herfiehandbag

Oh I would say the North Korean regime has a pretty good grasp of savagery really. 130,000 out of a population of 26,000,000 herded into gulags, with a reported annual mortality rate of around 20%. They are the most vicious, savage and inhuman regime in the world. You are right in one respect - the rest of the world hardly cares about the antics of the fat little turd and his gerontacracy of morbidly entertaining pathetic "Generals", I personally keep a watching brief out of pity for the poor bastards he rules over, and in anticipation of one day seeing their corpses dangling from lamposts, when the people have had enough. When that happens, I must confess that part of me hopes his sister gets out. I bizarrely quite fancy her (oh those cheekbones) and reckon she could do quite well on Soi Cowboy for a few years!

Give the good judge a chance - he has hardly had a chance to (not) speak to his wife on the matter!

How do you buy Skype credits if your card is blocked? I'm not having a pop at you - but these " customer service systems" such as the one I have described at Nationwide ( which are not there to "serve" the customers but to make life easier and cheaper for the company") make "Catch 22" seem like an episode of the "Magic Roundabout"!

I will do that - thank you. Presumably turn up with card and passport?

Indeed not, but it does give us lots of practice, and we're really good at it! Particularly when it comes to winding up smug civvies! Incidentally for anyone, if you are in the UK, are ex forces, and have nowhere to turn, try the RBL. Every county has a full time officer, and they have lots of case officer volunteers. They may not be able to give you direct financial aid but they have a shedload of influence, and know which buttons to push! I was a case officer for a while when I retired from the Army - a suit, regimental tie, it's amazing the doors I could open with my "galloping major act"!

Yes, no problems for 7 years. I keep the account mainly because the Army won't pay my pension into a Thai Bank. Normally I use it to withdraw cash from an ATM once or twice a month, and the very occasional purchase. Incidentally, when you draw cash you are given the option of using "link ATM or Visa Debit". I really must work out which is the better/cheaper.

Nationwide's customer relations system is utterly dysfunctional, certainly as far as dealing with customers overseas. They blocked my debit card a few months ago. After talking to a bot for several minutes on their online chat system, I eventually got hold of a human being. I asked why they had blocked it. They said that they thought that it was suspicious as the transaction was made in Thailand. I asked them what address the account and card was registered at, they read out my Thai address, followed by an embarrassed silence ending in "oh dear!" They said that the only way to unblock the card was to call their international card hotline. They could not do it online. ( I do understand - Swindon is a very backwards place, and any piece of technology which is not painted Brunswick green and fitted with a copper capped chimney is deeply suspect). The international card hotline is answered by a recording announcing how keen they are to help, followed by the inevitable push 1 for xyz menu. Unfortunately it disconnects after 32 seconds ( just enough time for the international call charges to click over). It does this whether you try a TOT landline, DTAC, AIS or True. After trying a score or so times, and exhausting my phone credit, I went back to the chat - they told me to phone the international card hotline to report the problem. I got quite excited (albeit politely) at this epic Pythonesque stupidity, so they announced that they were recording my comments as a complaint, and I would receive a response by email within two weeks. The chat messaging facility was withdrawn. Two weeks later to the day I received the email. It told me to call the international card hotline. I tried again, it was still disconnecting after 32 seconds. I emailed my "complaints handler". He responded that Nationwide does not offer International banking services (I don't expect them, only to use my debit card, and anyway, if they don't operate internationally why 1) offer an international card hotline, and 2) allow me to register my Thai address - they told me to do that when they moved here); and I should return to the UK to sort it out. This rather annoyed me, so I told him that if my card was not sorted out I would write to the office of Nationwide CEO, copied to the board member responsible for customer relationships, explaining my frustration at his response and asking them to intercede. Funnily less than 4 hours later the chat system was reinstated and I received a message that my card was unblocked! 4 days later my card was blocked because of a suspicious transaction made in Thailand. The international card hotline disconnected after 32 seconds... Nationwide proudly boast that they are different. They certainly are!

I think that the court has borrowed it to power the screens for the jury...

You can join the British Army at 17. By the time you are approaching 18 you can be serving in your regiment. You can't be deployed on active service until you are 18.

The whole point of Palang Pracharath, the antics which removed it's predecessor and spawned it's regime is to maintain the dinosaurs grip on power. Like an iceberg, the bulk of their power base is concealed below the water line. He may prove to be unpopular with the people, but then all the visible frontmen at the top are basically unpopular. In a "conventional democracy" that of course would be a major problem. Here the subversion and manipulation of the electoral process will at least attempt to negate that. And if it doesn't, well they will have plans to get round that...

No it's not a big sum of money. Add the 300 Baht entry charge and it is still not a very large sum. Now multiply that 1000 Baht by the number of visitors, annually, tourist and business, and it actually becomes a remarkably large sum of money. A large number for which there is no transparency as to what it is planned to be used for, just vague mutterings about tourists who skip leaving unpaid hospital bills, and "funding development". Then add in the knowledge that any regular traveller or resident expatriate cannot but avoid having of how deeply corruption is embedded in the way this country operates and it becomes fairly obvious that it is purely a new spigot for a number of new troughs from which the "entitled" will feed. I for one, would not mind paying such a "ridiculously small amount of money" if I knew what it was to be used for, and that it was to be rigourously and publicly accounted for. What I do find objectionable, and disturbing, is that such senior elements in government are so openly proposing to tap travellers, who the last couple of years have shown are so central to bringing wealth to the country, to feed such a trough.

They will ban individuals, parties and movements; if things get lairy then possibly shoot a few - unless this bunch are ejected, and of course even if rejected at the polls they will still have to be physically driven from power, then there is no hope for the nation. Ultimately it could get very messy...

Well we are a constitutional monarchy, with an elected parliament, and all the appropriate checks and balances, judicial oversight, and independent electoral commissions. All put in place by that experienced perennial drafter of constitutions Meechai. All of which, from the very top down, completely subverted by the ruling elite to ensure that whatever the electorate may wish or vote for, the "Ammart" remain in power. I'd say that is politically speaking, pretty much failed! Then when you look at some judicial decisions, like reinstating the National Park director who burned down a Karen village and is accused of killing their leader/activist, the law and human rights side of the picture doesn't look too good either! Then the widespread rampant corruption affecting everything from the drugs trade to illicit importation of stolen luxury cars...

In the village I live in, I recall there was no vote - the normal polling station wasn't open. Everyone had to trek 7km to the local Amphur. Purely coincidentally, and in an unusual show of diligence, the police set up a vehicle check point 300metres from the Amphur. Two actually, one each side of the Amphur. It was, very unusually, manned for 12 hours straight. Motorcycle helmets, number plates, tax stickers et al. To everyone's surprise, very few voted! And then we had the shenanigans over party banning and vote counting at the subsequent general election. It is certainly not the case that the new constitution was fairly endorsed, and the people did not get the government they voted for.

A general election can either be called by the Tories or forced by Labour. The Tories are unlikely to call one, and since they (the Tories) have a large majority Labour cannot force one. If they couldn't force one when Boris Johnson's government was falling apart then they can't now. Two years.

" Landslide? So what? We will just ban them the week before polling day!"

"Resolve the problem ". The problem is that Russia has attacked - invaded and bombarded - Ukraine. The "problem is resolved" by Russia leaving Ukraine and stopping the bombardment. That can be achieved by either: Russian withdrawal, or it's defeat by Ukraine.

Ironically she may be one of the reasons Trump is still politically active! One of his defences against her investigations must be the hope that as a presidential candidate the "system" will be unwilling to attempt to bring him to trial. Incidentally, should the Republican Party take control of the house after the mid term elections, what would happen to the January 6th Committee proceedings, and indeed all the other federal investigations into his antics - will they just be shut down, any reports just ignored and left to gather dust? Trump must be banking on a Republican house majority whitewashing his various shenanigans.

He does what he is told.

"Extra Constitutional Outcomes" - is this the new buzzword? Sounds much more sophisticated and somehow reasonable than the Ammart ordering a coup because they are about to be turfed out in an election...

The main reason for the State of Emergency for many months has been to muzzle political protest in Bangkok. You may rest assured that other measures will have been prepared to achieve this once the SOE is lifted.

Golly - talk about throwing red meat to the MAGA brigade! I suppose that the question is how many Republicans are prepared to do the same to make sure that Trumpism ( and it does seem to be a classic political "ism" movement based on the ambition of one man and devoid of any moral or political philosophy to underpin it other than the desires of one man) is defeated.

Example #1: Russia invaded Ukraine, an independent democratic sovereign state. Example#2: China is actively threatening to invade Taiwan, which is a de-facto independent democratic sovereign state. Example #3: North Korea is developing and testing ballistic missiles (another launch yesterday) which threaten South Korea and Japan, both independent democratic sovereign states. I might be naive, unsophisticated in international relations, but I reckon there is a pattern there... You think it is all down to American war mongering?

Well there is another launch site positively identified!

Quote "The navy did not say in its statement how many drones it would buy, but said a budget had been set to procure the system over four years, between 2022 to 2025.". Al!!h, that magic word "budget" at which the ears of the Mercedes-Benz dealers <deleted> up! Of course a new modern system will need a new modern base, with a new modern officers club, new modern housing, a new modern golf club... A new Admirals post to command, a Vice Admiral to act as deputy and at least four new Rear Admirals posts, one for training, one for personnel, one for doctrine and one to manage the support facilities. Happy days are here again!