TPI

Is everybody, given the opportunity, shady in Thailand? Even Buddhist monks take money; no questions, re: the source, asked. I wish the PM good health and energy to clean this sewer and bring happiness to the people. In the sixteen years I've been keeping up with Thai news, this government has done more to improve the quality of living for all Thais equally, in less than a year, than any other government in their whole tenure. I am more optimistic of Thailand's future than any time in the past; this is the first time I have become less cynical than more cynical.

Surely the Abbots can be charged with the numerous offences that must have taken place? This PM is by far the most effective I've seen in the last 16 years, please keep up the good work and don't be upset by the nay sayers!

God intended limes to be used with Gin rather than salad and so a pox on all those somtam munchers who are driving the price up.

Agreed, with a dash of soda! Limes are only 3 baht in Phrae.

Not only should people watch this video it should be shown - with warnings for minors - on the news, especially in places like the UK. It is disgraceful how little is being done to oppose IS. The politicians have no appetite for it for they know the public have no appetite for it. This is wrong; these monsters are a menace not only to the people of the middle east but the rest of the world. The west in general and the UK in particular needs to get involved with combat troops in coalition with Arab partners. Without it the events on the streets of Paris last month will be a daily occurence in London and other major cities.

I respect your opinion and can see the logic in it. If I did watch something like it I have no idea where the rage and disgust would end. Nicholas Sennels in his essay, how Islam creates monsters opined that the west can overcome the threat of Islam, but fears how much of our dignity, civil rights, blood money and tears would be lost in the process.

I want Islam removed from the planet, or at the minimum the evil satanic Medina verses and hateful Hadiths consigned to the trash bin of history. I desire death for all those who can't be cured of the mental illness that is fundamentalist Islam. But I would still rather death be a bullet in the head or a lethal injection. I have no wish to inflict unnecessary suffering for reasons of revenge, it leaves a stain on the soul to do so in my opinion. This is why though I support this news being broadcast far and wide I still won't watch such videos.

Steely Dan, any extremist from any faith are not good for the society. that is for sure, be it Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Jain, or any religion you can think of. But I wonder if you are to be labbled for your idology or belief that " i want Islam to be removed from the Planet" as extremist or not??

No one likes Extremists, be it from any religion.

It seems the fundemental problem is "religion" itself! While it serves to dumb down the masses, its very precepts (you are the chosen people, you can be one of the 144,000 saved, all the others are deluded etc) pushes its followers into a sort of tunnel vision view of their world! Islam is based on what? One man's statements elaborated on by so-called wise men for 1400 years! It's not dissimilar to the nonsense of joseph smith who translated "something" while using a magic rock and talking into a top hat!!!!! What's the difference!

Both old and new religions offer their treasures to the believers after they're dead? Doesn't this sound like buying a" pig in a poke" to you? It does to me as well, and not only that, I get dudded for only 10% of my pay every week.....gosh! Aren't I lucky?

… agents of Saudi Arabia ...

Yep. George Bush and Dick Cheney and … well, most of the upper echelon of the CIA, too.

Most? By the time HW cashed his cheques along with Donald, Bremer, Rice et al all of the senior echelon of the US Gov. would have been in the pocket of the royals! (you'l notice I very very carefully avoided LM violations of foreign heads of state!!)

Lets hope we get a "death bed" confession from HW......soon.......the sooner the better!

While Jordan sticks it to Isis we still have to wait for the Japanese response! My feeling is that the "money" should be drying up fairly soon, if anything the Japanese are really really subtle!

Hate to be the messenger of bad news but is it only going to get worse. Fair value is farrrrr below where it is now. Will probably bottom out at 15 baht to the AUD.

Oh please! Bite your tongue, 16 years ago it was around 17 or 18 to the dollar, it's very painful to check up the conversion rate every day and watch the tumble!

Hard not to think that it wasn't a set up, considering what the stakes are.

Not that I have any doubt that he did all that he is being accused of.

So you're suggesting he should have been allowed to continue as a pimp.

If it was entrapment he'll walk.

If someone has gone undercover and engineered a 'set up' then good on them.

Then again many on here would consider 'pimping' a legitimate pastime, given the misogynistic predilections of many

I didn't suggest that he be allowed to "continue as a pimp" at all. I guess you've had a bad day and feel like finding an argument with someone?

As much as he should not be allowed to continue with pimping, etc., anyone who set him up should take credit for doing so. That is, of course, if it was a setup, which we can't possible know. I'd like to add that he has been accused, he hasn't been found guilty yet, but clearly you've dutifully read up on his case and have made an informed conclusion about his guilt.

If it was a setup, I don't imagine it was someone on a moral quest to get him to stop his pimping or womanizing. If it was a setup, it had to do with knocking him out of power to get someone else into the IMF seat, and/or remove him from running for political office.

Either way it worked, not only there wasn't any audit of the physical gold, any question of him surviving or having any credibility at all was killed by having him brought into court as a "low life pimp"!

Seems to me if prostitution is legal then so is pimping??

Top video and a great Ad! Too bad the "shaky isles" are too expensive by far to visit !

I'm only sorry we don't have one up here......I could do with a plate of swedish meatballs! On another point, I've used the furniture in the tropics in Oz and they stood up quite well and no, I've never worked for them!

Some mornings I have to shower early and my house is all concrete and tile and YES to me it can be really cold a few months a year here in Chiang Rai. I spent most of my life in Hawaii so not used to anything even remotely cold....plus not as young as I used to be so keeping warm can sometimes be a bit of a challenge. There were several mornings this year where the temp in my bedroom was in the mid 50's F or even below and to me that is COLD....

Am very happy to have a semi decent space heater even if it did cost twice what a similar one would sell for in USA. Plus the girls in the shop offered to marry me and come keep me warm if the heater doesn't work properly......

So you say!

Phrae has been having mornings around 11 and 12 degrees. I'm lucky we can pull a 44 up to the patio an set it ablaze with wood.....I'm off to buy an electric heater today for the bedroom! (Globle House B3900....pang!)

I've been doing this for about 15 years soooo here goes! Income is money you have to spend from sources outside the country therefore the money you make from rentals are a legit source! When you fill out the stat dec. in the embassy all you need to put is your name, your address in Thailand, The amount of aud and the aud converted to Thai Baht (26:1 is about right), the source of your money (Property leases), a copy of your bank statement showing the regular imput of the money (to confirm your statement. The embassy doesn't need it although the Immigration Dept. will ask for it, don't forget to sign it!). It's best to pay for the multiple entry stamp, its good to be able to leave and come back when you choose!

Pay the charge, it's not much and the people are generally nice.

good luck Happy Australia day!!!! Up the old red rooster!

Are you serious? The people on here have been all over the world and are from all over the world! They know "flim flam" when they read it, the woman is seriously bent, just like her brother.

Both can't see the problem that they're dishonesty created!

If they were honest then none of this could have happened! They're both obviously quite intelligent, of course, that doesn't mean they're not stupid!!

What hope have we that Dubai will take them all? After the bent pollies then come the ...........dare I say it! generals???

HOORAY!!!

Excellent news but not enough by far.

Criminal case and jail time

Yes please! Now, for the rest of them!!!

To me the most criminal act in the whole thing is Americans teaching English

You're probably just resentful that U.S. English is the globally dominant style of English.

Sent from my Lenovo S820_ROW using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

yes it is, but its not ENGLISH

Yes it bloody well is!

Sent from my Lenovo S820_ROW using Thaivisa Connect Thailand mobile app

No its not! Only Ozy english is proper!!!!!

Bad move.

They were not committing a crime, they were offering a service that Thais can't offer.

They were taking nobody's job.

Just another excuse to say how bad these foreigners are..................

I know, you can't work without a WP, but at this instance they were harming nobody.

True Mr Costas, it seems that the Thai police are at the beck and call of any thai company that wants to get rid of competition?

No, not for being more understanding to women! For being a lunkhead! Are you prepared to pay for any unwanted child that is born to an abused or brutalised mother, I'm not talking about rape or sexual assault, I'm talking about the victims of marital rape and abuse.....only an unthinking cockbrain would condemn those women to childbirth of a child they not only don't want, they don't have the means to feed and support! GOP voters!

80,000 start up capital. 200,000 profit a month. Can a real businessman say yeah or nay.

As a person who eats food i find this highly un-realistic.

80k start up sounds about right, 200k a month profit is kicka**e time, count ME in as a partner?

So you give away pork worth $6. To make that up patron need tabs of @ least $70. assuming gropp profit % of 11%(which i would consider low).

Then if operator wants profit he needs patron to eat 5lbs of rice and drink 20 bottles of beer....................hahaha.

No wonder he was the only one doing the DEAL. and doesnt want to go back to it.

Since when is a proven business model defined by months of opearting.

Pork around here is 155 baht per kilo and if you go to Tesco at the moment you can get it on offer for 109 baht/kilo.

Each portion is 200g of meat so as low as 22 baht per serving which they sell for 159 baht.

So 318 baht for 600g of meat costing no more than 105 baht.

Seriously mate...... don't go into business with your mathematical skills..... You will be bankrupt in a week.

3 months at full capacity while the 3 for 2 offer was in place in a location with successive failures over a 5 year period.... then declining rapidly as soon as the offer is lifted, is not enough information for you to decide what the success was based on?..... a second reason for you to never venture into business.

Good luck mate, I hope you don't have to many Thai partners!

A positive step noting that even where there are elevators they are frequently unmanned and locked and have to find somebody to unlock it. Just getting to the stations is a nightmare and probably impossible for somebody on their own who is wheelchair bound. The size of some of the kerbs are difficult to negotiate even with assistance, which is why wheelchair users are forced to use the road.

They will have to enforce that disabled folk have first priority on lifts/delevators, as some lazy s...ds will move into them rapidly.

I wouldn't be too surprised if the staff don't rent them out for "cholera" carts and such like!

BANGKOK: -- Civil servants, who were among 21 people recently charged by the anti-graft agency for fraud in connection with the government-to-government rice deals, may end up losing their government jobs, a senior Commerce Ministry official said yesterday. Why is it always "may" instead of will???? They've already been charged!!!!!

Permanent Secretary Chutima Bunyapraphasara, said that the ministry would need to wait for clear documents from the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) before deciding how it would punish the two government officials. As stated above, they've already been charged!!!!

"This is the first time officials from this ministry are [allegedly] involved in a fraudulent case. How could he keep a straight face while spewing such garbage? The ministry will need to wait for clear documents from the NACC so we can make a decision on how to punish them," Chutima explained.

Two government officials and one former official of the ministry's Foreign Trade Department were found to have played a role in four government-to-government schemes.

Chutima said once the ministry has the document from the NACC, action will be taken within 30 days. Certainly not enought time to let the masses forget while the dust settles (which IS exactly what will happen). She said the maximum penalty for this could be dishonourable discharge. Once again "could" should be replaced with should. and they shalll not collect any pension or retirement benefits of any kind. What about paying back someor all of the losses from the windfall profits they all received? This WOULD happen in any civilized country!!!! Although too many cronies to protect and face saving here.

As for the retired official, he could face criminal and civil charges. And only this fellow? What about the others. Or are they like MP's and immune to any prosecution?

According to the NACC, individuals and companies found involved in this case will also face further investigation by the Customs and Revenue Departments.

The fraudulent deals were created to absorb the government's huge stockpiles of rice under the pledging scheme. In June 2011, former commerce minister Boonsong Teriyapirom announced that the ministry had struck government-to-government deals for 7.23 million tonnes of rice.

Meanwhile, the Finance Ministry has estimated that losses caused by the rice-pledging scheme could reach Bt682 billion as of the end of 2014. And no one is at fault or liable for this pillaging of the state coffers.

Rungson Sriworasat, permanent secretary at the Finance Ministry, said yesterday that the post-auditing committee for the scheme would speed up its task of checking the state's rice inventories. And to date how many "audits" of the stockpiles have been perfomred already????? And how much was reported as actually sellable????? And how much is rotten? And missing from the scaffolding voids???????

A report on the losses caused by the scheme will be reported to PM Prayut Chan-o-cha by February 15.

In addition, Boonsong said he was being made a prey in the political game, Same old song......different day. and that the actual aim was to impeach former prime minister Yingluck Shinawatra.

He added that the NACC should not put the entire blame for the Bt600 billion losses on Yingluck's government, Then who shall be blamed? as it did earn some money from selling the rice. He pointed out that the four contracts to sell the rice were worth Bt70.54 billion and that the ministry had already given the money earned from the rice sale to the Bank of Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives. Do they know this for sure? As they've already stated that the actual "purchaser" of the rice seemed to be cronies of these scum. IMHO I would think that the money went from the corrupt trail directly into all of YL's teams offshore accounts.

Same old garbage collected by the same old garbage collectors. Only on a different day this week.

My comments in red to specific selections from the article noted highlighted in blue.

Thank you, easy to read. I wish all OP's were as sensitive as you! Really!

Stolen goods will be confiscated by the state regardless if you pay full price for it or not.

It is your job to sue the person you bought it from.

Example: A stole a watch from a shop

B bought from A at full price (didn't know it was stolen).

A was arrested for straling the watch

B will have to return the watch to the shop, and not keep it even though he paid the full price.

Standard law! too bad so sad!

I don't get the OP's 'not wanting to question' the delivery men. My wife has no hesitation in asking questions or, if she wanted something like a mattress moving, asking the guys to do it. All very politely and nicely, of course, but I don't think 'face' comes into it.

As to learning the language, if/when I move here, I will certainly try to get some Thai under my belt. I live in Greece, and I know for a fact that my ability to deal with most things in the language makes life one hell of a lot easier, particularly when dealing with people in the government, even if they know how to speak English. The fact that I've made the effort to communicate in their own language (even though my Greek is not really very good) tends to make them much more inclined to help, rather than hinder. They see it as a compliment and as respect. I would have thought that the same would apply in Thailand.

no!

Since learning to understand conversational Thai I now have the pleasure of listen to my wife and her friends/family all constantly talk about how much they paid for everything and what is the best iPhone or tablet that is currently out, for hours on end, every time they meet up.

It was better before I realised how shallow, immature and petty they all are.

Maybe you just married the wrong lady and because you did not speak Thai before you never found out.

Maybe, but then no matter where I go I hear the exact same conversations all over Thailand, so maybe it's not just my wife's family.

The Thai prohibition on asking questions extends to directions when travelling, which counter at the airport, is that benzine you're putting in my car, are you sure that's what the doctor prescribed?