fire and ice

"Criminal meeting criminal equals arch-criminal. I won't listen to the National Human Right Commission or NGOs, because I answer to the country and the public," Chalerm said.

The devil in the detail. Typical Thai mentality here: Most don't want to LISTEN to external ideas. Fair enough if they listened (to outside ideas), considered them, weighed up the options and rejected the (outside ideas), but not even listening speaks volumes about the Thai psyche.

Even when they do listen they usually reject outside ideas because they are outside ideas, not because they are not good ideas.

Another situation warranting the death penalty. No Ifs No Buts. Kidnapping deserves death!

So no if or but then the father who had "kidnapped" his daughter (out of legal custody of her mother) and was found living overseas with her. He should be executed. And if an Afghan mother kidnaps her children to take them to another country to escape the father who wanted them genitally mutilated? - Kill her too - execute her, like you said "No ifs, no buts".

Your idea of "no ifs, no buts" goes a long way. Maybe you should stop seeing the world as black & white and realise you have issues and personal bias just like everyone else on the planet. Trying to impose blanket rules without exception just because its "simple" does not work.

Furthermore killing someone is a far more heinous crime than kidnapping and forced prostitution, murder is more heinous than rape as well; yet here you you propose a more severe punishment than the actual crime.

Its far too hot pretty much everywhere in Thailand for outdoor there parks.

Maybe Chiang Mai could work but still pretty hot there too.

Singapore is often cloud covered, different climate altogether so they can work there oddly enough.

yes, thank you up-country I do understand that but why? Let's be fair, it's not the most interesting of posts is it?!!!

Best regards

Rocket

Well

its a misleading attempt to feign security that doesn't exist.

Then again maybe the purpose is that they let the baggage staff see the video (in the day) to make them think they are being watched so they dont try anything?

Thailand IS majority owned by Foreign interests. Chinese Thais.

Some live in Dubai.

I think the 100,000,000 rai is the (relatively small) amount of land owned by non-Chinese Thais. The writer is probably really annoyed non-Chinese Thais own any land at all.

A sign telling potential passengers that black plate taxis don't have proper insurance and are illegal would help. The signs in Thai telling black plate taxis about potential fines doesn't really help tourists at all,nor will it stop the practice as those that are issuing fines will either be bribed or threatened.

What use is the insurance? Great, you get your leg cut off in an accident and the car is "insured". For your diligence of choosing and "insured" car you will get Thai compensation of around 15,000 baht - so what? Almost every tourist would have travel insurance that would cover it (properly) anyway.

Showing the video on TV and asking the public for assistance would probably help in capturing these men, as for where to place CCTV cameras, areas where the crime rate is highest?

Inside the police stations.

Great for tourists who can get a train from (?)PHuket town to (say) Karabi(?) for only 450 baht after paying the tuk tuk & taxi mafia 7,000baht for the one way trip from Patong to Phuket town.

No doubt it will either be located on one of Samui's crappy beaches (ie: awful sand, seaweed and rocks), or located a long way from the beach. I say this because it tends to be in Samui that the more upmarket the hotel, the worse its location - most people who book have no clue till they arrive and they aren't budgeting for repeat business. They will also no doubt charge 700 bath per hour for WiFi and a charge for a host of other things that are free in many resorts.

How do they define a "Day" of wokr? I mean in their labour law, not in actual practice.

I've mentioned this many times before. The easiest way to do this is set a minimum hourly rate which as far as I know is how it's normally done.

So do you know how many hours its "supposed" to be or are you (like me) wanting to know? Or do they deliberately leave it vague by not defining it?

Starting right now, educators in this country need to stop with the "mai pen rai"/don't think too much-attitude. They need to start training Thai people to become skilled or at least semi-skilled in a range of different vocational skills. Language and ESPECIALLY computer skills need to be taken seriously (most Thais graduate and can barely type, let alone format an Excel spreadsheet or use Photoshop; skills seem relegated to the Angry Birds category). They need to take the Thai teachers out of the classroom during English lessons, adopt a curriculum or at least some curricular standards, and set a standardized 40000 THB/per month entry wage for degree-qualified foreign English teachers (who should pass a police background check and health check, which will weed out most of the lames, drunks, and pedophiles). Then the government needs to work to provide a variety of meaningful, well-paid occupations to Thai people who show special initiative and skills (NOT money). Do I think these things could happen? Sure. But not today, or tomorrow, or the next day, or many, many days to come. Firstly, the government's right arm needs to stop fighting with it's left arm everytime something is to be done.

I have an 8y/o Thai step daughter who has been in going to school in Sydney for 2 years now (previously at a private Bangkok infants school). Late last year (as a result of her Sydney infants schools teaching) she was already able to use MS Word to make very good formatted documents using multiple word features. Of course the work was of an 8 year old's standard, but the point is she can use the software! I was quite stunned she could do this, and equally stunned that many Thai university graduates barely have enough PC skills. ..then again many Thai uni "graduates" have essentially bought their degrees and learnt nothing.

How do they define a "Day" of wokr? I mean in their labour law, not in actual practice.

As a practical solution in the short term, Mr Carpenter suggested posting signs at both Surin and Laem Singh Beaches warning tourists of the potential dangers of renting jet-skis there. The suggestion was accepted by Mr Phuripat.

Yes an excellent suggestion: The (lets say) 48 signs will be installed at a cost of, hmm, lets say: 3,762,000 baht = 78,375 per sign (aprox US$2600 each), a real bargain to the Government, especially since they will get vandalised by the jetski operators bBut can never be proven), and therefore also need constant replacement. Wow, what an earner for the contractor "hired" to make & install the signs.

O-Net test 'stuck in 20th century', academic says

Don't they mean late-19th century? Or at the most recent, the 1950s?

It's also terrible that the AUD has come down slightly against its all-time-historical record-high against the baht.

A couple of weeks ago it got to about 33.4 (an all time high) But now its down to about 32.5

...oops! didn't mean to rub it in...

...actually yes I did!!

Not surprising that to help gain entry into a Thai university one has to totally agree and suck up to the societal dogma dished out by those "in the know" , ie: "sex is bad & it should be controlled", "a sexual urge should be withheld/controlled", "this is fact, so no other idea is even able to be contemplated" etc....

It would be counter productive to allow people with free thought and their own opinions (who may challenge the status quo ) into a Thai "university". If they allowed free thought etc then these esteemed Thai institutions could become like those terrible foreign universities, and everyone in Thailand knows how inferior they are .

Years ago I couldn't believe it the first time I found out those school kid sin uniform were actually university students!?!?! Uniform at a university ? Universities are supposed to be be institutions about free thought, free expression and blossoming as an individual. In Thailand they are instead (at best) extensions of (Thai-)high school education. You aren't even regarded as an adult at university (even if over 20, which as a side point is ridiculously old "age of majority")!! ...something somewhere went terribly wrong here....

Suggestion #1: Offer a decent wage to police who actually do their job properly...

They will just happily accept the higher pay and still get the same tea money they already do.

Thailand has been blacklisted along with 15 other countries including Ghana, Kenya and Syria. These countries are regarded as not having shown sufficient progress in the fight against dirty money. The listing is unfortunate because it tarnishes the country's reputation.

Yes but some girls were seen publicly without their tops on so this is a much more serious tarnishing of Thailand's image.....

At least they aren't as bad as places like Afghanistan where (today) hundreds(?) want BLOOD because some people burnt copies of the Quran, but none of them seem to give a hoot when people get killed, raped, etc. When a book is more important than lives you know are not dealing with sane people.

A real story/headline would be if anyone found a CLEAN canal in Bangkok.

A good reputation has to be earned through consistent performance and trust, not bought with the use of amoral, wind-up "perception managers".

Yes, but only in an ideal world. But we dont live in one so this is often not the case. In Thailand its probably rarely the case, hence the lack of "consistent performance and trust" in the country (at least in the public sector). A lot of businesses earn their good reputations the "hard way".

Build yourself BIG and would-be-bullies automatically search for other victims.

Having a knife in a quick-draw is a good backup

Not true. Most unprovoked fights in bars are usually on bigger guys, not the small guys. Someone gets a bit of liquid courage and wants to test themselves against the "big" guy.

Happens all the time in bars in Australia.

Most fights in Australia are caused and amplified by bouncers who call themselves "Security"; most are thugs looking for an excuse to fight.

Yeap, many, many Thais have jobs selling vegetables at the market or bowls of noodles along the soi. Rather than wasting their time going to the labor/unemployment office they work for very low wage jobs, usually self-employed low wage jobs. Others just don't aggressively look for jobs nor go to the labor/unemployment office so they are not counted as unemployed. But selling vegetables and noodles beats no job at all and that's how Thailand ends up with a very low unemployment rate. You do what you got to do to put food on the table.

These grey market jobs aren't necessarily low paid. A noodle stall can bring in decent money. All kinds of small businesses in Thailand aren't recorded in statistics but they do ok. Someone with a successful noodle stall is going to be making more money than a civil servant that is registered with the government.

I think he was referring to people who merely work at a noodle stall, not the owner (who almost always works there too). ie: the assistants. Although much of the time these are family businesses anyway.

If I was the owner of that house I'd be sendign the Irianian Embassy a bill and then suing them (in a Thai court) after they fail to pay.

Did the taxi driver who had the pipe bomb under roll off his bonnet get a destination from the bomber? Ie: Did he provide a destination to the taxi whcih the driver then refused? It was reported he bombed the taxi because he was frutrated the taxi didnt want to take him to ...where?

The headline of the article is typically misleading as it neglects to include the word "child" until you read the actual article. Tehrefore implying that orgnaising adult sex tours would be illegal under NZ law, which is nonesense.

Also, based purely on the way the article is written, the police used entrapment. Obviously this was not the case as I cant imagine he would have been found guilty if this were true. But nothing in the rest of the article indicates anything illegal:

eg: "creating an itinerary for him that included visiting known gay sex hotspots. The man also gave Gray an explicit phrase card that included translations such as "how much for overnight?" and "let's go to my hotel"."

--- this could all be for sex with adults! The article fails to detail sufficently what has this has specifically got to do with child prostitution.

The article could be more clear and specific on hwo this related to CHILD protitution. They also fail to mention the ages of the children we are talking about here. Are they 10 years old or 17? Quite a difference, despite both being illegal its still important to point it out as depatie the law, any 17 year has a pretty good idea of what they are doing etc.