Always18

So it's denial to the bitter end ?

Almost every other country in the world would be throwing terrorism related charges around but LoS doesn't want to lose face by admitting such things could happen here unless it suits the agenda of the day.

Absolutely right.

The RTP/junta actually believe that the rest of the (tourist) world are so stupid that they can't recognise a terrorist act when it's staring them in the face...............

"Simply put, any country that ignores Thailand does so at it's own peril"

Quite laughable.............................

I'm having some difficulty understanding how "Thailand is now keen to join the............TPP Free Trade Agreement.........because it will boost trade" while, at the same time, Thailand will "reduce it's dependence on exports"?

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.....................

Is it just me, or does there always seem to be someone grinning or sharing a joke when we are presented with these dreadfully tragic images?

"Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha are sorry............" - OMG! - he's adopting the royal "we" now................

"An economic upturn" in Thailand - meanwhile, an "economic slowdown" in "foreign countries"...................

A combination of wishful thinking, forecasting claptrap and just plain old nationalistic cobblers.

Thai army manipulating the ordinary majority of Thais by "helping" them to "correctly" understand the political situation. Thi is a shame for Thailand. Taking advantage of the poor by undue influence.

Funny statement when you consider politicians have been doing this for years!

.....with a couple of minor differences - politicians are generally elected and unarmed, the military junta are most certainly not elected and are able to impose their will with all the firepower they choose............

There's not much that I see about this man to like. But I do like this. No Englishman being should ever be forced to kneel in obeisance before another.

No one is being "forced" to do anything of the sort.

This is a time-honoured and traditional way of a British subject showing that he respects the Sovereign's position as being that to which he swears to serve.

The one redeeming feature about this pathetic excuse for a man is that he will be the final nail in the coffin of the "socialist" movement in the UK.

I can sincerely say "I wish you all the best in your work, Jeremy"...................

Aaah, but does it withstand the thieving proclivities of the Thailand Post staff, I wonder?

I wonder - have you lost anything in your post?

Because - I have lost nothing at all and I had send more then 100 parcels in span of 20 years.

Everything has been delivered - 100%!

At the risk of gross repetition YES I have had numerous items stolen by Thailand Post employees - I even have incontrovertible proof of a local post man forging my wife's signature on TWO occasions.

The police were totally uninterested but after we made a formal complaint at the main post office, the provincial boss of Thailand Post came to our house and apologised - yes, apologised - for the thefts which he admitted he knew about but BEGGED ME not to think badly of Thailand Post since "not all employees are corrupt"!

Needless to say, no-one was sacked or even reprimanded over this - the boss's only concern was that I did not publicise their wholly dishonest and corrupt behaviour - which is why I do precisely that whenever I can..................

No problem then - if it comes from the mouth of the Thai junta, it must be true.....................

Aaah, but does it withstand the thieving proclivities of the Thailand Post staff, I wonder?

I think "Back to square one" in this region has unfortunate connotations of "Year Zero" but perhaps he only meant "Back to pre-1932"..........................

Drafting a charter for Thai-style democracy a challenge: Meechai

...a challenge to follow what the NCPO wants and yet make it look like real Democracy when in fact it couldn't be further from it.

The sad truth indeed - perhaps Khun Meechai could try putting lipstick on a pig and then attempt to convince everyone that it's Miss Thailand...................

Sounds suspiciously like they won't be funding an Audi F1 team then........................farewell Redbull/Toro Rosso?

In my experience,Thailand's most valuable "natural resources" originate from Isaan (I know, I married one!) - so I don't think a submarine would be of much use up here....................

"....in order to propagate Thai culture to the world".

Is the world ready for this I wonder...............

We never shared the same politics but I really enjoyed D.H.'s great British sense of humour - his self-deprecating "Silly Billy" catchphrase on a Christmas TV Special one year, in particular I think, showed his inner jollity.................

"He said that the Thai political situation is different from that of the other countries..........................."

Hence the need for a military coup, muzzling of the press, the draconian use of Lese Majeste laws to repress political opponents, the stifling of free speech and "attitude adjusting" - yes, it's all so clear now why that was urgently necessary..........................

The mystery deepens...................a bomber or just a botty problem?

Thai authorities admit to being baffled once again...............

The single gateway in itself isn't the problem as long as the bandwidth is there to support it. The problem is why do they want it, and more importantly what do they want t do with it. Choke points in the internet access provide paranoid regimes better points at which to examine, block and filter.

The Great Firewall of China is the best and most sophisticated of these regimes'

Here are some of the tricks China uses to censor its Internet:

DNS Poisoning:

When your try to connect to a website like twitter.com, your computer contacts its DNS servers and asks for the IP address associated with the website. If you receive an invalid response, you’ll look for the website at the wrong location and you won’t be able to connect. China intentionally poisons its DNS caches with wrong addresses for websites like Twitter, making them inaccessible. SOPA would have brought this technique to the USA.

Blocking Access to IPs:

China’s Great Firewall can also block access to certain IP addresses. For example, to prevent people from accessing Twitter’s servers even by accessing it directly at a certain IP or by using unofficial DNS servers that haven’t been poisoned, China could block access to the IP address of Twitter’s servers. This technique would also block other websites located at the same address if they’re using shared hosting.

Analyzing and Filtering URLs:

The firewall can scan URLs and block connections if they contain sensitive keywords. For example, Website Pulse shows us that http://en.wikipedia.org is accessible from within China, but http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_People’s_Republic_of_China is not accessible — the firewall is looking at the URL and deciding to block web pages that appear to be about Internet censorship.

Inspecting and Filtering Packets:

“Deep packet inspection” can be used to examine unencrypted packets, looking for sensitive content. For example, a search performed on a search engine may fail if you search for politically controversial keywords as the packets associated with the search are examined and blocked.

Resetting Connections:

There are indications that, after the Great Firewall blocks such packets, it will block communication between both computers for a period of time. The firewall does this by sending a “reset packet,” essentially lying to both computers and telling them that the connection was reset so they can’t talk to each other.

Blocking VPNs:

In late 2012, the Great Firewall started trying to block VPNs. VPNs were previously used to escape the Great Firewall. They’re also critical for many business users, so this was a surprising move. The firewall learns to identify what encrypted VPN traffic looks like and kills VPN connections.

This isn’t an exhaustive list — there isn’t complete transparency so we can’t know exactly how everything works.

All of that requires a large and fairly costly infrastructure and support mechanism. Given that we are here in Thailand, which struggles to keep the power on at the first clap of thunder, I'm somewhat skeptical of their ability to actually accomplish very much. What I'm more concerned about is that in their bungled attempts to actually do this, they further hobble the international connectivity out of the country.

It'll all probably happen about the same time as they eliminate Jetski scams, reform the RTP and dictate the price of Som Tam!

Thanks for that detailed response - I, for one, am now more informed about the mechanics of the proposal.................however, although I hope you are correct in your conclusions, the reality will be that in the intervening period, a substantial number of businesses, expats and their families/dependents (me included) will have deserted what appears to be a fatally wounded country................

"There is nothing to fear - this is just an essential tool of repression which we will use to international standards. Too much information can only lead to confusion and unhappiness but Nanny will protect you all from that".

"Construction workers..............dropped their tools................."

That would be the bamboo pole, the nail, the length of clear plastic tubing and the piece-of-string-with-the-stone-tied-to-it, I guess?

(............and yes, I am reminiscing about our own house construction!).

Yes, if any confirmation of our plans to return to live in the UK were needed - well, that's it.