PostBag
I totally disagree with Paul who said that Abhisit Vejjajiva and his Democrat shadow ministers are the ones who need to be impeached ("Democrats are the guilty party", Postbag, July 13).
Does Paul know what shadow means? It is true the PPP won the last election under the current constitution. A few members were issued yellow and red cards. Yongyuth Tiyapairat resigned as speaker of the house and the Constitution Court found him guilty, so the tally became 111+1.
If they won the last election without cheating, then and only then would I support them. It is a shame for anyone to claim they won the last election.
The judicial system is our best and last hope that we can count on. The rest are contaminated.
SURASAK PIPUTTANA
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Criticism deserved
Paul believes that the Democrats are being overly critical of the current government (Postbag, July 13).
I'm intrigued to know what he feels the role of an opposition party should be. Would he like Abhisit Vejjajiva to congratulate the PPP on their achievements so far and take them out to tea? Would he like the Democrats to support the political miscreants of other parties and also take them out to tea?
The truth of the matter is that Thailand is currently being mismanaged by a bunch of reprobates and incompetents; they deserve nothing but criticism.
Waiting in the shadows is a young politician and economist of considerable talent. Remember when the Democrats, under the leadership of Chuan Leekpai, delivered Thailand from the mire of the 1997 crash? It'll soon be time for them to do it again.
JOHN SHEPHERD
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Unrefined argument
As eager as Glenn Fletcher ("Environmentalists are to blame", Postbag, July 13) is to pin high pump prices on green-minded activists, his assertion that refining capacity determines retail petroleum prices demonstrates complete ignorance of the oil market. The absence of new refineries in the United States for 26 years didn't prevent the era of cheap gas from 1986-1999, and it isn't to blame now for its end.
The market-controlled segment of the petroleum pipeline occurs at a pre-refinery level; current wholesale crude prices have in fact squeezed most of the profits out of the refinery business in both the US and Thailand. This would hardly be the case if refineries controlled the bottleneck in the equation, as Mr Fletcher suggests. Adding refinery capacity would only glut a struggling industry with unneeded competition.
If he is determined to blame an environmentalist, Mr Fletcher could sound marginally less foolish by attacking those impeding offshore drilling in the US. Granted, those environmentalists are mostly property developers and homeowners more concerned about property values than ecosystems, and any oil found in exploration now wouldn't enter the spot oil market until 2013, but any reduction in imports makes strategic sense for the US.
As for current pump prices: you live by the free market, you die by it. Contract bids go up with global demand, which has risen with the industrialisation (and government fuel subsidies) of China.
For Americans, the long-term solution is to reduce per-capita consumption to the levels of other post-industrialised nations, a trend already visible in the car industry and a middle-class movement back to urban centres. A populist, short-sighted band-aid solution would be to cut fuel taxes, an idea gaining traction in an election year.
For Thailand, some subsidies will persist because the industrial sector is too fragile to float and too important to fail. But as a remorseful shareholder in Thai Oil, I can assure you refining capacity holds the key to nothing in a petroleum-importing nation.
WESLEY HSU
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European parallel
The Preah Vihear temple saga is heating up and it is sad the opposition and the government cannot get a grip on the situation. Now people who apparently have nothing better to do use the opportunity to inflame the situation even more, setting up a pavilion and walking around with giant bolt cutters.
I suggest the government grab the opportunity presented by the temple's World Heritage site status. Let's talk to the Cambodian government and set up fruitful cooperation from which both countries can profit and jointly develop the area to be a "new" attraction. Let's agree on a border demarcation both sides can live with but make the whole area a "free zone".
In a time when borders around the globe are opening, why not make it possible to set up a special area like the Kleinwalsertal, a valley at the border between Austria and Germany. It lies in Austria, but due to the terrain there is no direct access by car from other parts of Austria. It can only be accessed via Oberstdorf, a nearby village in Germany.
The Kleinwalsertal is famous in central Europe as a ski and hiking resort. The 5,000 inhabitants, called "Walser", provide 12,000 beds for tourists.
Since 1891 Kleinwalsertal enjoyed a customs union with Germany, a free border, and used the Deutsche mark. Since Austria joined the European Union in 1995, the signing of the Schengen Agreement (1997) and the introduction of the euro (2002), this special status no longer applies.
As an executive in the hospitality and tourism business, I hope this can be worked out and all citizens of Thailand and Cambodia live happily ever after. A dream? I hope not.
HERIBERT GAKSCH
Bangkok
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Accent-free Canadians
I have followed the recent letters to Postbag related to proper English pronunciation. While the letters have bemoaned the English of Australians, British, Scots and Americans, Canadian English has not been mentioned.
As a Canadian faculty adviser and supervisor of student teachers of English here in Bangkok I would like to point out that the most sought after spoken English (from the point of view of educators) in Thailand is Canadian. Time and time again Thai teachers and non-teaching Thais have stated that our English is the easiest to understand. Our English is essentially "accent free" (understanding that this is a relative thing) and we enunciate with clearly defined beginnings and endings to our words and sentences.
It is perhaps because Canadian English is a blend of American and British, that according to the Thais, makes us speak and pronounce English words as clearly as we do. The strong demand for Canadian English teachers in Thailand speaks for itself.
BOB MILAN
Bangkok
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