The most disturbing example is Salakchit Tiyapairat, wife of Natural Resources and Environment Minister Yongyuth Tiyapairat, who appeared to win her Senate race after just having a case against her for election fraud dropped in Chiang Rai.

If she follows her husband's example, then Thailand deserves everything it is getting - less foreign investment, larger deficits, a completely unstable political landscape and a destroyed environment. Everyone should take a drive round Chiang Rai and northern Chiang Mai province sometime to see the ongoing slash-and-burn farming, which is allowed to enable the continual growth of orange groves primarily.

On the road between Fang and Mae Suay in the last six months, the mountains have been totally cleared and burned as far as can be seen. This has to be thousands of square kilometres. This was once a beautiful drive through hills covered in forest; now it looks like a blackened moonscape.

If the province of the natural resources and environment minister can be exploited in this manner, what about the rest of Thailand? And this after Thaksin swore that no more land-clearing would take place in the North due to last year's floods and landslides. This year will be much worse, I promise. Even the recent three days of rain in the North have caused much more intensive erosion and landslides than weeks of rain would have caused two to three years ago.

But I guess if you can steal and illegally import wildlife from other countries, then get off with no charges - as the owner of Safari World did by allegedly buying off the Customs Department - then nothing is sacred in Thailand any more. No concern for the environment, no concern for wildlife, either domestic or illegally imported; people only show concern about how much baht you have.

Disgusted by Thaksin and TRT

Chiang Mai

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Protest about democratic principles is founded in bias

Re: "Democracy can only work in a fair and just society", Letters, April 17.

Katha made several perplexing statements.

First, he says there would not have been protests if the system of checks and balances were allowed to operate as it was "supposed to". Was the system really dysfunctional or did it just yield a result that was unsatisfactory to the protesters and Katha? For most Thais, the system did operate as it should have.

Second, he claims the urban elite would not have mobilised if the PM's dealings had been "properly" investigated. Again, the word "properly" translates into "according to the wishes of the urban elite mob".

Then he goes on to say there is nothing undemocratic about demanding the resignations of elected officials if the demands are "justified". Really? And "justified" by whom? The "urban elite minority"? In a true democracy, aren't you supposed to voice yourself at the ballot box? Is that not the way a democracy affects change? How would Katha feel if the "rural masses" decided to descend on Bangkok, 5 million strong, block traffic and damage tourism, foreign direct investment and the livelihoods of the "urban elite" because they felt the new PM was not "just and fair"?

I wonder if Katha truly understands the meaning of democracy, because what he is advocating sounds a lot like mob rule.

Anthony Adams

Bangkok

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Professor's civil disobedience will be repeated on Sunday

Re: "Chula lecturer destroys ballots in protest", News, April 2.

Ajan Chaiyan Chaiyaporn: we all saw your valiant, noble and courageous act of civil disobedience on April 2 and would like to throw in our heartfelt support. This Sunday, April 23, many people in the province of Songkhla may actually throw themselves in, in addition to our hearts, as one last concerted effort to show our profound disgust at the way the Election Commission has been grinding our dear democracy down to pieces, if not pulp. I am anticipating that hundreds and maybe thousands will actually emulate your defiant deed by tearing up their ballot papers inside the poll booths.

You will never walk alone, Ajan Chaiyan. God bless you.

Wiwat Sutiwipakorn

Department of Civil Engineering

Faculty of Engineering

Prince of Songkhla University

Songkhla

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Missing only one element of a banana republic

About a year or so ago, Thailand was aptly described in the Letters section as an "oligarchic stultocracy". Over the last month, its descent has been ever more acute, with the brokers of power and privilege managing to orchestrate a government without a government and an assembly of politically partisan housewives to oversee them.

The country has a roving ex-prime minister without portfolio who requests and requires an international audience with leaders that have little interest in dialogue, while the press has become conspicuously mute. Vote-buying and intimidation is so transparent in this space, its countenance has descended to a new low in international esteem. If only the country could export more fruit, its setting would indeed be complete.

Disillusioned

Bangkok

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'Streetwise' nails a good governance failure at PTT

Re: "The mystery of good governance", Business, April 20.

The "Streetwise" column questioned the Cabinet resolution on Tuesday that ordered PTT to sell fuel at a special reduced price to the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority and bus operators. In so doing, the government, as a major shareholder of the company, caused the management - which is supposed to represent the interests of all the shareholders, not only the majority owners - to breach the rules of good governance.

Yet PTT and its CEO have previously been honoured as models of good governance and awarded all sorts of prizes. Good governance means managing affairs equitably, fairly and transparently in the interests of all shareholders. Hence, all listed companies in Thailand, including PTT, are subject to scrutiny by stock regulators as prescribed by statute, to ensure that the minority are protected and that a fair environment for our capital market is maintained.

Have we heard any outcry regarding PTT's oppression? No, not a peep! Your "Streetwise" is the first one to have done so. PTT's good governance has been compromised twice in the past six months; another time was in November 2005, when PTT and PTTEP were ordered to spend Bt5 billion to shore up power prices at Egat.

Both PTT and PTTEP were previously acclaimed for good governance because of internal management. They now have broken the rule of good citizenship, because of the twofold government interference carried out to further political ends without a care for those who have put their personal savings into these good corporations.

Therefore, in 2006, if anyone dares to give prizes for good governance to PTT and its executives again, I will refrain from applauding, and the prize presenters will be put to shame. As a mark of protest, it might be nice for PTT's executives and PTT to give back all those medals and plaques previously received, which are now proudly displayed in their reception rooms, or alternatively to store them in a warehouse.

Songdej Praditsmanont

Bangkok

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Puzzled by campaign poster in Chinese

I saw one Senate candidate's poster depicting his Chinese name, but I don't understand the reason why this candidate is displaying this.

This was a Senate election in Thailand.

KT

Bangkok

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Nuclear brinkmanship has already led us over the cliff

Talk of nuclear strikes on Iran are cause for concern indeed; yet one wonders why the same hullabaloo has not been heard over the use of depleted-uranium munitions in Iraq - strictly speaking, a form of nuclear warfare. The effect of the radiation that has leaked and continues to leak from these weapons is causing untold (or should I say unreported) hazards for Iraqis and occupiers alike. Some estimates are in the region of 87 per cent of all newborns (as distinct from the babies that are stillborn, that is) having some form of congenital abnormality that can be attributed to the radiation levels in the atmosphere. Cancer, particularly leukaemia, is also on the increase in the general population at an alarming rate.

In essence then, the nuclear threshold has already been crossed many times over since the Gulf War of 1991 but without the bang and accelerated physical deterioration of those unfortunate enough to survive the blast and heat. Be that as it may, the physical, geophysical and psychological effects of using nuclear warheads would be grave indeed (no pun intended).

It is a dangerous game the Bush administration is playing. This is not nuclear deterrence - which relies on a parity of weaponry for all players involved. This is a nuclear threat posed by the US. No matter how you dress it up, the US is openly threatening a non-nuclear state with the use of nuclear weapons on its territory. If push comes to shove, and so-called "diplomatic" channels fail, the US will be backed into a corner of its own making, for if it doesn't use a nuclear strike, and its bluff is exposed, there will be ramifications for future confrontations. Very much related to this is the likelihood that Iran wouldn't really be the intended political target of any nuclear strike, but instead would serve as a lesson for other, better-armed and independent-minded states - in much the same manner as the strikes on Japan were for the Soviet Union in 1945.

James Martin

Bangkok