Originally posted by dukedracula:the latest episode should set the monarch and the protestors' sponsors somewhat nervous....thailand might just as well split into 3 regions, the restive malay muslim south, the middle class centre and the rural north....unless the army does the burma thing, thailand is pretty much paralysed............
Life goes on, business goes on, tourists stop coming for a while... the country is STRONG!
strong to the verge of collapse.
They aren't exactly dependant on tourism for their economy in the first place.
Originally posted by AndrewPKYap:
Life goes on, business goes on, tourists stop coming for a while... the country is STRONG!
Maybe it's their way of life - just like Taiwan politicians fight among themselves in Parliament, the Thais fight & open fire with handguns in the streets & everywhere.
Thailand is really an amazing country.
hehehe... it's a hot country...
Bangkok airport chaos deals blow to tourism
BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) — Thousands of bleary-eyed tourists mingled with yellow-clad protesters who brought flights to a halt at Bangkok's international airport Wednesday, dealing a major blow to Thailand's tourism industry during its peak season.
The tourism industry, which makes up 6 percent of the economy and employs about a million people, was already flagging after protesters in late August shut down airports serving popular beach resorts in Thailand's south.
With the latest unrest paralyzing the airport — which handles about 40 million passengers a year — during the peak tourist season, and TV networks broadcasting images of the chaos worldwide, the damage this time is likely to be more severe.
"Our main concern is to get the first flight home and never come back," said Australian newlywed Robert Grieve, 32, drinking a can of Heineken at 9 a.m. as he leaned against a vacated Thai Airways check-in counter. "I haven't even seen any staff since last night."
Fred Thierry, a Shanghai-based French executive with a printing materials company, had been stranded at the airport since 8 p.m. Tuesday.
"I have some meetings in Shanghai today," he said. "I had a big meeting with big customers."
Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi airport was shut down Tuesday after thousands of protesters — dressed in yellow to symbolize loyalty to Thailand's revered king — stormed the complex. Some of them were masked and carrying metal rods.
The takeover is the latest escalation in a sometimes violent four-month campaign by the People's Alliance for Democracy to topple Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat's government, which they claim is a puppet for ousted premier Thaksin Shinawatra. The billionaire businessman turned populist politician was deposed by the military in a 2006 coup following months of street protests against his alleged corruption and abuse of power.
Cathay Pacific Airways, Singapore Airlines Ltd. and dozens of other carriers canceled flights in and out of Bangkok, a major airline hub in Asia.
Inside the airport, exhausted travelers were sleeping everywhere: on their suitcases, on luggage carts, on security conveyer belts and behind vacated check-in counters. Protesters in yellow shirts — considered the royal color — walked around distributing food, ham sandwiches and packets of rice.
Airport director Serirat Prasutanont said authorities were trying to negotiate with the protesters to allow some of the 4,000 passengers stranded at the Bangkok airport to fly out.
Singapore's foreign ministry advised citizens to postpone all but urgent travel to Bangkok.
The airport chaos could inflict broader damage on Thailand's economy, which grew at its slowest pace in more than three years in the latest quarter because of the political unrest and the global financial crisis.
"We were thinking of having a new investment here but now we will probably do it in China," said Thierry, a 44-year-old Frenchman, in town to check on his company's Bangkok factory. "The situation is too unstable."
The political protests have already hurt tourism in the country, famous for its beaches and Buddhist temples. But the airport shutdown will deter even more visitors from coming, tourism executives said.
Tourist income during the high season — from late October to February — could slump to about half the expected 240 billion baht ($6.8 billion), said Kongkrit Hiranyakit, head of the Tourism Council of Thailand.
In late August, when antigovernment protesters shut down the airport on the resort island of Phuket, tourist arrivals at it and nearby resorts plummeted by 17 percent, he said. Fallout from the closure of Bangkok's main airport will likely be worse and could last six months or more, he said.
"We don't know when it will recover," said Kongrit. "The government should be taking steps to solve this problem. Otherwise we can not survive with this situation."
The protesters are bringing down the country for the King's sake. It's an honourable sacrifice that the world should respect. In a recession where the tourist dollars are valuable inflows, Thailand's economy has enough reserves to afford a bigger downturn. The message is clear, investors and tourists should steer clear of Thailand. The army's message is clear that they do support the actions of these protestors.
The world is worried is over jobs and livelihoods, Thailand is more concerned over democracy. This is a land of wealth and smiles, they don't to be concerned over matters that other Asian countries are fretting over.
Let's give our full support to the protestors in crippling their economy further.
My condolences to the people of Thailand.....
Im not sure what those people want....
Democracy surely is not what they want, since they want to forcibly topple an elected government.
But I blame the police and army the most....they are too passive, in fact waiting for the government to collapse....if they want, they can start arresting and disbanding the demonstrators.
Originally posted by Meat Pao:My condolences to the people of Thailand.....
Im not sure what those people want....
Democracy surely is not what they want, since they want to forcibly topple an elected government.
But I blame the police and army the most....they are too passive, in fact waiting for the government to collapse....if they want, they can start arresting and disbanding the demonstrators.
They want democracy but when an elected government start changing the constituition to ensure that they remain in power forever, is that democracy?
If a government gets elected and turns the country communists, is that democracy?
The PAP sold Singaporeans a lie that elections is the start and end of democracy. This allowed them to change the rules as they please to enable them to take massive amounts of money from the people and put as much public money into their own pockets as possible.
They change the rules and clamp down on democratic values to make sure that the opposition never has a real chance at the polls (like suppression of press freedom).
The Thai military and police tried killing people, people that act according to their conscience previously (in previous uprisings) and the King of Siam stepped in (rightly so) to stop the murderous acts of a small group of people.
You should know what to do, either do a Thai solution or everyone curse them for their dishonorable public money grabbing, dissidents and opposition persecuting behavior with the worse curses to the third generation.
Thailand is a strong country. They can close their airport and the whole country can go on strike and yet they will only come out stronger.
They are not dogs and they are not sheep and they will never let public money grabbing despots rule the country...
...unlike... silliporeans....
Originally posted by AndrewPKYap:
They want democracy but when an elected government start changing the constituition to ensure that they remain in power forever, is that democracy?
If a government gets elected and turns the country communists, is that democracy?
The PAP sold Singaporeans a lie that elections is the start and end of democracy. This allowed them to change the rules as they please to enable them to take massive amounts of money from the people and put as much public money into their own pockets as possible.
They change the rules and clamp down on democratic values to make sure that the opposition never has a real chance at the polls (like suppression of press freedom).
The Thai military and police tried killing people, people that act according to their conscience previously (in previous uprisings) and the King of Siam stepped in (rightly so) to stop the murderous acts of a small group of people.
You should know what to do, either do a Thai solution or everyone curse them for their dishonorable public money grabbing, dissidents and opposition persecuting behavior with the worse curses to the third generation.
There are two aspects in this Thai crisis that you have to consider.
Firstly, there has been repeated elections held, and each time the Thaksin faction has won the election fairly with the overwhelming support of the rural votes.
The protestors are all from the urban area of Bangkok.
Why will this minority group from the capital city of Bangkok be allowed to overturn a democratic process that they are unhappy with, and hold the entire country to ransom ?
Even now, many Bankok residents are fed-up with these protestors whose protests in the heart of the tourist belt have affected their livelihood; and now with the closure of the airport - it must surely affect the entire economy.
Secondly, the Constitution that required change was due to the fact that the original Constitution was agreed on by all parties but remained "Works-in-Progress" that required fine tuning.
When the Thai Military threw out Thaksin, they re-wrote the Constitution to give themselves the ultimate veto-powers on any decisions from a Government that is freely elected by the People.
Surely, this cannot be tolerated in any Democracies ?
The sad part of such a situation is that it will be used by detractors of Democracies as examples of the chaos that full democracies can bring.
Unfortunately, they fail to see that Thai Democracy is still "Works-in-Progress" - as Singapore was in the 1950s until this date; and saw our Constitution being totally abused by a Single Party dominated Parliament that took advantage of the total liberty to change the Constitution to serve their own convenience.
The sad part of such a situation is that it will be used by detractors of Democracies as examples of the chaos that full democracies can bring.
Up till now, full democracies in SEA have never produced the mature democracies you seemed to crave so much and they were in countries that had far more favourable conditions than us.
I regard democracy as a perfect ideal, a society where people have the power AND the responsibility. Thailand is a perfect example of wanting the power of a democracy but showing completely no regard for the responsibility of belonging in that democracy.
Democracy can work, and i want it to work.
But i'm not foolish enough to believe the low educated workers at the begining of Singapore's Independence could grasp the intricacies of government policies. You cannot expect them to understand forward planning, especially when it requires them to give up what they are already used to.
Even now, when the majority of us have at least O level educations we still get plenty of people who react in a kneejerk manner (AndrewPKY for example) who wants the PAP gone at all costs, even when it clearly hurts the interest of the entire country to do so.
You fail to see that democracy comes with a major price of blood, as the history of Europe and America has demostrated. Instead you regard it as a magic bullet that would automatically solve problems. Would we be less hit by this economic crisis in a full democracy?
Would we actually achieve full water independence considering one of the pre conditions is to convert 2/3 of an already small enough country to water catchment areas? When in a full democracy, the government would have to please the people by giving them more land to build their houses on?
Originally posted by Stevenson101:Up till now, full democracies in SEA have never produced the mature democracies you seemed to crave so much and they were in countries that had far more favourable conditions than us.
I regard democracy as a perfect ideal, a society where people have the power AND the responsibility. Thailand is a perfect example of wanting the power of a democracy but showing completely no regard for the responsibility of belonging in that democracy.
Democracy can work, and i want it to work.
But i'm not foolish enough to believe the low educated workers at the begining of Singapore's Independence could grasp the intricacies of government policies. You cannot expect them to understand forward planning, especially when it requires them to give up what they are already used to.
Even now, when the majority of us have at least O level educations we still get plenty of people who react in a kneejerk manner (AndrewPKY for example) who wants the PAP gone at all costs, even when it clearly hurts the interest of the entire country to do so.
You fail to see that democracy comes with a major price of blood, as the history of Europe and America has demostrated. Instead you regard it as a magic bullet that would automatically solve problems. Would we be less hit by this economic crisis in a full democracy?
Would we actually achieve full water independence considering one of the pre conditions is to convert 2/3 of an already small enough country to water catchment areas? When in a full democracy, the government would have to please the people by giving them more land to build their houses on?
What I want is for people to curse the old senile despot for grabbing public money, persecuting dissidents and opposition, making self-serving policies, taking as much money from the people as possible and then letting the Ho Jinx, his gambling addict DIL to play with the money. Curse the old despot so that his children, grandchildren and relatives suffer from the worse form of cancer.
Only when people curse these type of ass-hole, only then, hopefully it will deter future apes from trying to do such dirty deeds.
"In a televised address from the government stronghold of Chiang Mai, 700 km (400 miles) north of Bangkok, Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat declared emergency law, saying the export and tourism-driven economy could not tolerate further disruption.
"I need to do something to restore peace and order," he said."
... he should just step down...
Originally posted by AndrewPKYap:
"In a televised address from the government stronghold of Chiang Mai, 700 km (400 miles) north of Bangkok, Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat declared emergency law, saying the export and tourism-driven economy could not tolerate further disruption.
"I need to do something to restore peace and order," he said."
... he should just step down...
why should he? he was democratically elected, he is supported by the poor, the farmers....only those who are rich can go on demonstrating without having to work for money.
keeping foreigners in airport as hostage is cowardice, childish and stupid. anker, your type.
Originally posted by sgdiehard:
why should he? he was democratically elected, he is supported by the poor, the farmers....only those who are rich can go on demonstrating without having to work for money.keeping foreigners in airport as hostage is cowardice, childish and stupid. anker, your type.
He is trying to change the constituition to benefit himself, his cronies, his dogs (you should be familiar with those, since you so love to taste sh!t) and he wants to change the constituition that enabled him to come into power so that others will not be able to.
Of course he should step down and only dogs like you that are constantly hoping for crumps falling off the tables of, and licking the assholes of dishonorable despots, will not think so.
Originally posted by Meat Pao:My condolences to the people of Thailand.....
Im not sure what those people want....
Democracy surely is not what they want, since they want to forcibly topple an elected government.
But I blame the police and army the most....they are too passive, in fact waiting for the government to collapse....if they want, they can start arresting and disbanding the demonstrators.
That's what democracy is about. The elected govt can lose powere just as quickly as it has gained it if the people don't approve what it is doing.
The calm will return swiftly if the corrupted govt quickly steps down.
Originally posted by googoomuck:That's what democracy is about. The elected govt can lose powere just as quickly as it has gained it if the people don't approve what it is doing.
The calm will return swiftly if the corrupted govt quickly steps down.
but werent the current government democratically elected ?
Originally posted by BadzMaro:but werent the current government democratically elected ?
Good question & I am waiting for the answer - anyone would like to have a crack at it?
Originally posted by BadzMaro:but werent the current government democratically elected ?
TheThais can hire them but cannot fire them?
Originally posted by googoomuck:TheThais can hire them but cannot fire them?
So whats the reason for firing them ?
Its gotta be a pretty good one. N they were elected not long ago, dun forget. So what if he steps down and another steps in and another group decides that 'nah.. i dun like em.. lets all protest' are u gonna expect him to step down again ? I can only imagine what the country is gonna be like in a few years time. lol
Originally posted by BadzMaro:So whats the reason for firing them ?
According to media, the Thais are accusing the PM of being a corrupt proxy for exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
Originally posted by googoomuck:According to media, the Thais are accusing the PM of being a corrupt proxy for exiled former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra.
-_-"
lol.. such baseless claims can be used to try to force a democratically elected government out. Thai democracy. I rest my case.
Originally posted by BadzMaro:-_-"
lol.. such baseless claims can be used to try to force a democratically elected government out. Thai democracy. I rest my case.
The PM is the brother-in-law of Thaksin. How's that?
The rural community only recognise the ones who gave them hand-outs.
Hopefully, the next govt in power will emphasize on educating the poor to help them make effective and well-informed decision.
Originally posted by googoomuck:The PM is the brother-in-law of Thaksin. How's that?
The rural community only recognise the ones who gave them hand-outs.
Hopefully, the next govt in power will emphasize on educating the poor to help them make effective and well-informed decision.
Hopefully... if they dun get forced out like its predeccesor. lol But anyways , brother in law doesnt mean that he IS the proxy right ? where is the benefit of the doubt ? where is some faith in him ? his profile hardly suggests he is like Thaksin.
We see how this will end. But i must say that its not going to end even if he is forced out by the ever growing violent protests.