The timing of Mr Hun Sen’s weekend visit to the border was viewed with great suspicion in Thailand as it coincided with the escalated political activities of the Thai red-shirt movement to increase pressure on the Abhisit government ahead of the February 26 Judgement Day when a verdict on deposed former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra’s 76 billion baht worth of frozen assets is to be delivered by the Supreme Court’s criminal division for political office holders. 

The real issue here is not his visit which can take place anytime Mr Hun Sen so wishes.  But his unprovoked insulting remarks against Prime Minister Ahisit Vejjajiva and the false allegations against Thailand and the Thai armed forces which are most disturbing and totally unacceptable from the leader of a neighbouring country who has repeatedly announced that he holds no grudges against this country but only against Mr Abhisit and his “illegimate” government.

The followings are excerpts of  Mr Hun Sen’s remarks which were translated from Khmer into Thai and English:

“I am angry at a few people in Thailand.  I am not angry at the whole Siamese people and two lousy English-language newspapers, the Nation and Bangkok Post.

“The most expensive excrement in Thailand because the Thai people gave it as a gift to the prime minister (Abhisit).  And he still refuses to resign from the post.”  (This remark was in direct reference to the case when some unidentified people threw excrement into the house of Mr Abhisit).

“You (Abhisit) are a thief who stole power (from Thaksin).  If you don’t believe me, then let hold an election and you (Abhisit) will lose.”

“My wife wears a military uniform.  Why it bothers Mr Abhisit?”

“If you don’t speak the truth about Siamese troops inviding Cambodia on July 15, 2008, let the sacred powers break your (Abhisit) neck, let you be shot dead, be crushed to death by a car, be electrocuted or shot dead by a stray bullet.”

“Not only that Thailand invaded (Cambodia), but they also invaded and cheated in history by changing the name of Prasart Preah Vihear into Phra Viharn.”

“If Thai troops did not intrude into Wat Keo Sekkha Kiri Savarak, let bad luck befall on me.  You should know me, Suthep (Deputy Prime Minister Suthep Thuagsuban).”

“I have chided you many times before.  Do you (Abhisit) feel hurt?  If you retaliate, I will hit back at you again.”

“I have sent a letter to tell the Siamese people that there has never been a period when the Siamese society is so chaotic as the period under Mr Abhisit.  Thai foreign relations are also bad.”

“You (Abhisit) order the yellow shirts (People’s Alliance for Democracy) to stage the coup and to seize the airports.”

“Would Mr Abhisit take an oath that his family will perish in a plane crash that the Siam troops did not invade Cambodia?”

“He (Abhisit) is crazy, confused and deserves to be eliminated.  This guy has no honour for his family.”

Mr Hun Sen has ordered his statement at the border to be recorded translated into English probably for dissemination to wider audience.  But if he really believes that his offensive remarks will make Mr Abhisit looks like a clown, then he should think twice.  Because it will be him who will be the laughing stock in the world’s community.

This economic reasoning is behind the Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), an incentive measure which is being adopted in various parts of the world to convince farmers to adopt ecology-friendly land use, or to help those communities already active in environmental conservation to continue doing so.

The potential payers can range from the government itself, the business sector as part of their social responsibility programmes, to local bodies, citizen groups, or any individual who wants to support grassroots conservation efforts.

The assistance is based on the realisation that each and every person in society benefits from the local struggle to keep the forests, rivers, coastal seas, soil and air healthy. That it is unfair to expect people in ecologically sensitive areas, mostly the poor, to shoulder the conservation burden alone.

The fact that the world is now being swamped by increasingly frequent natural disasters caused by environmental destruction also has made the public more willing to dig deep into their pockets for nature, and for their own survival.

But is it only money that matters?

Indeed, the PES approach can provide much-needed funding sources for struggling communities. It can educate the city people about the value of nature and the locals' contribution by translating intangible values into the language of money.

Yet, the money concept contains certain risks.

For example, the local community may be treated as a subordinate party, not an equal partner. Respect for the locals' holistic knowledge about nature, respect for their way of life, and an understanding of the root causes of environmental destruction are important for a successful partnership.

These elements may not be present when the locals are seen as the ones being paid while the city payers just go on mindlessly with environmentally destructive lifestyles.

This is not to say that this compensation idea does not work. But it takes more than money transactions for it to work.

In Thailand, two things come to mind. The myth that the poor are destroyers of the commons. And land security.

When the Policy Research Centre and the Thailand Research Fund gave PES a policy push earlier this week, they made it clear that this economic incentive, though supportive of proper land use, still comes after land security.

Their research confirms the long assertion by the grassroots land reform movement that there are numerous forest settlements across the country that are protectors of the commons, often against big development projects and business interests.

Although they have constitutional community rights to co-manage their natural resources, they constantly face eviction threats from forest authorities, leading to nationwide land rights conflicts and violence.

The research centres also endorse the movement's proposal that community land deeds are the way to go to support conservation-minded communities.Communal ownership under strict and transparent communal monitoring will also ensure that scarce farmland will serve the landless in the community instead of ending up in the hands of land speculators.

In what could be the government's landmark policy achievement, PM's Office Minister Sathit Wongnongtoey has promised to issue a ministerial regulation to support communal land ownership for ecological conservation.

This political will is cause for jubilation. Which is probably why the PES incentive measures came up as a way to ensure proper land use and raise funds for local conservation.

But can a weak government prevail over a strong bureaucracy?

In an outright challenge, the forest authorities have stepped up the crackdown on forest communities under the communal land ownership plan, and have arrested their leaders in droves.

No matter how much research is carried out to prove that the users-managed approach works better than top-down policies to preserve pooled resources, the forest bosses will keep reciting the mantra that the poor are forest destroyers - because it keeps them in power.

Until we break free of this mantra, the forest authorities will keep winning.

The commons lose. The communities lose. And we all lose.

Except a few well-coiffed ladies, who isn't? Our Ministry of (non)Culture is incredibly creative in cooking up unnecessary scandals due solely to their Jurassic outlook, authoritarian leanings and the staunch refusal to live in the real world. The straw that breaks a camel's back (please permit the metaphor, I'm drifting on an Emirati desert) is the latest incident that took place this week: Two web posters, one of them my source, were threatened with a lawsuit by one of the Culture Ministry's well-known watchdogs (she's human, by the way) after they posted critical messages on the popular Pantip web forum disparaging the antediluvian policies of our inglorious ministry. The messages, for instance, discussed the regressive tendency of the ministry as well as its dogged refusal to encourage cultural diversity by sticking to the narrow-minded definition of what Thai culture is. My source cited a name in his comments: Ladda Tangsupachai, the watchdog chief who has a low opinion on modern art, love songs, non-Thai fashion, and so on. 

Their comments, though anonymous, weren't one of those childish rants that the majority of web posters have become infamous for; instead they are thoughtful, fierce and backed with evidence and public pronouncements of the aforementioned ministry's official. And here's the kick: my source posted those comments AFTER the ministry, in the same web forum, publicly INVITED Internet users to comment on the performance of the ministry.

Then there's a twist. It turned out that another web poster who was threatened with a lawsuit actually works for the ministry, in the cultural surveillance department lorded over by Ladda herself, and he was the one who initiated the discussion on the performace of the ministry with the aim of gathering ideas from the public to present to his superior. The guy's name is Sampan Ruksa, and this week he was apparently forced to post, on the same web forum and signed with his real name, his public apology to the ministry and to his supervisor, after allegedly being threatened with police presence.

Isn't this the feudal mindset at its most arrogant? Aren't those men and women working at the ministry, every ministry, "civil servants"? Servants. No wonder a number of people have quickly clicked to "Become a Fan" of the new Facebook forum. And it'd be phenomenally stupid of the watchdogs to assume that only idle teenagers are Facebook users, and thus their views are dispensible. The more the conservative wing of the ministry -- which is the dominant wing -- continues to display their pathetic inability to understand what's going on outside their self-constructed cocoon of "morality" and "values", the more they're feeding the bonfire of frustration and radicalism. The more rabidly they want to censor, the more they'll drive people to hatch underground vendetta -- and the power of technology will be on their side.

Poor ministry. They still don't get it that the most important culture is the culture of constructive criticism and free expression.

Don't come after me, I'm in Dubai.

Ladies and gentlemen, the American fashion retail giant Gap will finally land in the City of Angels!

Observing the gigantic space that would soon become the first home of the all-American style (okay, i might be wrong since Gap markets different products for the European and American markets to ensure it carters to local taste and sensibility), I was thinking if this parade of international high-street chains could be the survival stretegy of the local shopping malls. In the past two years, we've seen the openning of Zara, Topshop, Forever 21 and Miss Selfridge -- all regarded as high-street magnets in Europe and the States. Gap will come to town in February and I have an impression that sooner or later, the Thai shoppers would finally welcome the Swedish retailer H&M, the real high-street favourite of many locals.

The first question that came to my mind when I saw the huge Gap logo was whether fashion industry did not know the going-down way. Few days passed and I realised that it's just to do with a way of looking at things and we often look at what we can see, but not what we no longer can. Simply put, with all shop opennings come the closure of former ones, or the relocation to other space. Unless you walk CentralWorld everyday, you'd never remember what was once there at the space where Gap would be housed. Whatever it was, it's probably moved to some less marketable location and what had been at that less marketable location could have been crossed off the shopping mall floor plans. With an arrival of a new brand, there's always a departure of a less successful one and the opening of a new chain is thus no indication that the business is going up.

On the contrary, it could be a sign of going down since these well-known high-street chains are much easier to market than less-known, edgy labels that carter to the niche, uber-stylish customers. I remember the hype that surrounded the opening of Zara and Topshop and it's not going to be different with Gap, which has long been ranked one top favourite for those 'pre-order' commercial internet websites. Gap's simple and less trend-conscious style is a far cry from British chains like Topshop and Miss Selfridge and could be the answer for many who look for less fashionable, but more functional and timeless pieces in a time when changing their wardrobe content every six months is not a financially feasible fashion behaviour anymore.  

In the past, one of the most popular ways for politicians to appear on TV was sponsoring a boxing match. However, this has become less fashionable because it is costly during the economic downturn and there are few crowd-pulling boxers.

Pimol Srivikorn

Many politicians have entered sports by running football clubs and being bosses of sports associations among other channels. They apparently want publicity rather than financial gains as most of them are already rich enough or they can get more money from other sources.

Newin Chidchob plans to take over the Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) football club and will move the team's home ground from Ayutthaya to his home province of Buri Ram.

''I am doing this because I love football,'' said Newin, who is still one of the most powerful politicians although he is banned from politics. Some PEA officials and fans are reportedly against the move because Buri Ram is too far for them but Newin insists it will benefit the club.

Suwat Liptapanlop, another suspended politician, has been president of the Lawn Tennis Association of Thailand since 2001. He agreed to take LTAT presidency probably because he did not have much to do in politics as his Chat Pattana Party was at that time in the opposition camp in parliament.

Suwat Liptapanlop

Suwat is labelled as a politician who does not know how to play the role as an opposition member. The Nakhon Ratchasima native is now also an advisor to the Football Association of Thailand.

Former MP Pimol Srivikorn was secretary-general of the Taekwondo Association of Thailand when Yaowapa Burapolchai won a bronze at the 2004 Athens Games to become the country's first Olympic medallist in Korea's martial art. He has since become the association's president and saw Buttree Puedpong win a silver at the 2008 Olympics. Pimol will certainly become more famous by the time he can return to politics in 2012 if his taekwondo exponents win gold at the London Olympics.

Like other suspended politicians, Anucha Nakasai cannot take any political post so he kills time by being manager of the national football team. He promised to pay the team a handsome bonus if they beat Singapore home and away in recent Asian Cup qualifiers. The team saved him a fortune -- they won in Singapore only for the Lions to bite back in Bangkok.

Banharn Silpa-archa, former leader of the now-defunct Chart Thai Party, has been active in sports in his home province of Suphan Buri. Former senators Intharat Yodbangtoey and his wife Bussaba have been bosses at the Thai Amateur Weightlifting Association for years. Most people may know them as the Thai weightlifing chiefs than as politicians.

On the international front, Thaksin Shinawatra became more well known internationally when he bought English football club Manchester City in 2007 -- one year after his government was toppled in a coup. After just one season, the fugitive former prime minister sold his stakes in the club and reportedly made a huge profit.

Nopawan

While many politicians know that sports can be a political tool, the coalition-leading Democrat Party seems naive in this field. Bangkok MP Samart Maluleem is one of the party's few members who has been active in sports particularly football and boxing. He is manager of Thailand's SEA Games football team. Its leader Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva's involvement in sports is mainly about routine functions such as meeting athletes at Government House, watching football matches and opening sports competitions.

In fact, the government can easily use sports as a PR tool. As the Thai Premier League has become popular, the government, through the Sports Authority of Thailand, may increase the prize money for the champions from 10 million baht to 15 million baht. It may give rising tennis star Noppawan Lertcheewakarn, say, five million baht a year in her attempt to become successful on the professional circuit. The sum is not big and I'm sure that the government won't face harsh criticism and instead will gain popularity.

The question is if you want to cut the lily when it covers only half of the pond, what day would it be?

The answer is it will be the twenty-ninth day: you will have only one day to save the pond -- and all life forms that depend on it.

The analogy is often invoked to illustrate the effects of population growth. However, I think it's an apt one for Map Ta Phut industrial estate too.

As the lily pond story illustrates, the way our ecology works is that you don't notice when resources are being depleted until the threshold to collapse is near. On the twenty-ninth day, half of the pond remains uncovered. There seems to be a lot of open water left when indeed the lily plants are choking the system and resources are being used up.

If we take this ecology approach and apply it to Map Ta Phut, we might see that the effects that we have seen can be but a tip of the iceberg _ a small lily plant that seems to pose no threat. If allowed to go on unchecked, however, the seemingly innocuous effects could choke the area's support system and probably overshoot it in such a short time it would be impossible for us come up with any mitigation measures.

The Map Ta Phut industrial estate was open in 1988. It has been home to heavy industries -- cement, petrochemical, iron and metals as well as refineries for two decades. There is no question that these industries have caused pollution. According to the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand's website itself, pollution problems have been registered since 2000. These include disturbing smell, drought and water shortage brought about a competition for water resources between the community and the industrial sector, shallow-well water contamination and health problems.

According to a column by Chang Noi, the impact of pollution on local people began to go out of control by that time.
``The incidence of leukaemia is five times the national average. Ten carcinogenic compounds are present in the atmosphere in high concentrations. An unusually large number of genetic defects are found among children born in the area. The National Cancer Institute documented high rates of respiratory disease and lung cancer. A 2006 report found that the accumulation of heavy metals in the local environment far exceeded safety levels-cadmium by six times, manganese by 34 times, lead by 47 times, iron by 151 times.''

As the government and business groups are trying to get around with the court's injunction which bars 76 industrial projects from operating in the 20,000-rai estate, they may have thought that there is still ``a lot of empty space'' and that they can probably wait a little longer before they start to cut back on the industrial growth. But a good environmental management student could have told them about the lily pond story. And they might figure out that they can't wait until half the pond is covered because then they will only have one day to save the industrial estate and all living things in the area.

Following the recent discovery of water on Luna’s surface NASA has decided to shoot the moon with a missile to see if any more of the precious liquid can be found. It is still not one hundred per cent certain what moon water will help achieve, although it will supposedly mean that astronauts won’t have to transport hundreds of bottles of Evian every time they go exploring.

The question of what to do with this water once it is discovered is best left to giant soft drinks corporations and theme park companies. A more prudent question would be, “What the hell do you mean you’re shooting the moon?”

Before you start thinking that this act of violence will wreck the movement of the tides, or resemble scenes from Star Wars, hundreds of sciencey types maintain that there is no need to panic. This is because the moon’s surface is regularly bombarded by passing meteorites, which produce the same effect as NASA’s missile.

So why not just wait for one of these space rocks to do the job for them? I failed high-school science so I can’t answer that. I’m sure there’s a good reason though. What I really want to know is what would people think if it were another country conducting this test?

Think about it. It sounds like something out of a James Bond movie. What if it were Iran or North Korea who were planning to blow up the moon? No doubt the media and Western governments would vilify such an action. But when NASA – with their fancy acronym and frequently updated Twitter account – do it, it’s all fun and games.

Regardless of who is doing the shooting the question remains on the importance of blowing craters on that big hunk of cheese in the sky. It’s like CERN’s Large Hadron Collider experiment. No doubt we (mankind) will learn something new. But will that something be worth it? Does the potential for adverse effects outweigh the potential benefits? Will the universe implode? What if the moon shoots back?

These may sound like the ramblings of an insane journalist, and they most probably are. But with the global economy the way it is, global warming (don’t get me started), international relations stretched to breaking point, famine, disease, natural disasters, lack of health care, a lack of cooperation in relocating refugees, terrorism, the disappearance of hundreds of local cultures to globalisation, an over-reliance on technology, deforestation, the extinction of countless species and millions of people with broken hearts slowly crying to themselves, is blowing up the moon really our main priority right now?

NASA’s mission to bomb the moon will be broadcast live on NASA TV, starting at 6.15am EDT (5.15pm here in Thailand) on October 9, 2009.