Re: "FFP leader risks the chop as MP", (BP, April 24).
The Election Commission might as well avoid the charade and cost of a detailed "investigation" of the purported violations of election law by Future Forward Party (FFP) leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit. Everyone already knows what the final decision will be. The young FFP leader is simply too much of a threat to many of the traditional political establishment to be allowed a seat in parliament.
Samanea Saman
Paranoid immigration
Now it appears that expats are required to notify the immigration and labour departments every time they change jobs. Somehow Thailand is becoming a super paranoid country that is looking to exercise absolute control of foreigners living and working here. It is like Orwell's 1984 being reenacted at a later time. I wonder how long it will be before we are required to wear tracking bracelets.
Feh!
Absence of fairness
Re: "Old expat moving on", (PostBag, April 25).
Without knowing any of his personal circumstances, I feel desperately sorry for Donald Graber. I, too, wrote a polite letter to the director of immigration on Feb 18 merely requesting further information on the new financial requirements for the retirement visa. I, too, received neither an acknowledgment of receipt nor a reply.
I fully understand the Immigration Bureau's desire to weed out the rotten apples, including those in its own department who have been cheating the system. But I ask the new director this: Why is it deemed necessary to take draconian action that also applies to those who have always followed all the rules and have always acted in accordance with the law in the past?
Since I have worked for a number of companies outside the UK for the last 40 years, I have no pension. I have savings and I have always used the 800,000-baht route without a problem.
I own and live in my own apartment in central Bangkok. I have a generous medical insurance policy issued by a Thai insurance company. I am not suddenly going to become a burden to the Thai economy.
Indeed, I contribute to it. Yet with savings rates at their lowest since the 2008 financial crisis, to generate a higher return, my savings are spread through a series of deposits with sufficient interest to be generated to meet the annual 800,000-baht requirement. The financial penalties I will face if I break these policies are very considerable.
Will the director of immigration therefore kindly inform readers why those taking the 65,000-baht per month fixed pension route face absolutely no minimum cash in the bank requirements?
Once their pension funds are here all can be spent. Yet those on the 800,000 route are now forced to maintain -- untouched in a savings account -- a minimum of 400,000 per month for seven months and then a whopping 800,000 per month for five months -- all until we die. I cannot do that.
Furthermore, why is it that those who own apartments are treated exactly as those who, in most cases, will require more funds to rent?
Finally, why is it that those like myself who have invested in Thailand by purchasing an apartment, worth in my case many millions of baht, are now penalised by having also to store a large amount of cash in the country which we will never be able to touch? Must we now sell and rent instead?
The new retirement rules are forcing many of us to reconsider the decision we made many years ago to retire here. I had always assumed we would be treated fairly. I deeply regret that fairness seems to have no place anywhere in these new rules.
John Duffus
Sad old Thailand
What a sad world we live in. What has happened to this country which at one time was seen by most expats, warts and all, as a country that welcomed all people and not just Chinese tourists.
Every day we read about the numbers game like something a lottery seller would hand out, with the latest saga -- the story of the 90-year-old handicapped farang looking for some kind of security in his twilight years and asking immigration for assistance in allowing him to stay in Thailand, with not even a reply to his request.
I have one request and that is to know the name of the country to which he has been accepted. Tomorrow it could be me looking for assistance.
Brian Corrigan
Final SRT blow
Re: "SRT seeks help with Hopewell", (BP, April 25).
This seems to be the final blow to the debt-ridden SRT. The agency has no hope since its basic recovery plans for the past years yield no results. The government should take this occasion to dissolve the SRT and establish a new agency to manage the national railway business.
RH Suga
Lamphun
Essential carbs
It was accurately noted (Life, April 23) that the sugars found in fruits are not harmful. One of the tragedies of the insane Atkins Diet craze is the false assumption that all carbohydrates are bad for you. Complex carbohydrates which are found in fruits, vegetables and grains are essential for good health. Because the sugars are mixed in with vitamins, minerals and fiber the sugars are slowly digested.
But simple carbs such as raw sugar or brown sugar are not mixed in with anything healthy and are quickly digested. They are bad for you. Just as we label different kinds of cholesterol as "good" or "bad" we should do the same with carbohydrates.
Eric Bahrt
Keep science alive
Like many, I was saddened to hear that Alan Alda has Parkinson's disease. I was also saddened that he felt it was necessary to discuss an issue that many may keep private because, as he said, "I thought, it's probably only a matter of time before somebody does a story about this from a sad point of view, but that's not where I am." In times of illness and passing we should consider the theme of his message and concentrate on the positives in life.
Most will know him for his acting in M.A.S.H. as a brilliant, trouble-making doctor although his role in West Wing as a brilliant potential president is well worth watching. His real brilliance is, however, as a storyteller, and his contributions to science in this role at the Alan Alda Centre for Communicating Science.
There are many that can tell a story well but few tell stories of importance so well. Science is better off because of him, as there is a need for clear communication in a world of fake news and fake science -- climate change deniers and anti-vaccination falsehoods. Keep telling the world about science as I and many others will keep listening.
Dennis Fitzgerald
Airbrushed elephant
I applaud Gwynne Dyer's piece about Northern Ireland (Opinion, April 26). He is right, Northern Ireland as a separate entity came into existence through the 1921 Anglo-Irish Peace Agreement ending the Irish War of Independence.
The Irish side saw Northern Ireland as a temporary measure to be renegotiated; its borders were hurriedly decided and had to include many Catholic/nationalist populated areas to realise the idea.
For the next 40 years the Protestant majority in Northern Ireland were a legal force unto themselves, with all laws and benefits directed in their favour.
Eventually the social imbalance exploded in the majority Protestant faces, drawing the British into thirty years of bloody conflict. As Gwynne said, the 1998 Belfast Good Friday Agreement brought a welcome pause, hoping, as generations pass, that Irish folk both north and south can in some way unite and become one again. Brexit voters might be excused for not bringing Northern Ireland into their thinking, but not the politicians and other commentators who seem to have airbrushed the elephant out of the argument altogether.
Nick Nicholson
Chon Buri
Abort unethical ties
Why are Asian governments blind to the buying and selling of cheap labour? For decades Asia's poor have been bought and sold by receiving and sending countries, respectively, under the label of economic benefits, social wellbeing and even that once mooted mantra of "prosper thy neighbour".
Millions of Asians are hired as cheap labour to meet developing countries' seeming shortage of manpower in manufacturing, plantations and the service sectors. Millions more languish under the exploiting circumstances given their illegal, undocumented conditions.
The case in a Hong Kong court of an Indonesian maid seeking justice for sexual abuse or harassment highlights a significant truth that all Asian governments must account for. In her alleged claims, the maid stated that she could not afford to lose her job because she has a family to support in Indonesia and debts to repay to her employment agency.
It is a known fact that agencies in sending and receiving countries collect exorbitant fees for securing legal employment status as migrant workers and also for renewing the work permits. And why are receiving governments most unwilling to axe the importing agents and instead deal directly on a G2G (government to government) basis to rescue the migrant workers from being exploited by approving, importing and exporting agents?
In this age of the fast advancing 21st century where Third World Asian countries are rushing to become a part of the developed community of advanced nations, it is a shame that Asian governments continue to let human slavery continue with impunity and lip service to all the clamouring calls by world communities like the UN.
Perhaps the developed world that benefits from the production and trade with these Asian countries should be honourable enough to impose moratoriums on or abort trade ties with these unethical Asian countries.
JD Lovrenciear
Malaysia
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