Acharn

another Thai 'man' viciously murdering his female partner in a fit of rage caused by jealousy.

They really, really, do have serious emotional and egotistical issues to battle, with more than a smidgen of repressed anger due to the culture and society.

So many are simply pitiful.

You really need to get out more. I often follow links to articles I'm interested in and find local news stations or newspapers that have a dozen stories about people who do the same stuff except in the U.S. This is just a tiny fraction of these events, which are so common they are not considered "news." In fact, for the most part, in the U.S. now if fewer than four people are killed it's not going to be reported at all. We have at least one of those a week and increasing. Oh, unless there's a Muslim involved, of course.

Close! It is actually Hugo Boss.

He also produced the Nazi uniforms.

Well, I guess if you're a clothing manufacturer, you manufacture clothing. I expect he was producing school uniforms and maybe bus drivers' uniforms and maybe street sweepers' uniforms at the same time. Oh, and suits. According to Wikipedia, the company produced the black uniforms adopted by the SS, the brown shirts worn by the SA, and the uniforms worn by Hitler Jugend. If you have a company that produces military uniforms, among other things, and you have a chance for a huge government contract that will be extremely profitable, do you pass it up?

"Varaporn - what on earth does that mean?"

Christ, that's rude. That's as bad as saying, "Hillary -- what on earth does that mean?" Since when have names in the West meant anything? Seventh, eighth century C.E.? Many years ago there was a Bob Newhart comedy bit where he was trying to get the operator to connect him to a number (really, many years ago) and he told the operator he was trying to call Sally Jones, "That's spelled J - O - A- N - apostrophe - S. It's not her fault, operator, her parents were illiterate."

As another commenter pointed out, Porn, or Pawn in an American spelling, means Blessing. No wonder she was pissod off at you.

if the story is true, than the poor man must be suffering, also his wife as they could not even afford to go to a hospital for the birth! it is a sad situation when the thai GOVERNMENT, let me say that again! the THAI government cannot make some kind of provision for the poor! outside of the 30 Baht scheme which was started by a previous overthrown gov't I have not seen anything else . The Thai people are a compassionate people, but they cannot do that alone! Instead of submarines, carriers without any planes, some of the money should be for the poor!

There are provisions outside of the 30 Baht hospital scheme but unfortunately all of the social welfare payments require the claimant to have, or to recently have had, a job, so they don't really help the poorest out at all.

There are compulsory pension payments taken from wages at 3% and topped up by another 1% by the government, resulting in a pension of 20% of the average wage earned.

Another 1.5% is taken from wages for sickness leave and this can turn into disability pension if the sickness continues, this is paid at a rate of 50% of average earnings, maternity pay is the same.

Another 0.5% of wages goes toward the social security fund and in cases of unemployment, benefit is paid at a rate of 50% of average earnings.

All families can claim Child Allowance of 350B per month per child under 6 and for a maximum of two children as long as they have made some social security fund payment in the last three years.

www.sso.go.th

Something forgotten here is that relatively few Thais work in salaried jobs that contribute to the Social Security fund. The vast majority still work at jobs where they are paid in cash by the day. I don't know where to look for statistics on how many Thais are covered by social security, but I'll bet it's still less than 20%.

I have a feeling this poor guy may be a bit retarded. Maybe his wife, too. Maybe more than a bit. I really don't believe there's some evil back story here. There are not very many government social workers.

He has moved from 1 good earner to another good earner.

Many men join the monkhood because it is easier to make money than working.

Do you have some kind of reference to back that up? Even the name of the Thai sewer worker who told you the story? It's not an "everybody knows" kind of thing. I'm sure some people join to get regular meals without the heavy lifting, but most monks don't make any money at it.The few who do, even those who carry Louis Vuitton purses on private jet flights, generally are not able to lead the high life. I mean, you always have to take the Armani suit off and put the yellow robes on again. It's not as if they can leave the office at 2:00 PM and head for the golf course. Or take their clients to the Q Club for an evening of ... well, come to think of it I don't have the faintest idea what goes on at the Q Club or the Narcissus or why anybody would want to go there.

He is in for a bumpy ride!

Obama has chosen the perfect guy to let them wail on. It will guarantee the Dems the win in the Senate (in Nov. election) if they oppose this guy.

I think he's the perfect guy because of the Republican threat. Which, BTW, I think the Dems would have threatened similarly if the shoe were on the other foot. I think the Republicans will move on this guy and the issue goes away. Either that or they've got a death wish.

I don't think the Dems would have refused to consider *ANY* nominee. At the same time, I don't think the Republicans are going to suffer for their scorched earth obstructionism. As another poster pointed out, they didn't suffer any harm for shutting the government down in 2013 and they haven't suffered any harm for any of their other obstruction. That's what their real base wants -- absolutely no cooperation with the hated enemy. If they allow Obama to appoint a moderate to SCOTUS that will delay their takeover until another Republican is President. The Powell Memorandum of 1973 is so, so close to fulfillment.

Immigration will not say if children will be included on a blacklist.

So what are children on overstay meant to do?

Oh dad we are on overstay, you stay in Thailand i am off, because i do not want to be on overstay.

I don't really read the story that way. The reporter apparently grabbed some random officer at Immigration (in Phuket?) and asked him if children were included, and he apparently replied something like, "What are you talking about? I don't know anything about it," and then the reporter wrote that he refused to confirm or deny that the report came from Immigration.

Why would kids under 14 care about being banned from Thailand for one year? If their parents are banned they aren't likely to want to make the trip themselves anyway.

In a civilised country this would be classified as blackmail, demand with menances.

But in Thailand it is just normal practice where every government authority makes, or believes they have the authority to make any decision they wish.

In a "civilized" country this would never be reported in any newspaper because it would reflect badly on the elite of the business community. Maybe it wouldn't be reported because it would be too common to even notice. At least here in Thailand the word gets out.

You don't indicate what kind of income you have, so I don't know if ฿600 a month is important to you. I use the 3BB ฿590/mo (฿631 w/ VAT) in Nakhon Sawan. I'm satisfied with it. Occasionally I'll have a hiccough when streaming, but most of what I view on the internet is text anyway, so it's not a big deal. I'm retired and living on my Army pension and Social Security, more than the minimum needed to renew my visa, but not much more. I decided the extra benefit of a little more speed wasn't worth paying an extra ฿600.

I dont agree with this but fight fire with fire , that is all arabs understand.

This is a very obscure and baffling statement. What don't you agree with? What Arabs are you talking about? Turks are not Arabs, Kurds are not Arabs, Turkmen are not Arabs. Turkey has been aiding ISIS for many months now, buying oil from them, allowing Saudi Arabia and Qatar to send weapons to them through Turkey, even reportedly facilitating movement of ISIS fighters through Turkish territory from one front to another to fight the Kurds. I suspect the Turkish intelligence agency of doing this in order to place the blame on the PKK, but we will probably never know unless ISIS steps up and claims the responsibility. Not clear why they would damage Turkey this way at this time, since they need all the help Turkey's been giving them. My money's on the false flag operation to stir up the Turkish public, since Erdogan and the generals have been making noises about invading Northern Iraq and they might need an excuse.

And the current head of DSI? Do we know about finances of key players in current in power group?

You're getting ahead of yourself. That comes after the next coup. At least two more years.

You know what this country needs? Accountants.

In my misspent youth I was an accountant. The big advantage of having accountants is they can make anything look legal.

The horrors, the audacity, the flagrant flaunting of the rules, the dishonesty... hang on a minute... I forgot

that this is Thailand.... transfer to inactive post with full pay.....

This is a common patrolman, not a colonel or above. They don't have inactive posts for common patrolmen. He'll be transferred to another district.

I used to drive from Phanat Nikhom to Chantaburi to pick up produce to take and sell in the market at Sattahip. Especially during the turian season, there were about half a dozen regular road blocks along the route. Trucks, including pick-up trucks, were shunted into a queue, passenger cars were waved through. Standard toll was, IIRC, twenty baht, although I think there was one time I got hit for fifty. Sometimes the cops would wave me on, presumably because I was a farang. My wife said it was just the normal cost of doing business.

Actually tap water in Bangkok is safe to drink and has been for decades. That does not rule out local contamination but even that is much less likely than previously as most pipes have been replaced and pressure increase. I meter to test RO process is only about 150 baht on Ebay (search TDS meter) - mine shows a difference of Bangkok tap at about 160 and after RO about 11.

I drank the tap water in Bangkok for almost twenty years. Thai people kept telling me it was unsafe, but I never had a problem. When I lived in the boonies in Nakhorn Ratchasima province back in 1982 we got our water from a pond the buffalo used to lounge in. I'm not sure if we boiled it or not, but I figured that if I could survive that there wasn't any reason to worry about tap water. I'm convinced the bottled water is a scam, anyway. From time to time samples are tested and found to be more impure than the tap water.

dont think you are going to be able to retire here, do you want to go and get 90 day stamps and 1 year visa renewals every year when you are over 65 ,and hassle now only gets worst as you get older i know a bunch of 80+ guys i have to help out every time. second thing as you kids get to employment age 18 THERE ARE NO OPPORTUNITIES HERE FOR YOUNG PEOPLE, you will have to send them back to your home country. education forget the public schools here might as well as home school or international school . schools should not even be called schools they just turn on the T.V. and let the students watch . Now that you know that make the land an investment to give you and your wife in 18 years <deleted> you money where you can leave with your kids and get them opportunities to live a happy ,prospers life . so you want land that has location main roads where the growth is coming, the Chinese in the next 18 years are going to colonize this place with or without the Thai's permission money exchanges hand at the bank then registered at local land office good luck

Jeebus, if you hate it so much why are you here? I don't mind the 90-day notice and the annual extension was never a hassle until after they kicked Thaksin out. I've been doing the annual extension for 33 years, and the 90 day notification since 1998 or whenever it was they started enforcing the law. As for opportunities here for young people, what would you know about it? You certainly know nothing about what goes on in the schools. Am I going to need help after I'm 80, two years from now? I sure hope I never have to depend on anyone with an attitude like yours.

"Pornchai Jitnawasatien, the president of the Chiang Mai Tourism Business Association, director and deputy director of Chiang Mai zipline group,

Santi Pitikham and Nawapon Kantawanich and the media were invited as guests of honor at the opening of the Eagle Track Zipline."

Did they take a test ride?

And do they know anything at all about the safety aspects of such equipment?

Somebody should offer them a free tour trip to North Korea.

Never have I seen a place where lawyers are so crooked as Phuket. They have to clean up this mess with one swipe and enforce proper rules and build trust over time but I doubt it's gonna happen.

And the ridiculous statement that they need to crack down on illegal nominees in order to enforce tax payments? These nominees are not used to evade taxes. They are used because the business owner otherwise can't conduct business at all unless they have some other Thais who can join the business and hold 51%. If you remove the possibility of these nominees then what you really end up with is foreigners working illegally and paying NO TAX whatsoever apart from bribes to the BIB.

If you want more revenue then you need to incetivize company formations and not crack down on companies who try to operate despite the stupid roadblocks.

Look at successful economies like most western countries or Hong Kong, Singapore etc. They make it extremely easy to open and operate a business, let foreigners own 100% of the shares and don't have idiotic rules like 4 locals for each foreign employee. Clear rules, ease of doing business, honest lawyers and courts plus a sensible tax system is all it takes. But hey, why copy a proven and successful model when you can just mess around and muck things up real good?

You may be right that they would gain more revenue by making it easier for foreigners to run their own companies, but I suspect you don't know very much about Thai history. Like China, although Thailand wasn't actually invaded and occupied, they did have to accept what were called "unequal treaties," which provided that foreign residents were not subject to Siamese law but in any disputes the Thai would have to accept the jurisdiction of a foreign court set up in Bangkok. Of course few Thais knew anything about European legal procedures. Then there were cases of foreign companies using the threat of invasion to coerce the government into granting them "concessions" for timber cutting and mining. That has a lot to do with why the revolutionary government, especially during the periods when Phibul Songkhram was Prime Minister. He was also surrounded by reactionaries and ultra-nationalists who thought the Japanese ides of an East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere would be wonderful. There was a lot of support among the anti-monarchists to ally with Japan even before the incursion in December 1941. So given this background and the paranoia it engendered among the highest ranks of the nobility it might be understandable why they would not want to let foreigners prosper too much in the country they regard as their own.

these people are Tenants?? why put yourself tho all this stress etc.....walk away or loose a fortune and then end up with nothing ...this is thailand YOU WILL NEVER WIN ANYTHING

Are these guys newbies? Somebody should step in and explain to them how things work here. Basically your on your own especially if your a foreigner. I often wonder what governors do here? Who do they represent besides themselves? Ah yes the moneyed gentry slipped my mind.

Who do governors represent? What a strange question. They represent the government, of course. They are appointed by the government (presumably some committee of high-ranking kharachakans in the Department of the Interior). Although they often will help well-placed citizens of their province, their main duties are to keep an eye on tax revenues and try to keep corruption within limits acceptable to Thais. Their interests do not include representing citizens in disputes, especially foreigners who have failed to seek out and follow good advice. By the way, there have been suggestions with every new Constitution that perhaps governors would be more interested in helping the local citizens if they were elected. Of course, the idea is laughed out of town by all right-thinking people until the next coup.

Lots of local fools are going to flock to temples or Brahmin shrines and pray tomorrow, because whatever science says they are still convinced that a demon called Rahu is devouring the sun and that Rahu's appetite will spell doom for Thailand.

Funny, none of the Thais I know think that. They might go to the temple, but just because it's a fun social occasion. If you know Thai people who are telling you that I suspect they're pulling your leg and laughing at how dumb crazy farangs are.

Get the facts right; this compound cannot have been dated 16th/17th century B(efore) C(hist) as the Khmer empire itself itself had its heydays +/- 1'000 years ago; otherwise Muang Tam would predate Rome

Muang Tam was built about 100 years after the Khao Panom Rung Castle some 5 kilometers up the mountain (volcano). So it dates from the late 12th century AD. My best friend and trustee (Folke) for our foundation lives directly behind the Muang Tam. Great quiet place to visit, small village atmosphere, friendly people.

OK, Phanom Rung I recognize. That's one of the few places I really, really want to visit. But that's a temple. Why are they calling these places "castles." Don't they know that castles are fortifications used in warfare? I am aware that even educated Thais have serious gaps in their knowledge of foreign languages and cultures, but castles are mostly not fantasy palaces like the Disney Fantasyland Castle (based on the Bavarian palace of Neuschwanstein, which I was able to visit). Ah well, if this is the most important complaint I have today it will have been a good day.

does "government" include "military"?

Probably not. And then there's Article 44.

This guy, Fethullah Gulen, is strange. He runs a cult in the U.S. now, that operates at least 120 charter schools. He's been accused of working for the CIA. I don't have any love for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who supports ISIS and apparently plans to invade Iraq to rebuild the Ottoman (Turk) Empire, but I'm tired of CIA "regime change." It never ends well.

Guys...... could it be that the woman was an honest woman in love with her husband?

RIP the lady.

I didn't see any comments prior to yours that suggested otherwise (I expect many will come later). In this case it would probably be easier for the police if she had been a loan shark. As it is, there doesn't seem to be a handle for them to start with.

I have mixed feelings about him. He's extremely popular because he brings out the little guy's side of the news. I like that. But he's also a shameless self-promoter. I never liked that. Also, what's with the young women sidekicks? They seem to leave and be replaced without any comment or explanation.

"pay for sex"?! We all do.. Directly or.. Indirectly. A really stupid idea coming from London. Better yet.. Tax sex! Don't they have more important things to think about.!

No we don't all pay

for sex. I certainly

don't....directly or

otherwise.

Oh really? So this must mean you never had sex?!

I think this means he takes care of himself. Nothing wrong with masturbation. I've had some really bad sex with a partner.