Security services need to get their act together

But our VIP security has already been shown to be non-existent, and our cordons to be sieves - or haven't our generals studied the Pattaya fiasco, where the unarmed reds took the easily-defensible Royal Cliff Hotel, forcing heads of state to flee by helicopter? Do they not know that at the Interior Ministry, we let red attackers reach our prime minister's car, while his protectors could do nothing but wave empty hands and cry, "No, no"? Generals, let's not fool ourselves, we have absolutely no face left to save.

We've already let armed foreign guards accompany US presidents. I suggest that for the short run, we grant the same privileges to those accompanying other foreign heads of state, with the same limits as to numbers. For the longer-term, we should create an elite police unit to guard heads of state, including our prime minister. Its officers must be selected and evaluated by transparent, measurable performance indicators which explicitly exclude political connections, gender and class year. Our goal would be to have a unit of such calibre that foreign VIPs - including the US president - would deem it redundant to have their guards around when they had ours.

Burin Kantabutra

Bangkok

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Financial analysts seem over-optimistic

Re: "Analysts lift their target to 535 points", Money & Investment, May 13.

I was amused by the announcement of the Securities Analysts Association of its target for the stock index at 535 for the year when the actual traded index for May 12 was 544.

The Association was quoted as having said the increase of its previous target of 495 - which was reached on April 30 - to 535 was because of higher confidence.

This is due more to the previous erroneous target than more confidence in the future. Are these analysts living in the real world in projecting the rest of the year as static when the whole world, for the rest of the year, is likely to be volatile?

Granted they may be right on 535 by the year's end, but don't tell us they have more confidence in the future when actually they have least confidence. Are they punch-drunk?

Songdej Praditsmanont

Bangkok

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Letter to True Visions marketing executives

True Visions' decision to scrap the BBC entertainment channel from their Platinum programme schedule has sparked off a number of comments and discussion in the English-language newspapers.

I would like to offer the following to True Visions for publication.

Re: Subscriber number 740 161 30. I have just downgraded this contract over the phone from Platinum to Gold Service as I subscribed to the Platinum Service for the sole reason of being able to watch the BBC Entertainment channel, which you are in the process of removing from your schedule.

This is nothing but a further deterioration of your company's satellite TV service. Charging European fee levels, you should be in a financial position to maintain the standard of your service, but over the years one downgrading chased the other, particularly in your sports programmes. A typical example was the switch from ESPN/Star to True Sports for most of the football programmes. ESPN's international expert panels were replaced by some sort of Thai "Muppet Show" which my Thai friends tell me is of little interest to them either. So it's not just a language problem. You then dropped the coverage of the German Bundesliga. Again, no warning and no reason given. The truth is that you are misusing your monopoly position by looking at your customers as a captive audience. Don't be too sure about this for much longer.

I still hope that you shall reverse your decision on BBC Entertainment and seriously look at your sports programmes again. Maybe you should start by sacking your marketing manager as he/she doesn't seem to have a clue about your customers' demands, which is also illustrated by the poor quality of your website.

Horst Bullinger

Bangkok

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