The disclosure of the Surayud Cabinet's wealth may have captured the imaginations of the media, as seen from the headlines of all newspapers the following day, but it left the curious public - people like you and me - baffled. Collectively this is definitely one of the "poor" Cabinets, and its wealth is next to nothing compared to the one under Thaksin Shinawatra's control. But with a total net worth of more than Bt6 billion, the 26 men and one woman who make up the Surayud Cabinet are far wealthier than the people they are supposed to serve. Lest it be forgotten, Thailand's per capita annual income hovers around only Bt150,000.

More startling is the fact that the majority of the Surayud Cabinet is made up of former government officials who, at the peak of their career, would make only Bt90,000 per month in salary and other compensation. But from their wealth disclosure, it would seem that ministers and their spouses may have had more than one career in their lifetime - or they would never have been able to amass fortunes of Bt50 million and up just from being in His Majesty's service. The only other plausible explanation is that their ancestors were very rich and left them with a huge inheritance.

Having been in the civil service for over 22 years, I can testify as a former government official that at any given time in those years my savings deposit was never more than Bt1 million. And even that meagre amount is all gone now. For people who serve His Majesty, it is not the money they are after but the pride and honour they derive from being beneficial to others, from building well and being true to the principles of good governance. They are not there to make money, and this is what really counts.

Listing Cabinet members' assets has become, as far as I am concerned, a sick and useless routine for public knowledge, and it is not even full knowledge at that. To make it a meaningful exercise the authorities concerned (the NCCC, I suppose) must also be able to ascertain the sources or origins of those assets and make sure that the wealth that is reported is not ill-gotten. It is funny that the media also points out those ministers who are the least well endowed, as if to show that there are some whom the people can trust on the basis of their being poor.

Prachyadavi Tavedikul

Bangkok

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Govt has better things to attend to than lotteries

 MR Pridiyathorn Devakula must have forgotten that the purpose of the September coup was to stamp out the misdeeds of the Thaksin government rather than to rectify its wrongdoing. If the allegations of corruption and abuse of power cannot be proved via legal process and followed with appropriate punishment, then the coup will be the biggest joke of the modern Thai history.

If the two- and three-digit lotteries are against the Government Lottery Office Act and a criminal offence then there should not be any second thoughts about retaining them, just stop selling these lotteries right away! Why make the embarrassing attempts to amend the law and cause suspicion among the people that there is some hidden agenda?

In arguing that the lotteries should go from underground operators to legal operators, the present administration is sharing the same thinking as its predecessor. The reason that the underground lotteries could operate in the past decade was simply because of the corruption in law enforcement. If Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont overhauls and restructures the law enforcement body as he pledged to do when taking office, then there will be little room for the mafia to manoeuvre, and the impact of the underground lottery will become insignificant.

In countries like Hong Kong, where the Hong Kong Jockey Club runs the similar Mark Six lottery, the law is strictly enforced so that people under 16 cannot enter betting premises and participate. In Thailand, with lottery stands on all the main roads and even in big shopping centres, public access to lotteries is unlimited and it is therefore premature to talk about legalisation.

Discouraging and prohibiting the two- and three-digit lotteries is not a religious or moral issue: history and experience tell us that gambling does more harm than good, those who strike gold in gambling are the operators, not the players. Thai society needs to make education for the young its priority, and leaders in the government are in a position to guide them. The coup-makers should restore not only justice but also the values that are lacking in our present society.

There is more important work ahead for this one-year interim government than wasting time on debating this issue.

Yingwai Suchaovanich

Bangkok

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Act quickly to punish the currency speculators

 Re: "BOT ready with steps to stop baht speculation", News, December 2.

So, Thai banks are colluding with foreign speculators to manipulate the baht, to the detriment of Thai industry, tourism and Thailand in general. Why am I not surprised?

Thai foreign-exchange controls should immediately be repositioned to stop the manipulation. To prevent this from happening again, the speculators, which are known as hedge funds (one wonders if George Soros is involved) and banks should be punished. They need to be taught a lesson, to end their belief that Thailand is an easy target.

Roland Watson

Bangkok

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Number of hill-tribe people in Thailand is about 750,000

 Re: Hill-tribes concert, News, December 1. The report from Citylife in Chiang Mai states that "Thailand has about 100,000 tribes people". The carelessness of this statement underscores many faults with media reporting of societal issues in Thailand, as well as the Bangkok bias and reactionary reporting of the major English-language newspapers. It would certainly be refreshing to see some proactive investigative reporting about the important, albeit controversial and "face-losing", issues of population and human rights.

Most official estimates (United Nations, Thai government) put the hill-tribe population closer to 750,000 people. This doesn't include undercounts of the tens of thousands (likely hundreds of thousands) of hill-tribe people that have migrated into Thailand from Burma to escape ethnic cleansing by the Burmese junta in recent years.

Most hill-tribe people are disenfranchised and suffer from lack of healthcare, education and economic opportunity. One of the few bright spots of the Thaksin administration was to push for more documentation for hill-tribe people and migrants (ID cards and health/education access).

Hill-tribe people are more than just props for tourist venues. They are a resource and a responsibility deserving of more attention from responsible media, as much as they deserve more attention from Thailand's people and government regarding their culture, equality and human rights.

Todd Jones

Chiang Mai

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Courteous official helps restore embassy's poor image

 In recent times, the British Embassy at Bangkok has suffered from a number of criticisms regarding customer service and its handling of people. Indeed, previously, my own experiences have been tarnished by draconian, bureaucratic and unfriendly handling. However, there has been a dramatic and very positive change for the good. I recently renewed my passport and was met by a superb customer friendly individual, Dick Rowe. His manner was fantastic - clearly explaining the process and providing me with additional advice. And I witnessed this repeated with every individual, British and Thai.

Customer service, for me, is about accountability and passion, and I was very impressed at the way this was delivered. An individual can make a difference, and long may he do so - a credit to the embassy and his country.

Steve Hacking

Bangkok

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New media can't give you the satisfaction of the old

 Re: "News of the people, for the people and by the people", Opinion, November 29.

Computer geeks, news, opinions and attention spans. How do you like to read your news? Cramped over a computer? Indulging in a socially dysfunctional spat over your keyboard? Or do you like the way I do it? Relaxing with your newspaper or a good book in a Thai restaurant by the sea. Even when I am in London and the weather is awful, I can sit in a favourite pub with some excellent brew and an Orwell book.

Which of the two styles would you choose? Web-logging may be a way to freely express yourself, or to bore someone with an attention span of 20 seconds.

There is nothing like the feel of a book or the crumple of newspaper pages while supping beer.

What I think you should be asking is, not how do we use the medium, but what is the quality of the writing?

Yuri Velasquez

Bangkok

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Buy up Afghanistan's opium to keep it out of drug trade

 Having read many articles on the problem of opium production in Afghanistan, it seems that stopping the farmers growing it is the popular solution. This will never happen. It is the highest earning cash crop and has been grown in the region for hundreds of years. Why don't Western governments just buy the crop and make all the morphine they need from it? There is a world shortage of morphine. And they can just destroy anything they don't use. Is there an argument against this idea? Is there any reason it could not work? Given the will and the money, it could work. If we can spend billions on the fight against terror, why not spend what is necessary to solve the opium problem? Imagine the lives saved and the misery avoided, not to mention the money saved in the long term.

JA McDonough

Bangkok