https://aseannow.com/rss/44-thailand-news.xml/National and regional news from all around ThailandenIf I should fall on my fork?Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:40:38 +0000Are the walls closing in? Sounds strangely familiar😅Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:36:51 +0000Here’s a detailed summary of the The West Australian article, without reproducing the copyrighted text. The article focuses largely on Simon Peter Carman’s life in Western Australia, rather than the alleged murder itself. It reports that Carman lived in Casuarina, south of Perth, until late 2025 before moving to Thailand. Former neighbours described him as a loner who rarely spoke to anyone and generally kept to himself. Some neighbours said they found him intimidating, while others said they simply had very little contact with him. One of the biggest new details is that WA Police had previously seized firearms from Carman after concerns about his behaviour. The article says he later tried to overturn that decision through legal channels but was unsuccessful and did not regain his firearms licence. It doesn’t suggest the previous matter was connected to the current allegations, only that it formed part of his background. The article also reports that he had been receiving a Disability Support Pension before leaving Australia and had relocated to Thailand around eight months before his arrest. It then recounts the Thai police case: Police allege he met 17-year-old Tunchanok Donhomla in Pattaya. CCTV allegedly shows them entering his accommodation together. Further CCTV allegedly shows him later leaving with a large black suitcase before riding a motorcycle to an area near railway tracks. The teenager’s body was later found inside that suitcase. Carman was arrested at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport while attempting to board a flight back to Perth. The article also mentions Carman’s account to police. According to Thai investigators, he claims the teenager demanded more money than agreed, an argument followed, and she allegedly attacked him. He maintains he acted in self-defence and has denied intentionally killing her. Thai police say the physical evidence and CCTV do not support his explanation and have charged him with murder and other offences. Finally, the article includes comments from neighbours expressing shock that someone they once lived near is now facing such serious allegations overseas, although several said they had always found him to be an unusual and isolated individual.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:33:55 +0000Oh, that's nothing. When I was living in the Autonomous People's Republic of Upper West Equatoria, I'd wake every morning to the unmistakable mating call of the Albanian tree walrus. Magical.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:32:51 +0000BS! This is the PC way of saying we failed miserably to attract our goal. Instead of addressing the elephants in the room, the typical deflection is what these clowns fo best. Since the trough is drying up, let's pretend we're " shifting " to this well thought out strategy. Its comical.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:32:11 +0000Pattaya is full of alot of very racist British guys, no idea why - the irony of them being immigrants themselves is lost on them. They often cite themselves as model immigrants, but Thais tolerate sex tourists drinking alcohol at midday - they don't see them as model immigrants. I do believe many get bored and go down a rabbit hole of radicalised social media, often citing nonsense like Muslims have taken over the UK. When you point out facts only 6% of the UK is muslim they act like you are lying (there is more muslims in Thailand ironically). I don't have time to argue when they deny facts. It's very sad to see how bitter they are. Yes every country needs to control immigration. Yes the asylum problems needs addressing. But they're acting they themselves are personally injured by the issues the UK faces (which many developed countries around the world face). So patriotic, yet left the country. The UK is not an open border country. I have had friends trying to get visas for the UK, and it's nigh on impossible for 99% of Thais.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:30:55 +0000Just so I understand as I also never liked stones but liked The Cure. It's Robert Smith from The Cure?Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:29:45 +0000UK bar owners in Thailand turn racist to keep all the broke Aussie rif raf outSun, 28 Jun 2026 16:28:11 +0000Never liked the Stones, but consider Smith to be a blazing genius, who created songs that will likely be remembered 100 years from now. A true musical prodigy.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:24:42 +0000As the weeks and months go by it is increasingly more obvious that American influence has diminished to the point where the nation is becoming irrelevant to so many former allies who would rather coddle up to China. When a president pushes former allies towards China you know he's failing miserably in his job.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:22:42 +0000Saint Donald. Total revisionist history, a complete reformation of his entire career, and a total erasure of his past crimes, moral terpitude, and a total and complete willingness to overlook a lifetime of moral bankruptcy. I do have some friends that will come right out and say the man is a butthead, he's an idiot, and he's an absolute clown, but I like his policies. Those are the Republicans I admire.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:17:30 +0000Hotel Areca, Soi Dianna, does anyone know when it first opened?.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:16:40 +0000With many people, once they got attached to a theory, it was hard to get them detached. They’d screen out unhelpful facts, invent favorable ones, and ignore contradictions in their own claims. Look at those Sandy Hook, multiple fraud convictions, and Jan. 6th truthers, babbling about false flags and crisis actors and all the rest. When people were motivated enough to believe something, they were going to believe it no matter what. There was no such thing as a bridge too far.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:16:20 +0000So reading he had guns confiscated whilst in Australia. Again begs the question Thailand should be checking criminal records before dishing out long term visas.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:15:38 +0000Is that the best you got? It is quite astonishing to me how MAGA has descended to a level where some of the less intelligent supporters are simply reduced to slogans, name calling as a juvenile tribute to their thuggish political master, and memes rather than intelligent discussions. All Democrats are communist All Democrats are baby killers All Democrats support trans rights. All democrats are woke Do you know where we get our power from? We drink the blood of infants in basements of pizza parlors. We are all highly ignorant, we all hate America, and we are the cause of all the problems that America have. All 200 million Americans who don't support the circus clown huckster.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:12:11 +0000Does anyone here from the UK support immigration to the UK ? Surely there must be some? One of the reasons I detest going into UK themed owned bars is because of the expat racists . .I used to always go to the Canterbury tales bookshop only to hear the expats saying their Country was being taken over and jokes about arriving in a boat for quick social security etc I told them we must Welcome the refugees especially the poor African refugees who are trying to get a better life .look at the immigration in the 1960's from Jamaica to the UK , they were excellent and fitted right in . . Is everyone from the UK racist and not support immigration into the UK ? Surely notSun, 28 Jun 2026 16:08:12 +0000Cool! When I was living in Kathmandu, I was very close to the Jawalakhel Zoo. Those peacocks!Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:06:53 +0000Have you considered she’s checking whether the bloke staring at her has finally finished writing a novel about her on ASEAN NOW?Sun, 28 Jun 2026 16:06:47 +0000He seems though to have a slight English accent ,maybe arrived in Australia when he was a kid Why don't you blame this on his parents instead of him !!!Sun, 28 Jun 2026 15:58:07 +0000They have done nothing. Just talk endlessly. And even with this proposal they may well be rowing back, so essentially nothing may well be done. The real issue is the long term visas.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 15:54:50 +0000Sun, 28 Jun 2026 15:54:33 +0000+1 from me - very interesting input. One correction worth making on the Bosphorus comparison though. The $1.7m-$3.5m per tanker figure doesn't hold up because supertankers in the 200-500,000 DWT range simply don't transit the Bosphorus. The Montreux Convention and Turkish physical constraints effectively bar the largest tankers from using the straits at all. Apply the $6.70/ton rate to vessels that never actually show up, and you get a meaningless number. Per-vessel fees for ships that do transit reportedly average $15,000-$30,000 - a very different picture. That said, the broader point stands and I think it's a fair comment based one which I have chanced my viewpoint to some extent - There is clear scope to charge maintenance fees to cover navigational safety, traffic separation schemes, piracy response, pollution incidents, and aids to navigation. The Malacca littoral states make exactly this argument, and it's hard to dispute - those services cost real money and somebody has to pay for them. The critical qualifier is that any such regime has to be implemented transparently and consistently, and cannot be used as a lever. The moment fees become discretionary tools of political pressure rather than cost-recovery mechanisms, the framework's legitimacy is destroyed. That's the line between Turkey's model - whatever its imperfections - and what Iran is currently doing. So.. could it be argued that shipping could route through Omani waters to avoid Iran ??? the reality is they already do. The internationally designated traffic separation scheme runs entirely through Omani waters - or it did until those waters were mined. Originally, the inbound and outbound lanes both sit on Oman's side of the strait. That hasn't insulated anyone from Iranian pressure, because the IRGC operates throughout the strait regardless of which side of the line a vessel is on, and has a long record of intercepting ships well within what others would consider Omani waters / jurisdiction. There's also another diplomatic reality: Oman and Iran maintain pragmatic, historically warm relations. Muscat has repeatedly served as a back-channel between Tehran and Washington. So, the idea that Oman could position itself as a mechanism for circumventing Iranian fees or interdiction assumes a level of antagonism toward Tehran that doesn't 'yet' exist. Someone (in this or another thread) mentioned that the straits could be monetised between Oman and Iran - So, if the purpose is purely cost recovery for operational services, there's no fundamental objection. Navigational safety, traffic separation, pollution response, search and rescue - these are legitimate expenses and the two littoral states bear most of that burden. A transparent, jointly administered fee structure to cover those costs is defensible. The problem is getting from here to there. Any bilateral arrangement between Tehran and Muscat would need broad international buy-in to function - the major flag states and cargo interests aren't going to accept a fee regime they had no hand in shaping, particularly one that includes Iran as an administrator given the current climate. And once Iran is a revenue recipient, the temptation to use fee-setting or compliance enforcement as political leverage doesn't disappear - it just gets institutionalised. This is actually the argument for a neutral third-party authority running the collection and distribution, with Iran and Oman as beneficiaries rather than operators. Same money, far less scope for mischief - would Tehran go for that ?Sun, 28 Jun 2026 15:49:18 +0000From todays Yahoo financial propaganda article : "Musk also shared a Wall Street Journal article (3) titled "The Data-Center Boom Is Sparking a Third Wave of Inflation." The article warned that America's artificial intelligence buildout is pushing up prices on everything from smartphones to electricity." yep.... another "spark" . (the bombardment continues unabated) btw: i do not belong to X , so can not interact there. pretty much just limit myself to browsing a few substack guys and getting a link here and there like the one you shared. as i state often... i am just "going it alone" , doing the best i can to keep mind and body healthy as the world burns . maybe one advantage to old age is the realizaton/acceptance that all the exhortations .."we gotta do this, we gotta do that" are just hot air blowing in the wind. i got my old butt on my 20 year old Honda dream today and took a ride on a country road . Been a long time. Felt nice !Sun, 28 Jun 2026 15:48:22 +0000OR............ is it just the OPPOSITE ? perhaps it is DJT who is the puppet .... NOT the puppet master 🫠Sun, 28 Jun 2026 15:42:13 +0000another australian sex tourist criminal, no surprise there. thankfully, now immigration has reduced the visa exempt stay from 60 to 30 days, criminals like this will no longer be able to enter thailand... apparently.Sun, 28 Jun 2026 15:39:29 +0000