Dogmatix

Your Thai missus moves her Thai hubby into your house and lets him drive your car and beat your kids.

iTV was set up as an independent TV station to give Thais an alternative view to the traditional TV stations that were owned by the military, as stipulated by the 1997 "people's" constitution. Things went fairly well in terms of presenting an alternative view for a while but iTV was not a financial success and got snapped up by Thaksin as a subsidiary of SHIN Corp (now INTUCH), ending its independence. After the 2006 coup that ousted Thaksin the government SHIN Corp had been taken over by the Singapore government's Temasek holdings. So iTV went from being owned by a politician to being controlled by a foreign power and couldn't have drifted further from its original objectives. Unsurprisingly the government cancelled its broadcasting licence.

The intent behind it is that candidates, MPs and ministers should not be able to use their control or influence in media companies to gain a political advantage. It is hard to see that owning a minority stake in iTV would be a problem. Prosecutors took the view that another MP holding a small stake in AIS was OK and declined to press charges using this reasoning.

Great to know that your local MP is looking after the needs of all his constituents, including naturalised Thais who have the right to vote for or against him after the 5 year cooling off period. Was he re-elected?

You might consider taking the golf course issue up with the new government, if MFP gets to form it. The dual pricing by itself is discouraging for the tourism trade but It is more importantly for this thread it unconstitutional discrimination against Thai citizens on grounds of racial origin. In addition they are using state land to indulge in their unlawful discrimination against Thais. MFT has a policy to dismantle the alcohol industry oligopoly of which the owners of the golf course, the Bhirompakdi family have long been a beneficiary. They will probably also like to take a fresh look at land rented out by SRT at sweetheart prices. I remember reading long ago that SRT which is the owner of the gold course land was renting it out to them for only about 10,000 a month at the time. It might be more now but unlikely to be anywhere near a market rent. I don't know if you ever played at the Railway Course in Bangkok but, due to public pressure SRT was eventually forced to turn over the land to be a public park. For what SRT gets in rent for the Hua Hin golf course, they may as well make that into a public park too, rather than allow the tenants manage it in this way. I am sure you would appreciate a nice public park to go jogging in and walk your dog only 10 minutes from your house.

Probably a Thai reporter put words into his mouth and asked if Prayuth would be held accountable by Thai society. Pita did not say anything about this on the campaign trail and there is no detail here of how it would happen. If he answered that there should be no accountability, that would also be considered controversial.

I was a PR and definitely had to hand back the alien and residence books but no receipt or confirmation was given. I suppose the non-quota visa endorsement was cancelled in my passport but I can't remember that and it is not to hand at the moment. I don't think there is any need to worry about this, even if you didn't bother to cancel your visa like some people in this thread. You are Thai and can't be arrested for an immigration offence. They might criticise someone for not cancelling their visa but I don't see what offence they could charge you with.

MFP's enemies seem to have had no trouble finding out about Pita and Thanathorn's media shares. So how come the party's legal team couldn't find them with access to full cooperation which their enemies didn't get? They need to change the way they do due diligence on their candidates next time, if they get another chance.

Wissanu is a scoundrel who always serves dictators for his old personal vested interests. I saw him putting his own negative spin on the Pita case on Thai TV and it was disgusting. I can't understand why Thai reporters fawn all him and refer to him as one of Thailand's "top legal experts". They should just ignore the rogue - brainwashing in Thailand's low quality schools I suppose. Having said that, it does look as if Pita and MFP are heading towards the rocks. The EC will surely refer the case to the Constitutional Court which is packed by judges appointed by the 2014 junta. It has wide discretion to interpret the constitution and has in the past ruled that an MP held shares as a nominee, so that didn't count. But precedent is unimportant in Thai law and they could easily find the other way in a case that was in all respects identical. Other previous decisions include the ruling that the constitution permitted felons convicted of serious crimes such as heroin smuggling from Thailand even based on confession in foreign countries as fully eligible to serve as MPs and ministers. This was of course a ruling that made Prawit happy as he didn't have any convicted heroin dealers in the cabinet and obviously thought it a useful skill set. decision that made Prayut happy was the decision that army regulations allowing him a grace and favour house and free utilities at taxpayer expense after retirement from the army took precedence over the constitution that prohibits ministers from receiving gifts of that nature. With the constitution supposedly the highest law in the land, it surprised many that army regulations took precedence like a big tail wagging a small dog. Pita faces a constitutional court that is unlikely to cut him the same slack as in the cases referred to above. But at the end of the day why on earth did he keep the ITV shares in his name when he was an MP candidate in 2019, particularly after seeing his former boss banned from politics for the same offence. Where was the legal team he now talks about when it was time to audit the MP candidates assets in 2019 to ensure that none of them had inadvertently held on to media shares. Why did Pita not insist on two more PM candidates in case anything happened to him? Although he talks of policies that make sense, his apparent lack of common sense raises questions about his judgement.

At 71 you should only consider spending your money on younger hookers and blue pills for short term fun. Younger women are not interested in 70 something year old men, except for their money, if they have any. You will surely be disappointed, if you set your sights on a real relationship, particularly with a Thai women, assuming you are not fluent in the language and don't fully understand the culture.

Nordic countries have prosecuted their own nationals for sex crimes committed in Thailand and definitely it is possible for murder. AFAIK it involves Norwegian prosecutors travelling to Thailand to obtain evidence from Thai police and prosecutors and probably Thai officials travelling to Norway to testify at the trial. The problem will probably be that the Thai officials will be incompetent in presenting the case in a manner that a conviction could be obtained in a Norwegian court, since they are so used to their own bent justice system where rules of evidence and rights of accused can so easily be trampled on. Often in extradition cases, Thai prosecutors just treat the trips as boondoggle shopping expeditions for themselves and their families. Getting a murder conviction may be a lot harder than an extradition order.

My concern too, particularly after his predecessor got banned for exactly the same mistake. You'd have thought the party would conduct an audit of all their MP candidates shareholdings as part of the selection process. I also wonder what he was thinking in having no back up candidates for PM. What if he fell under bus - just give up the PM job to another party. He seems really bright and sincere but it makes one wonder about his common sense and political savviness.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8003899/Opera-singing-bodybuilder-says-murder-Brit-dad-Thailand.html The victim is not here any more to give his version of events and Bullman's story doesn't jive with the widow's. I wouldn't want to pre-judge Bullman but his story lacks credibility to me. He is unable to fill in details because he says he went blank after being stabbed in the shoulder with a butter knife which the deceased could have grabbed in desperation. There is no suggestion his going blank resulting in him collapsing unconscious and in his blank state and with arm paralysed, as he claimed with the butter knife wound, he was still able to strangle him to death. Even if the deceased did attack him with a butter knife, strangling him to death would be an overreaction above and beyond self defence. Anyway drunken singing on the balcony of a hotel room at 4.00 am is extremely obnoxious behaviour and he looks a repulsive lout on steroids, whereas the victim looks like he was a decent family man. He may well get clean away with it. Norway doesn't have an extradition treaty with Thailand and Norwegian law only permits extradition of its citizens to other Nordic and EU countries. They can be tried for crimes committed abroad in Thailand but that is going to be an extremely expensive and onerous process for Thai authorities with no certainty of conviction, if they even bother.

I guess the Norwegian authorities need an extradition request from Thailand to arrest him.

Interesting. I thought a Thai with a foreign spouse could just exercise their right to take the foreign spouse's surname without worrying about it already being in use in Thailand because it is a foreign family, not a Thai one. That also gives exemption from the requirement that it should have meaning in the Thai dictionary. I would assume it was the same as registering a Thai child born in Thailand with your surname or getting PR or Thai citizenship using your own name. I have done all three of those things and their was no question of checking whether someone was already using the Thai spelling of my surname. Did you get married in Thailand?

Correct. The very long Thai surnames are nearly all Chinese. Many, particularly Kuomintang Chinese in the North were just given Thaiified versons of their Chinese surnames with "Sae" in front, e.g. Saelim, Saechan etc.

I am very skeptical about this story. It is pretty easy to photoshop up an ID card like that. The rules are that you can choose a new surname that is not in already in use. First, middle names and surnames must have meaning in the Thai dictionary and must be deemed appropriate and polite by the district office official. It is pretty obvious that neither of these names would pass either of those tests. I have been to the district office to reserve a Thai name while applying for Thai citizenship and it was clear that they take the rules very seriously and wouldn't allow nonsense names like that.

The media company Thanathorn was banned for having shares in had no business at all but doing media was in its articles and memorandum of association. That was good enough to ban someone who was a threat to many heads deep in the trough. How come Pita didn't learn from that.

This is not an EC rule, It is in the constitution plain for all to see. Candidates for election to the House of Representatives may not hold media shares. Can't be much clearer than that.

I don't understand why Pita retained these ITV shares when he ran for parliament in 2019. It is clearly in the constitution that media shares are not allowed. He claims they are not his because he was holding them as an executor. If that were the case they should have been in the name of the estate of the deceased. If that was not possible he should have transferred them into the name of a co-executor or another nominee before he ran for parliament. If they are in his name they are legally his property and he is in breach of the constitution and have to to accepting a 5 or 10 ban from politics and possible criminal charges. It is incredible that he didn't learn from Thanathorn's banning for the same thing. The second fatal mistake he and MFP have made is only nominated one candidate for PM. A party is allowed to nominate three people. So why on earth not use all three nominations?

Most Thais view naturalised Thais as still foreign but with a strange kind of PR status and see it as entirely logical to deny them privileges as citizens. So maybe hard to gain traction. But racial discrimination against look krung, who are Thai from birth and eligible for all public office (except in the military) might gain more sympathy. There used to be a lot more discrimination against second generation immigrants but it has gone out of fashion since the descendants of Chinese immigrants gradually took over the entire bureaucracy and politics as well as business. I recall that there was s challenge to Banharn’s premiership because the constitution at the time prohibited citizens whose fathers were not born in Thailand from being PM unless they graduated from Por 6.. Banharn’s father came from China and he, himself only made it to Por 4 but his legal team got him off in the constitutional court by arguing that Por 4 at that time was the end of primary school as they added two more years at the bottom later. The next constitution required MPs Yo have a bachelor’s degree regardless of whether their parents came from China or not. Before the next election Banharn miraculously produced a bachelor’s degree from Ramkhamhaeng and a masters degree in politics with a dissertation that quoted extensively from English and French sources, neither of which languages Banharn could speak more than few words 555..

There are a lot of privileged Thais who also worry their golden age will come to end. Some of them are called senators

Thailand should be the one rethinking its relationship with the Burmese thugs. They need Thailand a lot more than the other way round. It's like White Rhodesia had to rethink its relationship with Mozambique after the Portuguese upped sticks and left the country to the Frelimo insurgents who were less friendly to the Ian Smith regime. China and India will still support the Burmese junta but losing an pro-dictatorship ally along its long Eastern border will be a huge blow. That is of course assuming that MFP gets to form a government.

Chula's tobacco leaf derived vaccine turned out to be a cover for growing ganja before legalisation.

This guy is a hypocritical piece of work. He made a fortune from procuring and pimping under age girls, including foreigners, whom he served up free to senior police and politicians as bribes. Now he is going after the weed shops because he pretends he is worried about the welfare of Thai youth. He also used army thugs to demolish businesses that has proper rental contracts on the land he acquired and destroyed many livelihoods in the process. He doesn't have an ounce of humanity in him. Everything he says has an ulterior motive. It shows how sick the Thai media is that they publish the drivel that comes out of the mouth of such a discredited evil man.