womble

Monson has another day in court, sept 18, he's got a heap of other charges that he could use to try to get this to trial.

Round 1 to Thaksin.

Funny how Thaksin always goes away when he's due in court!

If you actually plan on living here for 10+ years than it makes no sense to keep all of your assets in Canadian assets with 100% exchange rate exposure. At least diversify some into the asian markets (the bonds portion would probably be safest) like Japan if not Thai.

Good points made about re-investment.

You should diversify your holdings so it includes Thai investments. Though you may want to give yourself a timeline. Get over here. Do research for 6-months. At that point, either put some money in the market regarding stocks you have been following, or fund some sort of venture in Thailand. That will also give you something to do accept lose time in the bars.

g-

The Thais market is subject to too many risks, only extremely sophisticated and experianced investors should attempt this market.

There is no decent research available to the average investor, and different language and methods of accounting make it a difficult task.

There are far better ways to hedge the canadian dollar than buy into Thai stocks.

The Thai market suffers from all manner of illegal trade deals and stock manipulation, there are significant Political risks.

India and China are very interesting, there are risks there ofcourse and good gains to be had, but research is much better on the companys there, so if you want to get into emerging asian markets I would look there before here.

My only advice for anyone wishing to invest here is next time a businessman gets into power buy into his stock, remember to sell them before he sells his company or is booted out of office though!

As for the advice with blue chips in Thailand, these too are subject to share manipulation, it's an extremely risky investment and should only be undertaken by those with an extremely high risk tolerance.

A reconstruction would be so powerful on TV. It could be explosive, that might be pushing things too far with some sections of the army.

Should a re-enactment take place then I think Thaksin will win this battle of truth to the masses.

Back to normal with regards to the courts then.

Perfectly said.

I think nobody would be... surprised by this "decision".

So what do have left now ?

//edit

//end edit

//Khutan

So surely this now sets a precident for the criminal court, thus taking away justice to many criminals who should be tried for their misdeeds.

There should be no statute of limitation on any case. If you break the law it should be law that you can be taken to court at any time for it as long as the evidence is good enough.

This decision doesn't surprise me in the slightest, although I don't think it was reported anywhere that it was possible. This will shock the anti Thaksin media. Probobally won't make a ripple elsewhere.

Most of the irish nurses back in UK seem to be a little.........

how do we say...............

on the heavy side...............

and a little serious.

Nah, Thai hospital for me.

I'm not convinced it's them.

I thought the whole story about how they were caught sounded fishy.

When the big stores moves in to a new area, land prices rise. Other stores want to be close due to all the traffic and also residential homes close by can seem more desirable. This is especially true in areas where there isn't another large store for many many miles.

The two new stores that were being constucted in Samui will make samui more desirable to live in. I was looking forward to them opening, I like to get value for money and the service is generally better in these places than smaller shops although there are exceptions.

Mom and pop shops in Thailand do not benefit the consumer. The range of goods is lousey, they are over priced and service is more often than not unfriendly, I have no sympathy for the majority of these store owners.

The specialist shops in UK such as butchers, fish mongers and green grocers usually provided great personal service and excellant range of goods, although pricy compared to supermarket goods. Most of their goods were tastier than the mass produced rubbish usually available in supermarkets, although supermarkets have improved in recent years due to the fact they were loosing market share back to the specialist shops that remained.

The average Thai person would be far better off with more of these supermarkets. They have more choice and it's cheaper.

The only people who benefit from mom and pop shops are the owners. These shops will have to learn and adapt, they would find more customer loyalty if they were friendlier. It seems to me that most store owners here do not value the customer enough.

Yeah, always be prepared for the worst!

His advise to stick to what you know and not copy others is good, and his example of call centres is a fine one indeed.

Personally I think the best Thai hospitals are among the best hospitals in the world. The doctors are well qualified, the nurses easy on the eye and friendly unlike the irish sisters back home. Great value for money also. Stay away from most private provincial hospitals though for anything more serious than cuts and bruises, as they are eigher not good enough or over priced.

Bangkok hospital in samui charges 2500 baht just to see doctor. I went in to get some painkillers and came out with a bill for 3000 baht!

I would have thought that the Thai government far prefer the big companys to be selling as much as possible, they can be sure that these companys will be paying their taxes.

I wonder how much is lost in taxes each year from markets, mom and pop stalls and other small stores?

As soon as the election is over it'll be business as usual.

That works fine if you have a small carryon bag. My understanding is that these buses did not have any special facilities for carrying large luggage. Beyond stupid!

Wow! and my understanding is that they are the low entry open format busses similar to the ones that take you out onto the tarmac.

but again we have people screaming and moaning about omething that has NOT happened yet .... and as we learn more as time goes by ... they are crying about nothing !

In order to get something done it is often wise to make ones feeling known. Allowing taxis to stop at the terminal is a result of people complaining about having to take buses with no choice for taxis at the terminal.

I've got no problem paying a 50 baht surcharge if taxis are waiting at the terminal. The taxis have to wait a long time to Q, and if a decent waiting area is provided for passengers with help from officials such as in Singapore, I will happily pay 50 baht extra than take the bus.

I expect we'll see the surcharge doubled.

Hambali was captured in Thailand, so we now know at least 2 who were probobally kept in secret prison here.

We'll know how long when the united states tells us when they arrived.

Whats the legality of foreign owned business in Inida. Could you buy land and build a hotel and run it, or is that illegal.

I heard the maximum for foreigners is 5 year lease.

Below is an email I recieved from a charter company.

Greetings

25-28 September will be the official change over of airports in Bangkok. Dong Muang (the old airport) will no longer be receive any scheduled or regular charters flights & will be become ICAO classified DMK on the 28th September

Suvarnabhumi (the new airport) will be where all these scheduled and regular charter flights will be operated to and from & will be ICAO classified BKK on the same date.

The web-site address for the new airport is http://www.airportsuvarnabhumi.com/

If you are travelling to/from Bangkok in the first month or so of the airport change-over, it is recommended that you proceed with extreme caution.

Everyone is forecasting major problems with the new airport logistics and serious delays are expected due to issues with passenger & cargo ground handling, customs, cargo facilities & systems and other reasons not fully explained to one of our colleagues who has just returned from an inspection

After 28th September Dong Muang (DMK) will be allowed to accept ad-hoc charters but, the Dept of Transport is doing all possible to force all operators to rebase to Suvarnabhumi (BKK), our guy there says there are lots of rumours that Dong Muang (DMK) could be closed for 7-14 days to force operators to leave. Already scheduled airlines who are transferring to the new airport are starting to announce embargos on belly freight & some full freighter operators are cancelling flights during the change over week.

Expect it to be messy & if you have a flight, make sure you have someone to help you or call Chapman Freeborn your aircraft charter specialist for passenger and cargo charters worldwide

The politicians think they can be the centre of everthing in Asia, but they don't have the skills or the resources to put into practice these grandiose ideas.

Talk is just talk.

Actually Thailand could be a hub for many things, unfortunatley the Thai's with the skills and drive to impliment such projects never have their talents realised. They are held back as they are often seen as trouble makers for wanting to make changes or work differently to the system.

Spearfishing is illegal in Thailand. Spearfishing school fish such as tuna is ok, (not that thailand has many big tuna, not like CA) and doesn't harm populations and limited spearfishing on healthy reefs, the trouble with spearfishing is it usually targets the reefs biggest fish, the breeding stock and as they are all killed it can have quite an impact. A far greater impact than fishing with rod and line. So a healthy reef with one or two spearfisherman is ok, but in areas such as koh tao where reef life is already in danger it can be quite harmful if too many people do it.

I used to spearfish a little myself in Spain and it was good fun, can't stand people who spearfish with tanks on though, thats cheating, and they're the ones who really do serious damage.

To be honest all the fish you would want to spear have already been had on the inshore reefs.

"if i could own land and have a ten year visa (as i have for india)...."

I didn't think foreigners could own land in India?

In addition to that, the land landy split her samui cable and routed it to all 10 houses. She adds 450 baht to each of our bills and only pays that once for herself.

I never even turn my tv on. Im going to have to tell her I wont pay it anymore. Maybe I will complain about the electricty as well.

Are you sure she doesn't pay samui cable for every room, if she doesn't, go to samui cable and tell them you want to pay them, then she will lose her scam and you will not have to hand her the money knowing she is ripping you off.

Yeah, it's not just aimed at farangs, all consumers here get a raw deal. It's the people who own the companies and have the dosh that exploit all others in any way they can.

One of the first questions to ask when renting here is what is the charge for electric, water etc. If the electric is above government rate I would never rent. Where I am now I pay government rate and then a small service charge of about 30 baht which means I don't have to go to pay the bill, the owner send staff to my house with the bill, I pay them + the service charge and they take everyones bills to the office and pay.

I have heard people paying 15bt a unit!!! On an estate of 20 houses that is a lot of cash to the owner, a hel_l of a lot, it's a common scam on Samui to be charged above government rate.

You pay per rod, so what you could do is put one out on the bottom for bigger fish, and fish one lighter rod on a float for Pacu with some fruit or similar as bait.

Personally I would put both rods out on the bottom but with different baits to target different species. Fish will catch Arapaima and Red tail catfish, boilies or corn more likely mekong or carp. There are other options to sue for baits.

The rods are pretty much equivalent in strength to a UK uptide boat fishing rod, a bit shorter at about 8.5 feet long and with plenty of back bone. Longer rods such as UK carp rod are too long to fight these fish and they are not strong enough which means someone who's good with them will take a long time to land the fish which tires them out and can lead to them dieing. Inexperianced anglers would have the rod, line or reel broken. These fish are extremely strong, the larger ones will test an anglers strength and the equipment being used will need to be in top shape. If you think you could land a mekong on a 2 1/2 pound test carp rod with 3500 baitrunner you are in for a tough time. The drag isn't nearly enough on the reel for starters, that'll probobally be the first thing to go, secondly the line needed is too think for the reel and also too strong for the rod, the rod would break before the line, if the reel could even hold that much drag!

It's not cheap to fish there, but when you add up the cost to construct the lakes, the stocking of fish and the quality of equipment It suddenly doesn't seem so expensive. They get you with added extras like bait and tackle though so it can add up.

Thanks Dunc, I just wanted to convey that fishing can be done in a responsible manner and that we all have a right to use the sea, some people give certain sports bad names, that is for sure, and that goes for all sports. People need to be encouraged to use the seas in responsible ways, that way we can all utilise them and continue to enjoy them for whatever our particular pleasures are.

There's a conference of Non-aligned movement in Havana. Thaksin is attending on behalf of Thailand. NAM has 116 members.

Yeah and Thaksin and Surrakiart are going to push the UN Secretary General thing.

When the Thaksin supporters were attacked did Surakiart stand up for them???

If he can't even open his mouth in his home country, how is he expected to be of any help to the wider world?

The money being wasted on this is ridiculous, he doesn't stand a chance, Thaksin and his own actions (or lack of) have seen to that.

Who is going to be held accountable for the vast sums of money being wasted on this bid?

I've fished with Ding and Mark in Koh Tao, yes they do catch Marlin, Sailfish and Shark, but they are extremely rare. There are not enough that you could actually actively target them, black tip shark possibly, but the larger species are not that common. If you can find flotsam there will often be small dorado present, casting a lure or minnow to them can be good fun. I fished one of these wrecks once, we caught small grouper, small golden travalley, small barracua, and a small king mackeral. Largest fish was the mackeral which was about 3kg, the rest were under 1kg. One grouper was just big enough to eat and very tasty.

For the best sea fishing in the area, one of these fishing tours in koh Tao is the best you can do. They are much better than the tours in samui. The last time I went the equipment was less than impressive. I know for a fact these guys do go to Chumpon Pinnicle, the marlin, sailfish and sharks you see in the pictures on their advertising boards were mostly caught there. Their boats are so slow though that it takes hours to get there and trolling in the waters around koh tao is very unproductive so it's a boring journey. Those boats have livebait well and they go out each night to catch squid, so you do stand a chance of catching something decent, dead baits are no good, I havn't tried jigging yet as I know my jigs are too big, I will try jigging with light tackle and smaller jigs at some point, it may well turn out to be good fun. Trouble is you need a really good echo sounder and a skipper who knows how to line the boat up whilst drifting over the reef in order to put you on the fish.

Some good stuff here, thanks Thaigene2 and steveromagnino

Maybe it's getting to a stage where they can't hide their failiures at somepoint someone needs to be held accountable for their failings, so they give someone more power so at some point in the future they can use this person as a scapegoat if things continue as they are, which almost certainly they will as they will give enough power to make him accountable, but not enough to get the job done.

I did notice the other day that the Prince flew with Sondthi to the south the day after he mentioned the need for dialogue. The Palace has made it clear that they support reconciliation, so maybe this a sign that they approve of Sonthi's call for dialogue. It's often seen in Thai Politics that when a government is involved in a confrontation with someone, if the Palace doesn't see eye to eye with the government on the issue the other party is often seen around Royal Members. It makes clear the Palaces wishes without actually really involving itself in Politics.

I hope thats within forum rules, my appologies if it over steps the line.