PeterRS

Another in the occasional series of articles from a website I occasionally wrote for a few years ago. The others in the series are Plus ça change . . . Thoughts on the March of Time in this forum and Experiences of Asia (Gay-Related) to While Away These Difficult Times under Gay Asia. This one was sparked by an interview I saw on CNN. I always wonder: who will be next? CNN anchors coming out, I mean. Anderson Cooper had been the subject of rumours for years. Even then, it took some time before he came out on air. Now we know – too well, because it is far too often mentioned that he is a father, even though he is no longer partnered with the man with whom he had the baby. Don Lemon’s engagement to his fiancé is talked about quite a lot in the little dialogues – bromances – he has each time his weekday show abuts that of the non-gay Chris Cuomo. Then there is the channel’s travel/business guru, the goofy Richard Quest, a refugee from the more staid world of the BBC seemingly decades ago, and no doubt surprising to some a barrister who was called to the English bar (the legal one) in 1983. Quest’s coming out followed an interview he had with Lord John Browne, then the CEO of the oil giant BP. Browne, in the closet for 50 years, had been forced to come out after his much younger boyfriend spilled the beans. Browne then wrote a book about his secret life titled The Glass Closet. This tells the story of Browne’s brief double life and his 3-year relationship with a Brazilian he had met on an escort site, his first and only gay affair, even though he had known he was gay since leaving his boarding school. Threatened with exposure by a tabloid newspaper, he tried to get the story quashed. It did not work. Six months short of his 60th birthday he came out as a publicly gay man and has since become a gay activist. The evening following their interview, Quest admitted he had felt guilty discussing homosexuality with Browne. He then told the world that was because he himself is gay. Did anyone really think he could not be? A man who takes his teddy bear with him on all his overnight freebie flights around the world for his Travel Show? Quest had also been a naughty boy. In 2008 he was stopped going through Central Park after closing time. He was found with a stash of crystal meth, a rope around his neck tied to his genitals and a sex toy in the trunk of his car. The media had a field day but CNN supported him even though he has never explained why he was there and what he was doing. After six months they even gave him a new show. I mention all this because I think one of CNN’s great assets is now being underused. Christiane Amanpour is an excellent journalist and interviewer. She has been with the channel for over 25 years. She did leave for a short time in 2010 to join ABC News. This was not a marriage made in heaven. Her programme tanked big time and after little more than a year she left ABC and returned to CNN’s embrace. Her interviews are usually deep and interesting, bringing out a lot about the interviewee. I still recall an interview with actor Andrew Garfield about his appearance as the lead in the Broadway revival of the 2017 London National Theatre’s production of Tony Kushner’s stunning 1993 Pulitzer Prize-winning play about the AIDS crisis Angels in America.Kushner also took part in that interview. The point of this post is more about the importance of friendships no matter what’s one’s partnership state. Which brings me back to Ms. Amanpour. Only occasionally I feel she does go a bit overboard and gush too enthusiastically. Back in 2013 she interviewed two celebrated actor knights, Sir Ian McKellan and Sir Patrick Stewart. Both were in London to appear in Harold Pinter’s play “No Man’s Land” receiving stellar reviews. Four years earlier they had appeared on stage together in Berthold Brecht’s Waiting for Godot. It had taken those four years for them each to be free to appear together on stage again. Which is perhaps a little surprising given that these two acting greats are the best and closest of friends. Yet one is gay and proudly out. The other is totally heterosexual having married his third wife in 2013. The actors first met back in the 1970s when working at England’s Royal Shakespeare Company. McKellan by then was well known as one of the UK’s finest up-and-coming actors, almost certainly known to Stewart but not to the public as being gay. Stewart was little more than a jobbing actor with a wife and two young children. Before then it so happened I had seen McKellan during my student years. On a visit to Scotland, I was fortunate to catch a couple of plays being performed at the celebrated Edinburgh Festival, Shakespeare's Richard II and Marlowe's Edward II – the one where Edward is gay and ends his days with a red hot poker up his bum. Playing the title role in each was a young English actor about whom there was a considerable buzz in theatrical circles. The friend who accompanied me was then at drama school and madly in love with him. Unfortunately, he told me, the actor already had a boyfriend. That was the first time I knew Ian McKellan was gay. For both actors Hollywood eventually beckoned, first for Stewart when he was cast in the hugely successful “Star Trek: The Next Generation” television Series in 1987. McKellan continued mostly as a superb stage actor until he found himself in Hollywood in 1998 cast as the ageing real-life gay movie director James Whale, a role that won him a nomination for Best Actor at the 1999 Oscars. By then McKellan had come out as gay and was increasingly in demand in the movie world. It was when he was cast in the first of the “X-Men” series in 2000 that he renewed his friendship with Stewart, also cast in the film. As Stewart said in an interview with The Mirror online – “On movies like that you spend more time sitting in your trailer waiting to work as opposed to being in front of the camera, I’d known Ian back in the 70s but never well - and to be honest I was always a little intimidated by him. But we hung out a lot and found out that we had huge amounts of things in common.” That friendship was to grow into what the tabloids have called the most famous “bromance” in Hollywood. For Stewart’s latest marriage in 2013, McKellan became an ordained minister in some obscure Church, flew to America and officiated at the ceremony. And when McKellan’s movie “Holmes” opened in London in 2015 the pair even enjoyed a lips-on-lips kiss. Watching the interview was fascinating. Seeing these two great actors in the twilights of their lives and careers, they reminded me how important are the bonds of close friendship. In the gay world, it’s all too easy to lose ourselves in the affections of our partner or the latest boyfriend whilst giving less attention to friendships, especially those developed over decades. As I have grown older, I have realised that close non-gay friendships are very important in my life. Gay men do not need to live in their own gay ghetto or to mix mostly with their gay friends. We live in a diverse world, as McKellan and Stewart know well. You can watch their fascinating short interview here (unfortunately you have to copy and paste the link and then it takes a little time to load). https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2016/10/17/intv-amanpour-ian-mckellen-patrick-stewart.cnn PS: It was only while revising this article that I learned Christiane Amanpour had announced three weeks ago that she had been diagnosed with Ovarian Cancer. She underwent a successful operation and is now undergoing several months of chemotherapy. Hopefully her cancer was discovered early and I wish her a full recovery.

Although not in Malaysia, my brother's granddaughter in the UK was found to be positive 3 weeks ago and hospitalised for several days. She is 11 years old. No other member of the family tested positive.

And perhaps no human race?

"People must be held responsible and there should be an independent committee to gather facts and study the situation to prevent the same mistakes in the future," said the report. But will it? Action on past independent committee reports indicate that is unlikely. But this time so many people in the country are effected and the country itself impacted in such a major way as a result of calamitous decisions at the highest level that I think it might just be effective. I keep my fingers crossed that it will come up not only with solutions that will prevent future errors, but also point the finger of blame for the disasters since January 2020 at those who deserve it and mete out some form of meaningful punishment. That is no doubt less likely to happen, but one lives in hope.

It could indeed. But my question then would be: why did the Prime Minister announce that the locally made AZvaccine would be the only one to be used in Thailand and that it would provide 10 million doses per month. Forget that it is behind schedule. Why would the Prime Minister wait about six months before announcing that he had misled the public and that the number of doses for Thailand would in fact be less than 10 million since 40% or more would be for overseas? Even on June 2 as this article stresses the government was still saying there would be 10 million doses per month for Thailand from this month. "AstraZeneca signed with Siam Bioscience last year to be its vaccine production and distribution center in Southeast Asia. It said that the vaccines would be ready for export to other Southeast Asian countries in July. "As part of the plan, AstraZeneca has to deliver 6 million doses to Thailand in June, and 10 million doses monthly from July to November, with a final 5 million doses in December." https://apnews.com/article/thailand-coronavirus-vaccine-coronavirus-pandemic-business-health-2bf0cf9f527908b214d32db3092edf89

I wonder why on earth the Japanese are donating vaccines to Thailand. Japan only has 17% of its population fully vaccinated and is about to host a spectator-less Olympics. It's a bit like Thailand signing a contract last year with a local manufacturer for 10 million doses of the AZ vaccine a month, only for the public to be informed just recently that at least 40% of those doses will be sent overseas. Something seems really mad here.

I think that hits the nail very nicely on the head. "Interference in internal affairs" is a recurrent Chinese admonition.

I hope these driven, fearless young people succeed. I am sure they know they are up against great odds. The world as a whole seems to be doing little to help them. China, on the other hand, seems to be doing quite a bit to foil them, in that it is one of the few countries not to condemn the coup and for years has provided arms and equipment to the military junta. But China also has worries. It does not want instability on its doorstep. It also wants to protect its considerable investments in the country including oil and gas pipelines running through the country to the indian Ocean. Since Myanmar is a key part of Xi Jin-ping's Belt and Road initiative, the junta is obviously hoping that the Chinese will continue to back them financially and so presumably will do all it can to protect these pipelines and other Chinese businesses. If I were one of the rebel army, that's probably what I would try to attack first. Try to cut off the regime's funding. But the unknown question then will be: what will China do about that? Will it switch sides?

I really have no idea why the UK is in demand because the legal Vietnamese population is estimated at only 55,000. They help newcomers with employment and accommodation. France, on the other hand, which was the colonial power in Indo-China has about 350,000, Germany 137,000 and there are about 80,000 in the Czech Repulic. But it seems the UK has a considerably larger illegal population living in the shadows. That is probably because there is a better chance of illegal work in the UK than most other European nations. Many became legal immigrants after the French defeat in 1954 and the end of the Vietnam war and settled. The UK agreed to take 12,000 when the USA pulled out of Vietnam. Sadly, some saw ways of making fortunes from the illegal people trafficking business. The part of Vietnam they have been focussing on for some years is a very poor area in the north. Two years ago the Bangkok Post reported that average annual wages in this part of Vietnam are around US$1,200. Those who manage to get into the UK find employment with very poor conditions, long hours and meagre wages in Vietnamese restaurants, canabis farming, in nail salons or sometimes as sex slaves. By sending some of their meagre wages home, they provide for a better living for their families - and the family units are strong. Although how families can pay off the $40,000 for those who take what is called the "VIP route" (largely by air into Europe and then by containers) paid to to the snakeheads who organise the trips at the Vietnam and also benefit with better lives from what is sent back, I fail to understand. Many families have borrowed huge sums from money lenders, sold off their land and rent it back and goodness knowns what else to pay for the trips. I reckon the obvious country to try to get into would be Australia which has almost 300,000 legal Vietnamese. But Australia's immigration policy is notoriously strict whereas the Vietnamese network of smuggling gangs throughout China, Russia and Europe offer what is an easier option.

Yet another senseless post. Of course they died! And i do not rewrite history. But you are doing your best to do so by simply not facing facts. Where are the alternative facts? Yet again, you are determined to use the Trumpian tactics of putting words into my mouth that I have never uttered. I never said "39 felons instead of 39 bodies". NEVER! NEVER! Of course there were 39 bodies - very sadly. Equally these poor souls were attempting to get into a foreign country by illegal means and then to work there illegally. Now you can call that perfectly acceptable. Let me tell you something: it is not. It is illegal. I do not know what country you are from. What you are saying is that it would be perfectly acceptable for you to be smuggled into, let's say Thailand, and to work illegally here. Does Thailand permit you to do that without a valid passport and without any legal work papers? Of course not. Once discovered you would be probably fined, possibly jailed, certainly deported. But if the truck carrying you through Thailand to Bangkok from a neighbouring country had an accident and you were killed, you would have been killed whilst in the act of committing a crime. Your argument carries absolutely zero weight.

Think for a moment of the thousands of Vietnamese who leave Vietnam illegally for a better life elsewhere. Roughly 18,000 try to enter the UK Then realise that many are in fact captured in the UK and elsewhere and returned to Vietnam. Once back home, do you really expect them to remain silent? Inevitably they tell some of their dreadful experiences. I imagine others would be too terrible to reveal to close family. As i quoted in my earlier post from The Guardian - "Mimi Vu, an independent anti-trafficking and slavery expert based in Vietnam, said the smuggling of people from Vietnam to the UK continued in the months after the tragedy. 'The prices just went up,' she said, basing her observations on interviews conducted with Vietnamese migrants in northern France earlier this year. 'It didn’t dampen people’s enthusiasm for leaving. People tended to view this as an anomaly. They saw the people who died as just very unlucky. Smugglers’ marketing tactics changed and they told people they needed to pay more to guarantee the safest passage.'” Like others before them, even after the 39 deaths, more Vietnamese were still desperate to make the trip knowing there had to ba a possibility they might also end up dead in a container wagon. They were prepared to pay the even higher price assuming it would be safer. Other Vietnamese have died when leaving Vietnam for the UK. All manner of trafficking horrors can await those who pay huge amounts to the snakeheads, including death.

That, sir, is a silly and childish post. Of course, anyone who is deceased cannot be guilty of committing a crime after death. But to suggest or imply that they were not guilty prior to their death is patently wrong. I would have thought that abundantly clear. Had they lived and had they been caught by the authorities, they would have been sent back to Vietnam, with their families still owing vast amounts in Vietnamese terms to the snakeheads who had started the whole process.

Now, just a moment! Where did I say all of that? Fact is I did not! I did say the victims were guilty precisely because they knew they were being smuggled into England. Of course they didn't manage to "choose their manner of passport", as you rather pointlessly say, for the very simple reason there was no possibility any of them could get a UK passport! They and their families knew they were not going legally. They and their families knew the risks involved. They also knew from previous smuggled persons that there was a chance they would end up in a bad way - perhaps in parts of Europe being basically slaves in factories or worse, and then even dead. After all, others before them had died. They WERE complicit in that they knew they were trying to get to the UK illegally. Would anyone in their right mind expect to pay up to $40,000 to get into the UK legally? Of course not, and they knew it. Didn't you read Mimi Vu's comment in my earlier post? Did you read the judge's point made in his summation re the illegality of their actions? This from abc news -about the illegal routes from Vietnam to the UK. "The so-called VIP route costs more -- ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 -- but is supposedly safer and takes less time to complete. VIP route migrants often go to China where they pick up recycled passports from traffickers before flying to Russia and then into Western Europe. But they will only be able to get so far as France or Belgium, despite assurances from traffickers, according to the 2019 research project by Anti-Slavery International, Every Child Protected Against Trafficking and Pacific Links Foundation." These would be the actions of those who KNEW they were travelling legally? No one can believe that. I was desperately sad when I read the fate of these poor Vietnamese young people. I have fiends in Vietnam and we had quite a few conversations about it. But to suggest the dead assumed they were taking a legal route in the UK is, frankly, pie in the sky! If you knowingly break the law, you are guilty. When breaking the law, ignorance of that law is also no excuse - and I thought you might actually know that. https://abcnews.go.com/International/6000-mile-journey-scores-vietnamese-migrants-smuggled-trafficked/story?id=67318722

Babylon is dead, sad to say.

There was a long op-ed article in Friday's Bangkok Post that contains as damning an indictment of the government's actions in this time of covid 19 as I think I have read for any other government and any other crisis in the Kingdom for several decades. It was written by Professor Thitinan Pongsudhirak, a director of the Institue of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University's Faculty of Political Science. He earned a PhD from the London School of Economics in with a top dissertation prize in 2002. Headed "Is there a jab cover-up in Thailand?", I make no apologies for quoting it in full - with some passages which i have marked in bold. It has become common knowledge that Thailand's national vaccine plan is inadequate, full of loopholes, flip-flopping and even worse, and might not be enough to deal with the fluid threat and devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic effectively. But vaccine mismanagement no longer appears to be the root cause of Thailand's Covid-19 trials and tribulations. There are three potentially related processes in motion that underpin Thailand's inadequate vaccine rollout. If all three are found to be at work, their profound and explosive implications and consequences will likely lead to an unprecedented political cataclysm. First, at a minimum, Thailand's vaccine plan has been a policy blunder. After one full year of grappling with virus outbreaks and infections from early 2020, Thailand ended up with just two vaccines, the British-Swedish AstraZeneca and the China-made Sinovac. Myriad criticisms have been levelled at the Prayut Chan-o-cha government's decision to procure AstraZeneca in an exclusive licensing deal with local manufacturer, Siam Bioscience. The policy blunder here is that AstraZeneca was set out late last year to be the country's primary vaccine. Betting on AstraZeneca as the main strategic vaccine, the authorities demurred from pursuing other well-known vaccines that neighbouring countries also had including Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna -- both US-made vaccines that subsequent clinical research showed as having more efficacy in dealing with virus mutations. When Siam Bioscience -- as the licensed manufacturer of AstraZeneca -- fell behind in delivering the previously agreed amount, the government did not provide the public with a clear answer about why and on finding a new substitute. Sinovac -- a China-made vaccine -- suddenly became the substitute until so much of it, 14.5 million doses to date, was purchased and sent from China that it has turned out to be Thailand's primary vaccine. Much has gone wrong within the realm of policy shortcomings. The lack of AstraZeneca, which is perceived as superior in efficacy to Sinovac, left people feeling short-changed. Criteria for accessing both vaccines at different stages were subjective and decided in executive session rather than on objectives based on older age groups, frontline professionals, and vulnerable workers, as is practised in more advanced and fairer countries. Apart from supply shortages, rollout has been slow and uneven. Access through internet applications, such as Mor Prom and Thai Ruam Jai, has been problematic and haphazard. When Sinopharm became the third vaccine that was suddenly purchased by the Chulabhorn Royal Academy (CRA) and delivered for local jabs at personal cost, the deal resulted in two-tier treatment with reports of some securing free jabs and others having to fork out 1,000 baht per shot. As public outrage intensified, the Prayut-led cabinet finally relented and approved a proposal to buy 20 million doses of Pfizer-BioNTech, and agreed to import an unspecified amount of Moderna on a commercial basis. People then started to question the government's shoddy vaccine strategy. If these two globally popular US-made vaccines are worthy of purchase and import now, why did the government waste precious time by not stocking them earlier. At the cabinet meeting, another lot of 10.9 million Sinovac doses worth 6.1 billion baht was ordered, even though its relatively lower efficacy is shrouded in doubt. Many other policy-related questions abound with few answers to meet them. Such a complete policy failure and breakdown is enough to undermine the government's stability. This is why the calls for Prime Minister Prayut's resignation are becoming louder. The second set of question marks involve the possibility that perhaps there is more than meets the eye in Thailand's vaccine procurement. The Sinovac vaccine is produced by China-based Sinovac Biotech; it has been reported by foreign media including the Washington Post, that its CEO bribed China's drug regulator for Sars and swine flu vaccine approval back in 2003-2006. The company, nevertheless, became a rising star for investment in biotech. Hong Kong-listed Sino Biopharmaceutical, with CP Pharmaceutical Group as a shareholder, invested $515 million, giving it a 15% stake in Sinovac Life Sciences, the unit in charge of the Sinovac vaccine. When Sinovac's efficacy is being questioned in Chile, Indonesia and elsewhere, where Sinovac-immunised people have contracted Covid variants, why has the Prayut cabinet kept ordering more and more of this Chinese vaccine instead of pursuing superior doses elsewhere? How come the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO), whose board members are associated with the Bhumjaithai Party under Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, seem hellbent on importing this vaccine, while seemingly being reluctant when it comes to procurement of the US-made vaccines that are reported to have more efficacy? Could it be that American companies are regulated by their country's Foreign Corrupt Practices Act? These are valid questions when the Prayut government has gambled the country's public health on limited choices and is reluctant to acquire better alternatives. Finally, as Thailand's Covid death toll rises steadily towards 3,000 and more people suffer untold hardships, the government's sordid policy and gross incompetence alone warrant its riddance. But if there is fishy business involved, the possibility of criminal lawsuits must come into the picture. Are people dying and succumbing to the virus because of policy shenanigans? To be sure, Thailand is not alone in suffering from the multiple crises of virus, variants, and vaccines. Other countries that did well last year in virus containment, such as South Korea and Taiwan, have also seen case spikes in recent weeks. But few countries are encountering Thailand's combination of doubtful policy, government mismanagement, and accused conflicts of interest, at the expense of public health and economic well-being. Thailand no longer has a free and open space for the investigative journalism needed to reveal what's behind these vaccine suspicions and irregularities. Opposition politicians are doing some of it but much more muckraking is imperative. The vaccine saga looks like a "vaccine-gate", full of questions with few answers so far. The more we know, the more we realise what we don't know and need to know. Getting to the bottom of Thailand's vaccine crisis as the virus situation goes from bad to worse will likely compound the political rumblings seen and heard last year, confirming this country is indeed overdue for fundamental reforms. https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opinion/2145731/is-there-a-jab-cover-up-in-thailand-

Whyever not? At the Vietnamese end, everyone knew what they were doing was illegal. When a return air ticket to the UK would have cost not more than around $800, you believe those poor victims and their families did not know they were being smuggled illegally? Of course they knew. That is why they were prepared to pay the Vietnamese snakeheads huge sums "between $10,000 and $40,000". Who pays that kind of money to travel legally? As the judge said in his summing up - "Justice Sweeney added: 'The willingness of the victims to try and enter the country illegally provides no excuse for what happened to them.'" Here is an explanation from the Vietnamese end by an anti-slavery expert based there. "Mimi Vu, an independent anti-trafficking and slavery expert based in Vietnam, said the smuggling of people from Vietnam to the UK continued in the months after the tragedy. 'The prices just went up,' she said, basing her observations on interviews conducted with Vietnamese migrants in northern France earlier this year. 'It didn’t dampen people’s enthusiasm for leaving. People tended to view this as an anomaly. They saw the people who died as just very unlucky. Smugglers’ marketing tactics changed and they told people they needed to pay more to guarantee the safest passage.' "She had little expectation that the trial would do much to stem the continued smuggling of large numbers of people from Vietnam to the UK. 'It’s like cutting off a fingernail, when to really address the problem we need to cut off the heads, which are sitting in Prague, Berlin, Moscow, and other European cities where the ethnic Vietnamese organised crime groups that direct the smuggling and trafficking trade are based,' she said." https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-essex-55765213 https://www.theguardian.com/law/2020/dec/21/essex-lorry-deaths-vietnamese-trafficking-victims-died-uk-has-anything-changed

I suppose if they are seen to be investigating those who completely bungled the arrest (I wonder how much all that cost Boss's family - I'll bet vastly more than the pittance they paid to the murdered officer's widow), some of the public may be conned into thinking they are still investigating Boss. Remember this: ""Do not worry that the case will end up with leniency simply because it involves a wealthy family," police commissioner Anuchai Lekbamroong told Thai radio news programme 100.5FM That was quoted on 4 September 2012. Lies from beginning to end.

My earlier post was less concerned with statistics than with examples of how something like a sandbox scheme frequently does not work. The clear example is Melbourne and other quarantine hotels in Australia. Melbourne was first with supposedly a fail safe system. It wasn't and the virus got back out to the general community. This was a result of guards working across various hotels rather than being restricted to one and mingling with quarantined travellers. Several state governments have acknowledged that airborne transmission may have been possible with the virus likely picked up in narrow hotel corridors. It is thought that one case occurred when two people in rooms across a corridor from each other opened their doors to collect their meals at the same time. Without masks, the virus could have been transmitted from one to another. Then there are the Taiwan cases which were brought into a country that had had no cases for around 255 days by pilots and airline staff. One had flown back from New York with a bad cough and not feeling 100% fit. He infected others in the flight crew. By this stage the Taiwan government hd made the sort of mistake we are more used to here in Thailand. Quarantine for pilots had been reduced from around 10 days to 5 and then 3. One pilot then skipped from the airport quarantine hotel so he could go out on the town with his girl friend. These pilots were from EVA airlines and ended up with massive fines and being fired. But still the lesson was not learned and a few weeks later China Airlines was grounded for two weeks after its staff also brought the virus in to the country. Now the Taiwanese are having to put up with restrictions they did not experience last year. Worse, they are having problems getting vaccines. I do not believe the sandbox will work for long even with tourists who have been vaccinated and passed a covid test poor to departure and on arrival. I hope I am wrong. Time will tell.

This thread is all getting rather ridiculous. We all agree that the chain of tragic links started with snakeheads in Vietnam. Criminals were involved all along the way with the final group being the ones who ferried them in sealed container lorries. Everyone was guilty of something, including the victims who knew precisely what they were doing and very sadly paid the ultimate price. The fact is if we look around the world, citizens of many countries, especially in Africa and Central and South America, many of whom live in miserable conditions, are desperate for a better life. They see gold at the end of a criminal highway in countries which are usually near the top of the passport list. In most cases, those who help them are criminals in one way or another. Let's just leave it at that.

I'm sorry but here I have to disagree again. Who were the true criminals? The snakeheads in Vietnam, surely. Without them those poor young people who were murdered - for that is how I see their deaths - would still be in their Vietnamese villages. Those who were found guilty in the UK were merely the poor bastards at the end of a very long trail of criminals. I do not in the slightest defend their actions, but without the originating criminals in so many countries, the drivers of the lorries would not have human cargo to transport. That is not redirecting blame. It is merely apportioning it in the correct way.

I fail to understand the logic here. Inbound tourists to the sandbox have presumably paid quite handsomely for the trip. They have to show reams of paperwork including proof of vaccination and a test within 72 hours of departure. Given all that, one passenger arrived positive. So if you are in a group and just one is positive, all of you are f--ked. It may not be a problem for Phuket residents but it sure is a huge blow to potential holidaymakers. But this is not the only gap in the sandbox. If you are found to test positive, you are not given a second test to check if the first was false positive. Also, one sandbox arrival avoided the hotel and went to stay with his Thai wife and son. The hotel reported him when he did not turn up and the police then apprehended him. Another, an 84- year old with Alzheimers, was found to have left the hotel without his cellphone. He was apprehended in a supermarket. The chances of these two men testing positive is probably infinitesimal. But we know from the example of Melbourne and other cities that hotel quarantine is absolutely no guarantee that someone with the virus will not result in a local spike in cases. https://loyaltylobby.com/2021/07/07/phuket-sandbox-tourist-tests-positive-for-cov19-entire-tour-group-moved-to-quarantine-hotel/

This was a ghastly tragedy. Sorry Reader, but of course their objective whilst in that truck was precisely to smuggle themselves into the UK. Their families had all paid snakeheads in Vietnam vast sums for the precise purpose of smuggling them on a long and extremely hazardous journey to Europe. For those who make it, they often end up working for slave wages always in fear they will be discovered and deported back. But those earnigs are more than they can make in Vietnam and they can send money back home to give their families a better life. "As dangerous as the last leg of the migrant journey to Britain often is, those petrifying hours in a trailer are sometimes only a sliver of months if not years of harsh treatment — first at the hands of organized trafficking gangs, and then under imperious bosses at nail salons and cannabis factories in Britain. But still they come, an estimated 18,000 Vietnamese paying smugglers for the journey to Europe every year at prices between 8,000 and 40,000 pounds, around $10,000 to $50,000. "In Britain, where Brexit has discouraged the flow of labor from Eastern Europe, migrants see a country thirsty for low-wage workers, paying easily five times what they could earn at home and free of the onerous identity checks that make other European countries inhospitable. "Vietnamese smugglers, for the most part, get their clients across to France and the Netherlands, where other gangs, often Kurdish and Albanian, or, as in the recent case, apparently Irish or Northern Irish, finish the job." https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/01/world/europe/vietnamese-migrants-europe.html

I think (not sure) position on the rankings is partly due to reciprocal agreements between countries. I suspect quite a lot of western and other countries have concerns about young Thais wanting to remain beyond the length of their visas - especially possible bar girls and others working in the sex business.

Although covid has created travel difficulties for many, in an ideal world the Henley Passport Index which has been monitoring the most travel friendly passports since 2006 has announced its list for 2021. As before, Japan heads the list. 1. Japan (193 destinations) 2. Singapore (192) 3. Germany, South Korea (191) 4. Finland, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain (190) 5. Austria, Denmark (189) 6. France, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden (188) 7. Belgium, New Zealand, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States (187) 8. Czech Republic, Greece, Malta, Norway (186) 9. Australia, Canada (185) 10. Hungary (184) Henley & Partner's list is one of several indexes created by financial firms to rank global passports according to the access they provide to their citizens. The Henley Passport Index is based on data provided by the International Air Transport Authority (IATA) and covers 199 passports and 227 travel destinations. It is updated in real time throughout the year, as and when visa policy changes come into effect. At the bottom fo the list is North Korea, but surprisingly to me it is accepted by 39 destinations. I wonder which ones. https://edition.cnn.com/travel/article/henley-index-world-best-passport-2021/index.html From 2022 UK citizens will require an ETIAS waiver before visiting EU countries (European Travel Information and Authorisation System). This is much easier to obtain than a visa, but presumably the UK will fall quite a few notches down the list next year.

Let's never forget that it is the heir to this fortune who mowed down and murdered the traffic policeman in 2012 and has evaded justice through legal and many illegal means since then. See post #5 here -