OPINION

Bad state of affairs

Why is PTT, which already has put its Amazon coffee shops everywhere, now allowed to use its power as a state energy monopoly to compete against hotels?

PTT recently announced plans to go into the hotel business, thereby using the clout it derives from being a state-owned energy monopoly to compete against the private sector. When PTT first entered the retail coffee business the purported objective was to establish Amazon outlets in its gas stations. Now Amazon Coffee is to be found everywhere, and a similar destiny surely awaits PTT-subsidised hotels.

Why are state enterprises permitted to do this? Why has the state become such an enemy of the people that it cannot restrain itself from crushing small and medium enterprises?

On June 1 the new S1 airport bus service begins, from Suvarnabhumi airport to Khao San Road (Online, May 31). In a way it is an utterly ridiculous route. Why doesn't this bus terminate or at least stop at Silom or Sukhumvit? The BMTA advertises that the bus will pass historic sites. Terminating at Khao San Road means additional taxis to one's final destination, usually a hotel deeper within the city. Most travellers off a flight want to get to their hotels to relax and clean up before embarking on any historical tours. I think this "new" airport run will go the way of the older airport to downtown bus service. It will fade into oblivion and be discontinued without a whimper.

There is media frenzy over the fallen tree that killed one, ("Making the cut", Life, May 29). Yet the silence about one person killed every hour is likewise beyond belief. Some 25,000 road deaths a year plus even more injuries don't rate a mention and while City Hall pursues the tree owner as if he is a murderer, not once has a law enforcement booked one of the hundreds of speeding and noise polluting motorbikes that pass my house day in day out, night in night out.

No one cares.

Eric Bahrt claims he was in the "Israeli-occupied territories" in 1971, and, furthermore, claims there was no violence there. But there was violence that year when a Palestinian teenager threw a grenade into a car killing members of the Aroyo family. How and where Mr Bahrt gets his information is quite a mystery.

Re: "Dead rights activist's aunt busted for pills", (BP, May 30). One would think they arrested the long lost monk. And then there is Anna Reese that walks again. Thailand again shows the world that money talks.

It looks like US President Donald Trump has his own way of showing his friendliness or his contempt for the people he associates with -- including foreign national leaders.

During the first leg of his foreign trip last week, President Trump showed high respect for his hosts in Saudi Arabia -- despite the fact that that country is not a democracy and has a questionable human rights record.

But later on the trip, Mr Trump suddenly metamorphosed into a stern instructor. He chastised his European hosts for "not paying enough" into Nato's defence budget. Critics were quick to describe the US president's manner during that time as: "Extremely overbearing".

Observers analysed the way Mr Trump shook hands with France's newly elected President Emmanuel Macron during their one-on-one meeting -- in which President Trump tried to pull the new French leader into a tug, but Mr Macron refused to comply.

Watchers also remember when German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited the White House in March: When Mr Trump was asked whether he would like to shake the hand of his lady guest, Mr Trump instead produced a deadpan face and refused to do it.

Re: "Bangkok of the North, I sure hope not", (Opinion, May 31).

Rampant, unplanned development has left Chiang Mai a polluted, flooded, traffic-congested city that I wouldn't suggest to my English friends is worth visiting. Ten-kilometre trips can take one and half hours. Who wants to have a holiday in that?