PeterRS

There are surely arguments both for and against term limits, especially short term limits. One of the problems the USA will have to face, in my very narrow view, is that the entire election cycle is far too short termist. Why 2 years for Congressmen and women against 6 years for senators? And why just 4 years for a President, yet lifetime tenure for the Supreme Court? And why a Supreme Court that is so overtly political? In the short term when there are only two political parties and power switches between the two, it's much more difficult to have longer term policies since all politicians want to be re-elected, all have to raise vast amounts of cash and parties want their own policies enacted. One reason (of several) why China was able to make such massive progress between around 1980 and 2010 when well over 400 million were dragged out of poverty was the lack of short-termism. Without elections the leadership could take Deng Xiao-ping's goals and had the time to put them into effect. Isn't that rather similar to Roosevelt being able to lead America through the Great Depression and then take a very isolationist Congress into two major wars and put the USA on the path to world leadership? Being neither American or Chinese, I make these merely as observations. The same is more or less true with other democratic countries. Against that, of course, you have the problem of dictatorships and quasi dictatorships. Hugely admired Singapore is in fact a quasi dictatorship. Few will argue that Lee Kwan Yew was not a dictator, but he had a vision. Without him and that vision, I suggest it is unlikely that Singapore would be where it is today. As I think I have written before here, Japan is also at best a quasi dictatorship. It is certainly not a functioning democracy in the western sense. Then again, neither of those countries is anything like China or Russia. Getting back to the topic, I cannot see China imploding. There will be changes, but few will know what they are. The Party leadership may be split between hardliners, moderates and progressives, but it will ensure that it remains in power by giving its population more of what it wants. I think those who are fervently against communism forget that within China itself there is still an immense pride in the country and its achievements since the end of the Cultural Revolution. The vast majority of Chinese are very proud to be Chinese and live in China. Yes, I know. Tell that to the peoples in Tibet and Xinjiang and I agree what has been happening there is a disgrace. Same with Hong Kong where Beijing has broken agreements enshrined in international law. But the vast majority of the Chinese know from their own experience and from what their parents and grandparents tell them of what China was like during the Cultural Revolution, in Mao's other disastrous campaigns and in the period of the warlords after the collapse of the Emperor system. They want stability. So I cannot see swings towards democracy or movements to change the way the country is run for many decades.

Whatever Xi's motives, there seems little doubt that he is facing considerable difficulties behind the scenes at the very top of the country's leadership over his actions and his policies. There is definitely drama going on although no one outside the leadership is aware of exactly what it involves. There was a fascinating interview on a recent episode of the BBC World television programme Unspun World hosted by veteran foreign correspondent John Simpson. It claimed that Xi now has to worry about a three pronged attack. The most dangerous is the public backlash against his zero-covid policy. It is not just Premier Li's comments. It's a massive volume of social media posts, mostly couched in indirect language, from all around the country. The Politburo can only govern with the Chinese people on its side. For the first time in a very long time, there is an extremely large groundswell of anti-government feeling. Second is the economy. Premier Li has been talking about dangers to the country's economy for months. Recently he organised a huge and unprecedented teleconference with 100,000 leaders around the country. It is believed this went right down to village level. Unusually he was incredibly frank by telling people that the government had very few reserves left to bail out industries. Most of these reserves had to be kept for emergencies. Once the little that remained was gone, industries were on their own. He could never have made such comments without approval from the very top of the Politburo. Third is Xi's crackdown over the last few years on the private sector added to his cosying up to Putin on the eve of the Ukraine invasion. Many at the top level of government are not at all happy about all this. The Deputy Foreign Minister in charge of Russian Affairs was quietly removed from his post at the end of May. We don't know if that was an indication of the thinking higher up, but the level of rhetoric against the west re Ukraine in the state media has gradually been diminished.

Ha! No, I just worked in Japan for a few years and love the country. Those interested in Japanese host bars might like to see the website illustrations I included in a recent post I made in the Gay Asia forum.

Agree re strikes. But have there been any strikes in the UK which is the area I have mostly concentrated my replies? And I agree you cannot take people off the streets for what is skilled work. But you are assuming that due to a sudden surge, people with those skills have to be hired at virtually a moment's notice. And that is the entire point of crisis management. You don't do things at a moment's notice. You work to a plan which is prepared long beforehand and is adaptable according to circumstances. Looking at the low cost carriers, how is it that in May Ryanair was able to fly more flights than during the same period pre-covid, whereas during that same time period Easy Jet cancelled hundreds of flights, many just prior to scheduled departure times? Easy Jet was clearly totally unprepared. As an article in The Guardian points out, the French pilot's union sent a "withering letter" accusing airport managers at Luton where Easy Jet is headquartered of presiding over "unprecedented chaos - cancelling viable flights and waiting too long to scrap others." But Easy Jet maintains that it has no direct recruitment problems and it retains a similar level of standby crews as pre-covid! Eurocontrol, the main air traffic control centre, warned airlines a week ago that it did not have the capacity to handle the number of flights that are planning to operate over European airspace over the next six weeks. Why was this not a matter for discussions by a controlling crisis management committee several weeks ago? Clearly airlines are adding too many flights without a guarantee that they can operate. An industry where each separate company does its own thing in a time of extreme difficulty for a variety of reasons is bound to end up in chaos. Crisis management teams will still be vital as the year progresses, for there are some in the industry predicting yet another contraction as the year progresses. Earlier in the year Unite, the Union responsible for Easy Jet's ground handling, negotiated a 10% pay rise. With inflation hovering near 10% and household incomes suffering as a result, all allied to huge increases in the price of fuel, ticket prices will certainly rise with the result that passenger demand may drop off once again after the summer holiday period. Will a Christmas rush follow? Who knows? But an industry which is not prepared is bound to suffer.

I fully understand the reason for your comment and the facts behind it. But respectfully I am not sure you fully took on board my earlier comments. The reason for the present mess is basically down to one reason - the lack of effective crisis management and future planning. What you write is totally correct. But there were signs many months before airline traffic began to pick up that covid was being controlled through vaccinations. With intense pressure primarily (I expect) from the business community, it should have been as clear as day that curbs on travel would eventually be lifted in certain parts the world. Of course, no one had a crystal ball and the timing of that pick up was uncertain. But an essential part of crisis management is preparing a raft of scenarios for recovery from the crisis. I don't for a moment believe there was a crisis management committee made up of representatives from all involved in the airline industry, the international air controllers and governments working on a series of opening up plans and what would be required in each case to ensure it was all done in as orderly a fashion as possible. The ad hoc way it has all happened is illustrative of that. Airlines were desperate to get planes flying nd people moving. Who told Easy Jet that attempting to operate the schedule it advertised was madness and could not be done, given the problems facing airports, security and immigration? How is it that Ryanair has not faced similar problems on anything like that scale? What did Heathrow management do re contacting laid off workers at least to inform them that it might be rehiring relatively quickly? Of course, many laid off workers will have taken other jobs as they'd had families to support. But one issue the crisis management committee might have considered was re-signing bonuses. These would have had to be paid for. But what is better for the airport? More planes and more passengers resulting in much more revenue. Or the present mess with a lot less revenue? Simplistic? It will seem so to some. But having spoken to a friend I have known for 40 years and who worked his way up in the Cathay Pacific hierarchy to become a Board member for 6 years, he is scathing about how the industry recovery at least in Europe has been handled.

I am as sure as I can be that you are correct. We also need to remember that many diseases - minor as well as major - are jumping the species barrier. HIV is known to have crossed from a species of chimpanzee to humans in The Congo in the 1920s. SARS in 2003 is known to have crossed from the animal population in China's Guangdong Province to humans. Although the first known cases were discovered in Hong Kong, it is known that a visitor from Guangdong had brought the virus from China where there may well have been earlier cases which the local medical community could not diagnose. MERS in 2015 was another. Now we have covid, another crossover. Part of the problem is that in some parts of the world humans live in very close contacts with animals - sometimes with animals at ground level and humans living above. The emergence of SARS amazed the medical community. Previous coronavirus infections were generally mild with a long incubation period. SARS was an illustration of what veterinary scientists had been suggesting for some time: that there was the potential for these viruses to kill animals and even humans in close proximity to them. What is perhaps surprising is that the incubation period for SARS averaged only 6.4 days and death in untreated patients followed relatively quickly, much faster than with most Covid cases. The only certainty is that more similar but still unknown viruses will appear.

Agreed. But you clearly know precious little about the Chinese authorities when its President has decreed a zero covid policy. Anyone who breaks the rules re covid stands to lose more than his/her job!

You obviously may do as you wish - as do I. My information is not third hand. It was information directly over the phone from a man I have known and trusted for almost 30 years. I know who I believe. You have also merely repeated what i stated - that there are Chinese students in Bangkok, as indeed there are some Chinese workers.

With all respect to @vinapu I somehow doubt how accurate your off was, unless he already studied or worked here. Chinese is a term that covers those who live in China and the vast majority that make up the huge Chinese diaspora. Did he ask if they were Chinese from China? Did he ask if perhaps they were Chinese living in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, The Philippines, Hong Kong, Sydney, Melbourne, Vancouver, Toronto, San Francisco . . . Was his English good enough to know if they did not tell him? China has been very strict re outbound travel since a directive issued on 27 January 2020. That directive was reiterated on 30 March 2022. Further, since 6 August 2021, China has ceased issuing and renewing passports other than for those studying or working overseas. Essential outbound travel is permitted provided the authorities are satisfied on the "essential" elements. All other outbound travel is banned. One of my good friends and his partner live in Shanghai. One is American who has lived in the city with his Chinese partner for almost 30 years. The Chinese is a successful businessman running several companies. Yet even he has been unable to satisfy the authorities that the business trips overseas he used to make fall into the "essential" category. So he cannot travel outside the country.

Yes, i agree my earlier comments are perhaps overly critical. I realise, too, that both airlines and airports depend on quite a variety of independent contractors over which they have little direct control. But I still feel that the industry as a whole, while very quick to downsize as the pandemic started to hit, did not do nearly enough to form a task force to work out a whole series of scenarios dealing with how it would get back on its feet depending on how covid progressed and was eventually going to come to an end. There is an article in today's Observer newspaper in London about the chaos in London's airports and many in Europe. It points out that British Airways was quick to cancel about 10% of its schedule back in April to last until October so that it would avoid the worst of the chaos for its customers who made it to airports. Easy Jet, the continent's largest low cost carrier cut very few and is now left with a huge backlog and a vast number of angry passengers. Under UK and European regulations, many of these passengers are entitled to payments for delays and cancellations, leading to Easy Jet in particular trying to get out of such payments. On the other hand, the second very large UK-operated low cost carrier Ryanair has had to cancel no flights over this last month. Ryanair obviously had its crisis management team much more up to speed than other carriers. As worrying for the industry is the possibility of a major downturn in the autumn, partly as a result of general cost increases to make up for the losses of the last two years and especially oil price increases. The boss of Heathrow, one of the world's largest international airports, is quoted in the article as stating it could take 18 months to be fully staffed once again. 18 months? In my book, this man should be fired. https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/jun/11/with-six-weeks-to-save-summer-can-easyjet-climb-out-of-the-chaos

I totally disagree. When it comes to medical issues and an infection can be spread to others as easily as covid, individual rights do not take precedence over the right of a community to protection from those who might be infected. I am all for freedoms, but freedoms with responsibility. Too often the second part is totally forgotten! Earlier @reader wrote - "China claims it has vaccinated about 80% of population but did so with a near useless vaccine. The comparisons soon become meaningless." Am I missing something? Chinese are not permitted to travel outside the country as far as I understand it.

So the Biden administration bows to the demand of the airline industry! With 33% of the US population still not fully vaccinated, this seems nuts! If someone wants to go to the USA, in most countries getting vaccinated is not that difficult.

Every company, especially those in the travel industry, has to have planning in place for disaster scenarios and individuals virtually on stand-by to head up a disaster team at a moment's notice. If ever the need for that was illustrated, the arrival of covid was it. Equally, though, over the last two years every company should have had a team working on various recovery scenarios. This would have been far from easy given the need for co-ordination with many divisions within a company as well as government liaison, but far from impossible. Had that been the case, I am pretty sure the new set of disasters presently experienced in the travel industry could have been in large part all but avoided.

It seems not to have been noticed by posters that earlier this week the Thai Cabinet gave its approval to a Same Sex Civil Partnership Bill. https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2322310/same-sex-partnership-bill-gets-nod A Civil Partnership Bill has been discussed in Cabinet over the last 10 years and thing has happened. Clearly there will be lots of hurdles before the Bill can become law. This is especially true given Thai society's conservatism. As Nikkei Asia points out, on the day of the Cabinet decision https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Society/Thailand-s-historic-LGBT-bill-exposes-rifts-inside-community The Nikkei article adds there is a "strong rift" between certain groups within the LGBT community.

I have noticed the same for a much longer time in advance. Qatar's biz fare to one of the UK cities for March next year has dropped to slightly less than I paid for March this year. An earlier query a few weeks ago had showed a 25% increase.

I have a condo on the top floor of an 8 storey building in a residential area of the city. Until I started making life difficult for the management company - which otherwise is actually very good - no one paid any attention to fire. Every time I raised the issue at the owners AGMs, I would be told that all the apartments have smoke detectors (but no sprinklers) and there are fire hoses, extinguishers and emergency lighting on every floor. But the main staircase is completely open all the way up the building. There are stairs at the back, but everyone just left those doors open, especially the cleaning staff. It took me 3 years not only to persuade everyone, management and some tenants, that these had to be kept closed and there had to be Fire Exit notices in red on each. Only after I said I would pay for the latter myself were they finally put up. Then there is the issue of fire drills. Again it took about 3 years but the management did organise an excellent demonstration by the fire department of what to do in case of a fire and how to use the fire equipment. 9 out of 50 owners/tenants turned up. But the twice a year fire drills I have consistently sought have never happened. Nor do we know where the evacuation assembly area is. A majority of the residents here are Thai. It is perfectly obvious they have not the faintest concern about fire. And I expect this is true of much of Thai society, alas. I have always had my own extinguisher from HomePro in my apartment and I expect it should not be difficult for fires in individual apartments to be contained within the units at least to enable everyone else to get out of the building - assuming the fire alarms continue to work!

This has been discussed in other threads over the years. The possibility of an evening fire in DJ Station or anywhere else in that soi with its extremely narrow entrance is a disaster just waiting to happen. Why the fire department is not more strict re emergency exits etc. beats me. Remember the Santika nightclub fire in 2009? Emergency exits again closed or blocked. 67 died in that fire.

I'm happy that I seem to be wrong in my earlier assessment, although my concerns about the conservativeness of Thai society in general and the unspoken ' harassment' of the majority of young professional gay guys continues unabated. Although stating the obvious, Bangkok is not New York in the 1980s or Sydney in the 2000s if only because the three societies are vastly different and at different stages in social development. Hopefully it will get there. Nothing that I have seen mentions numbers who attended. Anyone able to hazard a guess?

I don't want to put too much of a damper on what happened yesterday. At least it was a larger March than last year's - and that had been the first for more than around 15 years. I did not go but a Thai friend of my partner went. He said he found it rather depressing. Apparently there was some kind of marching band which did nothing when marching and only played very occasionally when it stopped. He reckoned about 50% of the participants were sex workers. Watchers enjoyed the drag guys but he said there were very few ordinary Thai guys in the Parade, unlike in Taipei where the vast majority of the 200,000 or so who now turn up each year are just ordinary guys, girls and some families dressed casually. Of course, many are dressing up in hugely colourful costumes and there are floats from some of the gay bars. When I was last there in 2018 there was even one from Destination, Beijing's gayest night club. But they are very much in a tiny minority. As has been discussed before, even in this day and age in much of Thailand and especially amongst the middle class the stigma of being a gay can have quite serious consequences at work. Consequently far too many are stuck in the closet and would never consider coming out to take part in any Pride parade. We may not like this - indeed, we may condemn it - but it is fact and there is nothing we are able to do about it. Sadly, a Parade like yesterday's with many in colourful drag outfits, lipstick and all the other drag trappings only reinforces the views of the majority.

Re Japan and the host boy bars, it might be useful to new members for me to repost information about them. This is one chain that can be found in many of Japan's cities, including Kyoto. There are two in Tokyo. As you can see, there is a lot of detail about the boys, what they will do (the icons tell you if he will top or bottom or both), whether he will accept a drink (alcohol) and if he has been in a gay porno movie. Another part of the site will say precisely when they are available. All can be booked in advance even before your arrival in Japan. The price list shows that the service is not cheap. On the other hand with the Japanese Yen now low against the US$, a one hour session in your hotel room is around US$100. I am told most customers have the boys go to their hotel rooms rather than use a room on the premises. This is fractionally cheaper. With Tokyo's horrendous traffic, don't worry about his being late. He will arrive exactly at the appointed time, if not a little beforehand. And the session will last exactly for the time you pay for. From most reports I have seen on line and heard from individuals, almost all the boys deliver exactly what you want and give you the feeling they are enjoying their time with you. Absolutely no tipping! http://lang.dgdgdg.com/top.php It's unlikely anyone will be visiting Japan in the near future as it has just opened its borders to group tour visitors. No one knows yet when solo tourists will be permitted entry or under what conditions. Hopefully by some time in the autumn (which is when I want to return!) As for saunas, as mentioned '24' in Shinjuku ni-chome is a great sauna. Usually there will be quite a wide age range with a largish number of students from nearby universities. The '24' in Ueno is about a 15 minute walk from Ueno station and really quite easy to find. Slightly more working class lads there but still worth a visit. In both you just have to get used to having sex more or less in the open spaces (very dark) unless you pay extra for a private room. From my own occasional observations, I have not noticed any particular reluctance for Japanese there to bottom. Indeed, one of the most amazing experiences I had in 24 Shinjuku was on a Saturday afternoon with a guy who was married with 2 kids. He was insatiable! He said he went every Saturday afternoon and the whole point was to get f---ed to the point of exhaustion!

'Mature' in this case means 70 and over! There are various other groups who qualify such as business/first class passengers on most airlines (but not all and you'll probably need a card given out on board to qualify,) APEC Business Travel card holders etc.

This is one issue that the airlines have brought on themselves. First by encouraging passengers to take carry-on baggage rather than pay for luggage in the cargo hold, and second by not policing passengers to ensure that the number of carry-on bags is not more than permitted by the conditions of the ticket. When I was working full time in the Asian regional offices of three international companies, I had to travel each year to several company offices. The least expensive way to do this was usually with a round-the-world ticket. Not only did these have the perk of several more flight sectors than I needed (up to 16 until around 2004 when it was reduced to 14 on OneWorld) - thereby permitting several short vacation side-trips at almost no cost, as I was allowed biz class travel the tickets were automatically upgraded to first class within the USA if, as was usually the case, there was no biz class on the plane. Not that first class was anything like a first class in most other areas of the world - in fact, space-wise not even on a par with premium economy nowadays. But it did permit much faster check-in, lounge access and free drinks on board. What always annoyed me was that some passengers who boarded the aircraft first would plonk their bags in the overhead bin at the front before moving down to their seats at the back. So first class bins were often full by the time premium passengers boarded. Only very occasionally would flight attendants stop this. Since these days, I have found that only Easyjet in Europe has been very strict on carry-on bags and bag dimensions (haven't flown Ryanair and so have no comparison). In Asia, though, despite often stringent regulations on carry ons, I have never once seen any airline staff stop passengers who take on board more bags then permitted. And like @Olddaddy's experience, it is frequently Indian passengers who bring a very large number of shopping bags on board. I don't really blame the passengers. If an airline has rules and 99 times out of 100 fails to enforce them, then its staff are to blame. Last point on air rage. I have written several times to the so-called legacy carriers in Asia requesting that boarding passengers who have large backpacks be forced to hand carry them on to the plane. Twice I have been hit on the head when in an aisle seat and a late boarding passenger has suddenly turned around resulting in my getting hit on the head by the backpack. Fortunately I wear spectacles. If I did not, on one occasion the loose end of a thick strap that hit the spectacles could have badly damaged my eye. But writing is clearly a waste of time for I still see flight attendants happily accepting passengers wearing large backpacks.

Emirates has finally started to introduce a new Premium Economy Cabin on its A380 fleet. Dubai to/from London, Paris and Sydney will be the first cities served. From the website, it looks like it is located at the front of the lower deck. First row should therefore offer extra space. https://www.emirates.com/th/english/experience/cabin-features/premium-economy-class/

Continuing on this slight side-track, surely the airlines and the airports are primarily responsible for the much longer delays, with immigration authorities not far behind? To a certain extent it is understandable. When covid really started to hit, passenger traffic collapsed almost completely. A huge number of staff were laid off to avoid bankruptcies - although quite a few airlines did go under. The major resurgence in travel has taken most in the travel industry by surprise. We can complain that they should have had better planning in place for all eventualities and getting staff quickly back to work, but that's not going to help with the existing long queues, delays, over-bookings and cancellations. I guess those of us in Asia are in a slightly better situation. In the meantime, those in the west have little choice but grin and bear it.

I last chatted with him about 4 months ago. Sadly for him, he's still single, although he now has a group of close Chinese friends. He always tells me there is a dearth of foreigners in Taiwan and he is now at an age when any who might be available will be looking for someone younger. So I am certain he's just given up. It's a real pity since he is such a nice guy and could make someone really happy.