Robby nz

A long story this taken from Wiki. They can tell it better than me.

The Monument to the Heroes of Bang Rachan

In 1767, Burmese armies entered Siam. While Burmese accounts narrate the invasion as having a deliberate and predetermined ambition - credited to the King Mang Ra - other sources and analysts of the period, most notably Damrong Rajanubhab, the father of Thai history - consider this to be historical revisionism and believe that the Burmese did not initially invade with the intention of permanent conquest nor with any designs on Ayutthaya itself.

The Burmese forces encountered little competent resistance from the Siamese and advanced close to the capital, but refused to attack due to uncertainty regarding the strength of the forces they would have to face. There was much raiding of the surrounding country and, in addition to the general policy which required the submission of the Siamese, they began to demand the unmarried daughters of families as well, a policy which provoked the Siamese people into resistance

The beginning of resistance and the first notable appearance of Bang Rajan occurred when a group of Siamese from various villages - notably Sibuathong, Krap and Pho Thale - led by Nai Thaen, Nai Choti, Nai In, Nai Muang, Nai Dok and Nai Thong Kaeo lured a group of Burmese raiders into a forest with the promise of young women and then turned upon them, killing the entire group of twenty. After this they retreated to Bang Rachan where, we are also told, most of the population of the villages of Mueang Wiset Chaichan, Mueang Sing and Mueang San had fled.

Bang Rajan is recorded as being ideally situated: "A place where foodstuffs were plentiful...a village on high ground and...it was difficult for the enemy to get at.

In addition to its ideal situation geographically and its position as a focus of those fleeing the Burmese, Bang Rajan had at this early point approximately 400 fighting men who elected five leaders amongst themselves and worked on the erection of fortifications. There was also a Buddhist priest, Thammachot, who had been invited into the village monastery where he was held in great veneration by the inhabitants, who believed him to have great knowledge and power with regard to spells, charms and other incantations.

The Burmese leaders camped at Mueang Wiset Chaichan, were aware of the slaughter of their men by the Siamese who had fled to Bang Rajan and sent a small force of about a 100 men to capture them. The Burmese were taken by surprise when they were attacked while resting and were almost entirely wiped out by the force led by Nai Thaen, who had been elected leader of Bang Rajan.

News of this victory spread quickly across the country and resulted in many more people coming out of hiding to join the resistance movement, swelling the ranks camped within Bang Rachan to 1,000 fighting men. This amateur force was well organized along the lines of a professional military unit but were considerably disadvantaged by their lack of equipment, especially firearms, although this was countered to an extent by their great faith in the presence of the priest Thammachot and his various magic spells and talismans.

Well aware that he was facing heavy resistance, the Burmese leader at Wiset Chaichanw requested reinforcements before sending another force against the village. He had underestimated them, as they managed to rout a second army of about 500 as well as a third force, again greater in numbers and under a new leader.

A pivotal event occurred during the fourth attack on the village by a force of 1,000 Burmese under Surin Chokhong. This force was not immediately defeated by the Siamese villagers but their commander was killed and after much fighting the villagers retreated. At this point the carelessness of the Burmese appeared once again as they lowered their guard to begin preparing food and caring for the corpse of their commander. Seeing this, the villagers quickly returned to the field and the surprised Burmese force was truly routed and lost most of its manpower due to the determined pursuit by the Siamese villagers. While victorious again, the leader of Bang Rajan, Nai Thaen, was shot in the knee - an event which would have grave consequences for the resistance as it meant he was no longer capable of fighting or leading from the front.

The aftermath of this fourth battle saw both sides receive reinforcements, with Bang Rajan selecting a new leader to replace Nai Thaen - a fighter named Nai Chan who was famed for his ferocity and "bristling moustache". The fortunes of Bang Rajan remained good under Nai Chan, who saw their forces increase and achieve ever greater levels of organization, and their reputation grow to such extent that the Burmese came to fear them and the raiders had great trouble recruiting troops to send against the village.

After seven attacks and seven defeats, an eighth force, under a Mon commander who had lived in Siam, volunteered to take an army and promised to defeat Bang Rachan. What set this commander apart from the previous Burmese leaders was his knowledge of the land and the Siamese and his lack of arrogance - he did not underestimate the villagers and adjusted his tactics to disadvantage them. He progressed slowly towards the village by building a series of forts along the route and, when faced with the villagers, refused to fight except from within these fortifications.

The lack of artillery was now crippling for the villagers, as they could not destroy the forts built by the Burmese and suffered great casualties from infantry assaults upon the forts. One of the Siamese leaders - Nai Thong Men - became drunk and furious and, upon a water buffalo, took a force of men and attacked the Burmese in what remains one of the iconic tales and images from the legend of the village. He was killed and his men routed - the first time the Burmese had defeated the villagers.

Bang Rajan sent for help from Ayutthaya in the form of cannons they could use against the forts, but the capital displayed a diffidence typical of its strategy throughout the war and refused the request. However, one man, Phraya Rattanathibet, was sent to help them forge their own weapons. Unfortunately for the village, the guns they cast were cracked and useless. Soon after this, Nai Then died of the wound to his knee and the other great leaders, Nai Chan and Khun San died of wounds taken while trying to take the Burmese forts.

The village was by now dispirited and hopeless, and faced a siege by the Burmese in the form of cannon fire, siege towers and tunnelling under the village walls. Eventually the village was overrun despite resistance to the end - five months after the first act of resistance and the only notable act of successful opposition by a Siamese force in a war characterized by the failure of Ayutthuya, its professional armies and its Generals.

The historical settlement is located in Amphoe Khai Bang Rachan, Sing Buri Province. A monument to the battle is situated 13 kilometers southwest of the town on Route 3032.

But that's not all from the Greece jokes section.

Should this be in water scenes or nature ?

Hog Deer stag crossing a stream in the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary.

This is cynicism to the extreme.

They are trying to use Yingluck for their own purposes.

The anti-democrats have finished a Constitution by and for themselves and have stacked a senate with their own.

With that anti-democrat foundation in place, they can now appear to be inclusive and re-conciliatory.

A phony and manufactured, cynical effort to the max. I hope the PTP/Ms. Y and Co. don't suck into this idiocy

What is especially a slam against one's intelligence, is they think people will see AV's participation as constituting political diversity. Shows how arrogant they are if they think no-one sees through such a sham.

Getting back to that stacked senate...I was amazed yesterday to see some Posters trying to find some redeeming value in that, and actually defending it.

Unbelievable.

So what you are saying is that by inviting Yingluck to have some sensible input they are only inviting her to exposing her ignorance in public.

And should she accept she will only make a fool of herself.

you are probably right for she has not up to this point shown any brilliant debating skills or great grasp of any subject she has been asked to comment on.

Nor has she come forward with any suggestions or criticism or made any attempts to move things forward to where an election is possible.

On the other hand Abhisit has both criticized and put forward sensible suggestions and is prepared to take part in shaping reforms.

At some juncture, it would be refreshing to see the exact statistics, if they exist, on the number of tons or rice paid for under all previous subsidy schemes and the total amount of subsidies minus the value of the rice sold. This would reflect the true amount of subsidies an not just figures for the amount paid farmers.

The closest anyone has so far come to that is the 14 page Freedom barometer report which also covers the Abhisit crop insurance scheme :

http://freedombarometer.org/assets/pdfs/Freedom-Barometer-Special-Report-Thailands-Agrarian-Policy.pdf

The anti-democrats seem to feel they need to continually assault everyone with their self-serving demonization of this program. Their arrogance prevents them from realizing that most people discount their own fabricated evidence....But some don't...For them, whatever these anti-democrats say must be true.

But why do they feel the need to trot out their version of things, over and over. Basically if we repeat it enough they reason, people will think it is a 'comprehensive truth'...Unfortunately, that is true for some. Continually seeing this analysis of a program within their own frame-of-reference is boring.

"Me thinks they protest too much" Their repetitive spewing out of their self-serving perspective begets repetitive blow-back.

Until we get a balanced, Independent viewpoint, their unbalanced and unhinged rhetoric falls on deaf ears. The ears of those blessed with Political discernment about how adversarial democratic governance functions.

The headline of this story on the topics page namely "Thai Politics....Rice stocks from subsidy scheme........" correctly classifies this story...It is all about "Thai Politics", not an economic program as they frame it.

And of course underpinning it all, is their anti-populism ideology.

I have already given you links to two independent reports on the rice pledging scheme which I doubt you have read.

There is also the 2013 (PT GOVT) Finance Ministries post audit report referred to in this article : http://www.nationmultimedia.com/business/Panel-ready-to-clarify-figures-on-rice-losses-30207908.html

If you have trouble understanding reports then perhaps a picture would help you:

Take careful note that the post audit figures do not include the additional losses since that report, that is the loss from the rot in storage and the costs of storage and disposal of the accumulated stockpile.

Where do the authors get this "Enter the state's granaries" ?

The state will no longer be buying rice now that the pledging scheme is over, all the new seasons rice will be sold in the usual way through the rice traders and buyers.

With the exception of the normal emergency supply of the countries staple grain (in this case rice) held by most countries which is held in proper purpose built conditions.

If this normal emergency supply has been included in the top grade rice that is being sold off then it will need to be replenished but the silo's in which it was held would not be effected by weevil, contamination or other deterioration factors.

It is quite likely that this supply has been sold as it is normal practice to rotate stocks to ensure freshness and in this instance to get the best price possible.

However; the article is correct, get rid of the stuff, particularly the bad, as quickly as possible for the longer it is kept the higher the storage costs and therefor the lower the eventual return.

In this climate there brave guys..respect to them...it's a pity more weren't able to speak out.

Could it be that you have confused bravery with stupidity ?

There are ways and means of going about changing things that you don't agree with, provided of course that they can be changed, in this instance their actions can only cause trouble and slow down the process of returning to an elected democracy. Far better, if they do have any ideas of their own, to make those ideas heard in a constructive manner.

Lord knows there are enough reforms needed in education, which they should know something about and law, their chosen subject, to need input from anyone who is willing to offer constructive comment.

This lot are doing nobody any good particularly themselves, unless they have been promised list positions on a party ticket, as has been given to trouble makers before.

"This idea is meant to open a channel for people of all groups and sides to express their opinions...."

Too little, too late.

What's with all this warm and fuzzy inclusiveness all of a sudden.

Cynicism to the extreme.....After the anti-democrats have written a constitution for and by themselves, all of a sudden they are going to be inclusive?

They must be confident they have "reformed" things to their liking, now they can pretend to be participatory.

To give AV equal billing with Ms. Y. when he can't win an election if his life depended on it, is also skewed.

Put AV in with Yingluck, Jatuporn, Natthawut and Dr. Weng, that could be sold as participatory and balanced reflecting electoral realities.

But never mind all that...Fohget this whole charade that comes in the wake of a warped constitutional process.

You seem to forget that in the term of the Yingluck Govt there were 4 by-elections, 3 of those were considered safe PT seats.

Only 1 was one by PT the other 3 by the Democrats including the supposedly safe PT seat of Don Muang where there was a 12% swing from PT to the Democrats.

There was also the BKK mayoral election where the great thinker said they would win even if they put up a power pole as a candidate.....They lost.

PT are not as invincible as you like to make out.

As for putting up the 3 red shirt leaders who were never elected and only introduced to parliament as list MP's as reward for the death and destruction they caused in 2010 and have never been and never will be politicians and are still working under the slogan "Thaksin thinks PT acts" which means they have no original thoughts of their own......Well perhaps they are the only names you know.

All that said, cancelling and avoiding elections by the anti-democrats contextualizes everything...No amount of smoke can avoid that reality and hide their fear....By their works ye shall know them.

Your quote fits well with PT doesn't it.

Red shirt leaders given jobs as PM's as a reward for causing death and destruction.

Rice pledging loss and corruption.

120 billion disappeared on flood control with another 350 billion that was approved by their cabinet that nobody knows what happened to it.

And many more right down to the little things like sub standard Futsel courts.

yes: By their works ye shall know them.

One wonders what input Yingluck would be able to offer, perhaps she could give some tips on growing mushrooms.

After all its not much different to how she and her party ran their Government and treated the Thai people. Keep them in the dark and feed them on bovine manure.

Presumably she has been invited because she among all leading politicians has the most legitimacy, having been given a mandate by the Thai people in a fairly conducted democratic election.I doubt whether she has a political future but even the military government understands her appeal and popularity.It is sensible to seek inclusivity.

Your mean spirited and unpleasant attitude is not representative or helpful.Fortunately those in office understand these things better than embittered foreigners.

I see you have to resort to your usual insults, perhaps one day you will grow up and be able to post without them.

To call Yingluck a politician on the strength of her one term as a clone (his word) PM who needed a caddy (his term) would be stretching the truth. Her input as PM was hardly convincing.

Got back yesterday from Huai Kah Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary.

What an amazing place with 3 species of deer wandering the camping ground. Food security is very important there as were raided by monkeys during the day and wild pigs at night. Just on twilight one evening a large wild boar trotted past within 50 meters of our tent and when it saw me reaching for a camera gave a snort and departed at speed. A Hog Deer stag would visit me at breakfast time and try to get its nose into my plate, no way this is mine go eat grass.

We had planned to go and stay at the sanctuary for 3 or 4 nights and ended up staying 9, we would have stayed longer but had run out of some essential supplies.

The weather was good for the whole trip with some rain when we arrived that cleared quickly and some light rain in the early morning of the day we left. The lady boss wants to turn round and go back for a month but there are some things that must be done this month so we will wait to see what the weather brings after that.

The staff there are very conscientious with strict rules as they don’t want to lose any ‘tourists’ (that was us) either in the forest or to wild animals. One of the rules is that nobody must go farther than 50 meters from a road without a staff member as a guide. As the lady puts it I am very naughty for as I have hunted all my life I am confident in my abilities in the forest so ignored that one. What they didn’t know didn’t worry them.

The only real danger there from animals are the elephants which are completely unpredictable and just as likely to attempt to stomp you as they are to run away. Everything else will run from people and that includes tigers, yes there are tigers not very far from the camp ground, we saw tracks in the river bed less than 200 meters from our camp and the staff told us one had taken a deer behind the toilets while we were there.

Elephants are also very close as we saw fresh sign of a large elephant in the river bed, it had been there only an hour or so before us, there is also ample older sign of their leavings everywhere we went. On several occasions I got a very strong smell of elephants, one of those was when we were returning in the evening from a lookout tower, a little farther down the track a large animal jumped out of a tree and ran off, very likely a leopard. Next a Sambar hind ran ahead of us. At this point the lady was getting very scared and almost climbing on my back.

There are many species of animals to be seen there, we saw herds of 15 to 18 Banteng on 3 occasions all from watch towers in forest clearings, whether they were the same herd or not we couldn’t tell although the last lot I saw was about 9KM from where we saw the first just a few days before. As well as the deer in the camp ground I saw Sambar on 3 occasions, Eld’s deer, Feas Muntjac and a very small deer that was probably a Mouse deer. There was a Golden Jackal that disappeared before I could get a photo, wild pigs were everywhere and were seen on most days sometimes in large groups. Two species of monkey, as well as the Macaque around the camp ground and elsewhere there was a species of Langur which was probably Pahyre’s Leaf Monkey as that has been recorded there before. Squirrels were also abundant with Giant Black Squirrel, Himayalan Striped Squirrel, Pallas’s Squirrel and several others I couldn’t get good enough photos to ID. Also a Shrew type thing on the ground and I saw rodents a couple of times.

There was a place where large cattle had been wallowing in a mud hole. They were probably Wild Water Buffalo as they are the only cattle species that would wallow.

Plenty of bird life about as well, I recorded over 40 species 8 of them new to me. They were sometimes in quite large mixed flocks with 3 or 4 species of woodpeckers, blue magpie, laughing thrush and drongo’s together. I was getting a bit picky towards the end “Ha just another Black Headed Woodpecker, Rufous Treepie or Golden Fronted Leaf bird”

Full list of birds :

Green-billed Malkoha Greater Coucal

Sooty-headed Bulbul Rufous Treepie

Black-crested Bulbul Puff-throated Babbler

Stripe-throated Bulbul Blue-winged Pita

Greater Yellownape Tickells Blue Flycatcher

Greater Flameback Golden Fronted Leaf Bird

Grey-headed Woodpecker White-rumped Sahma

Black-headed Woodpecker Hoopoe

Red-billed Blue Magpie Liniated Barbet

White–crested Laughing Thrush Coppersmith Barbet

Lesser Necklaced Laughing Thrush Black-headed Oriole

Red Jungle Fowl Velvet Fronted Nuthatch

Spangled (hair crested) Drongo Oriental Magpie Robin

Greater Racket-tailed Drongo Red-wattled Lapwing

Ashy Drongo Blue-bearded Bee Eater

Bronzed Drongo Collared Falconet

Indian Rollar Pied Hornbill

White Throated Kingfisher Asian Openbill

Great Lora Common Tailorbird

Great Egret Spotted Dove

Green Peafowl

There were smaller birds present but very difficult to see let alone get a photo of, attached a photo of one which posed nicely for me, looks like one of the flycatchers but other than that I wouldn’t like to guess. Any input welcome.

"This idea is meant to open a channel for people of all groups and sides to express their opinions...."

Too little, too late.

What's with all this warm and fuzzy inclusiveness all of a sudden.

Cynicism to the extreme.....After the anti-democrats have written a constitution for and by themselves, all of a sudden they are going to be inclusive?

They must be confident they have "reformed" things to their liking, now they can pretend to be participatory.

To give AV equal billing with Ms. Y. when he can't win an election if his life depended on it, is also skewed.

Put AV in with Yingluck, Jatuporn, Natthawut and Dr. Weng, that could be sold as participatory and balanced reflecting electoral realities.

But never mind all that...Fohget this whole charade that comes in the wake of a warped constitutional process.

You seem to forget that in the term of the Yingluck Govt there were 4 by-elections, 3 of those were considered safe PT seats.

Only 1 was one by PT the other 3 by the Democrats including the supposedly safe PT seat of Don Muang where there was a 12% swing from PT to the Democrats.

There was also the BKK mayoral election where the great thinker said they would win even if they put up a power pole as a candidate.....They lost.

PT are not as invincible as you like to make out.

As for putting up the 3 red shirt leaders who were never elected and only introduced to parliament as list MP's as reward for the death and destruction they caused in 2010 and have never been and never will be politicians and are still working under the slogan "Thaksin thinks PT acts" which means they have no original thoughts of their own......Well perhaps they are the only names you know.

One wonders what input Yingluck would be able to offer, perhaps she could give some tips on growing mushrooms.

After all its not much different to how she and her party ran their Government and treated the Thai people. Keep them in the dark and feed them on bovine manure.

If the drought crisis has abated, why have people in the villages surrounding mine been waiting several days on a water truck to fill empty tanks? The water delivered is drained from some unknown source and is likely to contain parasites and impurities which render it impossible to drink.

The main water hasn't run at all now for 8 days.

To the dumbass political halfwits spouting such nonsense, come and live in the NE of Thailand and see for yourself before making such outrageously ridiculous statements.

Get of your backsides and do something for the people living in 45C everyday without water.

Even when there is no drought I wouldn't drink the tap water!

And maybe if some dumb arse farmers had actually LISTENED to the irrigation dept etc. Then there WOULD be more water for domestic use!

Possibly if some dumb ass Govt hadn't deliberately lowered the major dams to 50% 0f capacity after the 2012 floods in spite of an El Nino weather pattern being predicted that would bring droughts rather than floods. The dams never recovered from those low levels.

If the dumb asses who live in cities didn't take water for granted and waste so much washing their cars, filling their swimming pools, flushing their toilets several times a day and generally wasting a precious resource there would be more for everyone.

Just an anti-democrat posturing to demonize a previous Govt. they couldn't beat in an election.

Political posturing for political purposes, and not the self-righteous indignation he is trying to self-servingly project.

Lets' see an independent study to see if this Anti-democrat stuff has any merits.

This idiocy is apparent when one considers the basic premise.

Here we have an anti-democrat, Opposition guy wanting to sue using anti-democrat, Opposition innuendo's as a basis.

If an independent study and analysis shows this Opposition noise about an Ag. subsidy program to be valid, it would be another matter...They were afraid to take this thing to the electorate, so perhaps the same fear prevents them from facilitating a truly Independent analysis. Afraid it might expose their accusations as being mostly self-serving political posturing only.

They prefer to repetitively denounce this program in various forms as in this case, hoping repetitiveness makes it fact for some people.

And for the less discerning, that could happen.

You don't know of ONE independent study or analysis that said the rice scam was an expensive failure? Do you know of ONE that said it wasn't?

Less discerning? Only the truly gormless would believe the crap you write.

Let's just have one....An independent study of the Rice subsidy program.

Opposition accusatory noise about this thing over and over with no substantiating data other than their own, is dismissed out-of-hand by most people, other than those who for self-serving reasons want to believe.

An election may have been the next best thing to an independent study, but the anti-democrats hurriedly cancelled it.

They knew that voters know about this stuff, and have shown themselves to be very good at cutting through political BS.

Cancelling that election is all one needs to know when contextualizing their repetitive assaults against this Ag. subsidy program.

It is all part of their ideological aversion to other populist programs that benefit those not of their station...They hate to spread the nation's wealth beyond themselves.

I can give you two. But as a confirmed PT supporter you wont believe either.

http://tdri.or.th/en/tdri-insight/tdri-details-apparent-costs-of-rice-pledging-programme-including-bt111-billion-in-corruption/

http://freedombarometer.org/assets/pdfs/Freedom-Barometer-Special-Report-Thailands-Agrarian-Policy.pdf

And incidentally it was never and was never touted as a subsidy but as a self financing scheme that would eventually run at a profit and was financed out of budget so there would be no accountability.

Problem with that is who are you going to sue and on what grounds.

Better to go after the obvious corruption, prosecute the corrupt and upon a guilty verdict seize (all) their assets and use those assets along with the money from sales to go a small way to paying the huge debt.

No matter what is done from now on the loss will still be there. Incurring more costs on the chance that some may be recovered is only gambling and may be throwing more good money after bad. Only ones who would be sure to benefit would be the lawyers.

Get rid of the stockpiles as quickly as possible, particularly the bad stuff even for a minimal price for every month it is kept incurs more storage costs.

^^^ You're smarter than I am.

There was about 18 million tons purchased and stored for the rice scheme, all of which money was debt owed to the bank. I wonder how paying that off is going since the price paid was more.

There was more that 18 million tons bought :

http://englishnews.thaipbs.or.th/tdri-says-yinglucks-rice-pledging-scheme-causes-almost-trillion-baht-loss

TDRI researcher Dr Nipon Poapongsakorn said in his research on corruption involving the implementation of the rice pledging scheme from 2011 to 2014 that the scheme was considered the highest market intervention scheme in history in which the government had spent up to 980 billion baht to buy up to 54.4 million tons of rice or 53% of total rice output from farmers.

That however was un-milled rice, loss in milling can be anywhere from 40 to 50%. Using the higher number that means around 27 million tons of milled rice. The previous administration made various claims as to how much they had sold but as there was no accounting done these claims cant be verified. There was also a fair amount that 'disappeared'. The 18 million tons was what was left in storage at the time of inspection.

It should be noted that none other than PM Yingluck on 24 April 2014 'Urged" the NACC to conduct an inspection to verify that no rice was missing from the total of 19.8 million tons that that had been found to be in storage after a Min of commerce inspection the previous month. Minister Yanyong asserted this by letter delivered to the NACC.

You are correct that the whole scheme was done on borrowed money which has to be paid back by the long-suffering tax payer. The bank was only acting as an agent and was (supposed to be ) paid a commission, or charged a fee for its services, whatever way you want to put it.

That what is still in good condition is in demand and being sold, with accountability, will only go a small way to cover some of the loss.

This is a godsend for AOT and the Transport Minister, " see, the gun isn't linked to Thailand so he couldn't have been carrying it when he passed through Swampy so our scanners and the experts who man them are fully vindicated. "

The same thing occurred to me....not registered in Thailand, ergo it couldn't have come through swampy according to AOT

That's a argument ,or change of story they might try, but then surely he has a bigger problem if he goes down that route..okay so now your saying it didn't come from Thailand so where and who did you get it from in Japan and how did you 'forget' it was in your luggage..he's f***** ..serve him and BiB right..more of the same please..also..Arabic numbers and English indicating where the gun was sold...!! Dubai anyone?

You forgot the bit about : " A highly placed source in Japan said the gun had only Arabic numbers and English letters crafted by the factory that produced the gun"

"Crafted by the factory that produced the gun". So the Arabic is only to do with the factory is that made it.

It is apparently made by a company called North American Arms Company that has their headquarters in Provo Utah, whether their factory is there or not who knows.

Whatever. The fact that the gun is not registered in Thailand does not mean it was not taken to Japan from Thailand as there will be plenty of unregistered firearms in this country.

It also may have no bearing on the charge of carrying a loaded gun onto a plane but it should leave him open to another charge of being in possession of an unregistered firearm.

There seems to be some confusion as to just which bag the gun was in when he tried to board the plane in Japan but considering that at the very least any reports from Japan have to be translated into English and possibly from Japanese to Thai then to English there is plenty of room for words to be confused.

The lady boss tells me that it is being said on facebook that the gun has no serial number. That would make it an illegal weapon.

If this is true it adds a whole new dimension to the charges that can be leveled against the EX police general and leaves him right up to his ears in it.

If true what would be the point of showing registration papers to the Japs?

If true there would be no registration papers for any papers would have to be matched with the serial number of the weapon.

Of last report the Japanese police had not seen any registration papers, it was first reported that his son had taken them with him to Japan.

Last report said an 'aid' had been sent to look for the friend who gave the gun as a present in order to get the papers.

We wait for farther reports to see if the friend has been located and has come up with papers.

We also wait for an official report on whether or not the gun has a serial number.

The fact that its registered serves only to prove it came from Thailand. In away AOT would rather there aren't any papers, so they can claim he got it in Japan.

Either way, it doesn't legitimise taking it on an aeroplane...

No it does not, the fact that it is registered proves that it is a legal weapon and that he had a permit to carry it regardless of where it came from.

The airport in Thailand have clearly stated their position and are making no excuses and no claims, they are saying the gun was not detected in the scan that was done, they are not saying it was not there.

Read the piece in the BKK Post under 'learning English from the news'.

If there are no papers and as has been suggested there are no ID numbers (been removed) on the gun then it is illegal and that puts a whole new dimension on things for as well as attempting to take a weapon on a plane it then becomes 'in possession of an illegal weapon'

We now go here for an update http://www.thaivisa.com/forum/topic/836311-camronwits-gun-found-to-be-unregistered/

Firstly, of course, RIP the victims concerned.

If you read the story, its a bit contradictory. The woman who was asleep suggested that the driver may have been going faster to make up time, but she was asleep so really we don't know.

The policeman who said that the driver may have been sleepy while driving fast was not stating a fact, only a theory.

The fact is, from the story as its been presented, we just do know know what happened, so it's not really fair at this stage to be blaming the driver.

Accidents like this do happen in other countries too, I totally agree that road safety is an issue here but I think we also have to also understand that not every driver is an idiot and not every crash is the fault of the driver.

To say the driver would have run away if not dead is also very stupid, not all drivers run away.

Obviously you don't drive in Thailand!

I dare to say that from 100 Thai drivers 70 of them drive like idiots. Most likely I'm underestimating this!

If you think otherwise just go and drive a few times on the Asia highway.

Sure, some other countries have there fair share of idiot drivers, but most western countries enforce strict safety and educate people.

The word safety does not exist in a Thai dictionary (and also not the Thai translation for safety, duh).

You dare to say wrong. I drive on Asia road a fair bit, will be doing so tomorrow, and most drivers are good, there are a few idiots who weave in and out, pass on the left when there is no need and obviously go far to fast.

When you look at the road stats you will see that consistently over 70% of road deaths and in some years over 80% involve motorbikes. That is where the high road deaths occur.

As for the vans, there are a few good drivers but far to few, most go to fast and are impatient to pass. I have had to use them occasionally but avoid them unless there is no alternative.

Where are all the legalise cannabis gang today.

Great idea make it legal so anyone can have it and act like this fella.

But there must be another reason, cant be the pot he smoked, its harmless... Yea right carry on trying to fool yourselves.

The lady boss tells me that it is being said on facebook that the gun has no serial number. That would make it an illegal weapon.

If this is true it adds a whole new dimension to the charges that can be leveled against the EX police general and leaves him right up to his ears in it.

If true what would be the point of showing registration papers to the Japs?

If true there would be no registration papers for any papers would have to be matched with the serial number of the weapon.

Of last report the Japanese police had not seen any registration papers, it was first reported that his son had taken them with him to Japan.

Last report said an 'aid' had been sent to look for the friend who gave the gun as a present in order to get the papers.

We wait for farther reports to see if the friend has been located and has come up with papers.

We also wait for an official report on whether or not the gun has a serial number.