The Health Ministry is correct in banning the three poisonous chemical fertilisers that farmers use to boost their yields.
The health of people in Thailand is what's most important.
However, the ministry could perhaps subsidise less toxic sprays, or even encourage adoption of organic farming methods by using subsidies to lure these farmers to more adopt healthier, more sustainable methods.
Re: "Indian court approves Hindu temple at Ayodhya", (World, Nov 10).
The Indian Supreme Court's decision to award the site of the erstwhile Babri Mosque to the Hindus is hardly surprising. A Google search reveals that four of the five judges involved have Hindu names. Only one has a Muslim name.
The Indian judicial system always moves at an outrageously glacial pace. This case has been going on at least since 1992, when the mosque was destroyed. That's 27 years! Do Indian judges have nothing to do but sit on their well-padded bottoms and eat rasgullas?
Aside from that, the decision is a letdown. Perceptive readers may wonder why, in the interest of inter-religious harmony, the judges didn't award the site to both sides, and decree that both a temple and a mosque be built on it.
Alas, to expect such an enlightened ruling would be hopelessly naïve. Proximity does not guarantee tranquility -- sometimes it guarantees its opposite; and even if their respective houses of worship were placed cheek by jowl -- the two communities would still find something to fight about.
When "religionists" of different persuasions quarrel, it's no wonder that secularists throw up their hands and give up on them. If religions are to survive in these turbulent times, they need to emphasise what is most noble in their traditions -- not what is most petty. If they can't do that, they don't deserve to survive at all.
Re: "A European Germany, not a German Europe", (Opinion, Nov 9).
Once again Gwynne Dyer shows he is living in a parallel universe divorced from reality. Dyer talks of the EU as "an organisation that has put an end to centuries of war", when in fact the organisation responsible was Nato. Furthermore, he states that the EU is all about preserving democracy. What nonsense! Is it possible to change the EU's executive branch (the EU Commission) as in normal functioning democracies? No, it is impossible, however incompetent it has proven to be.
He speaks of Germany as if it was just another EU state like Malta. Who went to see Russia's Putin when war broke out in Eastern Ukraine? Chancellor Merkel of Germany and President Hollande of France. No other EU national leader was invited, and it is of course the EU foreign minister's job to represent the EU.
The UK has grown tired of watching the farce of the German chancellor and French president strutting around the world as if they were the EU's president and vice president, of listening to the EU's talk of democracy and preservation of peace while its nations cut defence spending to the bone and do little or nothing to counter President Putin's ambitions in Eastern Europe.
The EU is broken and cannot be fixed. The time for the UK to go is long overdue!
I find it amazing that no one is sounding any kind of warning about the fast-rising sea levels, which will endanger Bangkok in the not-so-distant future.
I guess the government will start dealing with this problem just like they did with the traffic in Bangkok -- about 20 years too late.
11 Nov 2019
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