billd766

What? And get those nice shiny APCs dirty and scratched.

I hope that people will forgive the length of this post as I am trying to debunk the post I have answered. You are correct at this point. However the reason that there was no effective government was that it had resigned to prepare for the upcoming election, so a caretaker government was in charge, Yingluck was still the defacto PM until she was removed. She was replaced by Niwatthamrong Boonsongpaisan who in turn was deposed on 22 May 2014 by a military coup lead by the current PM ably assisted by Suthep Thaugsuban The first Thaksin government won the peaceful 2001 election from the Democrats under Chuan Leekpai. The second Thaksin government was deposed in September 2006 by Sonthi Boonyaratglin in yet another military coup. He was replaced in October 2006 by yet another army general, Surayud Chulanont who was in power for just over a year. Then there was another election in which Samak Sundaravej became PM until he was forced to quit over a cooking scandal. He was followed by Somchai Wongsawat who was disenfranchised after 77 days, Chavarat Charnvirakul both Independents. Then there was yet another peaceful election won by the Democrats under Abhisit Vejjajiva who lasted 2 years and 231 days and who then held yet another peaceful election which Yingluck Shinawatra won. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-25116427 There were street protests, some violent led by Suthep Thaugsuban, a former Thai deputy prime minister, who had resigned from the opposition Democrat Party to lead protests aimed at dislodging Thailand's government. He was a deputy PM to The man described in a leaked US cable as a "backroom deal-maker" served as deputy to former PM Abhisit Vejjajiva from 2008-2011. It was their administration that authorised a crackdown on anti-government street protests by supporters of ousted leader Thaksin Shinawatra in Bangkok in 2010. More than 90 people, mostly civilian protesters, died over the course of the two-month action. Both Mr Suthep and Mr Abhisit face what they call politically-motivated murder charges over the deaths.

Would that also also apply to Hilary Clinton or Hunter Biden?

The same thing at my school in the 1950s. Nowadays with corporal punishment having been abolished I try to remember what it was like when I was a boy. I don't remember anything like the amount of robberies and street murders back then compared to the modern times of at least one murder a week of, or by school aged children, not to mention the senseless vandalism nowadays. Is there a link between the two? I really don't know. I remember being caught scrumping apples by a policeman and being taken to the owners house, getting clumped by the policemen and thinking how lucky I was not to get another from my Dad.

Is there an election coming soon?

Thank you. That was a very interesting link. I did a search for the Buffel which was a South African personnel carrier and that has been replaced by a newer model called the Mamba. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mamba_APC Apart from the APC role, the vehicle may also be used as an ambulance, a command vehicle, a VIP transport, or a logistics vehicle. Probably cheaper and more effective due to the Vee shaped hull containing the troop compartment. That hull diverts the landmine blast outwards and away from the troop compartment. There is yet a later version called the Nyala. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RG-31_Nyala The RG-31 Nyala is a 4×4 multi-purpose mine-resistant ambush protected infantry mobility vehicle manufactured in South Africa by Land Systems OMC (the division of Denel SOC LTD, located in Benoni, South Africa) and in Turkey by FNSS Defence Systems.[2] It is based on the Mamba APC of TFM Industries. The RG-31 has become the multi-purpose vehicle of choice of the UN and other peacekeeping and security forces. It is finding favour with non-governmental organisations requiring a vehicle with a non-aggressive appearance to protect their personnel against land mines.

Thank you.

I don't know, nor do I care. In all my 78 years I have never been a member of any political party and I am certainly not going to start now. Why don't you subsidise it if you are so concerned.

That isn't maintenance at all. Besides it gives the conscripts something to do. If you really want you can go for years without washing and polishing. If you don't maintain the vehicle properly it will breakdown at the most inconvenient place and time.

Nobody HAS to join any political party. It is their own choice, It is NOT compulsory to do so. I would love to help you out on this, but I didn't make that claim. I was simply responding to a post by Mac Mickmanus. You need to chase Mac Mickmanus for those figures.

One thing for sure is that they will be washed and polished to death.

No ASEAN country needs to invade Thailand, when they can buy it cheaply.

The problem is that the ultra poor hungry people with kids at school who are single and on benefits and with no telephone. They ARE the ones who are suffering the most and there are very many. I don't care about the 95 % of people who you claim are not in that predicament. They are not the ones who have the biggest problem, that of the survival of their children and themselves in a reasonable environment.

But you have to pay the 25 Pound per year in one lump at the beginning and that may be difficult for many people faced with tax rises, high fuel prices, higher electricity bills etc. Tell that to parents who need to buy school clothes. to parents who already go to food banks, to parents who skip 1 meal a day to make sure that their children can eat, to parents who have lost one or perhaps both wage earners, to pensioners who choose between heating and eating. To you, 25 Quid may not be a lot, but to very many people in the UK it IS a lot of money at one time.

Or a nightmare, if you are not one of the few privileged Thais.

Who will do the inspections and reports. The same crew as now?

And annually, plus random inspections in between. The drawback would be the punishment of the offenders. Who would be punished? Certainly not the real owners nor those people in brown suits collecting "protection money".

Any email addressavailable?

I have been digging deeper into some old recovered files and found an XLS file that I started back in 2013 and I have now started updating.

But how much more and what is required is what I am looking for from the Embassy. I am trying to find the embassy contact on the forum. I have a vague memory of it from a while ago. I think that the last time I talked to the embassy proper was before they stopped issuing the pension letters and before they sold the place off. I seriously doubt that they know how many Brits live in Thailand, their marital status, where we live or anything about us. Yet they need to know when we die for paperwork purposes.

Thank you. Is there a contact address on this sire for the Embassy. I have a vague memory of seeing it a while ago.

Thank you for that information. When my wife and my neighbour get back from our friends cremation in Udon Thani we will sit down and have a good talk about what, when, where and how. I will need to contact my UK bank, Wise, Plus Bangkok Bank and also Kasikorn Bank, and my 2 remaining pension providers about how to sort my wife's share of my pensions. I went down this road a few years ago with a friend on TVF who used to live in Jomtien. He moved to a small village outside Loei and we were to keep in touch, swapping details of what to do etc, and I have not heard from him since January this year. He was 84 or 85 and in poor health.

Thank you. Is there much of a delay do you think?

Thank you. Do you think that they will provide UK government assistancw to my Thai wife who is my Next of Kin?

Did he ever produce that evidence/documents to prove that he was right?