zodiac- this stood out because this wasn't a Chinese restaurant, the owners weren't Asian and it was nowhere near the Chinese New Years.....they apparently were out of kid's activity placemats or thought it was important that we started studying up on our Chinese Zodiac at a reasonably young age.

North Korea Shells Populated South Korean Island- South Korea Scrambles Fighters, Returns Fire

North Korea fired artillery rounds at a South Korean military garrison on Yeonpyeong Island on Tuesday, killing a South Korean Marine and setting buildings on fire while prompting the South to return fire. The shelling took place in the midst of South Korean military exercises in the area.

South Korea's YTN TV network aired footage showing columns of smoke rising from the island of about 1300 inhabitants, with the White House issuing a statement condemning the attack while China and the Kremlin cautioned both sides against escalation.

The latest provocation from the North comes only a few days after the isolated, communist state revealed that it was enriching uranium at a facility visited by the US Special envoy on North Korean denuclearization Stephen Bosworth and about a month after an ailing Kim Jong Il announced his son Kim Jong Un as his heir apparent.

In March of this year, a North Korean submarine torpedoed the corvette ROKS Cheonan, killing all 46 South Korean sailors on board.

Hundreds Dead in Cambodia Stampede

Thousands of Cambodians at a riverside festival in the capitol of Phnom Penh stampeded across on an island and across a bridge killing at least 350 people on Tuesday. Some of the victims were spectators lined along the bridge leading off to the island who were knocked into the water or trampled as the fleeing crowd surged its way across the bridge.

An eyewitness said the trouble appeared to start after a concert on the island when about 10 people in the crowd fell unconscious, which in turn set off a panic.

Prime Minister Hun Sen made two live television broadcasts after midnight, giving a preliminary death toll of 181 that he later increased to 190. The website of the newspaper Kampuchea Thmey cited Gen. Sao Sokha, chief of the military police, as saying the death toll could be close to 300, according to information from four hospitals to which bodies were taken.

Authorities had estimated that upward of 2 million people would descend on Phnom Penh for the three-day water festival, which marks the end of the rainy season and whose main attraction is traditional boat races along the river.

The last race ended early Monday evening, the last night of the holiday, and the panic started later on Koh Pich -- Diamond Island -- a long spit of land wedged in a fork in the river where a concert was being held. It was unclear how many people were on the island to celebrate the holiday, though the area appeared to be packed with people, as were the banks.

Seeking to escape the island, part of the crowd pushed onto a bridge, which also jammed up, with people falling under others and into the water. So Cheata said hundreds of hurt people lay on the ground afterward. Some appeared to be unconscious.

Cambodia is one of the region's poorer countries, and has an underdeveloped health system, with hospitals barely able to cope with daily medical demands.

The 3-day water festival, which features traditional boat races, was expected to draw 2 million visitors to Cambodia's capital city.

Burmese Junta Releases Nobel Laureate Dissident Aung San Suu Kyi From House Arrest

Opposition leader and daughter of one Burma's architects of independence from the British, Aung San Suu Kyi, has been released from house arrest. She had spent the last 15 of the last 21 years under house arrest on orders from Burma's ruling military junta.

The Burmese military (aka the Tatmadaw) seized power in an August 1988 coup and have operated under the banner of the State Peace and Development Council since the 1990s- the South East Asian nation has been governed by one faction of the military or another since 1962.

Among the accomplishments the State Peace and Development Council can take credit for is renaming the country to 'Mynmar', moving the capital from the country's largest city Rangoon (aka Yangon) to the newly-constructed inland city of Naypyidaw, adopting a new flag as recently as last month (see below), or crushing the 2007 'Saffron Revolution'.


Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won 59% of the votes in a 1990 election called by the Burmese junta, which would've given her party roughly 80% representation in Parliament and effectively made her prime minister. Instead, the junta had nullified the election results and placed Suu Kyi under house arrest

Suu Kyi's release came a few days after widely criticized elections in which the ruling junta and their proxies retained power, leading some to believe that Suu Kyi's release (which isn't unconditional) was a diversion to prevent further scrutiny of the Nov. 7 balloting.