A Swiss man, was convicted on 29th of March for 10 years in Prison on charge of insulting His Majesty the King by vandalizing His portraits during a drunken spree. 

Pleading guilty to five counts of lese majeste — the crime of offending the dignity of a sovereign — for defacing several portraits of His Majesty with spray paint in the northern city of Chiang Mai, the court has reduced his sentence to 10 years.

He could have faced up to 75 years in prison as Lese Majeste is a serious crime in Thailand.

On Thursday 24th of April, the prosecutor announced that His Majesty the King Bhumibol Adulyadej has pardoned the Swiss man. As a result, he will be deported from Thailand after his release.

A good news for this 57 year old guy and a good gesture which will hopefully be followed by others, as the actual political turmoil has seriously damaged the international image of the Kingdom.

Happy Sonkran ! 

Sources: The Nation and BBC

I don't want to be perceived as a basic anti-american person, but if the guys they interview on this video are so called "sampling frame" of the average american people, they, and we, have serious problems as they may be totally unable to understand why less and less people like them (or rather the policy conducted by their elected government and what/who is really behind).

I wonder how come they have so little knowledge about geography, History and above all, what's going on these days around the world. They still have plenty good news papers such the New-York Times or the Washington Post which are far better than any TV channel and in particular Fox News.

Scary no ?

Just read an interesting article about Connexion by Boeing on the Journal du Net. Today, 11 airlines proposed inflight Internet access on some selected flights.

The connexion speed is announced to be 1 Mbps upload and 5 Mbps download. Prices start at 9.95 USD for 1 hour up to 26.95 USD for the whole flight + connecting flights during a 24 hours period. The service includes email access, web browsing as well as VPN connexions.

Connexion to user’s computer can be established using cables (only in Business class I guess) and WiFi 802.11b/g.

Connexion by Boeing bases its connexions on Société Européenne des Satellites (SES) Ku Band satellites such the newly launched AMC-23.

Since January 2006, 5 TV channels such BBC, Eurosport or MSBCN are also available on the 135 aircrafts already equipped.

Airlines proposing Inflight Internet service:
Lufthansa, Scandinavian Airlines System (SAS), Japan Airlines, Singapore Airlines, All Nippon Airways (ANA), China Airlines, Korean Air, Asiana Airlines, El Al Israel Airlines, Etihad Airways, Austrian Airlines, Air China

I’m impatient to board one of these flights to see how good and reliable the connexion is. Unfortunately, Connexion by Boeing does not provide electricity supply to aircraft seats, in consequence, inflight Internet access will remain limited by the battery capacity and the laptop consumption.

By the way… according Connexion by Boeing, the average user of Inflight Internet is 41 years old, flies 57% of his time on Business class and flew 27 times in the last 12 months. Etonnant non ?

The complete story in french is here