Tag Archives: Thailand

Peace Breaks Out Again?

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On Monday, Fox News reported that President Trump has announced that Thailand and Cambodia have reached a ceasefire deal.

The article reports:

Thailand and Cambodia reached a ceasefire deal “through trade,” President Donald Trump announced Monday, ending a burgeoning conflict that displaced 260,000 people. 

The declaration from Trump comes after he said over the weekend that he had spoken to the leaders of Cambodia and Thailand, urging a ceasefire, adding the U.S. would not get back to the “trading table” with the southeast Asian countries until fighting stops. 

The fighting began Thursday after a land mine explosion along the border wounded five Thai soldiers. Both sides blamed each other for starting the clashes that have killed at least 35 people and displaced more than 260,000 people on both sides. 

The article notes:

“I said, ‘I don’t want to trade with anybody that’s killing each other.’ So we just got that one solved. And I’m going to call the two prime ministers who I got along with very, very well and speak to them right after this meeting and congratulate them. But it was an honor to be involved in that. That was going to be a very nasty war. Those wars have been very, very nasty,” Trump also said.

“By ending this War, we have saved thousands of lives. I have instructed my Trade Team to restart negotiations on Trade. I have now ended many Wars in just six months — I am proud to be the President of PEACE!” Trump added in a post on Truth Social.

As part of the ceasefire deal, military commanders from both sides will begin to hold talks Tuesday to defuse tensions while Cambodia will host a border committee meeting on Aug. 4, according to Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

As I have stated before, President Trump knows how to use economic leverage. America is the big kid on the block, and we don’t have to bully anyone. However, we can use our economic position to bring peace where it is needed.

When The News Only Tells A Part Of The Story

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On February 13th, Hot Air posted an article illustrating the spin some of the media is using to try to sway public opinion about the cuts to the United States Agency for International Development (USAID). Although one of the stories sounds plausible, it really doesn’t show the entire picture.

The article states:

Sarah Newey, the global health security correspondent for the Telegraph based in Bangkok, Thailand, filed this report about the first victim of Elon Musk and DOGE’s USAID cuts. 

Here’s the takeaway.

A 71-year-old woman has died after her oxygen supply was cut off when the United States announced a freeze on aid funding. 

Pe Kha Lau, a refugee from Myanmar living in a displacement camp in neighbouring Thailand, died four days after she was discharged from a USAID-funded healthcare facility operated by the International Rescue Committee (IRC). 

She is thought to be one of the first people to have died as a direct result of Washington’s decision to freeze all funding for aid projects for 90 days. 

Her family told Reuters that she had frequently been sent to hospital in the last three years as she was dependent on a supply of oxygen, but was sent home after the IRC received a “stop-work” order in late January.

So let’s take a closer look.

The article continues:

…The NGO that was providing the money for the oxygen tank is the International Rescue Committee. They run the clinic Ms. Lau visited to get her oxygen. Here’s what you need to know about IRC.

Its president and CEO is David Miliband, a former Labour Party member of British Parliament who was in leadership, serving as Defence minister for a time. Being an NGO, they have to file 990 disclosure forms, which include the salaries of all senior officers. Mr. Miliband is bringing down, depending on the year, between $1.1 and $1.2 million dollars annually. The rest of the 11 named officers? None make less than $283,000 and range up to $440,000. 

Also, from their 990 submission, for the tax year 2021, the most recent data posted online, this was their financial status – a little over $1.3 billion in revenue, including $728.3 million in government grants. In 2021, they had $527 million in assets, $210 million of it in cash, and $119 million in securities. And yet we’re led to believe by the Telegraph that this woman’s death is on Elon Musk and Donald Trump’s hands because she was literally starved of oxygen to save a buck or two. The cost of an oxygen tank for personal consumption? Between $75 and $150 dollars.

So what have we gotten for the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on a former Labour MP’s charity? Antisemitism and a push for allowing more illegal immigration into the United States.

Please follow the link to read the entire article. I don’t think the problem here is Elon Musk freezing the USAID budget. I think the problem is misplaced priorities within the International Rescue Committee. I am not convinced that they are rescuing anyone except the people running the organization.

Some Good News For A Change

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CNBC reported today that all twelve soccer players have been rescued from the cave in Thailand where they have been trapped for more than two weeks. Unfortunately Petty Officer Saman Gunan, a former Thai navy diver, died while delivering oxygen to the trapped boys.

The article reports:

The eight boys brought out on Sunday and Monday were in good health overall and some asked for chocolate bread for breakfast, officials said earlier.

Two of the boys had suspected lung infections but the four boys from the first group rescued were all walking around in hospital.

Volunteers from as far away as Australia and the United States helped with the effort to rescue the boys. U.S. military personnel also helped.

…The boys were still being quarantined from their parents because of the risk of infection and would likely be kept in hospital for a week for tests, officials said earlier.

This is news we can all celebrate.

 

 

The Mystery Deepens

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The world is searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The Diplomat posted an interesting story yesterday about the flight. There were at least two passengers on the plane with stolen passports.

The article notes:

“The counterfeiting of all sorts of identifications is very widespread, particularly out of Thailand,” Steve Vickers, a Hong Kong-based risk consultant, told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s pretty easy to pick up a stolen or a counterfeit passport.”

…“Any flight of that size in Asia would be carrying a couple of people with false passports,” said Clive Williams, a counter-terrorism expert at Macquarie University in Australia. “When you think about the number of passports that have been stolen or gone missing around the world, it could be related, but it is probably not.”

This morning, Malaysia’s Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said that a total of four passengers are being investigated: the two impersonating Kozel and Marald, as well as two other travelers with European passports described as “possibly Ukrainian.”

There are a lot of theories as to what has happened to the plane. One commenter on the article in The Diplomat explained how an empty fuel tank could have exploded. While that explanation is as feasible as any other, it doesn’t explain why the plane would have changed direction and dropped below the radar. I would also wonder if there are any old World War II airfields in the area that could be used without raising suspicion. But what would be the purpose of stealing an airplane? Why has no one demanded ransom or claimed credit?

It is also somewhat odd that we have not heard stories from anyone who is relieved that by some chain of events that they missed the plane. Usually after a plane crash, at least one person comes forward explaining that they got caught in traffic and missed the plane. I personally know a soldier who was coming home from Iraq and had to change planes in an American airport and missed at least three flights because kind, patriotic Americans kept on buying him drinks!

Like everyone else, I really have no clue as to what has happened.

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The Need For Fiscal Accountability At Some Of Our Colleges

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The cost of a college education has skyrocketed in recent years. Parents and students are going into serious debt to finance a higher education. So where is the money going? Some of it is going to repairing buildings on campus, building better physical education facilities, better science laboratories, and other things that provide a better environment for the students. However, not all colleges are spending their increased tuition money responsibly.

Yesterday the Daily Caller posted an article about a recent controversy at Westfield State College. Since one of my daughters and one of my sons-in-law graduated from Westfield State in the 1990’s, I am somewhat familiar with the school. It is a small state college with a beautiful campus. Their website shows tuition, housing costs, and fees for resident students ranging from about $15,000 per year for state residents to about $23,000 per year for out-of-state residents. I believe that when my daughter went there in the 1990’s, the cost was about $6,000 a year.

So what is the controversy at Westfield State?

The article at the Daily Caller reports:

John P. Walsh, owner of a cosmetics company, has decided to withdraw his $100,000 donation to Westfield, a public university in Westfield, Massachusetts.

The reason? Walsh is fed up with the spending habits of Westfield President Evan Dobelle, who charged thousands of dollars in luxury hotel and shopping bills to the university’s credit card.

…Dobelle charged the university $8,000 for a four-night stay in a luxury hotel in Bangkok, Thailand. He has also traveled out-of-state on Westfield’s dime some 76 times during his 5 years as president, according to Inside Higher Ed.

Dobelle has defended the expenses, calling them a necessary component of his plan to increase Westfield’s national and international renown.

After being presented with evidence of Mr. Dobelle’s financial violations, the board of trustees at Westfield State gave him their full confidence.

Obviously, more information is needed to determine exactly what is going on here, but I will admit that $6,000 for four nights in Thailand seems a bit much. I question why the Board of Trustees approved the spending habits of Mr. Dobelle.

Because of the dramatic expansion of student aid by the federal government in recent years, colleges have been able to raise their tuition without having to worry about students’ ability to pay. While I think student aid is a really good thing, it has created an unreal situation where tuition is not subject to free market forces. We definitely need some balance here. At the moment we are encouraging young people and their families to go into serious debt to receive training for jobs that are not available. That does not make sense.

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The War In Burma

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Michael Yon recently posted an article about the war in Burma. I will admit that I was not really aware that there was a war in Burma, and when I googled it, there was not much available. The New Republic posted an article on May 21, but that was pretty much all I could find.

The war in Burma is a civil war that has been going on for 63 years. The post at Michael Yon’s website has pictures of what is currently happening. This is one of the pictures from Michael’s website:

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Michael talks about the group in the picture:

In Thailand, I continue to come into contact with a group called Free Burma Rangers [FBR], who are based in the northern Thai city of Chiang Mai.  FBR is an American faith-based operation operated by Dave Eubank, a former Army Ranger and Special Forces officer.  In these parts, Eubank is something of a living-legend.  He speaks English, Thai and Karen and has spent years inside Burma.

I often bump up against his organization.   It has a solid feel.  FBR seems on the surface and from all accounts to consist of serious people doing important work: training guerrillas in medicine, reconnaissance and other military matters, while documenting endless war crimes inside of Burma.  FBR receives no help, to my knowledge, from the Thai or US governments.

Please follow the links to both articles about this war. It does seem odd that no one in the American media is reporting on what is going on in Burma.

 

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