As an educational professional working here in Thailand I read with interest the article concerning the upgrade of English teaching.

My first question has be, so what is the plan? Where is the input coming from other than just money? How is this improvement to be achieved? What results are expected? How are they to be validated? Simply throwing Bt2.5 billion at the perceived deficiency will make little real impact.

Firstly what is required is the recruitment and retention of competent teachers, specifically native speakers and this means those whose mother tongue is English. People of other nationalities are learning English as a second language and their own language taints their pronunciation - speaking English with a pronounced foreign accent is highly undesirable. Secondly, a national standard of achievement at certain levels is necessary to check progress is real and to ratify the standards that schools are achieving. And thirdly, there needs to be an examination system that is genuine in its results so that employers can be confident that employees come with guaranteed linguistic skills.

Unless and until a structured approach similar to that which I have outlined is adopted, money put into the present educational system may as well be burned in public.

Dr John Patterson

Bangkok

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Expensive private language schools add to educational rot

Re: "Education a vital policy point being ignored by all parties", Letters, August 19.

I would like to add some nuances to the comments made by Prachyadavi Tavedikul.

He fails to mention a related issue; apart from the bankruptcy of government education, private development in education has reached undesirable proportions. Outrageous tuition fees are charged for tuition at schools that do not offer internationally recognised diplomas such as the International Baccalaureate.

Parents and students pay for quality education; signs that accreditation has only been granted by a rather limited number of years should be taken seriously. The total lack of government regulation is appalling; the Thai government is more concerned about the physical area specifications than about educational strategies.

Ben van den Anker

Singapore

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Protests that respect others' rights valuable to democracy

Re: "Anti-PM protester gets fat lip", News, August 20. The clash between caretaker Prime Minister Thaksin's guards and anti-Thaksin demonstrators at Siam Paragon shows that both our premier and the protesters need lessons in democracy. Our PM shows his lack of understanding when he said that: "[Protesting] is not the right way to express opinions in a democratic country." If he were correct, he should come down equally hard on the "Thaksin, sou, sou" (those who cheer Thaksin) demonstrators - which he hasn't done.

Protesters have the right to voice their opinions - so long as they fully respect the rights of others. Thus, for example, when I picketed in the US (against racial discrimination), we made sure that we were always on public property and that any who wished to patronise the restaurant we were picketing could freely pass through our lines. Thaksin's guards were behaving out of hand when they used force against the demonstrators, as the prime minister was in no clear and present danger. They should have shielded him with their bodies, while removing him from the site and let the police at the scene handle the protesters.

Burin Kantabutra

Bangkok

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Bangkok no more of a sex capital than other major cities

Re: "Don't like being a 'sex capital', then do something about it", Letters, August 21.

It is grossly unfair to persist in singling out Bangkok as a sex capital. I could take Thomas Burkenham and his ilk to cities all over the world (including those in the Middle East) where sex is openly solicited (as long as they paid!).

Sex is a fact of life; it always has been, and it is not to anyone's advantage to be naive or in denial about this. Sex is everywhere if one knows where to look; it just happens to be a little more obviously on display here. Maybe, we should congratulate the Thais for not getting so "stewed up" about the whole issue, rather than insulting them.

Stop singling out Thailand and Bangkok. Open your eyes and the road to discovery will enable you to see that every city is a sex capital!

John Shepherd

Bangkok

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Vital that statements made in Ramsey case were recorded

As a former deputy district attorney from Boulder, Colorado, I would like to raise a very basic issue with regards to the arrest of John Karr in the JonBenet Ramsey murder case. While some statements made by Karr are shown on videotape and are clearly directly out of his mouth, many statements attributed to Karr come from hearsay statements of non-native English speaking investigators telling us what he said.

In a situation where recollection of details and understanding of the subtleties of the English language is critical, the ramifications of this fact are truly frightening. For the sake of justice, whether Karr is guilty of murder or just plain stupidity, let us hope that a tape recorder was used during the interviews. If not, add another serious mistake to a series of blunders that have plagued this case for the past 10 years.

Mel Tatsumi

Chiang Mai University

Chiang Mai

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Misconceptions guide view of Israeli occupation in Mideast

Re: "Give Palestinians their own state to ease Mideast tensions", Letters, August 17. Here is a rundown of facts that repudiate the claims of Niek Jansen's letter.

The UN Plan for the partition of Palestine on November 29, 1947 declared the creation of a Jewish and an Arab homeland. While the Jews accepted the plan, the Arabs rejected it outright and instead six Arab countries attacked the newly formed State of Israel. They were defeated, of course, and have never formally accepted the said plan. There was no "Palestinian problem" as such between 1948 to 1967. During this time the areas known as the West Bank (including Arab East Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip belonged to Jordan and Egypt respectively. What, if I may ask, prevented the Palestinians from establishing their own state with Jerusalem as its capital during this time? They were not occupied by Israel, so the historical context must be put right.

What is known as the Palestinian problem did not even exist in those years, as a survey of both the world media and UN activity will attest. This problem arose after Israel made the fatal mistake of occupying those areas in the 1967 humiliating defeat of three Arab countries.

Make no mistake about it: the occupation is wrong and must end, as all the latest Israeli governments have agreed, as well as recognising the right to an independent Palestinian state. But this is made practically impossible by the choice of terrorism as a tactic and the election of a Hamas-led government, a terrorist group classified as such even by the EU, which cannot be accused of too much love lost for Israel. Several polls show that over 70 per cent of Palestinians support suicide bombers in Israel.

So who can Israel make peace with? There have been opportunities for them, such as the very generous offer made by Israeli PM Ehud Barak to the late Chairman Arafat - but the latter got cold feet. As someone once said, "the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity". Perhaps they should give up terror for starters.

Andy Leitner

Haifa, Israel

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Eisenhower did not betray the French over the Suez Canal

Re: "All France needs in Lebanon is international support", Letters, August 21.

Eisenhower never betrayed the French during the Suez incident of 1956. He had been elected on a peace platform in '52 and re-election time was at hand. At no time did he support the Anglo/French attempt to steal back the Suez Canal after it had been nationalised by the Egyptians. He adamantly opposed any military intervention in the Suez. Britain and France persuaded the Israelis to participate to provide the pretext. Betrayal by Eisenhower? After the US had supported the French in their attempt to re-impose their colonial empire in Indochina from 1946 through 1954, betrayal is a curious word to use.

Chris Buckley

Bangkok

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Rumoured taxi system at new airport would be inconvenient

I received information that passengers wanting to take a taxi from the new airport must take a shuttle bus from the main terminal building to the public bus station about 3 kilometres away in order to catch a taxi. Is this the "convenience" promoted by the Airports of Thailand? Is this a way to force tired passengers, especially those with luggage, to pay for the over-priced limousines that have won bids to operate at the airport?

I can foresee traffic and security problems where taxis that are dropping off passengers at the departure level will stick around hoping to pick up passengers who think it smarter to go to the departure level than to take a 3-kilometre bus ride to the taxi stand. Not too dissimilar to the current situation in Don Muang for those taxis and passengers who do not want to pay the extra Bt50.

I would have thought easy public access would be one of the main goals of the new airport. I hope the new airport link train is also not a bus ride away.

Saran Patiparn

Bangkok