Pantip Plaza on tourist map

[Chlp]

Wow... well written, and sooooo true...

 

[color:blue]Bangkok Post[/color]

Wed May 16, 2007

http://www.bangkokpost.com/Database/16May2007_data22.php

 

[color:brown]Pantip Plaza on tourist map[/color]

 

The United States Trade Representative commended the Thai government for the increased use of legal software. The United States Trade Representative finally recognised the achievements of Pantip Plaza and placed it on the list of Top 10 Notorious Markets of the World, ensuring that millions of potential new visitors learned of the attractions of the tourist market. The United States Trade Representative openly admitted in writing that Thailand had the right to license drugs. Brazil licensed the anti-Aids drug Efavirenz, same as Thailand; it said it would license others, same as Thailand.

 

After humiliating Thailand for years as a second class pirate, the United States Trade Representative finally gave in and agreed to add the country to the Dirty Dozen List of the world's worst intellectual property pirates, or, as Orwell would put it, the "Special 301 Priority Watch List;" Thailand was "elevated," in the word of the USTR, for movie copying, book Xeroxing, fake-shirt making, cable-TV thieving, Gucci-ripoff peddling, unRolex watchmaking, Aids medicine licensing - basically, everything but infringing on the patented right to start foreign wars; Pantip Plaza held a tasteful celebration, monitored by the spiffy anti-piracy CCTV system but closed to outsiders.

 

In a huge, almost eerie coincidence just 24 hours after the US report, Pattaya police received a tip that unscrupulous vendors in 30 shops were selling pirated DVDs and CDs at the Tuk.com centre; it was almost as if this had been going on for, well, years; a crack police unit raided the facility and seized boxes of pirated disks; unfortunately, there was some sort of glitch and every vendor escaped the net, and police were unable to make an arrest.

 

No 1 yuppiephone firm Advanced Info Service of Shingapore says it could gross more than 500 million baht a month from interconnection charges, but other operators are afraid of a TOT lawsuit if they set up such a clearinghouse.

 

One by one, ICT Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom called in the commercial phone company executives to assure them he has no intentions of shutting down their services and seizing their companies like they were some Singaporean TV station; if the Council of State rules their concession agreements are dodgy, all the government is asking is a little control . . . if you get his drift.

 

The government decided to promote the Official Censor of the 2006 Military Coup to Official Censor of all of Thailand; a bill went for rubber stamping by the National Legislative Assembly which would officially sanction the humbled Information and Communication Technology Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom to shut down, filter or block any web site he wants, any time he wants, because of all that pr0n and anti-monarchy material out there.

 

Information and Communications Technology Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom said YouTube lied when it claimed it could not remove an anti-monarchy video clip, and threatened to sue that "bully" Google about it; interestingly, Mr Sitthichai's thousands of web site filters include many specific video clips and stories at BBC, CNN, Sydney Morning Herald and other sites, meaning he, too, has - and uses - the power to block individual web destinations while leaving the main sites open.

 

Here are the men (no women need apply) who guard the Thailand web media against government intrusion: Paiboon Amornpinyokiat, consultant of the Thai Webmasters Association, invited Information and Communications Technology Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom for World Press Freedom Day, and said he and other webmasters were eager to employ self-censorship at Mr Sitthichai's guidance; Pantip.com founder Wanchat Padungrat said the government should encourage constructive expression on web boards; not a single webmaster at the meeting spoke out to criticise government meddling in freedom of the press.

 

Information and Communications Technology Minister Sitthichai Pookaiyaudom was devastated by mean-minded charges he had shut down more than 16 web sites since he became Official Censor of the 2006 Military Coup; it was 16, and not a web site more, he swore to Bangkok webmasters, and this was far better and more democratic than the despicable, censorious Thaksin regime which had blocked 9,000 web sites; you can see a list of 10,884 of the currently banned web sites and pages at tinyurl.com/26lzl8 - if that site is not one of the 16 banned ones.

 

Science and Technology Minister Yongyuth Yuthavong, recently voted the "least known cabinet minister," demanded that the sufficiency economy be stated as national policy in the new constitution.

 

The National Energy Policy Council established a committee to write a feasibility plan for what it called optimistically the first nuclear power plant.

 

The new board of directors of your TOT continued to blaze trails; it appointed Adm Bannavit Kengrien to chair an advisory board to find the corruption that surely was there when the old board signed its contracts. Your TOT board extended the term of president Somkuan Bruminhent for four years; he thought he was going to retire in September to the relief of some members, but to the consternation of Gen Saprang Kalayanamitr, chairman with the deciding vote.

[Flashermac]

Panthip's glory days are long past and it is really is nothing special for piracy anymore. All of those delightful software shops with the cute salesgirls wearing lowcut blouses are over. You can find at least as good a selection of pirated CDs and DVDs at plenty of other places, including the street vendors along Sukhumwit and Khao Sarn Road.