allan michaud

Surely they are all fake farmers anyway, so no need to worry.

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There is no such a thing as a M79 grenade! It is a grenade fired from a M79 shoulder fired launcher. The press is only printing what they are told by the police. It is very apparent that the police do not know what they are talking about. The grenade fired by a M79, is a 40 MM projectile. There are fragmentation, smoke, white phosphorescence, shot gun canister, illumination and others. None of them have a military designation of M79.

Oh, Wow! we are clever. have u ever heard of ThaiEng before?

Someone posts something apparently factual and you feel the need to ridicule. YOU ARE CLEARLY A &lt;deleted&gt;!

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No details, he filed no charges or complaints?

Just BS. Let me guess, he goes to the anti democratic rallies himself every day.

Congratulations, you win the award for dumbest comment of the day. And please remove the red tinted glasses before posting as you might make more sense.

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20,000 sacks... can some poor TV farmer please translate that into baht?

Let me try, although I'm afraid I am a wildlife photographer and not a farmer, however I can use a calculator. The sacks are normally 50kg's so that's 1 million kg's or 1,000 metric tons. As for the value, that depends on what price you want to work with.

If it's paddy I believe it's worth around Baht 9,000 per ton = Baht 9 million

If it's milled white rice I think it's around Baht 12,000 per ton = Baht 12 million

If it's milled Jasmine I think the rate is around 15,000 per ton = Baht 15 million

Take your pick

I guess the owner of the warehouse was new to this business as I am pretty sure they are meant to store them in smaller piles so they don't go mouldy in the middle. At least that's what they did at the only rice warehouse I have been to, although that was here in Cambodia and not Thailand.

Another issue is of course the land owners and fertiliser/pesticide dealers, who all upped their prices when the govt announced the scam. I somehow doubt they will want to drop the prices back to what they were when it ends. The farmers have been well and truly shafted from every possible angle by their dear leader in Dubai.

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This is one of the reasons I have a car cam filming every km I drive in LOS.

And for the two drivers..... grow up and let the other go his own way, have a break and grab a tea or a cup of coffee

"grab a tea or coffee" Sadly I think it might be more a case of just pop another pill.

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This sounds ominous, especially as he was apparently developing a story on the past activities of the Khmer Rouge in the region, and victims of the KR. This would involve interviewing numerous people who very literally had blood on their hands. It is to be hoped that his pursuit of a story that was worth telling isn't related to his disappearance. Journalists like Dave, who I don't personally know, deserve the upmost respect for their pursuit of the truth and determination to give acknowledgement to hitherto voiceless victims. My thoughts are with his friends and family at this difficult time.

The only danger from investigating KR era events here is if you start trying to question any current politicians, many of which were mid to high level KR. However, that said, killing foreigners is not the national past time it sometimes appears to be in Thailand and is very very rare here.

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This was all tried before and the EC rejected it, then we get a week of public threats to sue the EC for various issues relating to the fail elections that the government have a huge hand in that matter.

Obviously a prelude to forcing a positive decision out of the EC. This is what their answer is to the farmer problem?

The EC has allowed the government to spend Bt712 million from the central budget to make overdue pledging payments to 3,971 farmers in five provinces: Chachoengsao, Prachin Buri, Uthai Thani, Phetchabun and Ayutthaya.

So these were all the farmers that were on their way to swampy airport last week.

So there we have a strong message going out to the remaining of the 1.4 million farmers.

If you want your money, take the airport.

This government are making a rod for their own backs constantly and then blaming everyone else when it goes wrong time after time. I hope the EC tell them they can't do it, and as far as the bonds are concerned, I doubt they would fetch 5 Bn, they are as worthless as the farmer's vouchers.

Print more money? Have you any idea of the fallout from doing that? The USA may do it, but they have the finest economical minds on the matter and they know how to offset the effects of it. Does Thailand have anyone of any caliber to be able to run fiscal system to recover?,,, they are hardly of the mentality of 'best man for the job'... They only have nepotism, cronyism and cash for favors that put bums on seats, never do they go for the best person for the job which is why everything here is a complete mess.

Thailand does have Mr White Lies!

I have to say claiming the US has the 'finest' economic minds is a bit of a stretch, the US (western) banking system is also completely screwed up and utterly corrupt. However Thailand is just plain incompetent.

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2 hours of gunfire and nobody hurt (thank god).

Sounds like a gang of thugs with no training.

...and the police were where? Cowering in a karaoke bar no doubt.

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Dr Aat noted that Thailand may lose the status of leading rice exporter in ASEAN

You are behind the times sir Thailand has already lost it.

There is also the high processing cost in Thailand as compared to Vietnam and Burma which was quoted recently as :

Thailand 9266 B per ton

Vietnam 5615 B per ton

Burma 4353 B per ton

No we don't need farmers subsidized by hundreds of billions a year that only leads to dependency, high costs and inefficiencies.

There will need to be some support in the short term but the goal must be to get costs down and profit per rai up.

I recently filmed with the group responsible for producing Cambodia's award winning rice (voted number 1 in the world 2 years running) and it was interesting that these guys told me Thailand has one of the worst ratio's of rice being produced per hectare. Even worse that Cambodia, who's rice business is still recovering from the civil war. They also noted that the country has been flooded by Thai rice traders over the past year.

Thailand would do well to concentrate on farmer education.

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kidnap and then what? is there a plan? you want her to resign, there should be something better you can come up with than kidnapping.

No matter the hue, you can always guarantee a Thai politician to take the low road. Can you imagine what would happen in most countries if someone threatened publicly to kidnap their Prime minister? But TIT

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Earlier authorities sold 600,000 tons of rice, netting a profit from the transactions in February of 20 billion baht.

So I assume that the rice now is sold at 33.000 Baht per tonne, about 4 times the world market price.

Well, if small white lies don't work anymore, you need to get in the big artilleries alt=coffee1.gif width=32 height=24>

NO, no! the article mentions a PROFIT of 20billion, so only the profit for the govt is 33,000THB.....

Yes so that's a sale price of upwards of 48,000 baht per ton. I have to say, if they found buyers at that price then Thaksin is clearly a genius.

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She is the rightful elected leader in the country, if you do not like her vote her out of office!

Oh sorry I forgot all of us Farangs do not have a right to vote in Thailand!

Cheers

Wow, and there I was thinking I could vote... and your point is?

What a load of rubbish. Lets get the facts straight here. Even if foreigner(s) did carry out this attack, they were being paid to do so by Thai's.

Here we go, Sutheps been ranting all week, now these thugs are ramping it up further. And as for all the extremist TV supporters on both sides of the divide spouting off here. Many of you like to see everything as Red or Yellow, what is wrong with some shades in between? Both sides have good points and both sides leaders are equally full of $hit. Simply spouting rhetoric and making threats is not going to solve this, talking IS. If you (TV extremists) cannot see this then you are morons.

"Pol Maj Gen Kosin said he wanted the public to tell the new government to reform the police force, and that the RTPO should rely on performance evaluations to promote officers rather than look to those who serve politicians."

Well, bugger me sideways, I never thought I would hear a Thai policeman says something like that.

Sadly he has a snowballs chance in hell of that happening.

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That's not a Croc....

Could you enlighten us as to &lt;deleted&gt; you think it is? Natural history not your strong point I take it.

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That's not a Croc....

What planet are you from? and just what do you think the animal is?

They will tell them anything to make sure the escape wroute is open when YL and Co needs it.

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I wonder if Tida and the rest of the Communists intend to return to the jungle and start a Khmer Rouge type insurrection like they did before.

and will the next govt do what they did in the past (assisted by the good old US of A) and roast said communists alive in oil drums?

So they have managed to sell just 1,300 in almost a decade? and now the guy is blaming the protests because they will stop them meeting their target of selling another 1,300 this year.

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Why this concern with what the outside world thinks hardly the usual Thai attitude ?

Yes, I would agree. However, in te context of the Thai economy being increasingly reliant on foreign investment , it is imperative that this be done. The international connection is of scant interest to Suthep and the cronies. Ironically, the greatest losers from a loss of confidence in Thailkand as a place to invest will be the very people who seem to be giving him some support. Thailand runs the serious risk of reverting to being a nation of " hewers of wood and carriers of water"..The rest of ASEAN...laughing their &lt;deleted&gt; off

I agree. It adds credibility to the government as well if they are seen with global leaders, especially if they are able to present the situation in an honest light (unlike Suthep's letter to Obama a while back). Perhaps they are also seeking some sort of assistance, financial or otherwise.

Sadly I think it's just an excuse for a shopping trip.

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300 wild tigers in Thailand? That is a complete lie, there have been no wild tigers seen in Thailand for many years. Tigers need large areas of forest to roam, these types of habitat no longer exist in Thailand. Deforestation and hunting have wiped out many species of animals here. Wild tigers do exist in Burma which has large areas of forest almost untouched by humans.

Laos may have some, Vietnam probably not. Malaysia has a very few.

It wasn't a lie, it was an estimation by people who are probably in a much better position to know than your pontification indicates. Unless you can show otherwise.

Fine, back up your claim as you seem to agree with this number. Are you a wildlife expert? What areas are these tigers living in? I am basing my knowledge on reading and study. I am sure that Thailand would like the world to think that it still has wild tigers, but it simply isn't true.

Wrong, there are still wild Tigers in Thailand, my friend and fellow wildlife photographer has photographed them on a number of occasions. Not sure what you have been reading but it is utter rubbish.

These cubs are clearly not wild so I sincerely hope someone will be investigating the monks at Sri Racha. Some DNA testing would show who the mothers are, it's not rocket science.

So which so called "zoo" did the cubs come from? Sri Racha?

This is disgusting and I am absolutely certain the people charged are just the people transporting the animals and not the a'holes breeding them.