“Greetings from Thailand”.

That was the message on the postcard sent to the directors of a Belgian prison. The sender? The management of Turnhout prison believe the greeting letter was from Oualid Sekkaki, who escaped last month. Sekkaki is one of five inmates who escaped from the Flemish prison in mid-December.

The letter was addressed to the three directors of the prison. In the envelope was his prison badge and a postcard with the words ‘Greetings from Thailand’. Sekkaki escaped from the Belgian prison with four other inmates on December 19, climbing over the prison wall then jumping into in a waiting getaway vehicle. Three of the men were recaptured in a nearby neighbourhood the following evening. A fourth, identified at the time as 38 year old Abderrahim Baghat, was captured by police in the Netherlands.

Monday’s postcard is the first sign of Sekkaki since his escape. Officers of the prison immediately informed police.

Oualid Sekkaki is the brother of the notorious “escape king” Ashraf Sekkaki, who also escaped from Turnhout prison in 2003, and Bruges prison ten years ago, in a hijacked helicopter. Ashraf is currently in prison in Morocco.

There is no indication if Sekkaki is actually in Thailand and Thai authorities haven’t confirmed if they’ve been contacted by Belgian police.

SOURCE: Chiang Rai Times

Electic cars (EVs) are on the rise in Thailand. The Electric Vehicle Association of Thailand (EVAT) reports a sharp increase in the number of electric vehicles registered in 2019. Department of Land Transport statistics show that, as of December 31, there were 2,854 electric vehicle registrations, including 1,572 new cars, up 380% from 2018 when only there were only 325 registered.

Hybrid electric vehicles and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles reached a total of 153,184 vehicles. (Hybrids are electric vehicles with a back-up conventional petrol engine, and switches between the two power trains)

EVAT’s president says that the growth of PHEV and EV is up more than 51% from a year earlier.

“The increase in electric vehicle registration will have an effect shortly as the need for charging stations will increase as well. Therefore, this year may see full model commercial charging stations, with the private sector playing an increasingly important role.”

EVAT promotes and supports the exchange of information about technology and innovation for all types of electric vehicles for the development of EV technology in Thailand. There are more than 200 members from the private sector, educational institutions, state enterprises and individuals.

SOURCE: The Nation

Sugar factories are campaigning to cut and harvest raw sugarcane, instead of boring it first, for processing. The conglomerates are recommending that the government offer funding at low interest rates to farmers to buy harvesters as the prices of the equipment are quite high (6-12 million baht).

They are also urging the government to purchase electricity from biomass power plants as some plants are locked out from selling their power to the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand.

“No farmer wants to burn their field but the cost of labour is high. Factories must sign contracts with farmers to help with the harvesting.”

“Factories can encourage farmers by buying raw sugarcane while some sugarcane can be left for generating power,” according to The Nation.

Meanwhile, local sugarcane growers in Nakhon Sawan, central Thailand, are burning their fields at night despite authorities’ ban on the practice. It appears little is being done to curb the practice which is one of the main causes, if not the main cause, of the smoke and haze problems in various parts of the country throughout this time of the year.

Despite doing their burins at night, when farmers believe they will avoid the notice of the sleeping authorities, they are providing easy to locate burn-offs. Authorities banned field burning late last year in a bid to control the hazardous fine smoke particles that were drifting into highly populated city areas.

Now the sugar industry is also trying to encourage farmers to stop the practice of burn-offs.

“The problem of fires at sugarcane plantations requires cooperation from all sectors” – Sitiwuth Siempakdee, vice president of Thai Sugar Miller Company.

Sugarcane harvesting started on December 1, 2019, at the same time the smog and smoke problems started in Bangkok and areas around central Thailand.

“The increase in sugarcane output over the previous year was because there were three new factories,. Also, factories increased the efficiency of their machines, improved sugar extraction as a result cane extraction capacity average is 1.0-1.1 million tonnes per day.”

“Sugarcane output this year will be lower than 30-40% of the previous year, because of the impact of drought, or only 90 million tonnes. Sugarcane extraction will be less than last year by 3 to 4 million tonnes.”

SOURCE: The Nation