Dogmatix

Also need to budget for supporting her family and paying for emergencies like buying back family land that granny has hocked to someone to pay off gambling debts.

This is very strange. There has definitely never been any concern expressed by the Thai government about foreign men buying residences in the Thai wife’s name and then being kicked out. That is obvious BS. There is also no legal reason to sign anything giving up rights to a condo bought in a Thai wife’s name. The document referred to by the OP only applies to land, not freehold of leasehold condos . There is a foreign quota on condo developments of 49% of the usable space but Thais with foreign spouses are prohibited from buying into the Thai quota under the Condominium Act. Their units are counted as foreign owned. This sounds more like a private agreement that the condo was to be considered personal property and not part of the conjugal property in the event of divorce. But this type of agreement to disregard the provisions of the Civil and Commercial Code on conjugal property would be disregarded by a Thai court in the same way as they disregard pre-nuptial agreements that seem to have similar effects.

No need to be 18 to own land but minors under the age of 20 cannot apply for planning permission. They also cannot sell without a court order from the family and juvenile court which is to check that they are not being diddled.

The OP was asked to sign a standard form introduced by the Land Dept in 1992 to allow Thais with foreign spouses to buy land without hassle. The alternative would to have the LD do due diligence to ensure that the land is being purchased with the Thai spouse’s own money. It’s not perfect but a lot better than the system it replaced which was to give an absolute right to Thai males with foreign spouses to buy land and refuse to allow land transfers to Thai women, if they were aware they were married to a foreigner or even had a foreigner boyfriend. Thai women had complained that this was gender biased for decades. The process works smoothly at the Land Office. They just take your signed form without comment. There is a case in the Supreme Court where a farang got divorced from his Thai wife and argued the couple’s house and land were paid for by him, producing evidence of bank transfers, and managed to get it added to the conjugal property and the sale proceeds divided in half, which is normal for any assets acquired after marriage. So this paper doesn’t necessarily mean the asset is wholly lost in the event of divorce.

More time to consider throwing out the petition about renominating Pita has given more time to the caretaker government which it has used profitably by pressing ahead with the annual reshuffle of military and police which is by all accounts a nice little earner.

Laws are made by lawmakers and you would think that a political party would be free to propose amending any statutory law that is on the books. But MFP is heading for dissolution anyway, if not this, then something else.

This demand of Sretha’s seems aims at Anutin as Thaksin wants to recriminalize cannabis and this needs to keep Anutin out of the health ministry. Anutin has been silent about cannabis in the latest horse trading.

MFP couldn’t do that, as they always try to consult their supporters on important policy matters - their straw poll on supporting Srettha after PT stabbed then in the back was 95% against. But what would be funny would be if small parties could get together with MFP and nominate Srettha, Ung Ing, the 3rd PT candidate, Prawit and Prayut and let them all slug it out. Without serious discipline they could all fail and end up ineligible for renomination, if the Constitutional Court throws out the Pita renomination petition.

In a country where an old couple can get 33 years for picking wild mushrooms and a 16 year old gets one year and a day for one speed tablet, I don't think they should have let this go on his merry way after attempting to assault an officer with a weapon that could have killed him or cause brain injuries. A couple of weeks in the cells awaiting trial, then a fine and deportation and blacklisting for life would have been appropriate without being too harsh a punishment for the crime. What would they have done to a Burmese migrant worker who behaved like that out of sight somewhere? I think he would have been seriously injured, then dumped in a cell and given a prison sentence followed by blacklisting.

Golly gosh! General Watchman must on tenterhooks waiting to see, if Thaksin will invite his party into the coalition, even though everyone except him knows it's a done deal.

I was not impressed by PT's performance on economic management, although the party's PR machine promotes it relentlessly. In the first Thaksin government he had Somkid as "economic tsar" and he achieved nothing except spouting hot air in his heavy Chinese accent. He did the same for the junta government. The Yingluck government's main economic policy with the hugely corrupt rice pledging and they put in Kitirat as finance minister, in which role he achieved nothing nothing apart from the suicide of many farmers who were cheated by the government and not paid for their pledged rice, which meant their families had nothing to eat.

They probably put the boot in and got their revenge, once they had got out of sight.

It wasn't B42,000 worth of shares. It was 42,000 shares that are worthless because the company is delisted and has no operations. It is a subsidiary of AIS that they have to keep going because it is in an interminable lawsuit with the government for terminating its TV broadcasting licence abruptly due to its association with Thaksin. That was also the reason for the clause in the constitution prohibiting ownership of media shares - i.e. Thaksin acquired the TV station that was intended to be an independent station and used it to gain an unfair advantage in the 2005 election. Thaksin is at the root of most problems in Thai politics,

No problem. Just redact the reports to show Witness A and Witness B.

Didn't the Dallas Police Dept say that just before JFK drove past the grassy knoll?

They did dissolve Future Forward and Pravit's PPRP poached a number of their MPs but it regenerated itself and came back stronger.

A former colleague of mine used an accounting firm that had been warmly recommended for its PR service by others. They made some stupid mistake that got him rejected and he was so peed off that he left Thailand.

I remember in the late 80s in Hong Kong two British expat police inspectors found that both were having relationships with the same Thai hooker. There was a heated argument that culminated in a Texas shoot out with both drawing their .38 Smith & Wesson service revolvers simultaneously and shooting each other dead in a government expat apartment. Luckily the Thai woman was not left with nothing as she was also having an affair with a third expat police inspector and was on a trip to Thailand with him at the time of the deaths of her other two farang lovers. No doubt she also had a Thai husband as well.

Good idea. They could also use the chain method they used on bikers who used to race in Bkk in the wee hours on Rama 3. The cops just yank up a chain across the road and the bikers, who ignore the police commands all race into it and collapse in a sprawling mass of bikers, bikes and girlfriends. I remember one of the bike racers on in Bkk did a tour of honour after winning a race and shut past a barrier to zoom up a flyover still under construction. He and his girlfriend went hurtling through the air and were killed stone dead on impact. It was never ascertained whether he realised teh flyover was unfinished or not.

Not let PT fail. Let them be successful in what Thaksin has been busy negotiating with Pravit for the last two years. MFP will lose support from its own voters if it supports these shysters and votes for the expert tax avoidance for rich planner.

Why should MFP vote for Srettha after being booted into the opposition? Srettha’s ethical issues over tax are a good enough reason to ditch him, apart from anything else. Then we can revisit Ung Ing’s alleged cheating in the exam to get into Chula - not the sharpest tool in the shed that one.

Wissanu is pointing out a very practical consideration. Thaksin needs to return on a week day because the banks need to be open to handle large cash withdrawals and deposits to ensure that Thaksin gets the best justice money can buy.

Things fluctuate in the PR process as different section heads come and go at CW and DOPA, which ultimately controls the process, and they are rotated frequently, even though the senior sergeant majors at the CW desks stay for ever, as none of them want to leave such a cushy job. You are unlikely to ever meet a commissioned officer on the PR desks at CW, although some must get promoted to Sub-Lt or Lt under the scheme that allows NCOs to apply for commissioned rank after 20 years on the force. However, there are officers behind the scenes you never see, probably because they are busy working on their handicaps or at second jobs, and those are the ones that make decisions and sign stuff. The point of this is that the front desk officers don't really have much authority and certainly don't have the discretion to refuse an application out of hand that has nothing wrong with it. It would be risky for them to do this, in case someone complained or sued them in the Administrative Court. Something like that would probably have to have a more senior officer complicit in it to cover up for them, if something went wrong. You might get rogue officers trying to squeeze big income of it from time to time but there have been very few reports of this type. There was a complaint of this type in the citizenship process at Special Branch a few years back and it resulted in an extremely stressful investigation of the accused officer that lasted several weeks and probably took some years off her life. In the end there was no substantive evidence as it just turned out to be from a farang's office messenger who was sent to pick up documents and information about how to apply for citizenship. He claimed to have been told by a schoolgirl who was working in the office as an intern in the office that all applicants had to pay bribes of at least a certain amount. The farang had a very aggressive hi-so Thai wife who heard about this and complained through her connections. In the end it was impossible to identify the schoolgirl and the case was dropped. The farang never even tried to apply, so he had no evidence to give. But this shows how risky its is for police to ask directly for bribes in PR and citizenship sections, although I would not say it never happens.

He has been a member of many parties. Has now principles other than making money. was Interior Minister during the War on Drugs. Said nothing about the Tak Bai massacre where his fellow Muslims were murdered. A truly despicable human being.

You wrong in saying no general has ever been punished for staging a military coup. General Chalard was summarily executed without trial for staging a coup because he pulled out his pistol and murdered a senior officer in the King's Guard for refusing to join him. The coup failed and the prime minister signed an order to have him executed a month later.