Thai music hits a Latvian chord

We went to Tawan Daeng club in Bangkok and listened to Thai country songs about motorbikes, love lost and lazy sons and we have that kind of country music in Latvia too.

Most of all I spent hours watching Thai pop music on TV even though I don't like TV very much. The Thai males singing slow ballads with light accompaniment are very much like Latvian ballad singers, so soothing and gentle, but the female Thai pop singers have such sweet voices with so much control that only Thai women could sing like that and I thought, how much I would want to be a Thai woman and sing so well!

Of course there was the sun, the beach, the restaurants and yummy food on the streets but the music is what fills my heart with memories of Thailand. So much more I want to say!

ETTA TOLKA-SHUTEKA

LATVIA

Talks would achieve much

Sukhumbhand Paribatra's offer to mediate between, the government and the 'Thaksin Camp", is a good one that should be explored. If the negotiation is to be successful the "Thaksin Camp" needs to acknowledge the Thai Rak Thai (TRT) excessive corruption and lead the way expunging its protagonists from future governments. It also needs to explain to the red shirts how they were badly used by TRT to suit the needs of the beloved leader.

How government financing is to be arranged to eliminate corruption needs to be resolved. After that PAD in its proclaimed form is obsolete.

The government for its part must tell the truth in response to charges of excessive force. The police have to clean out their stables. The courts must continue doing their job to convict all who have been involved in criminal acts.

The red-shirts' needs should be given proper consideration and consensual policy agreement put in place to improve their lot. It would be a good move if some MPs who gave a damn about them came forward to represent them.

RICHARD BOWLER

BANGKOK

Blame must now be clear

After the arrest of fugitive red guard Surachai Thewarat on terrorism charges and his alleged implication in eight major cases of politically-motivated violence associated with the red shirt protests - how much more evidence do those in denial about the involvement of the red shirts in the violent events of April and May need before they accept the fact that these people along with their allies, the mysterious "men in black", were solely responsible for the mayhem that descended on Bangkok?

EDWARD B DUHIGG

BANGKOK

Needed, leaders who can learn

Ref: "Ministers need to be picked on merit, not the party they're from", Letters, July 18.

The criticism is valid in all organisations in having the right man in the right job. However, under our constitution which is based on parliamentary rules, at all times the government needs support from members of Parliament to continue its tenure. Therefore accommodation of each political faction's desire is essential. Political clout plays a bigger role than one's ability. Hence, such a government is limited in having "the right man in the right job". It is even worse for a coalition government when ministerial posts have to be allocated to coalition parties and outside the core party's control. It is also aggravated by the constitution limiting a number of outsiders to ministerial posts.

This is one of the main criticisms against parliamentary democracy when compared with a presidential system like in the United States where President Obama has the privilege in choosing "the right man in the right job". Even with that privilege and meritocracy, failure of a "right man" does frequently occur because of his limited horizon caused by pure reliance on his expertise. Robert McNamara, a brilliant administrator and scholar, regretted his decision on the Vietnam War when he was Defence Secretary. Sir Winston Churchill, never educated in a university and blamed for the Gallipoli actions in 1915, later on in 1940 led Britain to triumph in the Second World War. The secret is less on hard and fast rules but more on a man's ability to learn and manage.

Fortunately, our public administration is not completely dependent on politicians, as they say - politicians may come and go at the ministry but civil servants will go on forever. Therefore, we should also blame those civil servants at ICT Ministry for not curing our pains on having to live with 20th century technology.

SONGDEJ PRADITSMANONT

BANGKOK

Support permanent residents first

I appreciate and agree with both Khun Burin Kantabutra and Khun Songdej Praditsmanont that Thailand needs to do much more to attract long staying visitors or retirees by providing more concrete incentives. This is important so that they feel they belong and have some permanence in their adopted homes where they might be investing their life savings.

However, the irony of the current system is that even Permanent Residents who have been through a rigorous and lengthy application process are not allowed to purchase land, work without a work permit and need to apply for a re-entry permit to leave and return to Thailand. This is in spite of the fact that they have demonstrated through their application for Permanent Residence their financial stability, ability to converse in the Thai language and contribution to Thai society (among many other things).

So before tackling the larger issue of more benefits to tourists, let's ensure our Permanent Residents become "Permanent" first by allowing them some basic benefits (scrapping the re-entry permit, ability to work without a work permit and possibly limited land purchase).

PR OBESERVER

BANGKOK

Attacks on BP xenophobic hate

Ref: BP stops oil spill after three months of environmental damage. July 17.

I have watched with a mixture of contained rage and seething contempt the near-xenophobic outpourings from US lawmakers against BP in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon rig disaster in the Gulf of Mexico . For a country mired in questionable acts and dubious behaviour I find the holier than thou soap box manner in which the BP spill is being conducted and the callous circus of hate which has been created to be on a par with the ignominious Salem witchcraft trials.

The reaction to and handling of this event is in stark contrast to another, arguably greater rig disaster in 1988 in the North Sea to the East of Scotland when the American-owned Occidental-run Piper Alpha oil rig exploded. Investigations subsequently found the cause of the disaster to have been pure simple negligence. A pressure safety valve on a condensate pump had been removed for maintenance. The paperwork was correctly submitted by the engineer responsible for prohibiting the operation of the pump, yet it was activated causing an explosion and what to this day remains the world's worst ever oil rig catastrophe.

However, the valve omission was to be further compounded when despite a distress call from Piper Alpha its sister rigs Claymore and Tartan did not shut down their pumping operations, as to shutdown was considered expensive by Occidental management, but continued pumping oil for well over an hour to the burning crippled rig causing two gas lines to rupture in quick succession resulting in two catastrophic explosions which undoubtedly caused a much greater loss of life. The horrific death toll was ultimately 165 with thirty bodies never recovered for their next of kin.

Despite this being an appalling human tragedy I remember no British orchestrated anti-Occidental witch-hunt. I recall no endless succession of British MPs grandstanding in the House of Commons seeking to demonise Occidental. I cannot recall a select committee of the House of Commons summoning the officeholders of Occidental to ritually humiliate them in public.  I recall no rush to cleverly draft legislation to exclude Occidental from operating in the North Sea . Nor can I recall a demand for an independent arbiter to determine levels of compensation for the families of those killed.

Indeed I cannot even recall the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher, not known for the kindness of her tongue, making any intemperate, media-seeking, popularity-hungry pejorative statements about the CEO of Occidental. Behaviour by those in authority was calm and reasoned and it was on a totally different and measured plane.

However, clearly not satisfied with the level of blood-letting the anti-BP feeding-frenzy is being ratcheted up to a new and more sinister level as we now have Secretary Clinton joining a baying pack of senators seeking the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations to investigate the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the Lockerbie bomber, in August 2009 by the Scottish Justice Secretary lest there was any involvement by BP in his release.

At the time of the release I remember the FBI director Robert Mueller, a public servant, openly denounce the Scottish Justice Secretary and called the release "making a mockery of justice". It is unthinkable that a British civil servant would behave in such an outrageous manner.

The sheer arrogance of the US and its office holders, and its inability to behave in a respectful or controlled manner, is apparently limitless as it continues to wallow in a seemingly self perceived God-given right to march over any country, friend or foe, when it feels like it on its whim and fancy to interfere in the internal affairs of that country as it pleases.

Being such a God-fearing country it would do well to reflect upon the Biblical adage- "As you sow, so shall you reap"

JOHN SYMONS

BANGKOK