allan michaud

Just been reading quotes from earlier today, this beggars belief.

"Have you seen CSI?" Pol Gen Somyot asked reporters. ''We don't have that,'' he said, referring to high-tech (and also fictitious) equipment that can render blurry footage clear.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha earlier suggested that police and Pol Gen Somyot should watch another show from US television network CBS, Blue Bloods, to help them with their investigation.

Is there anyone left out there that is not entirely convinced how incompetent these people are?

What amazing statements will tomorrow bring I wonder?

Why is this not on the news or being reported by the other mob? This appears to be a grenade as that is the only other report today, is this story complete rubbish? <deleted>?

So having watch CSI on tv he thinks the software they supposedly use to enhance images actually exists. IT IS NOT REAL. You cannot enhance crappy low res images to any degree, certainly not as is shown by Hollywood.

Given they don't have any good images of the people I cannot imagine face recognition software would work either.

This is yet another example of utter stupidity by the Thai's. It is almost certain the glasses were just a disguise and quite probably the hair too, so pulling people up because they have such similarities is a joke. Keystone Cops.

Surely the one lead they do have is the red shirt that posted the warning on Facebook. Why have we heard nothing more about that?

In my humble opinion he did the right thing. You've got to show to 'dark forces' that they cannot kill the spirit of the country and her people. The sooner the life gets back to normalcy the better. That will send a message to terrorists. You can't win. Life goes on.

So it's ok to clean the site before the forensics team has finished? The BBC correspondent managed to find numerous bits of shrapnel yesterday, which hardly inspires confidence in Thailand's ability to investigate this properly.

Right on Sherlock Holmes. A Thai terrorist could never get hold of TNT, one of the most common military and industrial explosives on the planet.

And, as our 'experts' rightly point out, no Thai with access to Google would ever think of using ball bearings as a cheap and ready source of shrapnel. Only a foreigner could have thought of that.

Blame it on the foreigners, as they always do.

Why don't they shut up until they have solid evidence?

As a fully qualified TV CSI (and viewer of Discovery channel) I understand that military grade and industrial grade explosives are very different, so that should provide clues.

I don't understand how they can think the constant flow of contradictory comments makes them look good. You'd think the PM might have the intelligence to tell the police to stop making the country look stupid, but no. Utterly clueless.

Today's bullshit seems to be they want to speak to some woman that was involved.

Thainess at work.

It never ceases to amaze me how the authorities in Thailand make such an utter farce of dealing with the media. Government or Police spokespeople are constantly contradicting each other and making claims that they clearly have no evidence for. “This is the work of at least 10 people and must have taken a month to organize”, which seems to be pure speculation on the part of the police chief. Just today alone the police said they were certain the 2 other people in red and white were involved, yet within hours this is proved wrong. The forensics team have apparently finished cleaning up the site, yet the BBC found several bits that clearly came from the bomb today. Yesterday someone claimed the bomber had already left the country, today someone else from the police said they were certain he was still in Thailand. He’s apparently definitely not a Thai, yet the sketch looks remarkably Asian. The motorbike taxi driver said he may have spoken in a foreign language but that also proves nothing.

This circus happens every time there is a high profile case. Complete and utter muppets. What is rather sad is that not a one of them seems to notice how incompetent they look. For a nation that supposedly puts so much importance on face, you’d think they would try to deal with this in a controlled and intelligent manner. That’s Thainess I guess.

Any police apologists want to defend these idiots?

On the vague off chance any journos are on here and read this. Can someone please ask about the apparent warning the police said they received? Was it a telephone call, a letter or email? If it was a call was it in Thai? Did they have an accent or was it written in Thai? I haven’t seen any details on this in the media, which seems odd.

This was already obvious yesterday. They have been slow to announce this.

They do seem to be involved. The fact that these two have clearly not disguised themselves implies that yellow shirt is not in disguise either.

These two are almost definitely Asian. All three might pass for Indonesian. My theory is still on international jihadists.

seriously ? what would be the point of terrorists carrying out a successful attack and not claiming responsibility, it simply doesn't happen and the reason is obvious

Exactly, ISIS just bombed somewhere in Egypt and claimed it within hours.

I give up, the police seem to be doing their typical job of making a complete farce out of the investigation. Certainly the contradictory reports they keep giving are not helping anyone. Personally I am not convinced these 2 are connected from watching the video, they could be but the police appear very certain, I hope they have other evidence to go on.

They also seem very certain the bomber is a foreigner, yet the sketch looks like an Asian. They certainly shouldn't ignore the possibility he's a Thai, but they seem to be as they've only dragged in an Aussie and Frenchman so far. Neither of which look remotely Asian.

To add to the confusion the government seems convinced it is Thaksin related, which is possible, but they clearly have no evidence of that at this point.

Now they are saying they think at least 10 people are involved and it took at least a month to plan. What they are basing this on I have no idea, but it would just appear to be someones opinion.

The motor taxi driver said he spoke a foreign language, but that means nothing when it comes to identifying his nationality. It might be hard for some people to believe but many Thai's can speak other languages.

They said they got a warning, would it not be useful to at least say if it was a Thai that called? Did that person have a specific accent?

All I want to hear is a simple, concise report of the facts, not the personal opinion of every police officer and government official that feels like speaking publicly.

For now the facts would appear to be:

1. The bomber is a young man who's nationality is undetermined.

2. There was a warning of some kind, but we don't know if it was a phone call or email, or if it was in Thai or another language.

3. It was clearly aimed at tourists, but not westerners, which would indicate it's not Al Qaida or ISIS related. Also these groups would almost certainly be claiming responsibility.

4. The 2 bombs were similar and used the same explosive and at least some parts were from Thailand.

5. The bomber may speak several languages.

That's about it. Everything else seems to be individual opinions.

If I was a betting man I'd go with either a southern extremist group or Red shirt break away group, wanting to take their protests to the next level.

Most of the above comments appear to dismiss this activity as being related to the earlier atrocities.We are forgetting that time has moved on and the new tricks are far more sophisticated than 2006-2013.

Four days ago I commented on Yinluck's statement,on Jatuporn's response to the new charter,and his threat to meet with the red shirts.This all came about soon after Mr.T possibly

accepted that he was going to lose his stripes.

These new forays prompted me to warn that things were about to get real bad; " no holes barred" I think I wrote. PLease GOD,I would like to re-think my pondering,and hope that there is a speedy end to this disgusting atmosphere.

FYI it's 'no holds barred'. Although its impossible to rule out any group yet, a radicalised group of Red's would be my bet at the moment. I just hope this sketch does the job and they get this nut job off the streets.

So that pretty much rules out he's a redshirt. (Along with technical details of the bomb, and the indiscriminate murderous/terrorist intent; it's not beyond them to meddle with glorified fireworks against specific political targets and then usually at night when nobody is there. Everything about this is different.)

Congratulations. I have read some real doozies on TV but that's one of the best yet. How on earth do you come to the conclusion he's not a Red shirt from a sketch?

I also wouldn't call hand grenades and grenade launchers glorified fireworks. The motive seems to be to damage the economy and Thaksin's mob is the only one that would really benefit from that. This could very well be a small radicalised group of reds fed up with a lack of progress and taking it to the next level. Same goes for the southerners, although that seems doubtful to me as the southern groups were quick to disown the bomb that more radical members of their group set in, I think, Phuket and would have thought they would have done the same if this was a southerner.

All we can gather from the sketch is he is Asian in appearance, because of the eyes. I don't see how anyone can be ruled out at this point, with the exception of most Africans.

The latest report from the police is true to form, "he doesn't look like a Thai". From the images they have shown so far you can't tell anything, the guy looks like he is probably Asian to me.

Nowhere near as big as Erawan explosion, a firework would do as much. Doubt these are connected.

For the love of God, I have tried hard to not respond to the two days of the Thai Visa Psychic Forensic unit GUESSING out their butt hole what is going on , but in this case, I have reached the end of my tether.

How could you possibly write something so profoundly stupid at a time like this when we come here to get NEWS that MATTERS?

how could you possibly reach this conclusion.

Tell me where you are, i will buy you a bottle of whatever you are drinking, if it will shut your pie hole for the afternoon.

My wife drives across that bridge every evening on the way home .. now could you kindly clear the way so the adults can share information and get on with the serious business of protecting our families?

I need to determine if she needs to use the other bridges.

Thank you in advance... for shutting up for a moment while others look for VALUABLE INFORMATION from our Expat peers.

Yes I was exaggerating, the point being this explosion was nowhere near as intense as the one at Erawan. Calm down old boy you'll give yourself a hernia!

If I told you how angry this reply has made me, I would .. and justifiably so, be forever banned from Thai Visa.

Let's just leave at this .. do not sit on your bar stool and tell ANYONE that your name on Thai Visa is "Our Man Flint"

The last time a person insulted me and my wife so profoundly, he ended up in a coma, (and he was an active duty US Marine)

Now, do not go away mad, just go way.

Wow. I honestly can't tell if your serious or not. If you are, I highly recommend a stiff drink or maybe some prozac.

My money is on a hand grenade as it looked a lot like the grenade fishing I have seen in these parts. Thailand is so totally and utterly f$#^@ed up it could be anyone for just about any reason you can imagine.

I know that pier and bridge well from walking across it on a regular basis. One thing for sure if it was dropped off the bridge, there should be CCTV footage. Quite possibly it was just tossed out of a car window, which might explain why it ended up in the water rather than among the people.

Honda Scoopy doesn't have a drive chain, it has a drive belt.

Probably lost all his money gambling or at the local

I think it would have been a chain to secure his motor bike,it would not be easy to take

drive chain of motor bike and you could not use a lock with it,Thai reporters you never

get the full story.

regards worgeordie

It's clearly a drive chain in the pictures, but I am not sure how they 'locked' it, you can't see that in the pics.

While I am against illegal logging this is outright murder by the Thai's. They clearly have a shoot to kill policy. I am sure they have fun using them for shooting practice. There have been quite literally hundreds shot by the Thai military over the past 3-4 years, it is quite outrageous and yet no one seems to care.

I think it's about making money 70 bart each 35 bart in 35 bart out times visitors per year mega millions

How many international visitors? 20mill? that's very serious money.

More wasted oxygen......whilst a couple major players...Japan & Germany have decided to stop or reduce their dependence on nuclear energy, Thailand would be indebted for decades if only 1 power reactor was constructed.....and that after 10-20 years planning and developement.

Whether Thailand would be permitted to purchase the source is a major factor also.

The Philipines have a reactor, albeit rather old technology nowadays, but have been unable to purchase fuel for obvious reasons.

Renewable energy is the way of the future.....definately not coal, not nuclear......!

Renewables are fine except when it's night time or when there's no wind. Oh and yeah, they'll need to make 3/4ths of the land area of the country available for solar and wind farms as well. So dream on !

Please read the story carefully. Thailand IMPORTS almost half of it's electricity! That presents a very big risk to the country. In the case of disruption of those supplies.

Nuclear is a sensible option. There is no reason for people to fear nuclear power plants. More people die each day from coal fired power plant emissions than have died from nuclear power plants in their entire history.

The Japanese accident is a perfect example. They have about 50 reactors.....49 of them were fine after the earthquake. Yet the one that was damaged was built in a tsunami danger zone that never should have been built there to begin with. That is, it was not cause by a design fault, but by the wrong location.

Technology no provides much safer reactors than the type built 30 to 40 years ago

China has several commercial nuclear reactors operating, and there safety standards are no better than thailands.

You are wrong about it being built in a danger zone. At the time it was built it was believed to be safe, all back ups were considered safe. Only with hindsight is it now considered a dangerous spot for a reactor. No one expected a tsunami of that size directly off the coast of the reactor. You seem to suggest the other 49 will not suffer a catastrophic failure in the future if something similarly unexpected occurs. Also you might want to look at a map, only 1 of the other reactors is close to the epicenter so of course the majority didn't suffer the maximum effect. Who can say for certain where/what is safe.? Nature can do things we are not prepared for and that is the lesson of Fukashima and why many countries are now reconsidering use of this outrageously expensive technology. The costs of waste disposal are simply insane, as is the thought of safely storing it for thousands of years.

must admit the whole idea is rather foolish

the correct way to enforce drinking age restrictions is to actively enforce the law, something it seems that Thailand is unable or unwilling to do, inspections, heavy fines and licence revocations are the only answer

When is this country going to realise that enforcing the law proactively across the board in a fair unbiased manner is the only way they can move forward, it honestly is pathetic

I totally agree, what is astounding to me is just how dumb all of Thailand's 'leaders' have been in the 15 years I have been out this way. I doesn't seem to matter which party or junta in this case, they all seem to come up with these obviously dumb ideas and as you say, they never consider actually enforcing any existing laws. I understand the average IQ has been dropping steadily for some years and is apparently 91 now, maybe it's all the chemicals in the food making them dumber.

"we might be under the control of the market instead of being in control of our own rate,"

Thailand like Russia?

What is staving off an even greater collapse of the ruble has been influx of domestic-owned foreign capital (aka USD) by the Russian oligarchy (ie., billionaire Putin) controlling the government. If the Junta wants to stay in power to the end of 2015 it must stem Thailand's collapsing baht in the same manner.

I estimate that the Thai military and its "associates" are collectively worth more than $200 billion USD. It's time to decide if they too should privately reinforce their nation's currency or give up the reins of power.

You estimate? Where do you get this figure from? It is quite possibly accurate (quite possibly a lot higher depending on who you chose to include) however if you are going to make such a sweeping statement how about providing some evidence please.

Ok, but why the wooden buffalo head? What law does that break. These are things that get lumped together which makes the real laws meaningless. Like people thinking playing cards are illegal because they can be used to gamble. So now if you have one of these ugly wooden buffalo heads it must mean that your holding cache of illegal weapons as well?

fyi, the wooden head has the horns of a Gaur attached to it, it is illegal to hunt this endangered animal, similarly the stuffed leopard.

I saw these when we visited and they are electric but run from batteries not on rails or overhead wires and are basically giant golf carts, like you often see at theme parks around the world. Given the number of dead and injured I wonder about overloading playing a part. The lack of any action against operators (as usual) is of course the big issue here. Thainess on display for all to see.

It seems a shame that news reporters cannot use the correct terminology or simply, words, to describe these vehicles.

Yesterday they were trams which run on steel rails or other fixed guide systems.

Today they are trolley buses which are electric vehicles drawing power from overhead wires.

I am not a mechanical engineer, but my guess is they are just diesel powered open sided buses.

So a few students in 2 schools in ach of the provinces will recieve assistance. That's really going to have a big impact. Pathetic but I guess better than nothing. I hope they picked students that actually wanted to learn English because the average Thai student seems to have little or no interest.

I went there with my wife and son a couple of months before it was officially opened as it was free to enter and it was falling apart then, trails which had concrete to make steps between rocks were collapsing, as were stairs, the animals enclosures lacked any shade to speak of, all around it was a very shoddy and not very nice place. My son wants to go on another zipline after taking him to Singapore and suggested Pattaya and Chaing Mai. I refused point blank to take him on any potentially dangerous stuff in Thailand becuase there is zero mainaintence or checking on these places and zero accountability. I think you have to be insane to go on any of these kind of trips in Thailand. This particular incident seems to be a matter of maintainence, or the lack of as you would expect anywhere in Thailand. The place has some steep hills so they should be extra careful when driving. I hope the driver was drug tested given the massive use of Meth.

It would be interesting to know how many people were in it at the time and how many it is meant to carry?

The total disregard for human life in this country sickens me, money above all else.

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4 new checkpoints? Not bad, meaning we would have more places to cross the border.

However, even more interesting would be a plan to allow private vehicles across all international border checkpoints, complete with insurance offered at the border (particularly on the Cambodian side, where this is not currently the case).

I came though Aranyapathet/Poipet a few days ago and Thai cars were pouring through into Cambodia. I go through regularly and have never seen it like that in 13 years using that crossing. Maybe things have already changed although given the right hand left hand issue it could be dangerous too. The roads in Cambodia are not great and the thought of Somchai driving drunk at highspeed and tailgating people here, is rather scary.