These long-term visas open up new opportunities for those willing to work online. As a result, slomadding, slow travel as a digital nomad, is becoming the default lifestyle of this generation.

There is no question that fewer young adults of this generation own their own homes than the previous generation. According to Statistica, only 38% of under-35s own their own home.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the average worker will change jobs every 4.1 years in 2022.

Without a home and high job turnover, breaking into a city could be a thing of the past. Instead, the conditions for a lifestyle of travel and flexible online work have been created.

Meet the Slomaden

The term Slomad is a combination of Slow and Nomad. Digital nomads and slomades work online while traveling around the world.

Slomads stay in one place much longer than their traditional digital nomads.

In the past, this required exceptional circumstances such as dual citizenship or expensive business visas. But now a new lifestyle is being made available and people are taking full advantage of it.

Why the turning point?

Slomads save money: Forbes reports that the average savings for people under the age of 30 in the US is $3,240.

Many digital slomades prefer to live in countries like Thailand or Colombia because the cost of living is low. Cheap rents and lower grocery bills mean younger Slomads can quickly amass savings that will one day make home buying a reality.

Slomadding is sustainable: Slomads don’t buy cars or drive to work every day, so they have a much lower carbon footprint than their counterparts at home.

One study estimated the average digital nomad’s carbon footprint at 8 tons of CO2 per year, half the American average of 16 tons per year.

Slomaden would be even fewer, as they travel even less frequently than typical digital nomads.

To travel around the world

Who doesn’t want to explore the planet? However, travel has benefits beyond satisfying our curiosity.

Language learning is a valuable resume skill in the job market, as are independence and problem-solving skills learned through long-term travel.

Slomads often return home better and with more in the bank than those who stayed at home.

What they do

According to data from Google Trends, more people have never searched for remote or freelance jobs than today.

The labor market reflects this demand with more opportunities for location independence. Covid has normalized working from home, but social media and freelance platforms like Fiverr and Upwork have made freelancing a possibility for millions more.

The US job market already has over 59 million freelancers, and it is projected that by 2027 there will be 86.5 million freelancers.

The list of countries offering visas specifically for freelance or self-employed foreigners has grown steadily and now counts 49 in 2022. Many countries are hoping these new digital hubs can help economies recover from the impact of the pandemic.

become Sloma

Becoming a Slomad doesn’t mean selling your home and belongings and leaving your friends and family behind. Instead, most start slowly and stay in another country for a month or two as an extended working holiday to see if it’s for them.

Many digital nomads share a familiar story. “I became a Slomad after finding a home office job. One day I turned to my wife and said, ‘We don’t have to be here.’ The following week we were in Thailand,” explained one man.

It’s that aha moment that so many describe. A realization that you can take control of your life and spend years touring around Southeast Asia or anywhere you want.

While it may seem like a major lifestyle change, there are only three things you need to do to become a Digital Nomad or Slomad.

As freelance opportunities continue to grow, many people will inevitably choose the Slomad lifestyle.

Living in countries with a lower cost of living makes sense, especially for young people who cannot imagine buying their own home or who do not have much savings in their country of origin.

The digital slomad lifestyle offers freedom, travel and more money to people who traditionally haven’t had many options.

This article was produced by Face Dragons and syndicated by Wealth of Geeks.

While transgender people are more culturally recognized than ever in America, visibility is not the same as justice.

Transgender is an umbrella category that emerged in the United States in the 1990s to encompass diverse gender identities that do not fully match a person’s assigned gender at birth. Although local communities worldwide have adopted this term, it can also erase and collapse other distinct gender identities that people have used across time, place, and culture.

People labeled trans, non-binary, and intersex today have existed around the world for centuries. Trans people’s rights have not always been an issue in mainstream society, and non-normative gender and gender categories appear in ancient Buddhist texts as well as in Jewish rabbinic literature. Yet colonial conquests have violently eradicated sexual and gender diversity worldwide.

The right of trans people to exist has been challenged in a variety of ways over time and around the world. Globally, trans people face inequalities in many areas, including access to health care, legal support and economic security. Governments, global organizations, and the legacy of colonialism also exert high levels of violence and stigma against them.

At the same time, 95% of global health organizations fail to recognize or address the needs of people of different genders in their work, leading to an “almost universal exclusion” of trans people from health practices and policies. There is also a lack of holistic trans-inclusive research worldwide. Searching for the word “transgender” on the website of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation global health metrics giant that works with the World Health Organization to improve global health data, currently returns zero results.

As a sociologist, I study how health outcomes are influenced by various social conditions, including global economic policies, institutions, and cultural values. In particular, I analyzed how government-sponsored medical tourism or health-related travel has affected Thai transgender women. Broadly speaking, I am trying to understand how the body functions as what the French philosopher Michel Foucault calls an “inscribed surface of events”, shaped by an ever-changing social context of resources, rights, recognition and power may grant or withhold.

With their health and well-being shaped by social contexts around the world, transgender people’s bodies are no exception.

History of Gender-Affirming Nursing

Medical institutions and authorities are an important path to health and life in his body. They define, classify and pathologize a range of human conditions from male pattern baldness to obesity.

The German physician Magnus Hirschfeld coined the now antiquated term “transvestite” in 1910 to define those who wished to speak out against their birth-assigned gender. At his institute for sexology, Hirschfeld offered hormone therapy to people and performed the first documented genital transformation surgery. Adolf Hitler considered Hirschfeld “the most dangerous Jew in Germany,” and the Nazis burned down his research center after he fled for his life.

Despite this violence against transmedicine, endocrinology in the US and Europe made strides in the 1930s with the use of synthetic testosterone and estrogen for the medical transition. Estrogen was first purified in 1923 and used for hot flashes, prevention of bone loss, and other reproductive health issues. Testosterone was isolated and synthesized in 1935 and first used to treat hypogonadism in men and tumor growth in women.

Puberty blockers, or gonadotropin-releasing hormone agonists, were first approved by the US Food and Drug Administration in 1993 for children who hit puberty too early. For trans youth who experience gender dysphoria, or distress due to a discrepancy between their gender identity and the gender assigned at birth, these medications can be critical to their well-being. Far from being experimental, the drugs have strong evidence of their overall beneficial effects on trans youth.

Christine Jorgensen was the first American to have a so-called “sex reassignment surgery” in Denmark in 1952 and made headlines. Physicians in other parts of the world also began to develop clinical expertise in vaginoplasty, sparking global transgender healthcare networks. For example, surgeons in Thailand developed their own techniques for Thai trans women in the 1970s.

Soon, trans people from other countries learned about Thai surgical techniques and began traveling to Thailand for treatment. With strong government support, Thailand has emerged as a global center for gender-affirming services. As a result, foreign travelers “forced” some Thai trans people out of quality care as the market shifted to medical tourists.

For some healthcare travelers, the services in Thailand are cheaper than in their home country. Traveling for health services can also provide more anonymity. For those in the UK seeking gender-affirming care, traveling abroad is an alternative to long waits.

Medical tourism is worse for those living in countries where trans people are criminalized, like Brunei, Lebanon and Malawi, or where gender-affirming surgeries are religiously forbidden, like Saudi Arabia.

What does global health equity mean?

Globally, trans people face challenges in accessing culturally competent and equitable health services, both general and for gender-affirming services. Trans and gender-segregated people experience greater psychological distress and everyday violence and discrimination than their cisgender peers.

A 2019 report of nearly 200 health organizations around the world found that 93% do not recognize trans people in their gender equality work and 92% do not mention trans health in their programmatic services. Decolonizing global health means including marginalized people in decision-making and knowledge production around global health. It also considers and accommodates the needs of transgender and gender-balanced people worldwide.

Global trans health equity means providing resources to address the root causes of gender inequalities in health. This includes legal gender recognition, government support and anti-discrimination laws. While trans women, who are disproportionately affected by HIV worldwide, need medical and public health care, global trans health equity also means addressing other areas that contribute to this inequality, such as poverty, economic exclusion and discrimination in the workplace.

For countries with universal health coverage, medical and public health researchers recommend including gender-affirming services as essential services. They are not cosmetic but necessary to those who want them.

Better alternatives for everyone

Amid everyday injustices, violence and vulnerability, there are myriad forms of trans resilience and resistance, activism, collective caring and knowledge sharing. There are even some “bubbles”.[s] of utopia” or clinics and health care facilities where trans people can access services with shorter delays. These alternatives open up the possibility for transgender happiness, or liberation from restrictive colonial gender constructs and transgender joy, or enhancing one’s quality of life and forging meaningful connections by embracing a marginalized identity.

How can politics, institutions and society cultivate trans bliss and joy worldwide?

All human bodies are “sociocultural artifacts”. How they are expressed and lived is determined by social contexts and shaped by available resources. Sex and gender are points in a vast “multidimensional space” of anatomy, hormones, chromosomes, environment and culture. Global health equity for transgender people commits the institutions and decision-makers responsible for the health and safety of all people. It aligns with the freedom to thrive in a world that celebrates sex and gender diversity as a natural fact of life.

The COVID-19 pandemic has left massive scars on Asian societies and economies. Asia-Pacific countries were ill-prepared for COVID-19, with 36 percent of their citizens lacking access to health care, 57 percent lacking access to social protection, and 51 percent of workers lacking formal labor rights.

While the full economic and social cost has yet to be determined, initial estimates suggest that over 1.5 million people have lost their lives and 150 million have been pushed into poverty. The gains made in reducing poverty and reducing inequality in recent years have been reversed.

Among other factors, rising unemployment, falling household incomes, food inflation, crowding out of government spending to increase equity, loss of schooling and learning opportunities, glaring digital divide, loss of remittances have all contributed to growing poverty and inequality.

The pandemic has pushed 90 million people into extreme poverty in developing Asia-Pacific countries by 2021, based on $1.90 a day, and over 150 million and 170 million below the poverty line of $3.20 and $3.20, respectively .$5.50. These increases have taken the total number of people living in extreme poverty to over 500 million and those living in poverty to over 1.4 billion.

World Bank surveys show that income inequality in the region is likely to have risen by 8 percent on average during the COVID-19 pandemic. Inequality between countries increased by 1.2 percent between 2017 and 2021, the first such increase in a generation, and income inequality within countries has also increased in many countries. Wealth inequality has also increased during COVID-19. In 2021, the top 1 percent owned a fifth of wealth in all countries in Asia and 25 percent in 18 countries.

Measures to contain COVID-19 have led to widespread job losses and rising unemployment. In 2020, working hours were reduced by 7.9 percent, equivalent to a loss of 140 million jobs. Job losses and quarantines hit poor and low-income households.

With informal workers more vulnerable to social distancing and lockdown measures, and a high proportion of women working in the informal sector, the pandemic has exacerbated gender inequality.

Women in the region were already disproportionately taking on care responsibilities, spending an average of 11 hours a day on unpaid care and housework. The pandemic-related lockdowns, closures of shops and schools, and restrictions on mobility have resulted in women spending more time on unpaid domestic chores.

Job losses, small business closures, supply chain disruptions and remigration contributed to the loss of household income. In 2021, labor income was estimated to fall by 13.4 percent in South Asia, 5.0 percent in Southeast Asia and the Pacific, and 4.1 percent in East Asia. Eighty-three percent, 70 percent, 55 percent, 75 percent, and 48 percent of households in Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, and Laos reported income declines, respectively.

Food prices rose by 7 to 9 percent in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, the Philippines and Thailand in July 2022, by 20 to 22 percent in Kazakhstan, Laos and Mongolia, by 29 percent in Pakistan and by 91 percent in Sri Lanka the same month in 2021. With the poor and low-income households spending a disproportionate share of the budget on food, they are hit particularly hard.

The pandemic and rising food price inflation have worsened food security in the Asia-Pacific region. In 2021, 425 million people in Asia were affected by hunger. Overall, an estimated 1.1 billion people were moderately or severely food insecure in the Region in 2020.

The effects of a pandemic can last a long time. For example, it will take many years, if at all, to offset the loss of learning opportunities exacerbated by the digital divide due to school closures affecting millions of students, particularly those from poor and vulnerable households.

Being connected to the internet allows employees to work from home and children have access to online education. However, this luxury was not available to many. The lack of access to the internet prevented timely access to public services, including social benefits, job opportunities and e-learning opportunities.

Governments in the region responded to the crisis in 2020 and 2021 according to their fiscal space. These measures included direct cash transfers, food subsidies, utility fee subsidies, grants to businesses under worker retention schemes, support for SMEs to weather the economic shocks, increased healthcare spending, expansion of subsidized loans to households and businesses, tax credits/reductions and delays in collecting taxes. Given the impact of crises, the responses were inconsistent with the losses.

The pandemic has exposed significant weaknesses in existing health systems in many Asia-Pacific countries, stemming from years of underinvestment in public health. There was a lack of health facilities, trained medical professionals, medical equipment, testing facilities and medicines. The majority of people pay out of pocket to get basic medical services.

Across the region, social protection systems are not equipped to adequately respond to the economic and social shocks caused by the pandemic. The majority of the population has been excluded from existing social protection programs. The vast majority of those excluded from social protection programs were informal workers. Against this backdrop, it is critical that all governments, as they rebuild post-COVID economies, take the following actions to tackle rising poverty and inequality:

• Increase investment in public health systems to prepare for future health crises by building more hospitals, training more doctors and nurses, providing more medical equipment, and aiming for universal health coverage.
• Expand the scope and scope of social protection to achieve universal access. Social protection programs should cover all informal workers. Programs should go beyond pensions and cover unemployment, health care and protection against injuries.
• Invest more in the public education system to create equal opportunities and make up for lost school years. Reducing and closing the digital divide by providing affordable and subsidized access to the internet is also essential.
• End gender discrimination by providing women with more employment opportunities, women’s economic and political empowerment, and more investment in care infrastructure and services to reduce women’s disproportionate care responsibilities.
• The Asia-Pacific region is very vulnerable to climate change. As a result, with the opportunity to rebuild economies post-COVID-19, countries must accelerate the transition to renewable energy sources, invest in climate change adaptation and meet their carbon emission reduction targets.
• Adopt concrete tax policies to increase revenue to fund social protection and public services. These may include the introduction of taxes on capital gains, real estate and inheritance; reducing exemptions and incentives; Imposing “solidarity taxes” on the wealthy and “deadweight taxes” on companies that benefit from oil prices, and ensuring multinationals pay fair taxes by reducing harmful tax practices and tax avoidance. Introduce wealth taxes, both as one-off contingency measures and on a recurring basis as an ongoing redistribution policy.

***

The author is a regional advocacy and campaign manager at Oxfam International.

Pimalai is two hours from Krabi Airport and requires a private car and speedboat ride, all arranged by the resort.

Despite being the owner’s daughter, Tiyaphorn has never received special treatment. “When I had to work here as a receptionist during the school holidays, I couldn’t eat the food at the hotel; I had to eat in the canteen,” she shared, laughing. It was never her intention to join the family business. “Getting into a family business means you will never have normal family dinners. They would always revolve around the work,” she argued.

But fate had other plans. Tiyaphorn worked in accounting before leaving the company to pursue her Masters in Marketing and Management. Upon graduation, the resort needed someone to manage the accounting and finance departments, and Tiyaphorn agreed to accept the position. When her sister became pregnant and decided to focus on raising her children, she also took over the sales and marketing department. “And once you’re in the business, you can’t get out,” she joked.

Despite her initial hesitation, Tiyaphorn slipped easily into her role as Pimalai’s owner representative nine years later. What she loves most about her job, to her own surprise, is meeting people from all over the world. “I’m an introvert and I used to think I just wanted to be in my own corner and do my calculations and budgets,” she said. Plus the staff at Pimalai, some of whom have been with the resort since it opened They’ve always felt like family.

Tiyaphorn now spends half her time at the resort and the other half in her Bangkok office. While in Pimalai, she starts the day with breakfast at Seven Seas. “The restaurant faces the sea on one side and the mountains on the other. Sometimes I stay a little longer after breakfast and get on with my work,” she said of the view.

PHETCHABUN: The family of the Thai woman who died at Itaewon Squad in Seoul on Saturday night are entitled to compensation under the Social Security Law, a labor official said Tuesday.

Provincial Labor Bureau chief Sukanya Ongwisetpaiboon said the dead woman was Natthicha Makaew from House No. 40 in Moo 9 Village, Nong Khwai Township, Lom Sak District, Phetchabun.

Ms Sukanya led labor officials to visit Natthicha’s father Sakhon and mother Na Makaew at their home on Tuesday.

She told them they were entitled to the payment because Natthicha had worked in Bangkok and was insured under Section 33 of the Social Security Act before she resigned to go to South Korea.

Ms Sukanya said Natthicha completed a six-month Korean language course in Seoul to get a certificate so she could teach the language in Thailand.

As the insurance coverage remained in effect for six months after she was terminated, Natthicha was still entitled to compensation – 50,000 baht for her funeral and 15,500 baht from her retirement pension plus interest.

Ms Sukanya said once her office received documents from Korea confirming Natthicha’s death, the papers would be processed and the compensation money would be transferred to the beneficiary’s account within three days.

Natthicha’s parents were also reportedly informed by the South Korean embassy Tuesday morning that Seoul would cover the cost of repatriating her body to Thailand by air.

This was a great relief to the family, who had prepared to borrow 400,000 baht to help cover costs. They were to travel to Bangkok to collect their daughter’s body from the airport and take her back to her home in Phetchabun for religious rites.

[Bangkok, Thailand, October 27, 2022] During the 8th Ultra-Broadband Forum (UBBF 2022), Richard Jin, Vice President and President of the Optical Business Product Line of Huawei, delivered a speech titled “Unleashing Fiber Potential and Striding to F5.5G”. In this keynote speech, he expressed the importance of optical fiber communications for the development of society, and introduced Huawei’s eight key technological breakthroughs in optical access and transmission and their benefits for the industry. Mr. Jin called on the entire industry chain to work together to advance F5.5G.

Fiber optic networks have become a future-oriented strategic infrastructure. During the evolution from F5G to F5.5G, technological innovations in industrial production and fiber sensing will further unleash the potential of fiber optics and open up new markets. For F5.5G, Huawei has developed eight technological innovations to accelerate the development of the industry.

1. 50G PON Compatibility: 50G PON is the next generation PON technology published by ITU-T. Through component structure and process innovation, Huawei improves the transmission power and receiver sensitivity of 50G optical PON modules to achieve 40km coverage. In addition, Huawei integrates GPON, 10G PON and 50G PON into one port using ultra-high-precision assembly technologies. This innovation will help operators smoothly upgrade from GPON and 10G PON to 50G PON without having to reconstruct their live networks, thus quickly providing a ubiquitous 10G experience.
2. Super C+L Spectrum: Based on experimentation and innovation, Huawei has developed a new solution to enhance spectrum and improve transmission bandwidth. During the manufacturing process, the gas flow and heating temperature are precisely controlled to achieve high concentration doping and improve L-band gain. These innovations increase the Super-C+L transmission spectrum to 12 THz and increase the bandwidth by 50% for higher transmission performance. In addition, the 400G and 800G single wavelength rates can reach 100Tbps per fiber, ushering in the 10G era.
3. Optical Cross Connect (OXC): Huawei OXC uses the 3D dot matrix algorithm to increase the cabling density of the all-optical backplane by 35%, reduces external fiber connections of reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs), reduces the size of the entire system by 90%, and reduces power consumption by more than 60%. In addition, Huawei has developed new materials for OXC liquid crystals on silicon (LCOS) to shorten the LCD wavelength selective switching (WSS) response time from 200ms to 100ms, implement faster wavelength care and protection, and be green and agile all-optical networks.
4. OptiX Alps WDM: Huawei launches innovative metro WDM pooling solution, OptiX Alps-WDM, to solve the problems of uneven service distribution, low resource utilization, and difficult scheduling in metro networks. Using Huawei-developed WSS, a metro coherent module, and digital optical tag technologies, wavelengths can be shared by different access rings in the star network architecture at the metro access layer and flexibly maintained and adjusted. These technologies increase bandwidth by 10x and reduce carbon emissions by 90%, helping operators reduce operational costs by 20%, achieve the targeted network architecture that pushes WDM networks to locations, and has a smooth to realize network development in the next 10 years.
5. Flexible Optical Service Unit (OSU) service granularities.: Huawei’s innovative hard-pipe core technology OSU uses hard-pipe connections from 2 Mbit/s to 100 Gbit/s. The bandwidth can be adjusted flexibly without interrupting services. The encapsulation protocol is simplified to reduce service transmission latency. This innovation helps operators build best-in-class OTN WDM networks with high bandwidth, ultra-low latency, and deterministic experience, helping operators attract more high-end industrial customers.
6. FTTR-C-WAN architecture: With the advent of smart home devices, home Wi-Fi networks are required to provide wide coverage, high stability, and high concurrency. However, in traditional Wi-Fi networks, each optical network terminal (ONT) makes decisions independently, causing issues such as interference and service instability in high concurrency scenarios. Huawei’s FTTR for Home solution uses the centralized C-WAN management and control architecture to coordinate all ONTs across the FTTR network, reducing interference and enhancing the bandwidth experience. In addition, the unique imperceptible roaming technology can achieve roaming handover within 20ms, bringing a brand new digital home experience.
7. Fiber Iris Technology: ODN accounts for a high proportion of FTTH investments. However, the industry has long been plagued by ODN O&M difficulties. In the past, port resources had to be recorded manually, resulting in resource inaccuracies that in turn led to service delivery failures. Huawei has released the innovative fiber iris technology to label a large number of fiber optic connectors. In this way, port resources can be accurately accounted for and allocated in real time, enabling rapid service delivery. The oDSP and AI algorithms are used to accurately and quickly identify the fault locations with an accuracy of one meter.
8. autonomous networks: In the future, the network size will increase 10 times, and intelligent autonomous driving networks will become mainstream. Huawei has brought several technological innovations in the field of autonomous driving networks. For example, StellarGo changes manual and one-factor route leg to intelligent multi-factor and multi-policy route selection in transportation networks and implements personalized recommendations based on different customer habits. The route selection success rate is up to 99%, and the service delivery efficiency is improved by 70%. In addition, StellarCue builds various intelligent experience models and implements one-minute perception of poor-QoE incidents based on massive poor-QoE data training, which can greatly reduce user complaints.

According to Mr. Jin, with ubiquitous 10G connections due by 2025, Huawei will continue to make technological breakthroughs and product innovations based on the previous innovations, and create greater commercial value for operators by improving user experience and network operation efficiency along the way upgraded to F5 0.5G. In conclusion, Richard Jin called for the collective efforts of the whole industry to promote the F5.5G industry and work towards F5.5G.

One can get the impression from the media that a new wave of digital technology is sweeping the farming world, bringing incredible new devices and services to farmers everywhere that will inevitably boost food production and just make everything on the planet so much better. There appear to be drones that only spray chemicals where they’re needed, self-driving tractors and harvesters that plow perfectly, and even robots that help with harvesting. Even behind the scenes, one might think that there are, or soon will be, frictionless digital processes that inform farmers, help them unbiasedly with artificial intelligence, and then ensure that produce moves efficiently along an “intelligent” and potentially autonomous food chain. A future of “precision agriculture” or sensor-rich “smart farming” is supposed to be upon us.

Likewise, beyond the farm, there are stories that suggest robots will soon be flipping burgers or serving tables; that drones deliver our groceries; or that an Amazon or an Alphabet will soon be giving us personalized nutritional advice or even ordering groceries on our behalf based on analysis of our eating habits or gut health. We’re also hearing about efforts — so-called “innovations” — further downstream from operations to convert food consumption data into insights into what new product line extensions to bring to market. The integration of digital technologies into the food system should allow food companies to calculate new ways to occupy our stomachs, even when dealing with foods that most of us could do without, not least in the context of rising rates of obesity and obscene levels of food waste (appallingly at a time of rising malnutrition and malnutrition).

Governments, corporations and startups are all contributing to this story of limitless technological advancement by posting snazzy short videos on social media channels or creating easy-to-edit footage for click-bait articles in online publications, including newspapers who do this should know better. And it’s not all hype. “Big Tech” companies like Amazon, Alphabet and Microsoft do know that the food and agricultural sectors offer ripe harvests to secure future profits. smaller companies are emerge to offer new products that could generate new efficiencies. Governments certainly want their agricultural sectors to work more efficiently. And farmers and other food producers around the world, including many of the world’s poorest farmers, are already embracing some facets of modern digital technology. we can Recognize that an agricultural “digital shift” is taking place, which is mapping to broader developments in social life as so much action is taking place online. From “seed to shit” – or, to put it more gently, “farm to fork” – new digital technologies are at play.

But where exactly all these measures will lead remains unknown. An agricultural digital paradise along the lines of the scenarios painted in stories about robots picking apples or autonomous drones exterminating pests seems far-fetched, to say the least. A much more likely scenario is that digital technologies will be integrated into farming practices and the broader food system in problematic ways. So what kind of problems are important?

For one, there is a concern that the rush to integrate digital technology into the food system comes with “data theft”. The data in question is not only generated when farmers or their workers plant seeds or spray chemicals. Data is also produced when merchants move food shipments; when food manufacturers promote new product lines; when retailers make sales; and when consumers mention products, likes, or dislikes on social media channels. Data provides information and possible knowledge about what is to be produced, how and where in the future. It makes sense to question what ag-tech companies, or food companies in general, might gain by imagining and pursuing business models based on the notion that data is a new “money plant” to be harvested, analyzed, and then put to use must develop new intellectual property.

Second, the risks of data theft are complicated by efforts by some companies to “blackbox” software and hardware so that only approved suppliers or technicians can, for example, repair tractors or analyze which digital services are available. Companies use their powers to define how technology is adopted and seek (not always successfully) to dominate smaller players. One lesson: what ag-tech firms are trying at home today signals what they will be doing in emerging markets in the future (and should ring alarm bells about what startups are learning you should consider doing this with new products).

For some participants, concerns about data theft or big corporations dominating farmers might just be noise. Others, however, fear that the digital transformation of the food system will increase the power of data analysts and computer scientists who work for the companies with the most computing power – and accelerate the transition to a food system that aligns with it. It’s a process that should make us all ask ourselves, “What kind of food system will the Amazons and alphabets produce?” And if they become the big winners of this shift, what happens to those who lose?’

Linked to this, then, is the fact that the digital transformation of the food system is occurring at a time when another robbery, a land grab, is unfolding. Rising inequality within countries, between countries and between the world’s richest few and poorest masses has led to land grabs, with decisions often being made “over the heads of local people”. Such processes must be understood alongside a growing awareness, promoted by World Bank economists, that land in many parts of the world simply does not yield enough returns. The underlying argument is that a farmer in Zambia or Thailand either needs urgent (possibly now digital) help to bring his yields closer to those of capital-intensive agriculture in the US or Western Europe, or should be encouraged (by market or other forces). ) to sell to someone else who can. But as Samir Amin asked nearly twenty years ago, if hundreds of millions more farmers are forced off their land, what will happen to them? Where exactly are they supposed to go?

The bottom line from all of this is that if the integration of digital technology into the food system involves data theft that encourages further land grabs, and if the food system is transformed according to computer models developed to predict the profits of “big food”. maximize -tech” requires a critical questioning of what is happening and an examination of the consequences. In that regard, a likely corollary is that the same moves to satisfy investors interested in food companies adopting digital technologies and leveraging data will also move us further away from the kind of food system we actually need to develop. It is worth noting here arguments about the possibility – even the necessity – of creating an alternative food system that ensures sustainable food production and remains aware of it, as Judith Butler writes in her “The Power of Nonviolence“Environmental threats, the global slum problem, systemic racism, the stateless state whose migration is a shared global responsibility, even the more thorough overthrow of colonial modes of power”. Integration of digital technology in the Some kind of food system could still be an option if the digital transformation can be flipped to encourage the construction of food sovereignty. Until then, the rush to integrate digital technologies into the food system appears to be just another component of data colonialism.

Further reading on E-International Relations

Thailand is still hopeful that its updated long-term resident (ltr) visa attract wealthy foreigners, despite more attractive LTR visa options in other countries.

On September 1, Thailand introduced a revised LTR visa, joining other nations such as Cambodia, Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines in targeting wealthy foreigners.

The Thai government has halved the cost of the 10-year LTR visa, from 100,000 baht to 50,000 baht, to attract its four target groups of foreigners: foreign professionals, wealthy people, retirees and those who want to work in Thailand.

The government expects the revised LTR visa to attract about 1 million people a year, which will provide a significant boost to the country’s economic recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. The government believes this will be the case trigger a windfall of 1 trillion baht.

The initial outlay of 50,000 baht is not a significant amount of money. But like all those things that sound too good to be true, there’s a catch. The Thai government has a number of hoops for foreigners to jump through and some high fences for them to climb for safety.

Each group must meet certain criteria.

Foreigners wishing to live in Thailand must have a combined net worth of at least US$1 million and an income of at least US$80,000 per year. In addition, they must also invest at least US$500,000 in Thailand, in real estate or other assets.

Retired foreigners or foreign professionals must earn at least $80,000 per year. These foreign experts must also have around five years of professional experience in a target industry.

Foreigners wishing to work in Thailand must earn at least US$80,000 per year and have at least five years of experience in legally registered businesses with total sales of US$150 million in the past three years.

The visa is also valid for up to four family members, including dependents under the age of 20.

When you look at options in other countries, you can’t help but think that the Thai government needs to try harder and lower the bar or they will lose potential residents to other countries that offer a much better package.

That Philippines started a Special residence visa for investors (SIRV) earlier this month, which offered permanent residency to any foreigner investing at least $75,000 in businesses or securities.

Once a foreigner invests in the Philippines, they are immediately granted a residency permit – something Thailand does not offer. The SIRV holder, their spouse and children are free to enter and exit the Philippines at any time and forever.

What about the others?

Cambodia has the Cambodia My Second Home visa, which offers the possibility of citizenship to any investor who generates $100,000. Applicants must invest in property with the Khmer Home Charity Association. The visa provides a work permit, as does the Thai LTR.

Malaysia offers a 20-year premium visa program for an investment of $220,000. The country also offers “Malaysia My Second Home” for people aged 35 and over who have liquid assets of around US$320,000 and a monthly income of at least US$8,600.

Singapore will launch a five-year visa program, the Overseas Networks & Expertise Pass (ONE Pass), in January next year. Applicants must have a fixed income of at least 700,000 baht per month and prove that they have worked for an established company abroad for at least one year.

Individuals with outstanding achievements in art and culture, sports, science and technology, and science and research qualify for the ONE Pass even if they do not meet the salary criterion.

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The Abbot said this was the first mass cremation at the temple and hopefully the last.

Among the 19 victims to be cremated is an eight-month-pregnant teacher who lost her life with 24 infants at the Tambon Uthai Sawan administrative organization’s kindergarten.

Fired police officer Panya Khamrab killed 36 people in a deadly killing spree that began in the nursery when the toddlers were taking a nap on Thursday. He then murdered several other victims, including his wife and son, on the way home before turning the gun on himself.

Meanwhile, preparations are underway at nearby Wat Sri Uthai in Na Klong district for the cremation of another 11 victims of the massacre. Among them are the bodies of Panya’s wife and son, who are being taken away by relatives for cremation at another temple in their home province.

On Monday, workers at Wat Sri Uthai hooked up an electric furnace borrowed by Samut Sakhon for the mass cremation.

Chanpen Dejpok, head of Moo 1 village, confirmed the temple is holding prayers for the 11 victims, but relatives of Panya’s wife and three-year-old son would take the bodies home for cremation.

Charnnarong Chaibangyang, the maker of the electric furnace, said cremation of each body would take about half an hour in separate ceremonies.

The United Nations Children’s Fund, Unicef, has issued a statement expressing its sadness and shock at the mass killing of young children.

“UNICEF condemns all forms of violence against children. No child should be the target or witness of violence anywhere, anytime,” the statement said.

“Early Childhood Development Centers, schools and all learning spaces must be safe havens for young children to learn, play and grow during their most critical years.

“UNICEF extends its heartfelt condolences and deepest sympathy to the families who lost loved ones and those injured. We mourn with everyone in Thailand and hope that those affected will receive timely and appropriate support.”

On Sunday, Pope Francis prayed for the grieving families of the victims of the massacre, the Catholic Social Community of Thailand (CSCT) said.

“We pray for the dead in Thailand’s tragedy, especially innocent children, and [may they be sent] to his arms,” Pope Francis prayed, as quoted by the CSCT. “We also pray that God will bring unity to the grieving families and to the injured.”

Studies suggest that, according to PwC, many people in Asia view diversity, equality and inclusion (DEI) as a Western concept shaped by Western experiences and Western values.

There is also a view that the focus on “individuals” and “differences” inherent in diversity is at odds with Asian cultural and social values, the international accounting firm noted. However, in some markets where the value of meritocracy is widely valued, inclusion plays together with the Asian values ​​of “group membership”.

In fact, DEI looks different in Asia and doesn’t necessarily lag behind the West. Crucially, it often takes a more subtle, localized form, particularly in Southeast Asia, where a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work in such a multicultural region.

Additionally, “Asia has a long history of learning how to live with diversity and integrate different communities. That doesn’t mean it’s always been smooth sailing, but I don’t think it’s fair to underestimate cultural values,” noted Sophie Guerin, head of DEI at Johnson & Johnson in APAC.

“The West can learn a lot from Asia when it comes to diversity and inclusion,” she said. “It just looks different here.”

However, there is a “growing awareness of a formalized corporate approach” to DEI in Asia-based companies, including from local firms. This is likely due to years of effort and discussion on the issue since the days before the pandemic, coupled with the increasingly “loud” demands for inclusivity and equity from individuals in the workplace, as well as in public spaces like social media, she told staff magazine HDR.

“The West can learn a lot from Asia in terms of diversity and inclusion – it’s just different here.”

In the energy sector, Asian national oil companies (NOCs) such as Thailand’s PTT Exploration & Production (PTTEP), Malaysia’s Petronas and Indonesia’s Pertamina all provide data on the gender and ethnic breakdown of their employees in their annual reports.

In addition, women are often well represented in the Southeast Asian oil and gas sector, perhaps more so than in the UK. Although it remains a male-dominated industry.

“If I look mainly at Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia I would argue that for women they were and are way ahead of Britain. In the offices of oil and gas companies you see women everywhere. In fact, probably more than 50% are female employees. It’s a good starting point and has been for decades,” a Thailand-based senior industry manager told Energy Voice.

Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia are “far ahead” of the UK in terms of gender.

“In terms of management, you will find women at the highest levels in Thailand and Indonesia and to some extent in Malaysia. For Thailand and Malaysia they are yet to have a woman CEO, but the mix of senior executives and board members was higher than in the UK,” the executive added.

© Supplied by Pertamina

Karen Agustiawan, an Indonesian who served as president, director and CEO of Indonesia’s state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina between 2009 and 2014, underscores this trend. Since August 2018, Pertamina is also managed by Nicke Widyawati, an Indonesian businesswoman.

“Gender issues and stuff like that isn’t as big a deal as it is in the West. At least I haven’t experienced equal opportunity discrimination, but I’ve worked for multinational companies,” an Indonesian geologist told Energy Voice.

Another oil and gas executive told Energy Voice that “women were often the best employees and our company’s leadership positions in Indonesia were dominated by women, and a mix of Christian and Muslim religions without issue.” He added, “My first Step in converting an Indonesian E&P player many years ago was to ensure it was a meritocracy and eliminate nepotism and the concept that age and years in a role led to seniority.”

Religious views

Several different religions are practiced in Indonesia and their combined influence on the country’s political, economic and cultural life is significant. Almost nine-tenths of the Indonesian population profess Islam. However, there are scattered groups of Christians as well as Buddhists and Hindus and other minorities throughout the country.

Historically, there has been a trend in Indonesia’s resource sector to hire people from both Muslim and Christian groups to allow projects to continue during each religion’s major holidays, when employees typically returned home to their families for two weeks or more. Employees tended to strongly support this approach, one industry leader noted.

However, in more remote districts of Indonesia, there is community pressure to import geologists and professionals mainly from Java with the same dominant religion as the district. “Christian areas can complain about ‘Islamization’ and vice versa,” the executive added.

Elsewhere, a significant number of women are also studying geophysics at universities in Indonesia, one geologist observed. “I would say that more women are interested in geosciences as technology allows women to be more flexible with office work, such as B. Modelling, interpreting, etc., especially if they already have a family.”

Meanwhile, across Southeast Asia, the proportion of women working offshore in drilling or development engineering appears to be relatively low, likely due to the lifestyle involved, said the senior executive in Thailand. Although universities encourage it, it’s not entirely pragmatic, the executive added. Still, “you often find that men and women who don’t come from the prestigious universities and technical colleges are more willing to take on the grinding work offshore and the challenging life.”

A long road to LGBT inclusion

Regarding LGBT, people from this group have been present in offices in Thailand for decades, but the situation is less clear in Malaysia and Indonesia. “There isn’t really a roadblock across the region, but like most places, the boardroom and C-suite aren’t overtly encouraging that, to my knowledge. In Thailand, it won’t be blocked either because of the culture and work practices, but it won’t be as open,” added the Thailand-based executive.

However, the laws regarding the LGBT group are generally stricter in Southeast Asia than in the West. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people in Indonesia face legal challenges and prejudice that non-LGBT residents do not face. Traditional mores frown on homosexuality and transition, which affects public policy. Malaysia faces similar problems, while Singapore recently repealed a colonial-era law criminalizing gas sex between men. Singapore, home to many international energy companies, has also warned multinationals against openly supporting LGBT issues in a way that could create societal divisions within the country, as a new foreign interference law was introduced in August.

While there is still a long way to go in terms of legislation related to Southeast Asia’s LGBT communities, “at the same time, there are no direct issues there (works in the energy sector) as long as they keep it private,” noted The Executive .

© Shutterstock

Elsewhere, “the energy transition is creating opportunities and opening up the energy sector to more diverse and inclusive leadership. We’re seeing more and more women working in the energy transition,” Kavita Jadhav, Research Director, APAC, at Wood Mackenzie, told Energy Voice.

“We broke new ground at our recent Energy and Natural Resources Summit: APAC in Singapore. Our opening panel was “Women in Energy and Metals and Mining – Building a Just Transition in Asia Pacific,” she said.

“For me and the other panelists, being part of an all-female panel of energy leaders was a career first. Our intention was to spotlight this shift. The energy transition offers a unique opportunity for more gender diversity,” she added.

The panel consisted of senior women executives from the banking, oil and gas, and metals and mining sectors.