crobe

and ?

Why is the fact that they are foreigners an issue ? Doesnt matter who they are. The news is not exactly headline stuff anyway but surely this should read "33 randomly selected people" .

Thailand as usual keeping their reputation as being possibly one of the most racist countries in the world.

This was an Immigration Department initiative so they have no reason to target Thais

not even the ones selling them the drugs?

What a freaking joke.....I've been to about 25 countries and this is the only one which allows it, imagine that...... Thailand and North Korea on the same page, who would ever guess?

Australia does it (well I know they do in Sydney anyway)...

Police raid on nightclubs where there are known drug issues, sniffer dogs, all patrons and staff drug tested using field test kits, and if a positive result are taken to the police station for a proper test...

See, for all of our faults {like Texas and Kim Kardashian, to name but 2}, America would not allow something like that - hopefully ever.

Probable cause is in our constitution, same as being read your rights to have an attorney after being arrested. There is no way a cop could ever ask you to pee into a cup for no reason, even if you are walking out of a reggae festival! Or a rave, or a Grateful Dead concert.....you have to break a law FIRST, even something minor like disturbing the peace or pissing on a tree, etc....to get pee-tested.

But even then it would be highly unlikely. Unless it was something really serious you'd get processed and let out on bail, with no drug test ever being done.

People can give the states all the crap they want, and we get a lot of it, but at least in this instance we are indeed 'free'.

While I agree with you at the moment - for how long??

The Arizona law SB1070 was specifically designed to do what you are claiming that the US does not do.

It required that state law enforcement officers attempt to determine an individual's immigration status during a "lawful stop, detention or arrest", or during a "lawful contact" not specific to any activity when there is reasonable suspicion that the individual is an illegal immigrant.

It also required all immigrants to carry their documents at all times - so not much different to Thailand then.

The Supreme court this week struck down the reasonable suspicion part, requiring that there had to be suspicion of an offense, but left the rest intact, including warrantless arrests.

I think the US you dream about is fading fast

Crobe

The FM Surapong is either an imbecile or thinks that everyone else is.

He is now trying to sue the democrats for not bringing the agreement between GISTDA and NASA in 2010 to parliament.

What he does not understand, or has not been properly informed of, is that the agreement in 2010 was a co-operation agreement and made no specific mention of the SEAC4RS campaign, which was discussed under his own government.

If he thinks that the democrats should have brought these international agreements to parliament for scrutiny, then why has he not brought up the MoU between GISTDA and EIAST of the UAE agreed in April 2011, or the MoU of GISTDA with Kazakhstan signed two months ago.

Maybe it is because the FM and Science ministers in this dysfunctional government do not communicate

Crobe

It is just a continuation of the normal Thai mentality towards foreigners - it is not meant to be xenophobic but ask any Thai and they will tell you this is what they think..

There are only 2 types of foreigner that Thailand wants

- Foreign businesses to set up in Thailand and employ lots of Thai people - preferably exporting, for these we will give some incentives and tax breaks but please do not bring in too many foreign managers.

- Foreign tourists please come to Amazing Thailand and spend your money here - but when your money runs out go home and do not stay - go back, earn some more money and then come again

If you must be a foreigner married to a Thai then please GIVE them the money to buy land and house and we will not bother you, but remember you are only a temporary visitor here.

I have been here a few years now and engaged in making cooperation between foreign companies and the Thai government agencies, and this is what the majority of the people think - they do not see it as xenophobic in the least - just practical.

If other countries allow Thais to own land and house then more fool them

the thorough and serious sweep of weapons will continue

I will believe Chalerm when I see a thorough and serious sweep for weapons at a red shirt rally - and by thorough and serious I mean taking the weapons away, not handing them some more.

I live outside Pattaya and know a few bar-owners there, and have been once in a bar when it was raided.

Police raids occur frequently, and the policed know that if they conduct drug tests on the bar staff a certain proportion will test positive.

The bar owners have to go to the local police station to bail out their staff, unless they have a "friend" in the force and then this is done without a visit to the station and a "stern warning" is given.

This only happens if it is the local police and if the Bangkok force are with them then it is everyone to the station.

Crobe

The concern here is not that the number of positives was so high, or that it is a known area for drug use, but the fact that this was carried out by the immigration bureau instead of the normal police narcotics squad.

If the area is known for drug use then the police should be looking into the supply of drugs in the area, and catching those, rather than specifically targeting the foreigners.

It would have been more acceptable if the police had done a full swoop on the area, including trying to pick up locals and drug sellers, and had the immigration bureau on hand in case any foreigners were caught up in the process.

The way in which this is portrayed, rightly or wrongly, is that foreigners, as opposed to locals, will be targeted during their stays in the country.

While I cannot condone in any way anyone acting against the laws of the country, racial profiling is not the way forward.

One person in this swoop was negative for drugs but was caught with not having a passport - an offense that I believe many non-Thais are guilty of in one way or another - there are instances where you leave your passport for safekeeping at a hotel or as guarantee for a rental, and therefore do not have the original with you - which would not be a good idea anyway given the levels of crime and theft now prevalent.

All foreigners could therefore, be caught in an immigration swoop at one time or another, and sanctions applied (deported), so if this is to be the normal operating procedure for the immigration bureau from now on, we may all be in trouble

Crobe

Totally agree.

Thanks and apologies.

Crobe

and ?

Why is the fact that they are foreigners an issue ? Doesnt matter who they are. The news is not exactly headline stuff anyway but surely this should read "33 randomly selected people" .

Thailand as usual keeping their reputation as being possibly one of the most racist countries in the world.

No <snip> the article said "33 randomly selected foreigners"

If they had taken a random sampling of Thais and foreigners this would have been more justifiable, but targeting just foreigners is unacceptable

Crobe

I think it is very doubtful that this program could be postponed and done next year as suggested in one of the reports.

The NASA science budget is under increasing pressure and the allocation for this campaign was done some years ago, if the campaign does not go ahead the money will be spent on something else.

Added to that there is a possibility that the Republicans win in the November presidential election and would therefore cancel any further request.

There is a position paper from 3 right wing think tanks stating that once they have control of both congress and the white house, then they would de-fund any NASA involvement in climate science (along with planned parenthood, stem cell research, evolutionary biology and a host of other research areas that may yield results not in keeping with their ideology)

So this may not just be a golden opportunity for climate science co-operation, it may have been the last opportunity.

Crobe

Does anyone have factual data as to when this request was made? Was it a few months ago, or August last year. If it was August last year, who was setting on the request, and why? If it was only a few months ago, than how can NASA think that any government would approve it in such a short time.

The original request was made under the previous government, about 18 months ago.

More contacts were made with the present government 12 months ago, and followed up by NASA since then, but because it was to use the airport run by the Thai navy the official channel was NASA - US Military - Thai Navy - Defence minister - Science Minister

As far as I know this has been stuck on the desks of the Defence and science ministers in Thailand for the last 12 months and no response from them as to a decision.

Finally, on a courtesy visit last month, Gen Dempsey raised the issue directly of why there was no response, therefore leading to articles in the newspapers and the political fuss

The planning has been available on the NASA websites for over a year.

Crobe

It's to hard to believe...after last years disaster ,how the hell can they knock back important climate information being handed to them on a silver platter...very strange...

The same way as they did not take up the offer of search and rescue helicopter assistance - incompetence

They were only interested in using the flood disaster for their own political purposes.

I have personal experience last year of taking 3 pickups of assistance up to Lopburi, paid for by myself and other friends, only to be stopped at a petrol station on route by a gang of red-shirts wanting us to put their banner on the aid - bunch of sh*ts

luckily there were more of us than them so we ran them off

Crobe

Science Minister Pladprasop Suraswadi may also be for the chop after NASA pulled the plug on the climate science project.

This whole debacle lies in the hands of the Science and Technology ministry.

The next issue that they are dithering about is a replacement satellite system for the THEOS-1 satellite which has been in orbit since 2008 and is the main source of Earth Observation data for the GISTDA agency, and is used extensively for crop and flood monitoring.

As a new satellite will take around 4 years to procure and launch, and the existing satellite only has an estimated lifetime of seven years, there is already a 1 year "gap" in coverage.

It could be that the existing satellite may last longer (a sister satellite for Taiwan is currently operating since 2004), but this cannot be guaranteed.

If the present satellite fails for any reason, then the Thai government will not have data in case there are more annual floods, and will have to pay other countries agencies for access to their data (Europe now is having to do this after the failure of their largest satellite).

Tender documentation was supposed to have been issued at the beginning of this year, but is constantly delayed because of budget discussions and side issues.

It shows a complete lack of forward planning.

My message to Mr T. next time I am in Dubai will be - sort this out - heads need to roll!!

Crobe

Although both sides are playing party politics, the main concern here is the government (PT) ineptitude.

The request has been with them for over a year - and I know for a fact that there have been constant contacts from the US side to ensure that the planning is on track, but these have not been responded to.

The PT government had not put this issue up for debate because they did not think they had to, but they also have not made any planning for the activity to go ahead - no planning with the Thai GISTDA agency had been set up, and when the story broke 3 weeks ago in the Nation newspaper, they also were waiting for the government to make a decision.

You could say that the government had other priorities, but this has now backfired spectacularly.

The story that Thai politicians cannot even make a decision on a bilateral test has now reverberated throughout the space and science community, and the plan that Thailand had to hold a major space conference in 2015 - with 5000 visitors and generating over $10m in revenues for the local tourism - has now been put in jeopardy.

So this is not now a purely domestic political issue, it has real world consequences for the Thai economy

Crobe

It is a shame that this might be cancelled - it wil have longer lasting impact on on Thailand's image in the science community

Stiff Snake Handler ahead??

For vacationers, Brits (and then Germans) are the most likely to take a holiday outside of their own country rather than internally - could be something to do with the weather and the cuisine...and the package holiday thing started in Britain.

A lot more people, proportionally, take a foreign holiday than US people.

As to ex-pats, the Brits have always been a globe-trotting nation, willing to go to new places, and SE Asia has always been an area of interest. More than 25% of British passport holders live outside Britain, a higher proportion than the US.

The US does, however, have more ex-pats in the Philippines.

For instance, the Brits were always the second highest foreign born population in the US (after Mexican), but go largely unmentioned.

It is the same in Thailand, you notice the falang, but the highest proportion of foreigners is actually the Japanese - they account for more than the Europeans combined - but you probably do not notice it as much being a westerner.

Crobe

RIP to the dear lady who needlessly lost her life. To the perpetrators, may you rot.

Upon my first official trip to Thailand years back in 1985, I was warned about the notorious backpack cutters on public transportation. Outright violence against foreigners was negligible, though not unheard of.

In 2001, I overheard (FSI 2.5 if you must know) a local at a bar tell the others how they should hit me over the head and take my money, even though I was clearly exercising at the time and had no valuables on my person. To their good merit, the other Thais seated with this "gentleman" gave him a severe berating. Just goes to show that one bad apple on his own, or mixed with another bad apple, can and will spoil the whole lot. Thais in general are wonderful people.

I have been all over Thailand without incident, though I'm not flashy and stay away from trouble. Police I know have offered me firearms when knowing I'm traveling throug a certain area of the country, though this is of course declined.

Even though I love Thais and Thailand, I always keep my guard up. Always, and not only in Thailand.

Me too.

I've been travelling Thailand since 1975 and whilst I'm careful everywhere I go in the world, these days I'm particularly careful in Thailand.

Without doubt, I speak of in my mind, in Thailand there is definitely an undercurrent of bad feeling toward foreigners. Not I think at a particularly dangerous level (as yet), but apparent.

Issan in particular has seen an influx of foreign / Thai relationships, with villages once of course only the realm of Thais now showing signs of small palaces springing up here and there amongst the shacks where other families are existing on a couple of hundred baht (if that) a day.

Human nature demands unfortunately that this is going to cause bad feeling , with obvious reactions.

Perhaps this is a natural progression and not much can be done about it, but, ..........................................Be aware!

Can this be linked to an incident in a tourist resort against a tourist, maybe not directly, but some roots I'm sure exist.

My TW and several of our Thai / Aus friends here in Australia love going back to Thailand fairly frequently, but we know few who want to go back and actually live there? I'm sure this is in part due their mixed relationship.

Perhaps our Thai partners also feel something in the air. I do now when exiting Suvarnabhumi to enjoy the land, but at the same time I am very very careful.

There are 3 factors that together combine to increase the impression that tourists in Thailand are less safe than before

- The increasing number of tourists, and tourist areas, leads to easy rich pickings for street crime

- The increasing use of internet and other media which highlights the incidents more than before

- The undercurrent of anti-foreigner sentiment - which sometimes goes hand in hand with the increasing foreign population.

The anti-foreigner sentiment should be put into context - the Thais have a historic xenophobia from the colonial times and this permeates both ends of the political spectrum, the PAD are explicit in their nationalistic goals, and on the other side the rhetoric was increased and played up to around 11 years ago when the Thai Rak Thai party took control, using specific anti-foreigner statements such as pledging "to stop the firesale of Thai interest to foreign firms" and blaming foreign speculation for the previous currency crisis.

Ironic given that the leader of that party sold his company to a foreign sovereign wealth fund.

That said - the anti-foreigner sentiment in Thailand is not on a level seen elsewhere during times of civil disturbance - the PAD occupation of the airport inconvenienced foreign travelers, but there was no outright animosity to them, and even on occasion food and water provided to the stuck passengers.

Similarly, during the red-short occupation in Bangkok, the arson attacks did not target specific foreign owned firms.

These incidents can be contrasted with riots in London and Los Angeles, in both cases there was overt targeting of foreign owned premises.

That said, there is no excuse or apology for this appalling incident and the Thai authorities need to understand that foreign visitors need to be kept safe and if an incident occurs the supposed assailant is quickly found and justice prevails.

In order to protect the tourists they have to increase both the security and levels of confidence in the tourist areas by having round the clock police on patrol, and these should be dedicated to keeping the safety of the tourists paramount and not see them as walking ATMs for the police coffers

Tackling crime and corruption at the same time is the only way forward

Crobe

Amazing Thailand!!!!

No...it is Miracle Thailand...get it right....cos its a Miracle people still come here and its a Miracle people still think Phuket is a world class destination...with pristine beaches and friendly island people.

The past (not present) reputation for being a welcoming country, and the alluring advertisements still draw an increasing number of tourists.

Unwelcome incidents can, however, change this overnight - the Kenyan tourist destinations on the north borders, are now decimated since the kidnap and murder of tourists staying in a resort there.

It shows how easily such events can turn public opinion, and should be a warning to the TaT not to be complacent.

Crobe

We were discussing this incident this morning in another area here and all the comments were directed to the support of the victim.

There are times and places to vilify Phuket and all that has tragically gone wrong there ... but maybe not this time, not this day and not this thread.

Stop talking rubbish.

There is no-one on here that does not feel sympathy for the victims, and in so doing are right to highlight their own personal opinions regarding the safety or otherwise of Phuket which is the topic of the thread.

Stop trying to censor people or stopping them from their right to free speech on this board, of you don't like it - find another board.

Crobe

Thank you again for your insights into free speech.

In a thread where we are collectively mourning the loss of a fellow citizen and I politely ask that this thread may not be the appropriate moment to rage against Phuket and to focus on the victim instead, you are suggesting that I leave?

You talk about free speech ... yet deny me mine?

You say that 'There is no-one on here that does not feel sympathy for the victims' ... well actually there have been and the Mods have seen fit to remove those comments ... and rightfully so.

So ... on a morning where I and many other Australians are mourning the loss of a fellow citizen … maybe the focus can be about her and this tragedy and we can leave discussing Phukets ills for another day?

David,

I sympathise with your feelings over the loss of a fellow national and I know they are heartfelt, but having a discussion board that is limited only to messages of condolence is not a discussion board.

While we are all concerned with the victims, there are people on the board who rightly want to raise issues that draw lessons from this tragedy, and what can be done in order to make sure it does not happen again.

I suspect that like you, I also find distasteful comments that blame the victim. it is an easy way to make a speech with no consequences and they would feel differently if it happened to them or their loved ones, but they are entitled to express their opinions, whether we agree with them or not.

Crobe

We were discussing this incident this morning in another area here and all the comments were directed to the support of the victim.

There are times and places to vilify Phuket and all that has tragically gone wrong there ... but maybe not this time, not this day and not this thread.

Stop talking rubbish.

There is no-one on here that does not feel sympathy for the victims, and in so doing are right to highlight their own personal opinions regarding the safety or otherwise of Phuket which is the topic of the thread.

Stop trying to censor people or stopping them from their right to free speech on this board, of you don't like it - find another board.

Crobe

Umm Crobe, you just censored David's opinion

Not at all,

I stated that people have the right to state their opinion without being told not to - free choice

I also stated that he has the right to find another board IF he does not like peoples opinions, again free choice

no censorship there

Crobe

its time to stop the corny remarks about the police force .... its no longer a joke .....i cannot understand why a country such as australia does not slap a travel ban on this place immediately ...the phuket police are nothing but tea money collectors , they see tourists purely as a source of income .... until corruption is dealt with we will live in a lawless society ... so time to bail , tell your friends , colleagues , business associates stay away ....go to Myanamar ....

If I am reading your post correctly ... you want the Australian Government to 'slap a ban' of Phuket or on Thailand?

Phuket maybe be difficult to do because it's not a Nation.

The whole of Thailand is not Phuket.

Governments can, and frequently do, slap travel warnings and advisories on countries and various parts of countries that they consider not safe.

Usually this is because of a major threat such as civil war or major civil disturbance, but in these cases they withdraw all government personnel, including consular services, advise their citizens to leave the area immediately and issue the warning against all unnecessary travel to the affected area.

In such cases travel agencies, cruises etc have to also avoid the area as they may be held liable.

Now I am not suggesting that Australia should go to such an extreme measure, but the threat of such an action of other incidents occurred is a powerful economic weapon, especially in tourist dependent areas.

As for the Australian travel agencies selling holidays to Phuket - if they cannot guarantee the safety of one of their own, how can they guarantee it to their customers - it will be interesting to know if greed overcomes prudence.

Crobe