Thailand booters face Prayut's boosters and it won't end quietly
Good Wednesday morning to all you kids, it's 81 degrees with only a tiny breeze here in beautiful downtown Dok Mai - 28 degrees with a Wind Chill Factor for you Canuckistan sufferers that makes it feel like 21.
Thailand booters face Prayut's diminishing boosters and it won't end quietly
NOTE: We have an early Fishwrap, on orders of our (Thai army) doctor. Just one day.
Prayut booters vs Chadchart boosters
Thailand politics get interesting. And rough.
After exactly eight years and one month of total military rule, the first serious challenge to dictatorship control emerges.
Newspapers and TV broadcast news made a big deal this morning about a call for recently elected Bangkok governor Chadchart Sittipunt (right in election campaign shirt below) to step up, oppose and try to replace the increasingly unpopular Prayut (left).
Chadchart shrugged it off. "I am too old for that." He is 56.
But today is the first time that media and a significant voters' herd have forced any such story onto the front pages and TV broadcast news.
Repeat: Chadchart won the Bangkok election by a landslide while Prayut, 68, faces serious opposition - on the street but right inside his coalition junta - even including all of his former Thai army BFFs.
NOTE: Chadchart was the popular (populist?) minister of transport in Thailand's last elected (2011) government headed by Yingluck Shinawatra.
While Chadchart accepted his role as "moderate", he stood by while opponents of his government spent two years of whistling for a Bangkok Shutdown which led directly to Prayut's coup of May 22, 2014.
Worth noting: Chadchart just spent a week in Seattle for the graduation of his son from the University of Washington.
Related: The United States has never uttered a word about Thailand's dictatorship, and still has no ambassador to Thailand.
REMINDER
Three DAYS ago
'Everything is fair in love and war." And politics.
Prayut and Chadchart meet, vow cooperation
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/politics/2328713/
THAILAND CORONAVIRUS
The Rona outbreak of Thailand touched another 1,714 new patients during the 24 hours of Tuesday. It caused the death of another 21 persons.
As of this morning, with constantly renewed vaccination advice and a mask mandate covering the entire country, there are
20,467 'active cases', meaning hospitalised
631 of which are in serious condition.
During the day on Tuesday, 2,137 Vid patients walked out of the hospital, apparently fully recovered.
Quick summary:
Prayut said the "Covid emergency decree" will stay in place indefinitely. And there are no Chinese tourists in sight.
Also, there will be no price cap on fuel, at the refineries or at the pumps.



Oh fer... one pandemic at a time, please!
The total number of known, suspected and confirmed cases of monkeypox in Thailand is a round digit.
PHOTO: There is no monkeypox in Thailand. Also, as of 8 more days, there will be no Thailand Pass in Thailand.
Racism by design
Toronto* police systemically assault, strip-search, detain, persecute and harass Thai immigrants and tourists more than others, especially white people who speak Canadian.
City police chief James Ramer says, "Yeah, well, ya know..." The town's biggest newspaper editorialised on 'Holding officers to account'.
City cops also are prone to stop and perform all that stuff on East and other Southeast Asians, Middle Easterners, Indians, Eskimos, Blacks and Latinos.
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2022/06/20/holding-officers-to-account.html
*A town in south-central Canada, 16 miles from the Land of the Big PX..
After 10 years of plane-changing in Tokyo or Dubai or Taipei or Incheon...
Direct flights to and from North America are back!
Maybe not the airline you would have predicted.
https://t.co/QHDZSpP1EK


Ghost Festival is lit!
Corona be darned. The very colourful Bun Luang and Phi Ta Khon Festival is ramping up in Loei.
The three-day ghost festival will begin on Canada Day.
https://bit.ly/3Ombbjm
This is not a joke...
Thailand, and especially southern Thailand is in the middle of the annual invasion of jellyfish - the venomous kind. The kind that really can kill you or if not just make you wish you were dead.
These signs and others like them aren't pranks. They warn of dangerous jellyfish and rip tides. Obey.
When you've lost the Democrats...
Thailand's ruling junta hasn't quite lost the Democrat Party it cajoled and threatened to join the pro-junta parliamentary coalitions. Not yet.
But the Democrats have switched to the opposition on one key issue.
Democrat MP Akkaradej Wongpitakroj, who knows the subject, said a good start to the imminent no-confidence debate in parliament would be a rousing, tough questioning of energy minister Supattanapong Punmeechaow. High fuel prices for home and vehicles have aroused the public.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/politics/2330233/
Thailand buses jam on the brakes
Twenty-seven (27) private bus companies operating provincial and interprovincial routes plan to slash services, starting on Canada Day.
The state-owned Transport Company will continue to operate services as normal.
The consortium of private bus companies announced that starting on July 1, bus services will be cut by 80%.
The companies are hurting because of fast-rising diesel prices, with no junta aid in sight.
https://www.bangkokpost.com/thailand/general/2330778/