The banning of chartered flights from Thailand to Japan, China and Korea caused uproar and disappointed the public. The Thai government under Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha immediately took a direct role on the issue. A few days later the effort paid off. The ban was revised and relaxed. Thai tourists are happy that they can now fly by these airlines during the coming holiday period.
As a retired person I look at this issue in a different way. Doctors are familiar with word of risk and hazard ratios. A patient who has high blood pressure has a bigger risk of dying from stroke. So we give them advice and pills to lower their risk. Patients who are taking aspirin have a higher risk of bleeding if they undergo an operation, so they have to stop taking their medicine days before a medical procedure.
Now consider the case of airplanes with doubtful safety records. Such planes have more chance of crashing if they do not comply with the rules set by the International Civil Aviation Organisation.
When Tokyo and others banned the airlines, they had a good reason: preventing crashes and death. Why don’t we approach the issue as patients who need to remedy the situation before resuming flights as normal?
Are these tourists wise enough to consider the risks? If not, why assist them in putting themselves at risk?
The government could do the opposite, thank the countries which banned the chartered flights and fix the problems accordingly.
Kom Grib
TIME to tread carefully
Re: "Section 44 goes too far", editorial, April 4, 2015.
There seems to be a dichotomy between the status of Thaksin Shinawatra in 2001, and that of Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha today — in their first year as Thailand’s prime ministers.
When Thaksin came to power in 2001, he seemed to have felt the power bestowed on him as according to the 1997 constitution was insufficient, hence he sought more powers in a way that made people brand him a dictator.
Now, it looks like Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha — who is accorded with ultimate power under Section 44 of the interim constitution, to do anything he sees appropriate — must try his utmost to avoid being seen as he is using it for personal satisfaction.
Vint Chavala
ALCOHOL restrictions absurd
Re: “Birth of Bangkok’s shopping Quarter”, (Life, April 3).
The new EmQuartier shopping mall is amazing and another great feature for locals and tourists. Bangkok just gets better and better. Pity is that places like Patong on Phuket go the other way and learn nothing about how to improve.
The Gourmet supermarket at Em Quartier is exceptional and provides high quality selections to enjoy and savour. The wine and spirits shop is high class. The only thing that detracts from this complex is the absurd times of when one can buy a nice wine to complement the fine foods selected from the Gourmet market. These absurd selling restrictions [no alcohol sales between 2pm and 5pm] should be reviewed so shoppers can take home a fine wine or spirit at a time that is convenient. Simple alcohol purchases such as these cause no problems.
Stuart
Australia
Sauce just not the real McCoy
Re: “Steak with a story” (Life, April 3).
David Perrot, the proprietor of Le Boeuf, one of Bangkok’s newest restaurants, is only the latest in a long list of people who claim to have passed on or to have re-invented the recipe for the fabled Cafe de Paris sauce. Of course, the original owners of the recipe, the Cafe de Paris in Geneva, reject the authenticity of all these attempts to replicate the sauce. The Cafe de Paris today exports the sauce to many other restaurants under licence, of which Mr Perrot’s Le Boeuf is not one.
Google “Cafe de Paris Sauce” and you can choose from more than a dozen different recipes you can cook up at home to serve with your rare entrecote steak. And it will turn out a lot cheaper than the 680 baht Mr Le Boeuf is charging.
David Brown
Rayong
Time for real checks in South
Re: "Army vows fair probe into killing of rebel suspects", BP April 2.
This is a great opportunity to give authorities justification for the thorough screening of villagers in suspected insurgent villages in southern danger provinces. They should spend enough time and effort to summon and examine every single villager without exception. The results will be a good reference to see whether villagers are insurgents/supporters/sympathisers or innocents.
RH Suga
Lamphun
Workers exploited once again
My friend has been running a factory in the Chon Buri area for more than 20 years. They have close to 200 employees and it is sometimes hard to find enough reliable workers. For the past two years they have had more than 30 workers from Myanmar.
They have been told that they have to treat them the same way as they treat Thai workers in accordance with labour laws. For me and for my friend that would go without saying.
But since they started employing people from neighbouring countries, I’ve noticed that no one else treats them the same as Thais.
It started when they were on their way into Thailand. Both the Myanmar side and the Thai side exploited them for money to process their wish to go to Thailand.
It doesn’t stop once they’re here. Songkran is coming up and all of the foreign workers wish to visit their families back home. By applying for a re-entry they all have been overcharged. Re-entry costs 1,000 baht each. The company applied for them since they can’t handle the paperwork. When they collected their passports they were told they must pay 1,150 baht each, but received a receipt for 1,000 baht. It is a disgrace that such exploitation is practised on any level in Thailand, at worst by officials.
Disgusted in Chon Buri