Nothing to crow about
The junta is flapping and crowing about Thailand having moved up on the World Bank's Index, "Ease of Doing Business for 2018", from 46th to 26th, a giant leap of 20 paces. Hmm...
But it didn't tell us that before the coup we ranked 18th on the index. Here's the rundown of the rankings, year (followed by rank): 2006 (20), 2007 (18), 2008 (15), 2009 (13), 2010 (12), 2011 (19), 2012 (17), 2013 (18), 2014 (18) -- the coup was that year, 2015 (26), 2016 (49), 2017 (46), 2018 (26).
Note that in 2014 we ranked 18th, then came the coup by "salivating patriots" and we dropped to 26th, then nose-dived to 46th before crawling back to 26th place again.
To make my point clear, the junta is like a kid who was ranked 18th in the class, then dropped to 46th, then went up to 26th and bragged about improving by 20 places. Pathetic!
Somsak PolaSamut Prakan
Defending free speech
As a regular PostBag contributor, I am surprised at the people who write in to support the current government's policy of silencing critics and jailing the outspoken. If you feel strongly enough about something and wish to make that known then surely you must also defend the right of people who have opposing but equally strong views. Anyone who spends even a small portion of their day composing a letter and sending it in is surely being nothing but hypocritical in suggesting others should not be allowed to.
Lungstib
Let's see justice
When despots are ousted, they ask for conditions prior to going. Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe has asked for immunity no less. Does a person who has wilfully slaughtered thousands, confiscated properties illegally, actually have the right to ask for anything? Both he and his wife should be put on trial for crimes against humanity.
He would probably die before any trial would be over, but that shopaholic who bankrupted the country's treasury for designer clothes will last through it. Rather than the International World Court trying the Mugabes, the Zimbabwean people should do it.
After all, the same justice the Mugabes meted out to others should also apply to themselves. Other self-imposed dictators might learn from it as well, Cambodia's Hun Sen, Turkey's Erdogan, North Korea's rocket man and Syria's Assad, for starters.
David James Wong
Immigration fiasco
Recent attempts to access the main immigration website or the Division One website have been met with varying degrees of success. Recently I have found that the download forms screen at the main site is presented completely in Thai. Even the form numbers are written in Thai so I had to dig out my Thai number cheat sheet to find the form I wanted.
The download forms button at the Immigration One site goes to a Google warning of malware being present on the site and access is denied. Any attempt to locate the re-entry online form is met with the "only supported by Windows Explorer", now Bing, so we poor Chrome users are left out of the loop. Although various online discussion sites indicate the link never worked to begin with.
The final insult is the contact us button which tells you how to get to the Immigration Department via car, bus, train and by foot but that directs us to, you guessed it, the old immigration office near Sathon. No mention is made of the Chaeng Watthana location. It's no wonder people don't file 90-day forms on time.
Fred Prager
Not my problem
Re: "Clueless officials watching you", (PostBag, Nov 18).
Barry Kenyon raises the issue of the TM30 report. Having lived in both my own home and many rentals in Thailand for the past 10 years, this document is news to me. I can only assume the following has occurred, viz, "The TM030 and its underlying laws are about the obligation of a landlord to report the stay of a foreigner in his/her property." So, I fear not about a large fine when I next complete my 90-day report.
Long-term resident
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