stoffel45

Burma represents an excellent destination. It's people (not the rulers) are gentle and very well mannered. Think Thailand 50 years ago. Until it is polluted, as tragically it will be, it will be an opportunity for travellers to see the real people of South East Asia. These people still exist by the million in the "off the tourist track" parts of Thailand. It is only in the degenerate Tourist Havens where the "Thai-ness" of people has been perverted - and even then there are plenty of diamonds in the rough.

To Ricku - alas children are massively exploited in Thailand. I meet the wreckage in my work. What was a flood of homosexual predators from Europe has turned into a massive inundation and their hunger for children is beyond belief.

Burma has been protected from these and heterosexual predators for many years - but profit is profit and tragically one can expect the same in Burma.

For those of you who can - it would be a wonderful experience to take a flight/combined time machine and visit this wonderfully gracious country. But quit knocking Thailand, in my 15 years there, I found most of the "human pollution" was imported.

On May 19, the DAAD will host an event to commemorate a one-year anniversary of last year's bloody end to the mass protest at Ratchaprasong Intersection.

And at that day let us not forget our wrongly accused and jailed leader k. Jatuporn. One of our heroes of the heady days of 'peaceful protesters, not terrorists'. With his masterful slogan 'till the last drop of your blood', let's all wear a T-shirt with a Mahatma Ghandi print

Sorry Rubi, I think it was Taksin imaging from one of his slave mines in Sierra Leone who video called to the Red Shirts, "I will be behind you till the last drop of your blood!"

There is nothing wrong with counterfeit goods. It's good competition for the real goods, helping force the legitimate goods' prices lower.

Many Muslim terrorist organisations receive tens of millions of dollars a year from pirate sales. Take a close look at the sales organisation before you buy. The fake DVD you buy could purchase the bomb which kills innocents.

Now hear is a surprise. Lower? No shyt.

But no mention of the two real main reasons - the recession in Europe and the rise in the THB. Still in denial!

Snow is falling hard as I write. Corruption on an EU scale dwarfs the almost petty theft of Thai administrators. The euro is on its last legs and we join hundreds of thousands of others putting their savings in Swiss banks in Swiss francs. For many years we have spent Christmas and New Year in Thailand. The euro is way down and heading into a black hole. The Thai baht is strong and healthy. We know Thailand too well to worry about a few yokels in red shirts and truly reckon that Thailand is heading out of its decades of morass on to firmer, better ground. Not so Europe as the French try and rip off the Germans of everyone else's share. Thailand is a good place to be.

You all know the value of TAT figures - so don't worry about that.

At Easter we will exchange Belgium's grey, dreich drear for sunny Thai skies. So many of you who complain on this excellent forum forget just how lucky you are. Good luck to you all.

I love Thailand and excepting Taksin and his creatures - I love Thai People.

When I am not in Thailand I am in Belgium. The news on TV and in the Press about Thailand is bad and has been for a long time.

The Belgians are pretty nervous about travelling - but their Foreign Affairs Ministry has issued a Travel Advisory warning.

Which like most other countries who issue these - means that travel insurers will not insure nationals travelling to Thailand. Tour Operators are required to include travel insurance. So their passengers cannot travel.

It could be very expensive to be normally 'brave'.

PM Abhisit has a good chance to make a go of this government.

IF ONLY - the Thai people themselves can refuse the electoral corruption bribes of the PPP - Or TRT and other such creatures - if the could just say NO - they would be greatly admired by all people.

God Bless Thailand

Now we all know the reason Taksin evacuated his family this week ! dam_n his greedy cowardly heart

I just read a post of someone looking for a lawyer to assist in the purchase of a property in Pattaya.

First - ask your embassy or consular representative if they have a list of names of attorneys in Pattaya. Then try the chambers of commerce.

Don't use 'someone I met in a pub'.

Beware anyone who offers "zero interest" or "interest free" purchases. It is not only Thais who have 'pop up fins !' This is an old scam from one who is a true and trusted friend ! (yeah - right)

They'll tell you that they are politically well connected. Buddies of all the "Names".

They will ask you to pay in cash - just so you can get a special special deal. (and it is - you lose everything and end up with a debt)

1. NEVER pay in cash (notes).

2. Always ask for a receipt.

3. Always work with a bill of sale which should be witnessed.

If you form a Thai company - DO NOT try the old nonsense about getting the Thai shareholders to sign an undated, blank share transfer form. Not only is it useless (think about it !) it means you have brought a nominee company into being - and that - is a criminal offence.

It's not going to be long before the casinos are roaring in Pattaya. (Who's the Mayor's Dad?)

That means a gold rush - and that means - even when the Thai economy is in tatters (just a matter of time) - Pattaya's properties will be going up. Or at worst - not going down so fast.

Caveat emptor - Caveat emptor !

Trust no one.

Stoffel 45

Dr Ozone arrested over lethal cancer treatment

CHIANG MAI: -- Quack who served two jail terms in US lured Western cancer patients to Chiang Mai for bogus cures, police say

Chiang Mai police have arrested an Austrian national who allegedly killed at least one desperate Australian patient with a bogus cancer treatment he had advertised on a website.

Hellfried Sartori, 67, was arrested on Sunday in a Chiang Mai hotel and charged with fraud as well as practising medicine without a licence, police said.

Sartori will likely be extradited to Australia soon to face a murder charge, they said.

Sartori may be responsible for the deaths of several Australian cancer patients, who flew to Chiang Mai to receive the treatment in hotel rooms and later died at city hospitals, Lt-General Phanuphong Singhara na Ayutthaya told a press conference yesterday.

Sartori has served two prison terms in the United States - in New York state in May 1992 and in Washington DC in July 1998 - after administering his so-called "ozone treatments", Phanuphong said.

Websites claim the treatment cures everything from Aids and cancer to allergies and hardening of the arteries. It consists of injections of "liquid ozone", usually into a vein.

Australian police contacted their Thai counterparts over an investigation into the death of Kathleen Preston, an Australian cancer patient. Preston died at Maharaj Nakhon Chiang Mai Hospital on July 26 last year. An autopsy report found an excessive amount of potassium in her blood.

Police suspect Sartori injected Preston before she died.

Sartori has been seen with other Western cancer patients in Chiang Mai, police say.

He accompanied Melissa Judith Taylor, a New Zealander with lung cancer, to the intensive-care unit of Chiang Mai-Ram Hospital on June 22. She fell unconscious after he injected a liquid into her chest and neck.

Taylor's relatives later told police that they flew with her from New Zealand to Chiang Mai after reading an online advertisement in which Sartori was portrayed as a qualified practitioner of the "liquid ozone" treatment.

Sartori charged Taylor Bt900,000 for his "alternative medicine".

Taylor's relatives, who witnessed the treatment, said Sartori used a syringe to withdraw liquid from a small metal cylinder, then injected three doses into Taylor, in veins in her chest and neck. She passed out after the injections and had to be rushed to hospital, Taylor's relatives said.

Phanuphong said a gas cylinder and a number of VCDs showing Sartori giving the treatment to a Western man were found in his hotel room.

Phanuphong said his officers were working with foreign police representatives based in Thailand to locate other victims of Sartori.

Dr Phattharawin Attasara, a senior physician with the National Cancer Institute of Thailand, dismissed Sartori's cure as preposterous.

Injecting a large amount of a foreign or inorganic substance into a vein would only cause the patient to faint or possibly die, the doctor said.

Citing information provided by Interpol, police said Sartori graduated from Graz University in Vienna and was a member of Austria's medical council until October 1, 1974.

He is in police custody.

--The Nation 2006-07-11

Anyone any idea where one can buy these battery operated environmentally kind - tuk tuks?

The eight-storey complex, including an underground floor--where there will be electric mass transit facilities.....