The discovery of 169 corpses that had been transported from temporary graves in Chumphon to similarly temporary graves in Rayong has led to widespread speculation about the identity of the dead bodies.
The young foreign volunteers were asked to reflect on their year of teaching in Thailand’s schools and to recount what had most surprised them. The answer came quickly.
British Prime Minister David Cameron was forced to return from his Tuscan holiday a second time to deal with the widespread turmoil in the financial markets. Night after night, mobs of out-of-control investors had been roaming the markets at will, looting and pillaging with impunity.
Having had my progressive, liberal, egalitarian credentials brought into question last week, I feel that this week’s article must further discuss the pro and cons of a substantial increase in the minimum wage.
It’s one thing for these ridiculous populist policies to spend government money on all and sundry, whether they deserve decent health care or not. But it’s quite another when they start telling private businesses to start shelling out and, horror of horrors, propose a whopping increase in the minimum wage.
Let’s just get a few things straight about this minimum wage.
The Thai government won a landmark ruling this week at the International Tribunal for Compensation and Arbitration at The Hague, in a long-running case filed by Somchai Khoyuthitham, Wanida Songmathrathan and 63,537,248 other Thais.
You wouldn’t perhaps guess this from looking at the streets of Bangkok, but Thailand does have traffic rules. The rather bemused Dutch gentleman who I recently assisted at Lumpini Police Station where he arrived carrying a traffic ticket, was not convinced.
OK, I’ve called this special editorial meeting so that we can all make sure this newspaper doesn’t go the same way as the News of the World and …
Excuse me, sir, but who is that?
Ah, glad you asked. Let me introduce, er, Tu.
(The meeting turns to look at a dishevelled bespectacled figure crouched over an i-Pad.)
The scene is the campaign headquarters of A Certain Party. With just days to go to the election, they are heading for defeat even by their own polls. Things haven’t been going their way.
Some ideas are too good to let go.
Col Saksit Phuklan, who has graciously condescended to turn himself in only 10 days after the incident (if indeed he was involved in the first place), has denied deliberately driving his car at Maj Hathaiporn Imwitthaya, putting her into a coma. He didn’t even accidentally hit her. It was the victim who inflicted her injuries on herself by throwing herself at his car, he says, defying eyewitness accounts and the CCTV footage. So what blame can be attached to him?
independent web newspaper © The Foundation for Community Educational Media 2006
independent web newspaper © The Foundation for Community Educational Media 2006