erobando

Just googled it and it came out with this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_general_election,_2007

Despite being the junta's target for suppression, the PPP managed to win 226 out of 480 of the MP seats, close to controlling the majority in the House of Representatives. The Democrat Party came in a distant second with 166 seats,

junta? A council; a convention; a tribunal; an assembly; especially, the grand council of state in Spain; The ruling council of a military dictatorship

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/junta

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should I google something else?

Those numbers are correct.

Since the by-elections of Jan 2009, the PTP has 189 MP's.

Bhumjaithai (friends of Newin Group) has 32.

Check out the math. 189 + 32 = 121, which is very close to 126.

The number of former PPP'ers is about the same.

BJT defected and backed a Democrat-led coation. Other former PPP coalition partners went with them.

The PTP's problem was that they couldn't keep their party or coalition partners.

Parliaments don't get dissolved because some protest group requests it.

They get dissolved following a No Confidence vote, which hasn't happened yet.

This situation is tricky and more similar to rival football ultras than policy battles.

The problem with Thai politics is that it's all about people and not about policy.

Extremes in all sides lie/distort the truth and then their followers get riled up.

There definitely are ways to lessen gaps between the rich and poor, or at least give poorer people opportunities.

Western European Social Democracies do it, the US instituted similar programs in the 1930's and then the 1960's.

I'm not sure that Thailand has the capability or willingness to do it.

Unlike the West (or the mentioned Japan or S Korea), Thailand is still a developing country. And at all levels of government (from local on up), politics are seen as a way to make money.

Thailand could achieve some wealth distribution through social programs and could help pay for by increasing taxes on the upper middle and upper classes; none of the parties involved are advocating this and I doubt it happens soon.

A true grass roots People's Movement would need to incorporate rural people from all regions of Thailand, including the south.

It doesn't and from the outside the Red Shirt agenda seems to primarily be pro-Thaksin and not pro-X policy. Hold an election and the same regions will vote for the same people again and again... North and Northeast will primarily vote PPP (or whatever future incarnation might exist), Bangkok and the South will primarily vote Democratic (or whatever party emerges if they are dissolved), Suphanburi will vote for the most current incarnation of Barnharn's party, etc.

What about the UFO's? Don't forget about them.

I assume news updates will clarify, but my initial reaction was to wonder, has Thaksin been punked?

I think you me animatic Jayboy koo82 samran siriusblack and Britmaveric should create a new reality TV show.

Basically, we show up with 10,000 red shirt clapping foot waving people to someone's house or their place of work, and have a number of huge trucks with big expensive sounds systems and lots and lots of noise, motorcycles and so on.

Then we pour blood on them and say 'YOU'VE BEEN RED SHIRTED!!!!'

Now...as long as none of us are Prime Minister (because you are breaching the law by holding another job or shares in media) then we can keep this running.

I might suggest it to Dr Weng. I am sure this was his plan for democracy. You know, to create truth and stuff, by playing that doctored clip on stage and generally boring everyone to death.

Instead....we can make it reality TV!!

It will be awesome.

You want to invest?

I think this would work.

Somehow you got to work in a vote for kicking people off the show, but every few episodes a dozen or so dudes dressed in military garb burst onto the set claiming that the voting results have been annulled, and they kick someone else off instead.

Maybe add another group that bursts onto the show during every episode to campaign for ousted contestants to be reinstated.

The yellow shirts were inside the government building for 8 months and wrecked absolutely everything - even took 2 international airports hostage for nearly 2 weeks. Yet they're still free and a court decision nowhere even near. The only court decision that's happening on April 20th is if they at all will be prosecuted. If they do, there will be another half-decade long trial.

And the red shirts? They were on the grounds of the government building for 20 minutes and didn't damage anything, yet the government issues arrest warrants right away.

See the double standards?

Wiat?!?!?!?! All these protests were just a contest to see who can occupy government buildings the longest?

I feel cheated.

Those above are the official final result of the Dec 2007 elections .

Stop your biased rambling and learn first what democracy means .

A governement that comes to power as a result of a court ruling

banning the party legally elected and without a general election is not democratically

in power .

Full stop

How is this biased rambling? These are just historical facts.

The Friends of Newin group and Chart Thai/Phattana switched from backing the PPP/PT to joining the Democrats. The courts didn't force them to switch.

With support of any 2 from among Friends of Newin, Chart Thai Phattana and Ruam Jai Thai Chart Phattana, PT could have formed a coalition government.

THe last election in Thailand by the thai people was in December 2007 .

The PPP (proThaksin) won the absolute majority at that election if i remember well .

What election are you refering too ?

You are wrong. The PPP did not win an absolute majority. here are those 2007 results.

Constituency Vote

People's Power Party: 36.63%

Democrat Party: 30.30%

Proportional Vote

People's Power Party: 39.60%

Democrat Party: 39.63%

PPP 226 seats

Democrats 166

Wrong

PPP 233 seats

Dems 165 seats

Check your numbers

These numbers are correct.

PPP had a plurality and were able to form a coalition government.

Pheua Thai still have a slight plurality and could have formed a new government after the dissolution of PPP at the end of 2008.

Their problems were:

1) The Friends of Newin group did not join the PT and instead formed a new party (Phumjaithai) which backed a Democrat-led coalition.

2) Former PPP partners Chart Thai / Chart Thai Phattana also decided to join the Democrat-led coalition.

Thus, the Democrats had the numbers to form coalition government with the the above 2 parties plus the Pheua Phaendin and Ruam Jai Thai Chart Phattana parties.

The current government is just as much a "government of the people" as the PPP-led coalition.

The PT lost some of it's members and couldn't form a coalition post-PPP dissolution.

With ESPN/Star Sports we got 9 or 10 Group Stage matches live or on delay.

Any idea if Channel 3 or 7 will show additional matches on delay? If not, we'll be getting a lot less coverage.

TrueSports airs BarcaTV, BayernTV, ManUTV, ChelseaTV and LiverpoolTV... if you can wait a couple of days, you can watch those clubs' UCL matches there, too.

Channel 3 and 7 schedule for first 2 matchdays listed here:

http://www.ch7.com/activities/activities_d...contentId=47058

TU 15 Sep Ch 3 Chelsea v Porto ; Ch 7 Besiktas v Man U

W 16 Sep Ch 3 Inter v Barca; Ch 7 Liverpool v Debreceni

TU 29 Sep Ch 3 Fiorentina v Liverpool; Ch 7 Arsenal v Olympiacos

W 30 Sep Ch 3 Man U v Wolfsburg; Ch 7 APOEL v Chelsea

With ESPN/Star Sports we got 9 or 10 Group Stage matches live or on delay.

Any idea if Channel 3 or 7 will show additional matches on delay? If not, we'll be getting a lot less coverage.

TrueSports airs BarcaTV, BayernTV, ManUTV, ChelseaTV and LiverpoolTV... if you can wait a couple of days, you can watch those clubs' UCL matches there, too.

Hunny bunny...who are you addressing? Your post makes no sense. I assume that one of your statements is directed to me. My Vietnamese girlfriend is a US citizen ( for 11 years ) and it is a fact that she gets hassled by the Vietnamese airport staff, government, etc. when she goes the visit her relatives in Vietnam...NOT when she is coming back into the US. She get hassled because she is a US citizen and also because she was a resident of southern Vietnam. They can tell by her dialect when she speaks. She hates the Vietnamese government. She and some of her siblings were kicked out of high school during the 90's. Her father spent 6.5 years in a Vietnamese prison after the US left because he was a general in southern Vietnam fighting along side the US during the Indochinese war. The whole family left (except her mother who remarried and wanted to stay) and lived in refuge camp near the Thai / Cambodian border before they finally got to the US after waiting about 5 years. She even has nightmares about being chased by Pol Pot. Your comment about all Asian female nationals assumed to be "on the game" by people in the US or anywhere is a joke. Sorry, that is not true. I know many people in the States who have married Asian nationals. Women from some countries are easier to get into the States than others. I don't know why but have my opinions. BTW... I know non-Vietnamese people who have had their businesses taken over by the Vietnamese gov. after the businesses started generating a good profit. The Vietnamese government, etc. is still pursicuting Vietnamese Christains and other Vietnamese in southern Vientnam. Did you know that southern Vietnam used to be part of Cambodia until the French gave it to Vietnam in 1949. Many of the residents there are Khmer and not Vietnamese. Some road signs and place names are still written in Khmer but the Vietnamese have changed many from Khmer to Vietnamese. Google "Kampuchea Krom" and learn something.

Below is a cut and pasted paragraph.

"Kampuchea Krom is composed of 68,965 square kilometers, 21 provinces and municipalities, two large islands - Koh Tral and Koh Tralach, 171 districts, 1,368 communes, 14,778 villages, more than 13 million Khmers, more than 567 Buddhist pagodas and more than 20,000 Theravada Buddhist monks."

This isn't historically correct. The Vietnamese colonized the area many centuries before. Borders change throughout history... that's just what happens when one empire weakens (the Khmer) and others become more powerful.

And in 1949 Vietnam was still a French colony. It's a good 5 years before the French were kicked out and 26 years before the Communists liberated the South.

Doing business in Vietnam isn't quite as bad as you say but that's not the point of this thread...

Foreigners in Thailand may complain or criticize policies but it isn't anti-Thai.

A lot of these "crackdowns" exhibit the same short-sidedness (e.g., interest in short term tax revenue, corruption) that ultimately hurts Thais the most.

Is it?

A UK virologist said we should have pig flu parties; meaning we should all opt to catch it as soon as possible. If you cannot get immunisation catching the current strain will be far preferable to the mutated version that is due to materialise later..... That one will more than likely kill you

Get flu and build your immunity

see you at the bar...

Mutations aren't directional.

It's possible but not very likely that this virus will mutate into something more deadly.

Hand washing seems to be sensible advice in any time, swine attacks or not.

Some of the other news related to this disease seems a bit sensational.

IMO there are other health-and-safety campaigns that Thailand could use as well:

- Mosquito nets and window screens: Most people I know here tend to be pretty cavalier regarding mosquitoes. Even when their house is screened in, they open the screens!

- Seat belts: Yes, seat belts are required in the front seat in Bangkok but people just unhook them when they leave BKK. And few wear them in the back seat.

- Refrigeration of food: People leave food out overnight because they feel refrigerators ruin the taste. IMO Thailand could cut down a lot on it's food poisoning cases by refrigeration.

Other threats will kill and hospitalize as many as the H1N1(A) swiner.

It will be good if this current scare leads to general attention to safety and hygiene but I doubt it will happen.

Overkill - note that almost no deaths occurred in the under-18 population of healthy Thais

IMO this plan isn't particularly helpful but...

I think the idea behind the plan is not that student-age kids have been dying but that they've been catching and spreading the disease at a high rate.

If I'm being lazy and there's another thread dedicated then apols but my wife is pregnant - anyone have any idea of how dangerous this flu is for women in their first / second trimester? I've heard it's serious and would tamiflu or relenza help?

Women have weaker immune systems when pregnant so your wife would be among the "at risk" people.

If she's sick, she should see a doctor. If she's not sick now, she should take usual precautions to avoid sickness.

But given the fact that such deadly occurance of influenza only happened once in the last 100 years, I'd say it's likelihood is not too high.

Hmmmmm..........Hong Kong flu in 1968 killed about a million people. Doesn't that count?

HK flu was a pandemic, yes.

But it didn't mutate into a deadlier virus like we believe happened in 1918.

The death rates and the demographics of thoes who died were what one would expect from a "normal" flu.

If you want to see what the swine flu will look like in Thailand, have a look at Canada. This flu is now ravaging several northern native reserves. With poor sanitation, no running potable water, high density living often with more than 8 people sharing a cramped home, the flu has spread like wildfire. The absence of local medical facilities, no masks, no hand sanitizers, it's a gloomy situation. Go into the slums of Bangkok, and there you will see the prime area where thousands are at risk. You aint seen nothing yet, baby. If the flu takes off as expected by next January, I anticipate that a great many people calling this thing a sham, will be dead.

Well, yes. Developing countries and poorer people are going to suffer more from any diseases... inadequate healthcare, more likely to have other conditions, poor nutrition, etc.

But neither the WHO or CDC "expects" the flu to "take off" Janauary.

The more it spreads, the more likely a more dangerous mutation occurs... so that's why precautions have been taken to control the spread. But given the fact that such deadly occurance of influenza only happened once in the last 100 years, I'd say it's likelihood is not too high.

Health officials and governments have been rightly people to be cautious... wash hands regularly, stay home when sick... sensible advice in any time.

But others have interpreted this as it's time to panic.

What is more likely is that this current form will continue to spread.

And it will probably spread more in Thailand than some other countries. A factory worker in Thailand might not think they have enough job security to stay home when sick... People tend to live in larger groups... And IMO Thai people in gerneral tend to be kind of lax regarding general safety. If people don't do simple things such as use a seatbelt or use a mosquito net, I would expect them to wash hands more frequently or use a separate serving spoon for each dish when eating family style.

So, yes. It will spread, but more likely in it's present form than in a more virulent form.

That still won't be good... it won't help the economy at all. But a killer flu is nothing close to inevitable.

Also FWIW, "flu season" in Thailand varies by region. But, in general, influenza cases start to rise in the dry hot season of (April/May) and then peak in August, dropping steadily until December.

I would expect the same to happen with the current Influenza 2009.

http://www.waset.org/pwaset/v26/v26-41.pdf

Still not as dangerous as Songkran in Thailand - approx. 350 in 1 week.

Agreed, accidents is the most dangerous flue that happen all the time. This is kind of like human being, always finding something to be panic of. Anyway I feel sorry for the people and the family who got this flue. Didn't mean it's not dangerous but if we're really worry about losing the population this case is no need to be fear of.

All joking aside, the worst case, absolute nightmare scenario would be to crash your car into a pig farm.

Sorry, you are not quite correct about the H1N1 flu virus. The reason all the experts and the WHO are so concerned about it is because H1N1 was exactly the format of the 1918 Spanish flu which killed more than 50 million people around the world in 6 months in its 3rd & 4th waves. That is indeed the other point of concern from almost every expert on this matter; we are only at the start of the 1st wave now with this H1N1 strain. This is definitely not something to be joking or complacent about and indeed the authorities are not, so with the right communication and responses we'll probably not have as high a death toll as 1918, but it is expected that this rapidly mutating virus (originating as H5N1) will get very deadly within the next 6-12 months. This is a nasty pathogen, it hits the young and strong people the hardest in the form of a cytokine storm (hypercytokinemia) look it up on Wikipedia before you start joking about it. Very Nasty - I'd rather be embarrassed than dead any day.

Expected is too strong.

There's concerns that it could mutate into something more dangerous, which is why governments have taken steps to control it.

The more it spreads, the more possible variations of mutations.

But there is certainly no inevitability that it will mutate into something more deadly. Spreadability is more advantageous to an organism than deadliness.

Another fun article...

She didn't die of Influenza 2009 but of pneumonia! ... I think most deaths aren't from the flu itself but from complications, such as pneumonia, so this seems irrelevant.

And the public shouldn't panic but should wait for the lab results first... lol Then it will be time to panic!

Public should not be panic over death of a German tourist

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said Tuesday people should wait for results of the lab test on the sample of a German tourist who died after having high fever on Monday.

He said Deputy Public Health minister Manit Nopamornbhodi already reported the case in the cabinet meeting.

"Authorities concerned are checking sample from the German tourist to know whether she had the influenza 2009. However my understanding is that she had pneumonia," he said.

Meanwhile speaking from Geneva, Public Health Minister Witthaya Kaewparadai said the German tourist arrived Thailand on May 12 from Germany and stayed at a hotel in Hua Hin for seven days before being admitted to a private hospital on May 18.

Doctors there diagnosed that she had lung infection and died on the same day at about 9pm.

The minister was in Geneva to attend a meeting of World Health Organisation on the influenza.

Witthaya said people should not be panic on the matter as they should wait for the result of the laboratory test.

The Bangkok Post's article is just as strange... http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/1437...-swine-flu-dies

Now they're saying that she was put on surveilance on Saturday (16 May), not 18 May as previously reported.

Better yet, they write of Wednesday in the past!

I still think the tests were negative and that it's just a case of the news websites not fully updating the articles.

Of course, an alternative explanation is that the papers were instructed to report on Wednesday that tests were negative no matter the true results but accidently reported it on Tuesday night. But I don't believe that people would willingly lie...

Tourist died of pneumonia, not swine flu

By: BangkokPost.com and AFP Published: 19/05/2009 at 02:17 PM Lab tests confirm that a German tourist who died in Thailand while under surveillance for suspected swine flu was not infected with the A(H1N1) virus, a public health ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.

She was put under surveillance on Saturday and she died on Monday night on her way to a Bangkok hospital from the coastal resort of Hua Hin, spokesman Suphan Srithamma said.

The results of laboratory tests to confirm whether she had the virus were known on Wednesday evening.

Deputy Public Health Minister Manit Nopamornbodee confirmed that the tests showed that the woman died from pneumonia and ordinary flu.

so did she have swine flu or not?

I think no, she didn't. The Nation updated the headline but not the body of the article.

The Bangkok Post is also reporting that she didn't have it.

Although I'm not sure if really matters all that much if she had H1N1 or not (re: The Nation heading of "Swine Flu Scare").

It's going to come here eventually and the preventative measures are already in place to slow down the spread.

Individual cases don't matter too much in the long run.

And it certainly didn't matter to the woman... dead is dead, swine flu or common flu!

The Nation now says the woman died of the "common flu" and not (A)H1N1: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2009/05/19...al_30103061.php

I think this is another article-in-progress because the body of the article states that authorities are still awaiting results.

Dead German tourist died of pneumonia and common flu : Thai Health Ministry

The German tourist died of pneumonia and had common influenza, not Influenza A(H1N1) which hit many countries in the world, said Deputy Public Health Minister Manit Nop-amornbodi.

Mrs Barbel Wilhelmine, 65, died on May 18 after developing high fever. The tourist who died of flu-like symptoms on Monday was initially tested positive for H1N1 at a lab in Bangkok, but authorities are awaiting further tests before confirming whether she had Influenza A(H1N1).

Manit told a press conference that the tourist had lung infection and his ministry would examine further what caused the lung infection.

Earlier Pol Lt Somyot Deemak, head of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, said his laboratory had detected H1N1 in the woman's sample.

FWIW, the Nation article now says she had been staying at the hotel for "about a week."

Yeah, I think everyone is still sorting out the facts...

First, she was 59 years old, now 65.

In Thailand since 12 May, then about month, now about a week.

First she had been sick for since the 12 May, now reported she fell ill just yesterday.

My guess is that 65, in Thailand since 12 May and became ill on 18 May is getting closer to the truth...

"his Thai lady"... "male organ".

lol priceless!

So where can I buy this poster?

I find this highly offensive.

Nobody should be able to buy another poster or moderator on Thai Visa.

3 million people disappear...wow, hope hey all find them in the end. Would be awful if something would happened to them.

Their relatives most be worried.

Good to see someone can find the loss of jobs and livelyhood a joking matter.

I don't tthink anyone's finding the loss of livelyhood humourous just TAT's way of putting it. But it is funny how TAT can always find good reason why tourist numbers are down and be able to put solid figures to the reduction. You could almost be led into suspecting such problems as the PAD occupation of Suvarnabhumi are TAT sponsored so that they can revise their deficient forecasts without losing face.

No, nobody's joking. In fact, it's quite serious.

The longer these people remain missing, the more hurtage will be done to the Thai tourist industry.

Things that will scare off tourists: 3 Million(!) Tourists vanished > Airports closed for a week