OPINION

Prompt justice

Re: "Ministry to probe attack on tourist"; "Phuket apologises for attack on Chinese tourist", (BP, Feb 7 & 8).

Congratulations to Tourism and Sports Minister Phiphat Ratchakitprakarn for assigning his Phuket staff to sue the tour agency, which allegedly gypped and attacked a tourist with a knife, for their rapid work in seeing that justice was done quickly.

Minister Phiphat can't take personal charge of every case. Rather, our tourist police and Ministry of Justice should investigate and arrest tourist-related suspects within 48 hours of being informed by the victims. Special courts open 16/7 should take testimony from tourists either in person or by VDO from Thai embassies after the victims have returned home if need be.

Justice must not be denied, and this speed-up will greatly boost Thailand's attractiveness.

Re: "New China spy balloon 'transits' Lat Am"; "Govt tracks 'spy balloon from China'", (BP, Feb 5 & 4).

While mass hysteria has broken out in the USA over a Chinese weather balloon that drifted with the world's easterly current over Montana, the rest of the world just yawned along. Even the BBC, which normally just echoes the US position, stated on Feb 4 that "the wind patterns in the north Pacific in the past few days would have blown the balloon north-west to Alaska and then south-west through Canada to Montana".

There are at least two technical points about this balloon incident that suggests the issue is propaganda.

In 1944 the USA pushed for the establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and the right of a country to control its airspace. The convention stated that each country has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory, up to an altitude of 60,000 feet (18,288 meters) above mean sea level. Commercial aeroplanes typically fly at an altitude between 30,000 and 40,000 feet. The Chinese balloon has been identified as flying at a minimum of 60,000 feet above sea level.

Undetected daily imaging of the whole USA (or at least the important areas) is already being done daily by Chinese satellites at a resolution better than 1m per pixel. Considering, the Chinese have already landed on the other side of the moon, earth observation satellites in low earth orbits (LEO) to image any part of the USA are child's play compared to that feat.

By definition, imaging satellites can be called spy satellites; the same as the USA spy satellites, which capture images of military sensitive areas worldwide every day.

Re: "Wrong assumption", (PostBag, Feb 9).

Kuldeep Nagi states that immigrants to a foreign land are there only to make or save money. Not true -- many choose a different country for lots of reasons, including weather, nightlife, beaches, food, culture, lifestyle etc.