Anything & Everything about Thailand (Part 2)

[KatoeyLover69]

Originally Posted by bigfish

Dr M did it again. Adding fuel to the fire!! Who asked for his opinion anyway??!!

Mr Thepchai Yong from Thailand's TV Channel 5 asked for his opinion................ Read the above article again

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Wednesday 31 January 2007 :-

Police fear violence at final against Singapore

Police fear the ill-feeling between Thailand and Singapore over the Shin Corp-Temasek deal could lead to violence at Sunday's Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) football championship final in Bangkok. There is concern that if Thailand are beaten at home by Singapore, the game might culminate in clashes between rival supporters, and players might even be attacked. Riot police will be on stand-by and the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) is being asked to tighten security for the match, which is expected to draw tens of thousands of fans.

The two teams meet in the first leg clash in Singapore today, with the return match at the National Stadium in Bangkok on Sunday.

''I think the association should ask for more police reinforcements, since normal security might not be able to handle an unexpected situation during the match,'' said Pol Lt-Col Surakarn Naksingh, deputy superintendent of Pathumwan district. He will discuss security measures with Thai football officials today and tomorrow.

Pol Lt-Col Surakarn believed Thai opponents of Singapore and Temasek, that country's investment arm, would attend Sunday's match and try to create unrest.

He hoped emotions would cool somewhat if Thailand manages a win today.

Pol Maj-Gen Wimol Pao-in, commander of the Metropolitan Police Bureau's special task force, said at least 150 riot police would be on stand-by at Sunday's match.

In Singapore, neither side raised the security issue during yesterday's meeting of officials from the two teams prior to today's match at the National Stadium, which is expected to draw a capacity 55,000 crowd.

However, Thailand team manager Thavatchai Sajakul admitted he was worried that the soured relations between the two countries could spur the home crowd to cheer their team more intensely.

''We will be under extra pressure because of the current situation between Thailand and Singapore,'' he said.

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Wednesday 31 January 2007 :-

Third bridge to be built across the Mekong

A third bridge will be built over the Mekong river, this time linking Chiang Rai with Huaysay in Laos, with China agreeing to share the cost equally with Thailand. The estimated price is US$31 million (1.085 billion baht).

Deputy government spokesman Nattawat Suttiyotin said Thailand will be responsible for construction on the Thai side and Beijing will be responsible for the Lao side of the bridge.

He could not say when the construction would begin. Further talks between Thai and Chinese officials were needed.

The cabinet passed a resolution on the cost-sharing budget for construction of the bridge on Dec 19 and directed the Commerce Ministry to propose the idea to China.

Beijing recently informed Thailand in a letter that it agreed with the idea, he said.

The cost-sharing approach to the bridge's construction was under the Greater Mekong Subregion scheme.

The bridge will start in Chiang Khong district of Chiang Mai, crossing to Huaysay town in the northern Lao province of Bokeo. It will be 630 metres long and 16.7 metres wide.

The bridge will serve a road linking Thailand and China through Bokeo and Luang Namtha and boost trade in the subregion.

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from The Nation dated Wednesday 31 January 2007 :-

Move to use 2 airports gets a mixed reception

Travel operators fear confusion, and traffic problems will hit domestic travel, add to their costs

There has been a mixed reaction to news some domestic flights will shift from Suvarnabhumi Airport back to Bangkok's old airport at Don Muang.

Travel operators have urged the government to give a more detailed explanation for why the move is being proposed. Some fear city traffic problems will have an impact on domestic travel.

Many local airline operators have welcomed the idea to return some of their domestic flights to the old airport, as recommended recently by the Transport Ministry.

The move will be considered at the Cabinet meeting next Tuesday.

Apichart Sankary, president of Association of Thai Travel Agents (ATTA), said yesterday the government should explain to the private sector the main reasons for a partial shift back to Don Muang.

"Otherwise, international airlines might withdraw Thailand as an aviation hub from their global network," Apichart said, adding that such reassessments could happen soon. In addition, Apichart said the state agency should clarify how long it will take to repair Suvarnabhumi Airport's cracked taxiways and runway.

Chareon Wangananont, head of the Domestic Travel Association, said re-opening Don Muang airport would cause air-traffic congestion because the two airports were too close to each other.

"Domestic travel is expected to decrease because of this change," Chareon also said.

nd using both airports would confuse passengers preparing to travel both to the provinces and overseas. Travel operators and bus services would need more time to pick up their guests.

"Tourists will not be happy with this because its different from the original deal they made in advance, while operators will face more transport costs," he said.

Chareon urged the government to explain the true reason for moving domestic flights back to Don Muang because it was very big issue and the industry has been asking questions about it.

Many airlines including THAI, One-Two-Go, and Bangkok Airways are ready to return to the old airport for certain domestic flights. Others, such as Nok Air, PB Airline and Phuket Airlines, are still considering the move.

However, Thai AirAsia, a Thai budget carrier that is part of the Malaysian low-cost AirAsia Group, said it would retain its services at the new airport.

Tassapon Beileveld, chief executive officer of Thai AirAsia, confirmed it would not be moving to Don Muang Airport.

We still want to move both domestic and international flights to Don Muang - not just some flights from our network," he said.

Tassapon explained that more than 50 per cent of their passengers were from overseas and would need to use Suvarnabhumi to take connecting flights back to other countries.

Moreover, the airline could not make a separate schedule for using aircraft between domestic and international flights.

"Each aircraft is set to be used for both domestic and international flights - so the airline cannot revise its aircraft usage plan."

Tassapon said the airline would need an additional budget to hire more than 500 staff, equipment and parts if it undertook the move.

Apinan Sumanaseni, president of Thai Airways International Plc (THAI), said the airline would move domestic flights from Suvarnabhumi Airport to Don Muang within 30 days.

But the airline would continue to operate a combination of domestic and international flights at the new airport, such as connecting flights from Phuket, Chiang Mai and Krabi.

THAI domestic services for Phuket, Chiang Mai and Krabi - with non-connecting flights - would be at Don Muang.

Apinan said the company had announced earlier it was ready to move some operations back to Don Muang and hoped that using two airports would not trouble travellers.

"Only a few local travellers out of Phuket, Chiang Mai and Krabi need to use connecting flights so the company doesn't have to worry about this problem," Apinan said.

A source at the budget airline Nok Air, a sister airline of THAI, said the airline was considering using the old airport.

Udom Tantiprasongchai, chief executive officer of One-Two-Go, said the airline would move all their operations back to Don Muang. However, he said the company would have to invest an extra Bt40 million in infrastructure, including offices and ground services, as well as hire more staff.

Udom expected the business would grow by 20 per cent this year - double their original estimate of 10 per cent.

[84gunner]

Originally Posted by bigfish

Dr M did it again. Adding fuel to the fire!! Who asked for his opinion anyway??!!

The news media asked for his opinion wat, otherwise, wat is called interview?

I oso agree wif Dr M, SG gahmen only tinks of its own profits, its own pockets, its own benefits (esp its own "face" now, 2 admit & apologise, 4 the sake of at least appeasing / cooling down the anger of Thailand, to improve r'ship wif Thailand again, or not?).

U tink the SG gahmen even care about its own pple? Look at the elitist attitudes of some politicians / their children...

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Wednesday 31 January 2007 :=

Don Muang Airport 'must be ready by Songkran' { 13 April 2007 }

Renovation of the 90-year-old Bangkok Airport at Don Muang to ready it for its re-launch is proceeding at full speed and airport officials are confident the facility would be re-opened in 45 days for non-connecting domestic flights.

Transport Minister Thira Haocharoen on Tuesday expressed hope to see the recently-decommissioned international airport at Don Muang reopen for domestic flights prior to the Songkran (Thai New Year) festival so that it could serve a large number of inbound and outbound passengers.

Airport manager Flight Lieutenant Pinit Saraithong affirmed that Don Muang can be ready in time for the Songkran (Thai New Year) rush, but the plan needs to be approved first by the cabinet, which may consider the plan on February 6.

Lieutenant Pinit said the repair work would concentrate on the west runway where sections are being resurfaced, which will take some 45 days. This year, Songkran begins on Friday, April 13 and extends through Monday. There will be makeup holidays on Tuesday and, for many, on Wednesday, April 18.

But Admiral Thira said that as the plan is not yet finalised, it is not certain how long renovations will require and whether the proposed deadline can be met. He conceded the ministry needed to wait for the cabinet's decision on the transfer first. Should the cabinet disapprove of the transfer, the plan must be adjusted.

The new scheme must state clearly who is responsible for the task and how it would be carried out, Adm. Thira said, and that the airport must give utmost importance to safety concerns. Whether the transfer would take place before the Songkran Festival remains uncertain.

Minister Thira said he had assigned the Civil Aviation Department to meet with state agencies concerned to work out details of transferring some local flights back to Don Muang airport.

Lt. Pinit said other service infrastructure including airport shops, restaurants, passenger terminals, taxis and other transport links would be ready within a month. Total renovation budget stood at Bt33 million.

He accompanied reporters inspecting progress at Don Muang on Tuesday.

The old airport was decommissioned as Bangkok's primary airport in September when Suvarnabhumi was opened.

But cracks in the new airport's runways and taxiways prompted the Transport Ministry to recommend Monday to reopen Don Muang airport temporarily for domestic flights with no international connections to ease the burden on the new airport.

According to Lt. Pinit, Terminal 1 at Don Muang will be the main terminal servicing chartered flights. He expects about 5 million passengers to pass through Don Muang airport this year.

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Wednesday 31 January 2007 :-


Asean Football Final [ 1st leg ] : Singapore win, Thais walk off pitch

Singapore beat Thailand 2-1 on Wednesday but the first leg of the Asean football final was overshadowed by shambolic scenes when the Thai team walked off the pitch for 15 minutes.

In a fiery contest, a dubious penalty decision eight minutes from time sparked the walkout that showcased the worst of Southeast Asian football.

Noh Alam Shah was adjudged by Malaysian referee C. Ravichandran to have been pulled down by Thai centre-back Niweat Siriwong but the Thais were not ready to accept the decision.

After manhandling the referee the team stormed off the pitch and refused to return until Asean football officials persuaded them to get on with the match after holding it up for 15 minutes.

Mustafic Fahrudin calmly converted the spot kick to hand the defending champions their first victory over Thailand on home soil for almost 30 years and a psychological boost ahead of the return leg in Bangkok on Sunday.

It capped a frantic and scrappy match, with just one shot on target in the first half.

It came from Singapore who shocked Thailand by prising open their defence against the run of play to take the lead in the 17th minute.

Indra Shadan Daud picked up the ball on the edge of the box and had two stabs at goal, which were both blocked by the Thai defence.

The ball bounced to Fahrudin whose shot landed at the feet of Shah who swivelled and let rip from 10 yards with a left foot rocket that Thai goalkeeper Kittisak Rawangpa flayed at but missed.

It was Shah's 10th goal of the tournament, built on the back of his seven goal haul against Laos in the group stages, and he was ecstatic, gesturing to the 55,000-strong crowd to get behind the team.

Fired up, Singapore played a physical game and at times it was brutal.

Four yellow cards were brandished in the first period, and seven in the match, with both sides fortunate that the referee didn't get out the red as dangerous tackles came thick and fast.

Thailand came out in the second half a different team, immediately pressing on the attack, and scored with their first sniff of goal four minutes after the break.

Striker Pipat Thonkanya picked up a ball slotted through the Singapore defence after a midfield blunder and calmly rounded goalkeeper Lionel Lewis to roll the ball home for the equaliser.

Pipat had another chance four minutes later after some sloppy Singapore defending but lashed his shot high and wide from just inside the penalty area.

Thailand could sense victory as the home side lost their composure and they were unlucky not to score before the penalty decision that brought the game to a standstill.

[sgplayer]

kelongzz..

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Thursday 1 February 2007 :-

Scene set for dramatic Sunday football Final : Thailand Vs S'pore

The fragile relations between Thailand and Singapore were hardly improved yesterday when the Thai football team staged a walk-off protest near the end of their Asean Championship final first leg in Singapore, which the hosts eventually won 2-1.

NOTE The Sunday match will kick off at 7pm (Thailand time) and will be shown live on Channel 7 and Star Sports. Tickets are 100, 200 and 300 baht and will be on sale at the Football Association of Thailand (FAT) office on Saturday from 9am to 5pm and Sunday from 9am to 12 noon and 2pm until the match kick-off.

The second leg at Supachalsai stadium in Bangkok on Sunday promises to be another very tense affair and there will almost certainly be extra security to prevent any trouble.

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Thursday 1 February 2007 :-

Engineer suspects airport cover-up

An expert engineer yesterday voiced suspicion that people in the last Thaksin Shinawatra government covered over cracks in the runways at Suvarnabhumi airport. Tortrakul Yomnak, a member of Airports of Thailand (AoT), said like other engineers, he used to believe that cracks at the new airport were ''technical cracks'', which are not unusual during construction.

Mr Tortrakul also inspected the airport in 2005 after the Bangkok Post ran stories about cracks in the runways.

''I'd never thought there were real cracks on the runway until recently when I went back to inspect the airport, and I remembered that the runway looked so new, and that aroused my suspicion about whether there were cover-ups,'' he said at a forum at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand last night.

Mr Tortrakul is also head of a panel looking into the causes of runway and taxiway cracks.

The panel was set up by AoT chairman Gen Saprang Kalayanamitr on Jan 23 to find the exact cause of the cracks that have appeared on the runways and taxiways at the four-month-old airport.

He conceded he did not take any action during his 2005 inspection even though it looked suspicious, saying nobody would dare to speak up against the airport when Mr Thaksin was in power. This was because Mr Thaksin had projected the airport as ''the pride of the nation'' and intimidated anyone who cast doubts on it.

''I feel I was used as a tool to clear the past government,'' he said.

Mr Tortrakul said more inspections would be made to see if the cracks were due to ''systematic failure'' - an engineering term referring to a very serious structural problem, mostly occurring when substandard soil is used in landfill - or whether the cracks are on the surface.

If the former is the case, it will take at least three years and a huge budget to repair the structure, he said.

Mr Tortrakul said samples of soil were taken from underneath the runway to check whether it was substandard and the result would be known in two weeks.

He said the ''new look'' runway has led to worries that there may be other cover-ups at the problem-plagued airport.

Mr Tortrakul proposed two options - either repair the cracks or dismantle the runways and rebuild them.

He said repairing the cracks may require special techniques which would cost more than a reconstruction.

This should be an important factor that the government had to take into consideration, he said.

He explained that engineering techniques used to reinforce the strength of surfaces - such as the installation of air-conditioning pipelines in the soil layers, to make the water absorbed by the soil into ice so it could carry more weight - would be very costly.

Questions may be raised over whether the cracked runways were worth repairing when compared to the costs for dismantling and rebuilding them, he said.

''The probe found that cracks have developed and spread quickly. This shows that the foundations of the taxiways were damaged,'' said Mr Tortrakul, who is to report the panel's findings to Transport Minister Theera Haocharoen tomorrow.

Deputy Transport Minister Sansern Wongcha-um yesterday explained to the National Legislative Assembly the AoT's decision to allow point-to-point domestic flights to return to Don Muang airport.

He said the repair of taxiways and the runway would affect services at Suvarnabhumi and that the transfer of some domestic flights to Don Muang airport would ease air-traffic congestion at the new airport.

NLA member Prapan Khunmee lashed out at AoT executives for failing to tell the truth about the safety of the new airport.

The construction of the airport had been plagued with corruption, he added.

He said the runways of the new airport were the most expensive in the world, with ground improvement alone costing around 26 billion baht.

Sub-standard soil had been used for the construction of the runways, causing them to develop cracks, he alleged.

Khamnoon Sitthisaman, another NLA member, feared the investigation into the alleged corruption at the airport would be blocked by members of the old power clique after the next general election.

He proposed the government set up a special agency specifically to solve problems at the airport

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from The Nation dated Thursday 1 February 2007 :-

Football saga imitates real life

Singapore's dodgy soccer win fires talk of eavesdropping, use of foreign nominees

Even Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont was curious to know whether Temasek United Football Club had used underhand tactics to win the first leg of the Asean Football Championship. The Thai national team lost 2-1 to the Temasek team in a highly emotionally charged atmosphere.

"Were we cheated?" the PM asked reporters yesterday. He had missed the match broadcast from Singapore on Wednesday night.

The latest clash between Thailand and Singapore has turned into a political issue. It comes hot on the heels of deteriorating relations, with the Kingdom suspecting that Singapore is now able to listen in on its calls because the former prime minister sold control of ShinSat, the sole national satellite company, and the country's biggest mobile-phone firm (AIS) last year to Temasek Holdings, a state investment firm in the city-state.

Army chief and coup leader Gen Sonthi Boonyaratglin voiced concern that Thai military information was no longer secure because control of key telecommunications firms had been lost with the controversial Shin deal. "You pick up the phone and it goes to Singapore," he reportedly remarked. The military installed government is also afraid that the sale of ShinSat might enhance Singapore's capacity to eavesdrop on calls here. Premier Surayud said they were looking into whether Thailand may be able to buy back control of the firm or if a new satellite needs to be launched.

The joke going around the Thai team is that their game plan might have been "discovered" by their opponents prior to the match.

After all, how come the Singaporeans knew that Thai star Kiatisak Senamuang would be absent from the game? And how did the Singaporeans players know just to mark Thai midfielder Dassakorn Thonglao, who became the most frequently fouled play by his opponents? Mmm ......

Well, the loss was not entirely attributed to Malaysian referee C Ravichandran's decision to award that hotly disputed penalty to Singapore with just nine minutes remaining.

Was the referee, like Dr Mahathir Mohamad, the former Malaysian leader, just trying to drive a wedge further between Thailand and Singapore, knowing the penalty would drive us nuts?

A more deserving question may be how the Singaporeans managed to respond so well to our game plan.

But, what's done is done. The Thai team lost and Thai football fans are now left hoping their team can win the second leg on their home turf - on Sunday.

Looking around the pitch though, the Thai national team won't enjoy a huge advantage in the second leg as the physique of the Singaporeans suggests they're in a different league.

Although the title of the tournament described it as a competition for the Asean region, the appearance of some Singaporean players conjured up an image of nominees - as they seem to come from all over the world.

Take the Caucasian-looking guy with the pierced-nose - the tall Mustafic Fahrudin, who scored their winning goal. Fahrudin, formerly Serbian, rewarded his adopted country handsomely with victory from the penalty spot. In fact, Fahrudin is far from the only nationalised player for Singapore.

Exceptional skill was not the factor that made Precious Emuejeraye stand out from the crowd. Emuejeraye is black, originally from Nigeria, and towered over everyone on the pitch.

Daniel Bennett is not Singapore-born either - but another imported player from the UK wearing Singaporean colours.

A fourth - Si Jia Yi - was once Chinese, but is now Singaporean.

These players were influential in providing the backbone for their team's performance.

Temasek Holdings has been accused by some of using Thai nominees to acquire control of Shin Corp on behalf of foreigners. And when it comes to football, the Singaporean team has shown the world it can use foreign "nominees" to improve its playing strength.

There is nothing wrong with this. But the next challenge for Temasek is how to truly nationalise Shin Corp without being caught using local nominees. Or… maybe that's just sour grapes.

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from The Nation dated Thursday 1 February 2007 :-

Thailand could get the boot

Thailand could be kicked out of the Asean Football Championship for their protest against a penalty that helped Singapore gain a 2-1 home victory in the first leg of the final on Wednesday.

Emotions are running high in Thailand after fans saw the three-time champions go down in a controversial defeat.

The score was tied at 1-1 when Malaysian referee C Ravichandran awarded a highly debatable penalty to Singapore with eight minutes remaining after Noh Alam Shah went down in the box under a challenge from defender Niweat Siriwong - a decision that even seemed to surprise the Singaporean forward.

Thai fans and players felt the referee made several dubious decisions in favour of the hosts.

In one incident, the referee awarded Thailand a free kick but bizarrely measured the 10-yard distance from the wall instead of the set-piece spot as usual.

Thailand had already been angered by other decisions of the referee, and their protest over the penalty caused the match to be suspended for about 15 minutes after their players walked off the pitch.

Thailand team manager Tawat-chai Sajjakul is convinced his side will not receive any punishment when the Asean Football Federation (AFF) discusses the issue in its meeting today.

"I think we did nothing wrong, because the protest was in accordance with AFF regulations. The rules state the game can be stopped when any team protests but not for more than 15 minutes," said Tawatchai.

"The lads camped on the sidelines before they returned to the field in a period of time that I think was not more than the limit.

"We held the protest because if we had let play continue at that time, there was a high possibility the situation would escalate. We wanted to take a pause in order to make our players calm down.

"I don't think the AFF will punish us with a suspension for any of my players. If they want to hand punishment to us, they'll have to ban our whole team from the second leg, because we were all involved in the protest.

"Should they really ban us, it looks certain they'll have to do it to other teams in the future, because I think there will be other cases just like ours.

"There is a high possibility the tournament would come to an end. There would be no point in holding the event if such punishments continually happened."

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Friday 2 February 2007 :-


2nd leg Thailand Vs S'pore football final : Football security 'can't be guaranteed'

Thailand cannot guarantee the safety of football fans who travel to Bangkok to attend Sunday's final match of the Asean Football Championship Final, Tourism and Sports Minister Suvit Yodmani told Singaporeans yesterday.

Mr Suvit, in Singapore for an Asean tourism meeting, said police will do their best, but it is up to fans to "take necessary precautions."

"We will do our best to ensure safety ... but I cannot say please come cheer for your side because I really don't know what's going to happen."

Mr Suvit's comments were made to reporters at the five-day Asean Tourism Forum taking place all this week in Singapore.

"You never know when something could be started," he told the Singapore media. "So, let us lean more on the cautious side than on the complacent side."

John Koh, the general secretary of the Football Association of Singapore (FAS) advised Singapore fans to move around in groups.

"I don't think things will get out of hand ... but for those Singaporean fans going up, our advice is to be a little bit more cautious. In the stadium, they will have to group together."

The FAS is putting 2,000 ordinary tickets on sale to Singaporeans today, priced at S$14, the equivalent of 327 baht. In Thailand, tickets go on sale tomorrow at the old national stadium, and are priced at 100, 200 and 300 baht.

Mr Suvit pointed out that the Thai team were angy because they were booed after staging a 15-minute walkout to protest a referee's decision in the first leg of the home-and-home championship series.

"The players resented the fact that when the game ended, they were booed. When they got hurt, carried out on a stretcher, they were booed. This is something not done in this part of the world," he said.

Channel News Asia reported that some Singapore fans who had planned to follow their team to Bangkok for the Sunday match are having second thoughts. CNA quoted 73-year-old William Lee, who was trying to organise a group trip.

"What was written in the papers has frightened a lot of people ... I've been organising such trips for a long time, but this is the first time I've seen football fans being scared off," Mr Lee said to CNA.

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Friday 2 February 2007 :-

Airport fee hike unjustified, says airlines

A hefty increase in passenger service charges at airports run by the Airports of Thailand (AoT) went into effect quietly yesterday, as airlines questioned the justification for the move. The charge for international departure flights increased by 40% from 500 baht to 700 baht, and doubled for domestic flights, from 50 baht to 100 baht.

Airlines said the steep rises are unjustified when passengers are still putting up with poor service and facilities at the troubled Suvarnabhumi airport.

Most of the problems which have annoyed many passengers passing through Bangkok's new airport since its opening on Sept 28, ranging from long waits for luggage to insufficient toilet facilities, poor air-conditioning and general uncleanliness, have not been tackled, they said.

The new fees for international departures at Suvarnabhumi and other AoT airports means passengers will be paying more than passengers do when they leave Singapore and Kuala Lumpur, and slightly less than Hong Kong.

Kuala Lumpur International Airport charges international passengers 51 ringgit, including six ringgit for a new security fee _ the equivalent of 519 baht.

The passenger service charge at Singapore's Changi is S$21 (about 489 baht), while at Hong Kong International Airport, passengers pay HK$153 (about 705 baht).

Airline executives said the airports of Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia, which are competing with Bangkok's airport, can justify their fees as they offer greater value than Suvarnabhumi and AoT airports.

''It is unfair for passengers to be penalised by the increased charge, on top of the poor service they are getting at Suvarnabhumi,'' said one executive.

Another said the airport should have suspended the increase until authorities can ensure that passengers get the kind of service they deserve.

AoT says the increase is needed to help raise money to fix the construction flaws at the airport, including cracked and damaged runways.

It would provide the promised returns to shareholders, it said. AoT is 70% state-owned.

In the last fiscal year, AoT posted a 41% jump in net profit to 10.4 billion baht.

With earnings before interest and tax of 64% in 2006, AoT is the most profitable airport company in Asia and among the top five in the world.

Starting from yesterday, airlines were told to collect the charge on behalf of AoT, which previously required passengers to purchase passenger service charge tickets before entering immigration.

[KatoeyLover69]

Report from Bangkok Post dated Friday 2 February 2007 :-

Commentary: Playing the nationalist card

By Atiya Achakulwisut, Editorial Pages Editor

It's likely the National Stadium will be filled to bursting with patriotic Thais - football fans or not - this Sunday, when the second leg of the Asean Championship final between Thailand and Singapore is played. Win or lose, nationalism will run high... too high, probably, considering the situation.

It's getting personal, isn't it? And the tension on the pitch mimics that at the national level.

Whether the interim government of Surayud Chulanont and the Council for National Security realise it or not, the nationalist card is a dangerous one to play.

With its four-month performance falling on an unimpressive side, there are reasons for concern whether the twin governing bodies are up to such a high-stakes game.

The Foreign Ministry and military junta recently fired a back-to-back salvo at the island republic of Singapore.

The opening shot was the cancelling of a civil servants meeting and the revocation of an invitation to Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo to attend the meeting, after a diplomatic row which was sparked by former PM Thaksin using the city-state as a base to launch an attack on the ruling junta via interviews with the media.

It was followed closely by the CNS' airing of a suspicion that their mobile phones and those of members of the Assets Scrutiny Committee - which is investigating corruption cases against former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and his cronies - may have been tapped by Shin Corp, which is now owned by Singapore's Temasek Holdings.

While it is likely that both countries' foreign ministries will have the foresight to put an end to the diplomatic row and mend any rift the spat has caused as swiftly as possible, to ensure that relations remain smooth and productive, the sense of antagonism, once ignited, may not die down as instantly or as easily.

That dozens of protesters have gathered in front of the Singapore Embassy in Bangkok and raised placards on which were written "Get out" or "Devil" or worse is a case in point.

This is not to mention the emergence of sensational articles in a few newspapers and irresponsible chats by radio talk-show hosts who have jumped on the Singapore-bashing bandwagon, without conscience that they may be instigating unnecessary hatred against our country's neighbours.

Such an approach has caused many regrettable tragedies.

In case one has forgotten: the torching of the Thai Embassy and business premises in Phnom Penh in January 2003 was triggered by nothing but false newspaper reports that a Thai actress had insulted Cambodia by saying the country's famed Angkor temples belonged to Thailand.

In times of internal strife, the making of an outside enemy may be a foolproof tactic that serves the expedient purpose of rallying public support, even unifying people who are otherwise divided.

But take that into the modern context, where peoples are increasingly linked together by a globalised economy and advanced technology in communications - when it is difficult to define what constitutes "Singapore" and its influence, while it is so easy for people with vested interests to manipulate the highly flammable nationalistic sentiment for their own hidden agenda - and one might see that making an enemy out of our own neighbour (with whom we share many and profound interests both in terms of commerce and regional security), no longer looks very smart.

The latest sign that the diplomatic tension is getting out of hand is that security must be beefed up in preparation for Sunday's match, in which the Thai squad will have to fight hard to come back after its hotly debated 2-1 defeat on Wednesday.

There is reasonable fear that charged-up fans may clash. And that's why 150 riot police will be a part of the final, too.

Would it be a sight that strengthens the "caring and sharing" spirit of countries in the same region, as declared at the latest Asean meeting?

One can only wonder.--- KatoeyNewsNetwork