reallyok

I echo BkkJames. Pressure on pilots must be great. In dodgy conditions, extra fuel is used to divert or 'go round again & have another try'. Airlines are in cut-throat competition. Extra fuel may be the differance b/ween profit & loss. Pilots who do not land first try - do they get a black mark, or lose a fuel economy bonus? If you want to see how many aircraft land in severe weather, Google YouTube, 'cross-wind landings'. It's frightening.

Most of the time, most pilots get away with it, but it is still dangerous. As far as I know, the rule is that air traffic control informs pilots of local landing conditions, then it is up to the pilot to decide whether to land or not. Cop-out! ATC should know if landing conditions are dangerous or not. THEY should decide whether to close down an airfield.

I suspect airfield operators don't want to carry the decision can. I also suspect the insurance companies find it cheaper to lay the blame on 'pilot error' when an accident occurs. WRONG: the first priority should be passenger safety. This is not a Thai problem, it's global.

You get what you pay for. Cheapo airlines must trim their budgets somewhere. If you save $100 & end up dead, don't blame the pilot. Remember the BA plane that recently landed short at Heathrow, or the similar incident at Schipol?

My deep sympathy goes to the family of this dead pilot. He was very experienced. I only hope he doesn't get unfairly condemned. OldgitTom

Not sure what you are saying OLDGIT. But its generally more expensive to fly BKK - SAMUI with Bangkok Air or Siem Riep air. They just ain't one of the cut price airlines.

Update: -- Samui air crash cause to be known in one month

BANGKOK: -- The result of the investigation of Tuesday's Bangkok Airways plane crash on Samui island may be known within a month, Deputy Permanent Secretary for Transport Chaisak Angkasuwan said Wednesday.

Mr Chaisak and Transport Minister Sophon Zarum inspected the site where the Bangkok Airways plane skidded off a Samui Airport runway and crashed into an old air control tower.

Officials finished collecting relevant evidence and the airport will resume its operations at 1 pm Wednesday.

Mr Chaisak said it may be about one month for investigators to determine the cause of the accident from the black box and the pilots' voice record. The co-pilot who survived the accident will be debriefed after he recovers.

The transport official said he believed the investigation will not take nearly a year as in the One-Two-Go air crash at Phuket International Airport two years ago.

The cause of the incident may relate to bad weather, human error, or a defective engine part, he said. More investigation is needed to determine the cause of the accident.

The Aircraft Accident Investigation Committee is considering sending the black box of the aircraft for decoding in France and a rapid investigative result as the ATR 72 aircraft was manufactured there, said Kannika Khemawuthanont, Director-General of Thailand's Civil Aviation Department.

The black box of the One-Two-Go aircraft was sent to the US for investigation, she added.

Meanwhile, Ruangnam Jaikwang, chairman of the Southeastern Thai Hotel Association, said he was confident that Tuesday's plane crash would not affect tourism on Samui island.

Mr Ruangnam said he believed tourists would understand that the crash was an unexpected accident.

The Bangkok Airways on Wednesday provided ferries for about 200 stranded ticket holders from the island to the mainland to take the plane at Surat Thani Airport.

-- TNA 2009-08-05

FOFLMAO.....................Mr Ruangnam, how many accidents do you expect to happen ..... lololol

Hello all,

the first commercial plane has landed in Samui at about 14.35 and just now the first Airbus of Bangkok Airways has landed and is taxiing to the apron.

So Samui Airport seems to be open again.

Regards

Carlos

Hey Carlos .............have you heard any news of a cheque from FOX NEWS yet.........lololololol

I'll have a Chang thanks !

I will not re-think that for a nanosecond. On 21 November 1990, a Bangkok Airways de Havilland Canada DHC-8-103 crashed on Koh Samui while attempting to land in heavy rain and high winds. All 38 people on board perished. That has been their only serious accident to date. The two other accidents they had in the past 30 years resulted on one fatality. Not bad. They are an excellent airline, with good equipment, and an excellent safety record. However, they had no business landing in that weather. Apparently, Samui is subject to wind shear, and the wind was really gusting at that time. They should have either stayed in the air, and circled the airport until things calmed down, which it did 30 minutes later, or they should have landed in Surat Thani, and waited out the storm.

I totally agree with you and whilst our thoughts are with the pilot and his family at this very sad time why is it that pilots still try to land planes when weather conditions are so dangerous.

Conditions so dangerous!!!

A current pilot with Dragonair stated , yesterday that this aircraft was landing behind another aircraft and would have listened for the pilot of that aircraft immediately in front of him for reporting on conditions. When the first aircraft landed saftely there was no reason to assume that conditions were dangerous so continued his approach.

A witness to the whole accident stated that the second aircraft had landed and about 300 metres into the landing , the aircraft suddenly swung to the left.

The dragonair pilot says that its possible that the right hand brake could have failed or that the left hand brake could have gripped if the right hand wheel had bounced thus slewing the aircraft around suddenly. There could also be the question of sudden windshear.

So in conclusion i don't think that we should be prepared to blame the pilot at this stage.

It is just not right, to all you experts please consider his family and stop pre empting the investigators .

And thank you stuart8 ( the dragon air pilot).....

A death sentence possible for carrying heroin ?

That is madness compared to the sentences for other crimes

which take lives directly like murder and arson.

Except for selling to a minor, drugs should be legal with the personal consequences

of use the responsibility of the user just as it is for alcohol & tobacco.

But the politicians do not want to give up their gravy train;

arrests, prosecution, prisons, parole monitoring, and graft/payoffs.

Very discouraging thinking about how it is right now.

Hopefully, the future will be more enlightened.

paulfr is a fool.......generally murder and arson is a 'one-off' whereas drug trafficking goes on forever. Just think of the hunderds, maybe thousands who get those drugs and are hooked and wasted forever, so many wasted lives.

wake up paulfr!

Hooray for the guy who escaped the clutches of these Thai cop maniacs with their idiotic war on drugs.

----------------

We're Losing the Drug War Because Prohibition Never Works

By Hodding Carter III.

this is by far one of the best articles I read on the subject. Yes drug kills and the idiot who was carrying it should be prosecuted, but maybe we are creating the system that entertains this. With this guy, we have only caught an idiot who lost the plot when he became himself a victim and the system we have in place pushed him later on to become a mule to feed his addiction, but we have not stopped the real criminals organising it at a higher level, and we won't be able to touch them.

the result, a lost family in Australia, or a least a young girl who will suffer from it, a guy who was too stupid to see what he was doing and now will have the time to regret it, a terrible cost to all, family, friends, state and tax payers, and a bunch of morons who enjoy the fact that this guy is going to suffer... what a positive outcome...

I am sure there is better than this to be done, informing potential users of the risks has probably a greater chance of success, and let those who ignore the warning suffer from it, like those who still smoke today...

I wonder if amongst those who wish him to die in jail, some do smoke? Shouldn't they get a life sentence for poisoning the atmosphere and making smoking look good and perfectly acceptable in front of young kids who as a result might pick up the habit... aren't they contributing to kill more people that way? Yes certainly but it is legal...

flg

To be perfectly honest, i really doubt if he cared a "rats ass" about his daughter in oz. But thought that it would pull some heart strings and help him in his defence. The bastard deserves what he gets as i have seen the damage and heartbreak that low life like him can cause by bringing it into the country.

I dont care a dam_n at what level he operates, they are all scum and should all be given the same treatment. Lets stop all this b/s about " he was only a poor mule" No one, having been caught 'redhanded' should be given a reprieve.

Eliminate them !

A death sentence possible for carrying heroin ?

That is madness compared to the sentences for other crimes

which take lives directly like murder and arson.

Except for selling to a minor, drugs should be legal with the personal consequences

of use the responsibility of the user just as it is for alcohol & tobacco.

But the politicians do not want to give up their gravy train;

arrests, prosecution, prisons, parole monitoring, and graft/payoffs.

Very discouraging thinking about how it is right now.

Hopefully, the future will be more enlightened.

AND ! they shoot the bastards without trial if caught about to traffic drugs to my country .......Australia ! or anywhere else in fact.

Execution is now by lethal injection. What was this silly fool thinking??? Australia's airports have some of the toughest security measures in the world.They've even made a TV series about it. He never saw the show??? I dont believe it. Every passenger coming off a flight from Asia or Sth America must walk past one of the little sniffer dogs in the baggage hall. Impossible to avoid them because officials are watching you. He was never ever going to get through. Zero chance particularly a flight from Bangkok which is probably the NO 1 watch flight for customs officials. Incredible.

Hi Jalan..... what really confuses me, is how did his partner manage to escape.

After having passed immigration and entered the departure lounge, how in the hel_l can one escape , and where to ????? ..........tea money perhaps !

I've had the chance to spend quite a lot of time at Lumpini Station this last year, as I have thai friends who work there. I will say, I have heard several reports of people (mostly older male sex tourists ) who take a 'time share' girl from the street, go back to their room, open a beer, go to take a shower and when they come out, finish their beer (which they stupidly left open and unattended ). They usually say they woke up in the morning with their apartment, condo, what ever ransacked with their cash, laptop, ATM cards, wallets all missing. However I have never seen nor even heard about a single verified case where a "valid tourist" got drugged and was stolen from in the manner of the O/P's story.

I've seen and heard a plethora of typical run of the mill reports; miscellaneous theft, purse snatchings, wallets and/or cash pick pocketed, lost passports, ATM cards, etc. In reality other than the miscreants I mentioned earlier, I have witnessed very few of the "I've been drugged/mugged" contingent which another posters alleges reports in to Lumpini Station on a daily basis. Perhaps I am not as observant as I should be , or perhaps I am not there at the right time of day/nite, but sorry to burst the bubble of paranoia you seem to live in, I just haven't seen it.

In fact, most of the people who come thru Lumpini Station are there due to circumstances of their own making. Whether it is due to extremely poor choices they made, that they didn't use basic common sense, and/or just that they were under the misunderstanding that coming from a first world country gives them some special privileges here in the "Land 'O Thais" to run amok and not suffer the consequences (just an FYI; country of origin does not give you special privileges here, sorry ).

I always warn people vacationing here; if ANYONE approaches them and speaks english first, no matter that persons race, creed or color, it is in all probability and likelihood a scam. This being thailand (last time I checked anyway), pulling anything resembling semi-cohesive engrish out of the native inhabitants is difficult in the best of times and down right impossible in the worst of them. I have rarely met a nationality of people more reticent to speak even basic english. Warning bells should immediately go off if you are approached by someone, and if engrish is the first language out of their mouth

I have found on a whole; if you keep your wits about you, if you exhibit basic common sense, along with common courtesy, and if you have even half a clue (I don't feel a full clue is necessary ), you'll come out way ahead in the 'scams' which unfortunately do occur here. With that being said, I don't believe they occur here more or less than other countries.

Sorry, this one sounds like another "Urban Legend" type story to me. ..

Keep your wits about you..........Good advice.

A couple of years back on a visit to Samui i decided to hop on the motorbike and drive around the island.

Put my mini knapsack into the front basket and rode away. After a while , looking into my rear vision mirrors i noticed a couple of youths tagging me so kept an eye on them. They suddenly sped up close alongside me, the one on the back reached over put his arm through the knapsack strap and grabbed it.

I hit my brakes and they both were ripped off into the road Bleeding and grazed i think that one was knocked out. You see i had fixed my bag to the basket with a little hook!

I then gave them the middle finger greeting and said .............dont meddle with Skippy again idiots and rode of leaving them lying in the middle of the road.

I have often wondered how many times they had done that trick before they met with me , and if they ever did it again.

Er, mahtin, did they drug you and mug you? If not, <deleted> was your post about? (I let one person reply and look what they said, valuable contribution mahtin, f'sure).

Sorry to interrupt your hijack

No need to apologise my friend. May I ask you if you find the same inconsistencies that I do in the OP? Or anyone else for that matter?

Truth stranger than fiction etc etc, but bashing Thailand for the sake of 'it's easy enough to do' particularly in the current climate, I don't like.

Hijack? 1st time for everything!

Never mind BeerChang...............I expect it makes great educational reading for the uneducated masses who read the British tabloids !

Perhaps its a good thing as it will frighten them away from BKK

Yes, I would really like to know what kind of drug that is and where I can get some.

OMG !

Sukumvit Road of course.............urry up or it will all be gone .

Yes Stuart8 i understand your post. But surely there is a difference between "Training" and "Experiencing" . I would have thought that the 2nd pilot would have to be fully trained before he got his licence to fly passenger planes, and then he gets the experience, often flying smaller aircraft etc.

Only guesswork on my behalf, but i am thinking of taking the train the next time. lolololol

Believe me the most dangerous situation is where you have two senior captains flying together: 'Oh! I thought you had control'

Indeed the 2nd pilot is fully trained and fully licenced on the aircraft type. Experience is another thing entirely. The captain will fly the approach if the weather conditions are marginal. The safety of the passengers is always top priority. Where the copilot needs the experience of a difficult approach it will always be only with a senior training captain where he is monitored very carefully. Normal line captains cannot allow a copilot to fly the approach in difficult conditions.

Flying is generally very safe. You will hear about it if it is not! Your train on the other hand ...

Just kidding Stuart8. I love flying ever since my first long haul in an old Avro York back in the early 50's .

Colombo-London, 8000ft all the way, stopped every night, took about 5 days ! Flight deck crew 5. Cabin staff 2 full completment of passengers 26.

These days i fly a microlight for fun. (seat of the pants)

I am still a little worried as i thought it was safer to fly to Samui rather than take the VIP Coach !

A passenger aircraft crashes anywhere in the world and we all hear about it. How many coach crashes, or car crashes, are there that we never hear about?

I am now in the UK but I heard about this crash. It is even on the BBC news. I wouldn't expect to hear if your VIP coach crashed though!

Hi Stuart8 ..............about the VIP Coach, all said with "tongue in cheek". But that mode of transport can be very 'hairy' in Thailand, especially when two of them are racing two abreast for the next blind bend.............believe it !

Interesting, but in response to your last statement, the deceased captain had just under 20 years experience with the airline and I find it hard to believe he would have entrusted the aircraft to a more junior officer in the interest of pilot training.

Mate, Senior Pilots have to train new Pilots under ALL conditions - otherwise how do they learn ? A Pilot of 20 years would be considered very much as Senior, and as such, could have possibly been training a new Pilot.

I am NOT saying that is definitely the case here, but, a possibility.

I do see where you're coming from and yeah you're right, we can only offer conjecture with very limited facts and will never know the truth no doubt. I'm just astonished that in similar circumstances around the world when things would appear to be going out of control that the master controls would be left in the hands of someone so inexperienced. As you said though, all conditions. I see where you're coming from.

One thing all the TV reports do appear to be showing in their reconstructions of the accident is that the plane veered off the runway after landing. Surely this would be an issue with water on the tarmac no?

Can a wind shear affect a craft after is has landed? Only going on what I have seen on Thai TV.

Looks very very reminiscent of the Phuket crash this.

There appears to be a lot of uninformed conjecture on this thread. Speculation is fine but there are comments of opinion being stated as apparent fact.

The captain will fly the approach if conditons are expected to be difficult. For example the old Kai Tak approach in Hong Kong was captains only for many airlines. Not for Dragonair though where pilots often flew two appraoches a day and were very familiar with it. Similarly if the weather conditions are considered marginal for the approach the captain will fly the approach. In this case the conditions seemed to have caught the crew out - otherwise they would have gone around, waited for an improvement or diverted to Phuket. The passengers safety is always top priority.

By the way there are no 'master controls'. The aircraft have dual indentical controls.

Yes Stuart8 i understand your post. But surely there is a difference between "Training" and "Experiencing" . I would have thought that the 2nd pilot would have to be fully trained before he got his licence to fly passenger planes, and then he gets the experience, often flying smaller aircraft etc.

Only guesswork on my behalf, but i am thinking of taking the train the next time. lolololol

I do see where you're coming from and yeah you're right, we can only offer conjecture with very limited facts and will never know the truth no doubt. I'm just astonished that in similar circumstances around the world when things would appear to be going out of control that the master controls would be left in the hands of someone so inexperienced. As you said though, all conditions. I see where you're coming from.

The command of the aircraft is ALWAYS under the control of the senior Pilot.

new Pilots have to be trained in all conditions for all the airports they will be landing at. Simple stuff really. Anyway, it is not revealed that any training was involved at this stage. I just mentioned it as a possibility.

Why not ask Stuart8 his feelings on this one seeing as he is aircrew with Dragonair ???

I am still a little worried as i thought it was safer to fly to Samui rather than take the VIP Coach !

Interesting, but in response to your last statement, the deceased captain had just under 20 years experience with the airline and I find it hard to believe he would have entrusted the aircraft to a more junior officer in the interest of pilot training.

Mate, Senior Pilots have to train new Pilots under ALL conditions - otherwise how do they learn ? A Pilot of 20 years would be considered very much as Senior, and as such, could have possibly been training a new Pilot.

I am NOT saying that is definitely the case here, but, a possibility.

WOW! I am quite distressed to learn that senior pilots actually train junior pilots to land in potentially dangerous conditions whilst they have got a cabin full of unsuspecting passengers.

I don't know about the rest but really don't think that QANTAS would allow such training exercises.

They have chosen to break the laws of the people and rightly so have no say in what happens to them. The majority of prisoners are young men and therefore should be last on the list to receive medicine for swine flu.

\

More than 70% of all the 5,000 prisoners in Bangkok Special Prison are awaiting court and judgment.

They have NOT been sentenced and have NOT been given any chance to prove or show their innocence.

This can take years with the system here.

I seriously believe someone is innocent until proven guilty, but it seems your judgment is just to kill them all if their unfortunate enough to be waiting their court case in jail.

Which Embassy do you work for ?

Yes its sad i know Satayu, but some such as Barry have their own sickness to cope with, hate is obviously amongst the symptons.

If the latter is through, and foreigners do have to pay for their medication, the Thai government would be guilty (and not for the first time) of manslaughter in case someone dies, whose dead could have been prevented if medicines were supplied. I suppose that the International Red Cross will discuss these kind of issues with the Thai government.

If life saving or potential life saving medicines are withheld from any person in the kingdom for the reason of payment, the Thai authorities are in serious breach of their international obligation.

I can't however imagine that this is the case. It is far more likely that there simply are no medicines available at all. Not for Thai prisoners, not for foreigners and unfortunately also not for visitors and guards who will mingle with regular citizens. Prisoners are worth nothing in thailand unless they get attention from foreign media in such case the angry outside world and the lingering loss of face is mostly enough to get the Thai governments going.

Sure, other countries like UK, US of aids and hundreds more torture and kill people for fun, none of the guy's in Bang-Kwan are sitting innocent, tell me, been there done that!! so what the hel_l the heroine they wanted to smuggle could kill, the people they raped, killed, slaugthered, <deleted> them?? no you chose to get the risk to end up there, the sigh on entering the country warns you that trafficing can cost your life, why would they get help on humanity while our western governments kill in name of GOD???

Dutchpad....................I am not sure what your sickness is, but it certainly ain't Swine Fever.

you've all seen them on menus etc. just share them here in this topic! These are a couple I still remember:

- 8 years ago on Koh Phangan I saw a small pharmacy with a big sign outside saying: "first AIDS" instead of first AID!

- on Samui I saw a Thai woman named "Nut" (similar sound as in "good" or "food") opening a small massage shop which said on the window: "nut massage", I guess she had a lot of male customers, lol.

- in a menu I once saw: "crap dip" instead of "crab dip"

- the most puzzling one in a menu was: "fired swamp" which turned out to be "fried shrimp"

- and a local minimart in Kanchanaburi had a terrific sign saying: "buy 2 get one 1" (probably forgot to add "for free" hahaha)

hope u guys can share some!!!

WOW!!! my G/F has a massage business on Cheong Mon beach at Honey bungalows!

Her name is NUT ( Noot)

Perhaps it was her lolololol

Henryalleyman: "..BTW what have been the benefits for the native Americans and Australians of the so called multiculturalism? ..."

Wool blankets, iron axeheads, steel knives, metal cooking pots, glass beads......

But also: Science. Education. Medicine. Philosopy....

PLUS a fortnightly pay cheque with which to buy grog and sit on the river bank and get pissed before the kids get fed!

My Dad is a Pacific Islander, my mum, a blue-eyed blonde Aussie; Getting married in Sydney in the early 1960's must have been quite brave of them. There was not alot of mixed race marriages back in those days.....racial tensions in the US were peaking.

Then growing up in Fiji, then New Zealand, both countries being multi-cultural....I am the product of multiculturalism, therefore a champion of it.

Xenophobics will always stymie multiculturalism, and there is no swaying the xenophobics. Xenophobes, by definition, are afraid of differences and are narrow minded, thus they will never listen to reason.

Therefore, to consider whether multiculturalism is a good thing, perhaps we need to look at all the reasons that the xenophobes would cite against it.......

......

What's a xenophobic Harcourt? Do you mean somebody who loves their country and believes that anybody who comes to live in their country should integrate? Australia has the right idea, "Integrate and adopt our ways or fuc_k off back to where you came from"

Brigante7.

Is that the 'White Australia' policy?

"Australia has the right idea, "Integrate and adopt our ways or fuc_k off back to where you came from"

Whose ways? Presumably you're willing to fuc_k off back off to the UK and to leave the original inhabitants of Australia the land that they live in?

WRONG again !!

The Australian aboriginal population of today are NOT the original inhabitants of Australia. They were wiped out by the ancestors of todays aboriginals who incidentially came down from New Guinea.

The "white Australia policy" was a known policy whereby coloured migrants were not encouraged.

It does not exist today and has not for many years now !

But when you have an massive import of millions with total different values and background who refuse and even reject the values of the leadig culture and political and religious system, you will have great problems because they just don't mingle in the society but contrary they try to enforce their values upon the leading culture and change the rules in their benefit and values.

Europe is a perfect example of this

So in this way multiculturalism is a curse.

Errrrr, as I have pointed out a couple of times, earlier, multi-culturalism is not only natural, it is inevitable. We came from common ancestorss, but have migrated, mixed, migrated again...........do you really want to stop the clock, and to say that the only acceptable cultures are the ones that exist now? And that they should never, ever change?

Sorry mate. In Australia, we call that "pissing against the wind".

PS: the great so called American melting pot is an hoax, but TV is not the place to discus this in detail.

Oooh, come on. Tell us your conspiracy theory.

You are mixing up thinghs. A society and culture will always undergoing changes, has nothing to do with multiculturalism.

Oooh, come on. Tell us your conspiracy theory.

A good example of the hoax is the Simpson trial where a part of the population, despite all evidence protected a killer. And if you are familiar with the American society you would know that each etnic group have ther on sub culture and that intersocial relations between the different etnic groups are almost non existant, they even live in their own parts of town. This is BTW the same in Europe;

BTW what have been the benefits for the native Americans and Australians of the so called multiculturalism?

The native Australians are doing very well, thank you. So its better that you don't talk about things that you know very little about.

Multi culturalism in the UK is a faliure.. pure and simple.. It has prevented people from intergrating into their adopted home and has caused the indiginous people to loose their own culural values and history..

I've been an immigrant/migrant four times in my life.. I've maintained my own identity but have gained insight, language and valuble experience from each country I have lived in..

As a kid in the US everybody no matter what their background/religion/colour etc was encouraged to be 'American' The same in Australia.. But what has happened in the UK has turned out a generation of ethinic groups who have no attachment to the UK and children born there to 'foreign' parents haven't a clue what being British means.. Likewise British kids aren't taught about their history as the apologists have eradicated it from the cariculum and pride in their country's past is thought off as evil and racist...

If you want to see 'multiculturalism' working .. Go to Singapore.. Four races..All Singaporeans.. No apologists or positive discrimination but a lot of cultural identity, culture and pride.

nonsense that is. notwithstanding that england is a multicultural country by default, the english being a mongrel race of other cultures such as french, viking scandiwegian, german, irish, welsh and sundry other nationalities, multi-culturalism has led to the UK being one of the most tolerant nations on earth which offers reasonably equal opportunity to any person regardless of race, religion, gender, sexuality or anything else. which is not to mention the massive positive impacts which have been had on music, art, literature. . . .

countries only 'lose their cultural values and history' if they let themselves, otherwise that's what history books are for. cultures should evolve as time goes by. if you want culture which is stuck in a time warp, go to a museum.

From what i saw during my 3 months in UK last year. Not many of the 'ethnic' Brits are for MC.

AND........most of them appeared 'siht scared' to mention or admit it in case they found themselves in the courts.

That is bad!!!!!

MC is great for a country - the diversity of thought and approach can lead to intelligent solutions of problems.

Australia is a country of migrants, our aborigines would have preferred that there had been no migrants.

The first white settlers had a policy of excluding people of colour (any colour including white ffrom the wrong country!) via the white Australia policy, then we let in Italians and Greeks.

The Italians and Greeks want Australia now to exclude the people of Asia, forgetting that one of Australia's most famous cooks, Kylie Kwong, is 7th generation Australian/Chinese and is thus more Aussie than they are.

The great foods, art and culture that our waves of migrants have brought with them makes Australia so special today.

When i first came to oz in the 50's there were Dagoes,Poms,Chinks,<deleted>,Slopes, Abbos and so on !

Now we rarely come across these people, we have all grown together to one nation. I think that its a generation problem.

The 'Oldies' keep it going but as the kids go to school and grow up together and never even consider that they come from different ethnic backgrounds. We just don't have a problem here anymore except for down south ( i am a Queenslander) where there is a large population of Middle Eastern Muslim youths who occaisionally get unruly.

Yes we are a truely MC nation and believe me, its a benifit to us all.

From time to time the foreign media try to blow things up but they mostly don't live here and tend to think of things from the respective of their own culture. Something like the Thai thinking.

I have done a mini survey of my area which is Caboolture just north of Brisbane and find that i have neighbours from 16 different ethnic origins in close proximity, we all live happily together.............No problems mate ! as we all say.

well.... it's only apply throughout BKK..... is't???? is't this new enforcement apply for the whole city of Thailand.... i think it's not...

then how about the period of the new rules come.... did it notice earlier to the public.....

i think it's much like "fast income" for government to collect money as soon as they can from their own citizens or farangs..... i think this is a main motives behind this new rules come...

neither cleanliness nor public safety.....

if Thai government wanna learn about cleanliness and safety better find Singapore..... a good country, hygiene and safety is almost the best quality.....

Yes, Singapore certainly is a beautiful and clean and lawful city, but would you believe me if i told you that when i was there back in the 50's it was very much like Bangkok is today!

Thailand desperately needs a strong leader for the good of all, not just the rich.

I say, bring back Thaksin, put up with his bad points and you will see how life will improve for everybody in a few years. At the present time there is no Thai other than him who can do it.

Singapore found Lee Kwan Yew, many also hated him in the beginning.

Singapore found Lee Kwan Yew.