sabye

Shouldn't be a problem the rain has stopped today and the storm conditions are over. Should be all clear by tomorrow.

Could be worse per capita the States and Canada have more.

I think it is a world wide problem with correction officials involved in drugs.

I know I interviewed a prisoner in British Columbia who was in Maximum security. This man had been one of 7 who had started a riot in the New Westminster prison that killed a nurse it has since been torn down. He told me there was some pretty tough characters in there and I said ya I imagine there would be. He said no it was the guards. He told me they were the main supply for Weed in the prisons.

If I worked as a prison guard in Thailand with those odds of prisoners versus guards I would surely see that all of the prisoners had weed to smoke. They would be very lethargic and easier to control. Could also do a booming side business on the sale of ,munchies.

Take a look at the picture. The size of the rocks that came down indicate that part of the solid rock broke away and came down the hill. This is not a mud slide of mine waste that was put above the quarry but eh actual hard rock of the mountain. I was miner for 10 years and this looks like something that may not have been preventable. While I worked in the mines in Canada more than 15 men died in various accidents in the mines that I worked in. Some by cave ins, some fell down shafts or raises and others were killed by machinery. Accidents happen everywhere and in Canada mining is the third most dangerous occupation right after fishing and logging. All the reasonable precautions in the world can't prevent a slip of rock if the cracks can't be seen. RIP to fellow mine workers. Hope their families will be taken care of.

HAPPY APRILS FOOL DAY EVERYONE

Tourism is down in the south of Thailand. On Lipe rooms are still available now when most years you couldn't get a room at all during ghe Xmas to New Years time. There are plenty of rooms available now.

The only reason for building this port is to line the pockets of corrupt government officials. With the port of Dawei going ahead in Myanmar there is absolutely no reason for building a port farther south. The main shipping lines coming from Europe and the Middle East will use Dawei and not travel the extra 500 kilometers farther south to unload and transfer their freight to the east coast of Thailand for further shipping to the Far East.

There are some Tourist Police in the deep south that do speak English but many also speak Malay. Many of us who are Volunteer Tourist Police do come and help out when called. It is very difficult for many of them to learn as they don't have much chance to speak English after years of learning it in school. My son goes to the best school in Hat Yai and even though I am a native speaker his English is far less than perfect. On the other hand my nephew who had taken English for years would never speak to me as he was scared of saying words incorrectly. A few months ago I gave him a job in my restaurant during his school break and it made a huge difference in his confidence. He now speaks fairly good English with me and he has taken up a whole new interest in learning English. Maybe instead of trashing these guys the rest of you could take the time to speak with many of these tourist police and encourage them to try to speak more English. Please remind them that there are many accents of English depending on what country the people who are speaking it come from. After all how many people can understand a Cockney and they come from England. Possibly suggesting to the officers that maybe trying to work a couple of hours a night in a tourist area selling food or being a waiter will make a big difference in their confidence to speak English.

Keystone cops at it again. Bring on Inspector Clouseau

it sounds to me like she may have been allergic to the injection. Serious allergies could have caused her to start having trouble breathing and this would bring about the shortness of breath that they reported in the article. Hope she makes a speedy recovery. And yes her family will need her back to work to help them. In Thailand they cannot just turn to welfare payments from the government if they are old, disabled or unable to find work. Many families in this country need the support of someone in their family to help them survive. My wife and I help out my 80 year mother in law as well as her deaf and dumb sister who is unable to get a decent job. There is a great more family bonding here than in the Western Nations.

Problems on Koh Lipe today. having trouble with outgoing calls and 3G.

Right on go for. Its about time someone in the government did some good for the country. I second the motion for him to be the Prime Minister.

I pay an employment agency to get me a job, I don,t want to pay too much,they say you will be illegal... never mind I want to make real money,

get caught: human smuggling.

I,m tired of these bleeding heart liberals, this is not trafficking, these people know what they are getting into.

( it,s only criminal if you get caught)...

You sir are totally uniformed and heartless. Try reading "SEX SLAVES - the trafficking of women in Asia" by Louise Brown. If you have any compassion in your heart this book will definetly give you a better understanding of how much trafficking of women and children goes on in South Asia and South-east Asia. I picked up a copy a couple of weeks ago at Asia Books in Phuket. I have always known that therre is a lot of trafficking of women and children in Thailand but this book makes it look even bigger and worse than what I thought it was and I have lived in Southeast Asia for 25 years. these women are in girlie bars and brothels and they range form young 10 year old girls to 25 year old women. By the time they are 25 they are worn out if they are lucky. Many will have died long brefore that from malnutrion, torture and HIV/AIDS.

I think something to remember is that it is the job of the Parliament to make the laws and it is the job of the courts to rule on the laws as they stand or to rule on their legality of the new laws that are in inconflict with other laws. This makes it a bit tough as the Constitution is the top law in the country. None the less it is IMHO that the constitution court should wait to see what passes in Parliament before making any decisions as to its legality. Any one who does not like the new changes may challenge them in the Constitution Court and seek a ruling as to there legality. There have been challenges to other constitutional changes in many other countries that have the changes over turned. The court may also agree with the changes after they are made if they do not conflict with other laws of the land.

I really wonder why this is the only picture. When you enter Lee Gardens underground parkade you must stop to get a parking voucher from the security guard. There is a camera directed right at the face of the driver. All shopping malls in Hat Yai have the same system. They should have a clear picture of the drivers face while he rewaches out of the window to get his voucher. I wonder where that picture is?

Here are the world exporters by country and amount

Thailand and Vietnam account for nearly half of global rice exports

Top 10 exporters

Country

Top 10 importers

Country

Thailand

Philippines

Vietnam

Pakistan

European Union

United States

India

China

Uruguay

Cambodia

Egypt

Burma

Subtotal

Total global exports

Top 10 share

of total

Note: Data current as of October 2010.

Excellent. I'll have try the same excuse if I ever get caught with a woman other than my wife.

I tried to find a reasonably priced notary in south Thailand but couldn't. They wanted anywhere from 15000 to 30000 baht to notarize some papers for me. This was in Hat Yai and Satun. I went across the border to Alor Setar and used a lawyer there for a couple of thousand baht. His name is K. Padmaanathan Notary Public, 1 st floor, No. 3, Jalan Putra, 05100, Kedah Darul Aman. Tel +6047330443 Fax +6047315652

Nice guy speaks English and is not outrageously priced like Thai notary publics.

Amazing. Happy to see that the Army accepts responsibility for its error and that they will pay compensation. This is far better that most politicians or government agencies would have done. A big pat on the back for them. Hope the other government agencies will learn form this.

This disaster is just an opportunity for the politicians and their friends to siphon even more of our taxes into their very own large pockets. Lets hope that more of them are caught and put behind bars for the rest of their life. Maybe then the corruption will slow down. But that is very big hope and not much reality.

What a refreshing, informative article. Then I noticed that it wasn't written by Thais or byThe Nation amateurs. The article points out clearly why Thailand is a huge risk for foreign firms. Concentrating a large percentage of supply chain in a very poorly managed country with many risk exposures, political, infrastructure, geography, weather, education level, ..etc. is just very poor management. Seeking better margins on the back of historically lower labor costs exclusively is very myopic. Public foreign companies with major dependencies and operations in Thailand should be scrutinized by their boards as to whether they performed adequate due diligence and how the money is accounted and reconciled in these operations.

Thailand has essentially outlived its usefulness as a manufacturing and distribution hub. They have continually engaged in major examples of risk. coups, political and military uncertainty, military governments, civil strife and almost daily killings in the south, airport closings, civil unrest, bloodshed, and killings, blocking commercial activity, inadequate application of law, blatant corruption and graft, absence of recourse, eg..nightclub fires and mass deaths, unregulated worker and student vans and major deaths, refusal to apply law and ignorance of building safety and zoning considerations. Many more and last but not least, the country's inability to protect its citizens and residents from safety precautions and rapid recovery and any understanding of DRP and BCP (Disaster Recovery Planning and Business Continuity Planning). Think about the standards and procedures implemented to do post flood clean up in clean factories, and warehouses. All of this is magnified considerably by poor communication, misrepresentation of news, facts, censorship, suppression of information, opaque business operations, and the absence of disclosure.

Mentioning a few side points, there were previous photos and content showing Thai factory workers "repairing soaked, wet" , and irreparably damaged hard drive hardware.This article also points out something that was shocking about the low level of awareness and comprehension of Thais by indicating that some Thai manager thought that it was great that "divers" had fished out hard drives to "recover and repair hard drive data." What a preposterous thing to do! Just think about the QA and reliability of those products. If you were running a major foreign company, why would you invest in Thailand? Why would you keep repeating the same decisions and investments expecting the results to be different?

Please note that the divers were diving for the companies hard drives to recover their own information. They were not trying to repair and resell the flooded hard drives

What a refreshing, informative article. Then I noticed that it wasn't written by Thais or byThe Nation amateurs. The article points out clearly why Thailand is a huge risk for foreign firms. Concentrating a large percentage of supply chain in a very poorly managed country with many risk exposures, political, infrastructure, geography, weather, education level, ..etc. is just very poor management. Seeking better margins on the back of historically lower labor costs exclusively is very myopic. Public foreign companies with major dependencies and operations in Thailand should be scrutinized by their boards as to whether they performed adequate due diligence and how the money is accounted and reconciled in these operations.

Thailand has essentially outlived its usefulness as a manufacturing and distribution hub. They have continually engaged in major examples of risk. coups, political and military uncertainty, military governments, civil strife and almost daily killings in the south, airport closings, civil unrest, bloodshed, and killings, blocking commercial activity, inadequate application of law, blatant corruption and graft, absence of recourse, eg..nightclub fires and mass deaths, unregulated worker and student vans and major deaths, refusal to apply law and ignorance of building safety and zoning considerations. Many more and last but not least, the country's inability to protect its citizens and residents from safety precautions and rapid recovery and any understanding of DRP and BCP (Disaster Recovery Planning and Business Continuity Planning). Think about the standards and procedures implemented to do post flood clean up in clean factories, and warehouses. All of this is magnified considerably by poor communication, misrepresentation of news, facts, censorship, suppression of information, opaque business operations, and the absence of disclosure.

Mentioning a few side points, there were previous photos and content showing Thai factory workers "repairing soaked, wet" , and irreparably damaged hard drive hardware.This article also points out something that was shocking about the low level of awareness and comprehension of Thais by indicating that some Thai manager thought that it was great that "divers" had fished out hard drives to "recover and repair hard drive data." What a preposterous thing to do! Just think about the QA and reliability of those products. If you were running a major foreign company, why would you invest in Thailand? Why would you keep repeating the same decisions and investments expecting the results to be different?

AS one of the villagers said the land demarcation is very blurred and I believe it. I have been trying to settle up my land for 10 years now and it is almost impossible to get some one from the land department to come and put up markers for our Nor Sor 3 land. "Influential" people come to the area I am in and just take what they want and then go to the land department and get it upgraded from Sor Kor 1 to Nor Sor 3 land even though there was a ban on upgraded put in effect just 3 years ago. Only old Nor Sor 3 was supposed to be valid. I also know that a resort has been built on park land in the deep south of Thailand and it was not allowed to open by the park officials. Building permits are not even asked for in most of the up country areas and officials turn a blind eye to building regulations. When officials are paid as poorly as they are here in Thailand you can hardly expect them to get up do a good job. If they strike out on their own to clean something up they are liable to be reprimanded by elected officials or "influential" people. it can severely affect their careers.

I come from Canada where we used to have government phone networks. They were OK but not great. about 15 years ago they opened up the whole country to competition in the telecom market and the competitors took away a lot of customers by giving better service at better prices. Now long distance calls are 1/10 of the old price and the government phone companies have to keep up. They are now like the new boys on the block. Bundled services for far less than before and better service when you go to their offices. Phone hookup same day now - before 14-30 days. Thais need to wake up and kick these useless ---holes out. Start a class action lawsuit and sue the heads of CAT and TRUE. Maybe then they will wakeup and give the customers the service they are due.

if you check the final results PTP did not get a majority of the votes cast. The got a majority of the seats. PTP only won 48.41% (15,744,190 votes of the 32,534,504 eligible votes cast). I realize that they won the seats but did they win them in a fair and legal manner. If not then they should lose those seats and if banned politicians participated in the election and the law says that the party can be banned or dissolved for doing so then it should be done. If you can't do the time don't do the crime. It is time that we had politicians that lead the country by example not by "do as I say not as I do". Thailand is laughed at by the rest of the world as a third world banana republic because of these politicians. It is time that the Thai people woke up. I agreed that the DEMS are run by big business and rich people and they don't seem to be in touch worth the common people but putting a party into power that doesn't seem to think the laws of the land applies to them is just asking for more graft, corruption and BS.

Many countries in the world claim to be the best at doing at least one thing, GERMAN beer, JAPANESE cars, PILIPPINES overseas workers, ect.

What does Thailand do?

Great food and descent beer.