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NOTE -- Consolidated three current news items in this thread. From Aljazeera Centuries in the making: Will Thailand build a 100km canal? If Thailand's canal is ever built, it won't be the world's longest, but it surely will claim to have had the longest gestation period. The idea of building a shipping lane from one side of the country to the other, linking the Gulf of Thailand, or Gulf of Siam as it was known at the time, with the Andaman Sea and Indian Ocean, was first proposed by King Narai in 1677. Obviously, it didn't happen at the time. Throughout the centuries, however, the idea has repeatedly been brought up by monarchs, politicians, soldiers and businessmen, and, each time, the plans have been shelved because they've been deemed impractical, too expensive or detrimental to the nation's security. Now, in 2018, the proposal is back, thanks to a group of businessmen, former politicians and retired military generals who believe the time is right for the Thai government to commit to building the 100km canal. Continues with video http://www.aljazeera.com/blogs/asia/2018/01/centuries-making-thailand-build-100km-canal-180129140722240.html ------------------- From Khaosod English Thailand’s Amazing Tourism an Amazing Mess: New Minister BANGKOK — Thailand’s tourism boom is causing serious problems and the bureaucracy is ill-equipped to fix them. That no-punches spared assessment comes from none other than its new tourism minister, Weerasak Kowsurat. “The problems have been swept under the rug for 30 years now. At this time, it’s being lifted up a little,” the 52-year-old Harvard law school graduate said in an interview. “I don’t have enough time to change the rug. What I will do is pull the corners. You can show what’s under the rug if you grab the right corner.” Unlike the predecessor he replaced in November, Kobkarn Wattanavrangkul, a media-savvy figure known for her always-rosy take on Thai tourism – Weerasak is a policy pedant with a gloomier take on it’s mismanagement. During the course of an hour-long interview, the former Tourism Authority of Thailand board member kept circling back to the same threats confronting this critical engine of the national economy: Ever-growing hordes of tourists trampling sensitive beaches, cities and towns that never get their share and a bureaucracy that doesn’t know how to fix such problems. Continues with photos http://www.khaosodenglish.com/news/business/2018/01/31/thailands-amazing-tourism-amazing-mess-new-minister/ ---------------------- From Bangkok Post Thailand No.1 as world's cryptocurrency malware mining hotspot Thailand has become the world's leading hotspot for cryptocurrency mining malware, according to Palo Alto Networks, a network and enterprise security firm. Cryptocurrency-focused threats should be a focus of intelligence and preventive efforts for all defenders in 2018, as attackers have already introduced more large-scale attacks globally, Christopher Budd wrote on the Palo Alto Networks blog. The company found that XRMig, software that is used to mine the monero cryptocurrency, is being used to attack systems without the knowledge or consent of the victims. While XRMig itself is not specifically malware, it is being delivered using malware delivery techniques. The attackers are doing this by using URL shorteners to make XMRig look like other, legitimate and expected programs. Among the top 10 countries globally attacked, Thailand saw the most downloads of the new malware at 3,545,437, followed by Vietnam (1,830,065), Egypt (1,132,863), Indonesia (988,163), Turkey (665,058), Peru (646,985), Algeria (614,870), Brazil (550,053), the Philippines (406,294) and Venezuela (400,661). https://www.bangkokpost.com/tech/local-news/1405198/thailand-no-1-as-worlds-malware-mining-hotspot