ARMS PURCHASE

Cabinet backs purchase of APCs from Ukraine

By Piyanart Srivalo,

Satien Viriyapanpongsa,

Samatcha Hoonsara

The Nation

BANGKOK: -- The Cabinet yesterday approved an Army bid to buy 100 armoured personnel carriers from Ukraine in a government-to-government purchase deal.

The Cabinet members spent more than half an hour question-ing representatives from the Army and discussed problems regarding the purchase of BTR-3EI wheeled APCs before giving it the green light.

Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva asked the Army repre-sentatives why Germany did not sell to Ukraine the Deutz engine that was originally specified in the purchase deal, according to a Government House source. The prime minister also asked whether the contract could be scrapped if vehicles with the new engine, made by German compa-ny MTU, did not pass Army tests.

Army representatives told ministers that the German gov-ernment decided not to sell Deutz engines to Ukraine for the APCs because of Berlin's policy of not selling armament to any country subject to political unrest, accord-ing to the source.

Deputy Prime Minister Trairong Suwannakiri said he had learned that a Muslim organisa-tion had asked Germany not to sell the engines for the APCs because the vehicles could be used in suppression of Muslims in Thailand's deep South.

The head of the Army's ord-nance department told Cabinet a recent test showed the MTU engine was of better quality than the Deutz unit. He also said a con-tract term allowed the Thai side to cancel the deal if any of the delivered vehicles did not meet standard requirements.

Government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn told a press conference that the pur-chase project started during the Samak Sundaravej government in 2007.

-- The Nation 2010-09-08

Government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn told a press conference that the purchase project started during the Samak Sundaravej government in 2007.

Panitan went on to add:

"Make sure you remember that in case the APC deal turns out to be as corrupt as the one for the Swedish fighters or the vehicles turn out to be as much use as those bomb detectors, the aircraft carrier or blimp. Read my lips - It is Samak's fault and he was a friend of Thaksin."

Hey Guys, not so much a reply to the actual article, but does anybody else find the articles published by Pyanart Srivalo of the Nation particularly annoying due to inappropriately placed hyphens.

The article above is a prime example of what I am referring to: question-ing, repre-sentatives, compa-ny, gov-ernment, accord-ing, organisa-tion, ord-nance, con-tract and pur-chase.

Another short article, I discovered from a couple of months ago, had something like 25 strangely placed hyphens in the space of a couple of paragraphs, again for example: pro-testers, meet-ing, pub-lic, sec-ondary, intersec-tion, gov-ernment, inci-dents, pro-longed, maxi-mum, trans-parency, proce-dures, secu-rity, offi-cials, com-pleted, mecha-nisms, coordi-nated ( that's a corker) politi-cal, semi-nar, crit-ics, rec-onciliation etc,.

The author, quite possibly may have english as a second language, therefore using the hyphen helps break up longish words, but I would summise, the majority of the Nation's readers, would find the said articles rather hard to read.

Though, not being an english teacher, I do consider hyphans used appropriately, after a prefix etc,. are of great use, but I think the Editors-in Charge need to take a closer look at these articles and resubmit them to the author who might then consult a dictionary before posting further articles.

Regards,

CANDA.

Hey Guys, not so much a reply to the actual article, but does anybody else find the articles published by Pyanart Srivalo of the Nation particularly annoying due to inappropriately placed hyphens.

The article above is a prime example of what I am referring to: question-ing, repre-sentatives, compa-ny, gov-ernment, accord-ing, organisa-tion, ord-nance, con-tract and pur-chase.

Another short article, I discovered from a couple of months ago, had something like 25 strangely placed hyphens in the space of a couple of paragraphs, again for example: pro-testers, meet-ing, pub-lic, sec-ondary, intersec-tion, gov-ernment, inci-dents, pro-longed, maxi-mum, trans-parency, proce-dures, secu-rity, offi-cials, com-pleted, mecha-nisms, coordi-nated ( that's a corker) politi-cal, semi-nar, crit-ics, rec-onciliation etc,.

The author, quite possibly may have english as a second language, therefore using the hyphen helps break up longish words, but I would summise, the majority of the Nation's readers, would find the said articles rather hard to read.

Though, not being an english teacher, I do consider hyphans used appropriately, after a prefix etc,. are of great use, but I think the Editors-in Charge need to take a closer look at these articles and resubmit them to the author who might then consult a dictionary before posting further articles.

Regards,

CANDA.

I was thinking the same thing when reading the article. And I have read other articles that are the same. I didn't notice who the author is, but it's very annoying! Don't they have spell check or know how to use it?

Something doesn't add up in the article.

Deutz and MTU are both German Engines.

Was it the Company who refused to sell or the German Government.?

Hey Guys, not so much a reply to the actual article, but does anybody else find the articles published by Pyanart Srivalo of the Nation particularly annoying due to inappropriately placed hyphens.

The article above is a prime example of what I am referring to: question-ing, repre-sentatives, compa-ny, gov-ernment, accord-ing, organisa-tion, ord-nance, con-tract and pur-chase.

Another short article, I discovered from a couple of months ago, had something like 25 strangely placed hyphens in the space of a couple of paragraphs, again for example: pro-testers, meet-ing, pub-lic, sec-ondary, intersec-tion, gov-ernment, inci-dents, pro-longed, maxi-mum, trans-parency, proce-dures, secu-rity, offi-cials, com-pleted, mecha-nisms, coordi-nated ( that's a corker) politi-cal, semi-nar, crit-ics, rec-onciliation etc,.

The author, quite possibly may have english as a second language, therefore using the hyphen helps break up longish words, but I would summise, the majority of the Nation's readers, would find the said articles rather hard to read.

Though, not being an english teacher, I do consider hyphans used appropriately, after a prefix etc,. are of great use, but I think the Editors-in Charge need to take a closer look at these articles and resubmit them to the author who might then consult a dictionary before posting further articles.

Regards,

CANDA.

LOL, or use a spell checker. But I have found this to be simil-arly annoy-ing.

The Thai's can join the Burmese, they have a shed load of these things. I daresay they'll follow the Burmese example and use them just for 'peaceful' means.

It is because under European export laws the MTU engines are less sensitive to restrictions because they are used, mostly, on commercial vehicles.

Government spokesman Panitan Wattanayagorn told a press conference that the purchase project started during the Samak Sundaravej government in 2007.

Panitan went on to add:

"Make sure you remember that in case the APC deal turns out to be as corrupt as the one for the Swedish fighters or the vehicles turn out to be as much use as those bomb detectors, the aircraft carrier or blimp. Read my lips - It is Samak's fault and he was a friend of Thaksin."

got to love that first paragraph....took a whole half hour?????out pop a couple of world cup tickets??? done deal....dont care if they have pull start engines.....lol

Hey Guys, not so much a reply to the actual article, but does anybody else find the articles published by Pyanart Srivalo of the Nation particularly annoying due to inappropriately placed hyphens.

The article above is a prime example of what I am referring to: question-ing, repre-sentatives, compa-ny, gov-ernment, accord-ing, organisa-tion, ord-nance, con-tract and pur-chase.

Another short article, I discovered from a couple of months ago, had something like 25 strangely placed hyphens in the space of a couple of paragraphs, again for example: pro-testers, meet-ing, pub-lic, sec-ondary, intersec-tion, gov-ernment, inci-dents, pro-longed, maxi-mum, trans-parency, proce-dures, secu-rity, offi-cials, com-pleted, mecha-nisms, coordi-nated ( that's a corker) politi-cal, semi-nar, crit-ics, rec-onciliation etc,.

The author, quite possibly may have english as a second language, therefore using the hyphen helps break up longish words, but I would summise, the majority of the Nation's readers, would find the said articles rather hard to read.

Though, not being an english teacher, I do consider hyphans used appropriately, after a prefix etc,. are of great use, but I think the Editors-in Charge need to take a closer look at these articles and resubmit them to the author who might then consult a dictionary before posting further articles.

Regards,

CANDA.

It's probably just a case of the article being cut and pasted/transferred (probably automatically) from a short line length newspaper layout to a longer line format, some hyphens are automatically thrown in, and it gets published again in the new format (without proofreading). Probably just a case of the word processing-type software doing the transfer not setup properly.

These could be really useful in south. Carry Teachers to school or protect troops from ieds.

I imagine alot of the armies resources are now tied up in barracks on standby incase of redshirt maraudering; it never occured to me until now but I wonder how many extra people have died in the south because of less resources?