<p><span>The tragic deaths last week of 54 Burmese workers who suffocated in a cold storage container packed with 121 victims of human trafficking would most likely have been avoided if Thailand had a more lenient and practical policy towards registration of migrant workers from Laos, Cambodia and Burma. </span></p>

<p>On the morning of 10th March, as I stood at the Lanzhou University Square, Gansu province in south-west China, what was noticeable was a steady stream of ochre and red robed Tibetan monks boarding buses out to Xiahe. This flurry of activity did not seem unusual, given the proximity of Gannan Tibetan prefecture (area), renowned as &quot;Small Tibet&quot; with Xiahe county ( district) the seat of the famous Labrang Lamasery.</p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">Two days ago the British government played a cruel hoax on its people.<span>&nbsp; </span>And it&rsquo;s over two weeks too late to be an April Fool prank.</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">Applications are urgently invited for 12 positions in Olympic Flame Security operations during the visit of the Flame to Bangkok.<span>&nbsp; </span>This is a short-term appointment (one day).<span> <br /></span></span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma; font-weight: normal">It&rsquo;s an ordinary Friday morning. You leave your office on Rachadapisek Road at 9 a.m. to meet a client at Robinson Department Store, Bangrak. Accompanied by your assistant, you drive along the expressway and park your car at the South Bangkok Civil Court where you instruct your assistant to deliver some documents to another client.</span></p>

<p>There was a nature documentary clip on the BBC last Tuesday.&nbsp; The Beeb are good at these - sumptuous music, breathtaking shots that must have cost the camera crew hours and hours of patient shivering, seasoned narrator (in this case ex-Monty Python Terry Jones).&nbsp; And a mind-boggling story - the discovery of a flock of penguins that have learned to fly and who migrate to South America to swap the Antarctic winter for the warmth of the Amazon rainforest.&nbsp; </p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">Human rights activists are expressing fears about the new government&rsquo;s plans to revive the War on Drugs that the Thaksin administration waged in 2003.<span> <br /></span></span></p>

<p>There are growing fears in government and business circles of a debilitating trade war between Thailand and the United States over intellectual property protection. The possibility that Thailand will be placed on the &lsquo;Priority Country List&#39;, with dire consequences for its exports to the US, has prompted a search for a scapegoat.</p>

<p><span>In envisioning an integrated Mekong Sub-region (GMS), the governments of the six riparian countries and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) regard the &quot;connecting of nations&quot; as contributing to the &quot;linking of people&quot; and vice-versa.&nbsp;&nbsp;</span>&nbsp;</p>

<p>Have you noticed that Thai politicians will often try to wriggle out of a difficult situation by using a rhetorical question? You are aware that a rhetorical question is a question that only looks like a question, aren&#39;t you? And if it&#39;s not a real question, how could anyone give an answer to it?</p>

<p>When he took his oath of office as prime minister in February 2001, Pol Lt Col Thaksin Shinawatra swore to uphold the Thai constitution of 1997. Article 33 of that constitution stated very clearly that in criminal cases, the accused are to be considered innocent and cannot be treated as guilty until proven so in a final court verdict. </p>

<p><span>On Monday the 7</span>^{<span>th</span>}<span> of last month, at a seminar on &quot;What the National Counter Corruption Commission should be like from the perspective of the government, the private sector and the people&quot;. General Pasit Sonthikhan, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Office of the National Security Council said this in his opening remarks:</span></p>