Watawattana

Yeah, their brains must be a bit scrambled. If their business isn't going too well they could try poaching or become a Benedict-ine nun? It's ova to you for the next yoke.

Would it not be better just to let them learn for themselves that there are no virgins waiting for them?

True of course, but hopefully fewer at the one time than if guns are available.

I dunno. Not my cup of tea, all this celebrating, but it feels to me that 99.9% of Songkran is massively enjoyable to all involved, with the odd dodgy bit (I don't mean the ladyboy and his dodgy boobs). I hope the tiny minority haven't ruined it for the vast majority, but I doubt what seems like a lot of negative stories is really indicative of reality?

Wonder if he/she had a Brazilian? Brazil nut? Geddit? I'll get me coat...

Wouldn't be as newsworthy. In HK there was a new building built, and the media got a hold of the fact that many rooms were going to have large flat-screens in them, and of course cue a lot of handwringing. The fact was that they were for presentations not gaming or catching up on the local Soap, but were cheaper to buy and maintain than projectors with screens didn't calm the frenzy. The truth is so boring sometimes!

Good to see a decent 'dad joke' on this forum.

Based on the OP the only outcome should be that no charges are brought and he is immediately released. Hope him and his father live long lives in peace, far away from the madness of drugs.

No guns mean nobody gets killed by a gun.

Whilst I'll happily also moan about 2-tier Keir, I've got to say that many successive governments have all failed the people of Britain. Badly. All the way back to the 1940s. Especially the British Nationality Act of 1948 and the political reaction (but no action) to the arrival of the Empire Windrush. I can't really blame the British public for voting in these nonces, there's been no real alternative other than the same old but of a different political colour for basically, like, forever. A few years back the Lib Dems got into a coalition on the back of a protest vote, but they proved just as useless as everyone else. Do I want Reform in power? Not really, but I can't stand more of the same and I doubt they'd be able to actually make the right changes. Do I mind immigration? Absolutely not, but the lack of integration and the minorities ruling the political rhetoric is simply ruining the UK. That, and the fact that Mock the Week got cancelled by the BBC...

No problem with the OP of course, but surely someone NOT taking a bribe would be more newsworthy? 😜

What! A Thai guy wearing a dish-dash? We'll see men wearing dresses next! Outrageous!

What a great idea! I bet nobody has ever thought of that before! I'm sure the 'authorities' will get right on it...

Ooh! Posting things on social media has gotten some people many months in jail in the UK. Surely backing a proscribed terrorist organisation is worthy of prosecution? Jail time too! Disbarment from the legal profession? Such a golden opportunity, surely. Oh wait, there's a 2-tier justice system in the UK...

No offence intended, but finally not one Cryingdick will be found in a women’s changing room after showering 🤣

I believe there is still plenty of legal coverage for trans in the Equality Act, i.e. they cannot be discriminated against on the basis of being trans. But a massively important change that protects women from having to shower with men after a women's sports event, or women having to compete with men at those events. Well done to the British Supreme Court some sense at last.

I'm glad I never voted for them.

And a Happy New Year to you too!!

Yeah, in HK there are lot of Indonesians (a lot of domestic helpers), most of the muslims I personally know and spend time with are men from Pakistan, Bangladesh or Malaysia. I picked Sweden as that's the OP, I picked the UK as that's where I'm from. Didn't want to post a 15-page essay covering the whole of Europe, with examples of some muslims who have integrated and some who have not, but I agree that I couldn't name a single European country that I could call culturally integrated, the old Yugoslavia is a great example of where it went spectacularly wrong.

The bacon would have had to have been raw, Hashem Abedi threw it all at some prison officers in HMP Frankland. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cg5qe6j01g6o

Successive UK governments have bent over and offered their butts to foreign investment, giving away massive chunks of their infrastructure and manufacturing backbone to those investors, all at the expense of the UK consumer, businesses and employees. This was all predictable. Plenty of opposition politicians made complaints, only for their parties to do t exactly the same thing when they got into power. UK; you are getting what you deserve.

I guess it depends a bit on the definition and boundaries around that word, but I'd say that in Hong Kong and Singapore multiculturalism is working so much better. No great issues in either place, indeed Singapore was built upon the foundation of multiculturalism, and seceded from Malaysia due to that country proactively advocating against that. Yes there's Little India, Chinatown etc., but there is no social breakdown and generally everyone gets on. I don't know anything about gangs and their activities in SG. In Hong Kong there are South Asian gangs and Chinese Triads, but there's little impact on normal daily life unlike what is being seen in Sweden, and indeed the UK. I live in a predominantly Chinese area without issue, and I don't like the generally expat areas as they are expensive and not very integrated (might be quite a few places like that in Thailand 😜). Part of the reason why it works better in HK & SG I think is down to their Governments and criminal justice systems. Bad behaviour is simply not accepted and it gets dealt with, unlike in the UK where a Facebook post is treated as a bigger crime than robbery, mass murderers are allowed to work in a prison kitchen so they can fashion weapons in order to seriously injure prison guards. I'm sure there are parallels in Sweden. Bottom line is that Sweden and the UK are broken societies because successive governments have failed, and failed badly, their citizens. The US has gone a long way down that path by allowing free-flow immigration through lack of border enforcement and immediate repatriation. Love him or loathe him, Trump is trying to address that and has started well. Sweden and the UK need to learn from this.

Of course it's a shame about the US' response, and especially the firings, but I wonder what the other side iff the story is. Might it be concern over corruption, where the donated money will actually go, i.e. to fund the war and not to humanitarian aid?

I'm no catholic, but I still find this sad.

I guess Argentina wouldn't be a great market either 🤣. In looking at this I found a wiki article on this, interesting parallels to what's happening today versus 120 years later - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argentine_beef:- In Chile, heightened taxes for the import of Argentine cattle in 1905 led to the meat riots, one of the first massive protests in Santiago. The price of meat was kept artificially high by the government, by means of the combination of a special tariff applied to cattle imports from Argentina, to protect the domestic producers, and a runaway inflation. The riots lasted from October 22 until October 27, and between 200 and 250 people were killed over this period, while more than 500 were injured.