beautifulthailand99

That ship like the Russian navy has long since been sunk. There won't be amity between Ukraine and Russia probably in my lifetime, but there could be a messy peace and secure redefined borders and a frozen conflict. The battlefield is deciding that not diplomacy and sadly for Ukraine they are losing that. Russia's never coming back to the West now it's thrown in its lot with China in a "partnership without limits" and this and other nefarious partners and the global south/BRICS will determine the arc of that trajectory, not what we would like or wish for. Winston Churchill in 1939: “I cannot forecast to you the action of Russia. It is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma; but perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest.” (Source: Churchill Society) "Russia is never as strong as she looks; Russia is never as weak as she looks." (Attributed to multiple individuals, including Winston Churchill.)

If Putin goes there won't be an effortless road to democratic liberalism, far from it -what the last 2 years has shown us is the Putin is in total control and the siloviki will no doubt uphold legitimacy of that of his successor should there ever be one, who the current Kremlin watching consensus seems to favour Nikolai Patrushev, who is believed to be even more authoritarian than Putin. They all know that should they collectively falter and lose their grip rather like Prizoghin they lose their lives in short order. The Russian people are not a factor in this calculation - they will keep their heads down and their views in check. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Patrushev https://theweek.com/feature/briefing/1024619/putins-potential-successors The 71-year-old has known Putin since they worked together in the KGB, and was a major strategist in both the 2014 and 2022 invasions of Ukraine. Last year Tatiana Stanovaya told The Washington Post that "His ideas form the foundations of decisions taken by Putin. He is one of the few figures Putin listens to." In a March 2023 interview with Rossiskaya Gazetta, Petrushev said that "Washington and London are again conniving with Nazism and fascism. They have no qualms about using Ukraine to set Europe or the entire world ablaze in a belief that they can get away with anything." Over the past year, Petrushev has traveled widely seeking to shore up Russia's diplomatic position, and has played a critical role in managing the alliance with China. Petrushev's 45-year-old son Dmitry, currently the agriculture minister, has also been a rumored Putin successor. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/russia-security-services-siloviki-putin-regime/ Who supports this system, who protects it? The so-called security forces, known in Russia as siloviki, are the core and backbone of Vladimir Putin’s regime. Today, there are as many as five million people in the siloviki, including employees of the country’s state security, the police, the investigative committee (which is supposedly akin to the FBI in the US) and numerous other agencies, such as the National Guard, which employs more than 300,000 people and is only really tasked with dispersing protests. Russia’s siloviki have long lived by their own rules. Very often, these rules are inaccessible and incomprehensible for both people outside the country and residents of Russia.

There are lots of fatal accidents between people who know each other with guns in Thailand, sadly. RIP

And you've left the country but still want to opine from afar about how we have gone to the dogs - hence the bitterness !

They have forced her out to be papped. Assuming this photo is true of course. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13183233/Kate-leaving-Windsor-Castle-Prince-William-Westminster-Abbey.html

Rumours are William is off with his significant other and wants out and there is an epic battle going on behind the scenes, but the heir is being protected so she is being thrown to the wolves. The best take I have read on it is this from the Buzz Feed royal reporter of 11 years standing now freelance who makes sense of the drama. NiemanLab is an elite finishing school for talented journalists at Harvard. Nieman Fellows have collectively won 101 Pulitzer Prizes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nieman_Foundation_for_Journalism “This is just weird”: BuzzFeed News’ former royals reporter on Kate Middleton, Palace PR, and distrust in the media “I cannot emphasize enough how out of character it is that a royal press team went on the record in response to what is essentially gossip.” https://www.niemanlab.org/2024/03/this-is-just-weird-buzzfeed-news-former-royals-reporter-on-kate-middleton-palace-press-and-distrust-in-the-media/

About 20 years ago I was walking outside the Siam Centre when I saw a homeless man lying on a bench with his todger out knocking one off watching the office girls going by. People clocked him but pretended to studiously ignored him. But that was before camera phones and social media and the resultant outcry.

It is indeed but hard hitting nevertheless with a lot of interviews with senior Israeli politicians that feel a lot of this is on Netanyahu - including his divide and rile and pay Hamas strategy. He is destroying Israel in the same way Trump will destroy the US.

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If smears and lies make you happy, then it would be churlish and uncharitable of me to disabuse you of your happiness.

I've read Mein Kampf but that doesn't make a Nazi, just better informed.

If Israel cares about its survival and peace - they would declare a ceasefire, arrest Netanyahu and allowed unfettered humanitarian supplies into Gaza. Every Israeli politician in that vidoe from ABC says he is totally untrustworthy and can never be peace while he is PM.

In that video Ozimoron posted the head of Shin Bet if he was Palestinian he would fight like the Palestinians by any means necessary. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/14/shin-bet-ami-ayalon-calls-on-israel-release-intifada-leader-marwan-barghouti Ayalon said most Israelis believed that “all Palestinians are Hamas or supporters of Hamas”, and they did not accept the concept of a Palestinian identity. “We see them as people, not ‘a people’, a nation,” he said. “We cannot accept [the idea of a Palestinian people] because if we do, it creates a huge obstacle in the concept of the state of Israel.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ami_Ayalon

That is utterly true horror - Israel is truly losing the plot, and I think that that was Hamas's plot all along. If we can't have our land back, we will turn the whole world against you, even if we destroy ourselves in the process. And unleash the demons back. Dark days indeed and that is where the whole world is going. https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-11-12/ty-article/israeli-security-cabinet-member-calls-north-gaza-evacuation-nakba-2023/0000018b-c2be-dea2-a9bf-d2be7b670000 Israeli security cabinet member and Agriculture Minister Avi Dichter (Likud) was asked in a news interview on Saturday whether the images of northern Gaza Strip residents evacuating south on the IDF’s orders are comparable to images of the Nakba. He replied: “We are now rolling out the Gaza Nakba. From an operational point of view, there is no way to wage a war – as the IDF seeks to do in Gaza – with masses between the tanks and the soldiers.”

For some reason my previous post seems to have gone missing, here it is in the Telegraph. Powerful stuff. After winning Best International Feature Film for The Zone of Interest, British director Jonathan Glazer delivered one of the most overtly political speeches of the night, as he touched on Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. The Zone of Interest director Jonathan Glazer said he refuted 'the Holocaust being hijacked' Glazer, who is Jewish, said: “We stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people.” He continued: “Whether the victims of October 7th in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza, all the victims, this dehumanisation, how do we resist?” “All our choices were made to reflect and confront us in the present – not to say, ‘Look what they did then,’ rather, ‘Look what we do now’,” he said of his film, which is based on a novel by the late Martin Amis and centres on a German officer’s family living next door to the Auschwitz death camp during the Second World War. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/films/2024/03/10/oscars-2024-live-latest-updates/

No - client confidentiality !

I know from personal experience a lot of Thai overstayers are going down the refugee route at the moment. The system is so broken that the Home Office after an initial cursory case review allows them to work as well. He will no doubt have sent back vast amounts of money back to Thailand using the underground money exchange route which is prevalent in London and kept his gains away from confiscation by the authorities. With a good lawyer, he will get a minimal sentence and go back to Thailand a rich man. It is a well trodden path. The most common excuse is they have borrowed money from gangster loan sharks in Thailand and are unable to go back at the risk of their lives.

I am not a propagandist for Ukraine or Russia for that matter, I found the reference on ARSS The British Army Rumour Service, a more pro-Ukraine forum you won't find. And it was them that made the Wagner /Nazi allusion.

"Crimes against the state" is suitably vague. The other category is miliary personnel convicted of crimes whilst serving, and as there is no other link in English that I can find the point remains. Britain has never done that, and the US has to go back to the Confederacy for something similar.

To any seasoned observer, that looks like the last roll of the dice. It is certainly nothing that any NATO army would ever contemplate. Giving arms to convicted sociopathic criminals and expecting it to go well. But it bears out what the Pope and Macron are highlighting that Ukraine is losing, and the front threatens to turn into a rout, and if they are recklessly gambling multiple Patriot batteries and getting them destroyed it points to a breakdown in competency as well.

Thanks for the clarification - I concede that point.

Don't bite the hand that feeds you. I am in blood / Stepped in so far, that, should I wade no more, / Returning were as tedious as go o'er

A brilliant documentary made at great risk to VICE inside Russia as to the truth of the situation. Well worth an hour of your time. Putin's invasion of Ukraine was a tragedy for Ukraine, for Russia and the whole world. There is no escaping that.

I had the great pleasure and privilege to work at the Embassy back in 2003 at the old compound on Wireless Road under the wonderful Ambassador Sir David Fall, so I hugely appreciate all the work you do in so many areas, Consular, Trade, Political and Defence to name but 4,all under difficult circumstances. There were 50 UK staff then and 200 LE, and we were always busy, so I can only imagine how run off your feet you must be now. We had Gurkha guards back then, and I remember one morning asking if I could see the knife the kukri they carried, and he replied politely I would love to Mr BT but if I did, I would have to kill you ! If Khun Attakorn is still working there, send my regards, he will know who I am.

War crimes can only be committed by established state entities - Hamas are not that, so cannot per se commit "war crimes".