flossie35

You have to - Thai law requres you to always have a passport abou t your person.

Nonsense. This is a war provoked by US/NATO to damage Russia. Ukraine - the cannon fodder - can't win. There will have to be a settlement, which will have to include transfer to Russia of the Russian-ethnic areas now in question. And Crimea.

Too many still swallow Washington's propaganda. The areas in question are populated mainly by Russians. For the last few years, while part of Ukraine, they have been bombarded by Ukraine, with 14,000 deaths. Why would they vote to remain Ukranian? For whatever reason, Thailand has got it right.

You can have it paid into an account at Bangkok Bank London Branch and they will send it on to an account in Thailand. In my case it''s to one of their branches, but they will probably send to another Thai bank - you'd need to check. The charge is GBP20 each time, which I think is much less than a UK bank would charge.

The west has been doing this for years, not always in a spirit of friend ship. Can you provide a few Chinese examples? Or do you just make things up?

Well said. Some people seem to believe China thinks like warmongering west. There is no basis for that.

The wrong side in the latter case. Not sure about the other one.

The US can't sanction everyone!

In this case, yes.

They are refugees, not economic migrants. Refugees have a legal right to choose where to seek refuge. Those choosing UK usually have friends or family here already, or they speak English but not French. 70% or so of arrivals are granted asylum by the Home Office. Charles is right about Rwanda.

What business is that of USA?

Gorbachev is talking about something else. The promise I mentioned is quite well-known. YouTube have a discussion between Chomsky and some one else which you might find illuminating. (I haven't seen it yet.) There was also a report on facebook yesterday by a Swiss gentleman, formerly a senior NATO official, which you might look at.

An article by Noam Chomsky in the New Statesman of 8 April 2022 mentions that, in return for Gorbachev’s agreeing to allow a unified Germany to rejoin Nato, Baker and Bush Sr undertook explicitly and unambiguously that “the US would ensure that there would be no move one inch to the east”. They later ratted on their promise and Russia now has NATO on nearly all of its borders to the west. Ie the US have provoked this war.

Western hypocrisy at work. The USA shows little respect for human rights; they turn a blind eye to daily abuses by Israel, then there's Guantanamo, and Julian Assange. And they have facilitated the war in Ukraine and continue to fan the flames. I'm surprised so many people swallow their propaganda.

He's right. War should not have been an option. The west has made it one. When the USSR collapsed the US made a deal with Gorbachev - you don't stand in the way of re-uniting Germany, and we won't move east. Great: end of cold war. But then the west ratted on their promise, inaugurating cold war II, and have been moving east as fast as they can ever since. This makes war an option for Russia - maybe the best option from their point of view? Were they laying a trap for Russia, heedless of possible consequences? Whatever, their irresponsible conduct shares responsibility for the mess we're now in.