Police have arrested a webmaster for posting pornographic photos for trade and distribution on his website, one of 200-300 sites containing sexually explicit content based in Thailand.

Boonyarit Arunsap the webmaster of www.nisitgirl.com, was apprehended in the CAT Telecom building on Charoen Krung road in Bang Rak district.

Police from the Children, Juveniles and Women division and Information and Communications Technology Ministry officials allegedly found him using his computer to download and share lewd content via Bit Torrent, a file-sharing programme.

Police charged him with allowing sexually obscene content into a computer system under his supervision for public access with the purpose of trading or sharing pornographic photos.

The offence under the Computer Crime Act is punishable by up to five years in jail and a 100,000 baht fine.

Police seized seven computers from his office and 14 more from an office on the 14th floor for examination.

According to police, Boonyarit said his website was intended for the public to exchange their views. But at least 10 porn websites had used his site to post sexually-explicit photos, messages or links to other obscene sites, police said.

He and other webmasters were aware of the problem and tried to erase the obscene content, but they could not keep up as more than 10,000 porn messages popped up each day.

Police said he agreed to improve the content-screening system and inform police of the offensive sites.

A web developer has spoken of how someone he knew spent a night in jail: A couple had an argument and the boyfriend proceeded to post compromising pictures of his girlfriend to a web site. The girlfriend went to the police and it was the webmaster who spent the night in jail, pending bail, for not being able to provide the logs and names necessary under the new Thai law.

Indeed, the only thing the law has accomplished is to make it easy for people to attack their enemies by posting dubious content on web sites in order to get the hosting company in trouble.

Even the big operators are not immune. Pantip.com requires an ID card number to be registered before posting pictures, but one web developer said that someone had used his ID card number in an online game, a classic case of identity theft. Without a way to check someone's identity, an ID card number is useless. But if the number could be checked easily, the opportunities to abuse the system are immense. If the Ministry of Interior opens up its database for webmasters to check ID numbers, then what is there to stop someone from mining the information.

Another hosting company was effectively shut down when police raided it and seized its servers because one of its clients was selling counterfeit goods. All the other clients suffered too, but one wonders how police would treat a grid or a virtual machine running in a cloud of computers. Chances are they would probably seize it first and then come back asking how to turn it on later.

When the law first came into effect, the head of Thailand's largest hosting company, ISSP, said that the law was a death sentence for small Thai hosts and that it would only drive the Internet economy overseas. In a draconian move, if the host is overseas, the onus of supplying a name to match an action then falls on the ISP.

So, what does the future hold for web development in Thailand?

The current interpretation of the cybercrime law puts far too much emphasis on the medium; it punishes the messenger and ignores the message. It is convenient for law enforcement. It is perfect for a police state.

It makes for a situation where every hosting company and every ISP is operating in a grey area and the government of the day can pick and choose who to persecute, sorry, prosecute, at will. Since every forum is probably unable to prove compliance, governments can selectively turn a blind eye to pro-government sites and shut down those that are critical of its policies.

Only those who use it to speak of things that the state disapproves of ever need fear prosecution.

Thailand's Internet is stuttering with a series of unexplained outages and slowdowns that suggest that the government is running a far-reaching program to monitor its citizens' online activities, one similar to the US Carnivore e-mail policeware program.

This can be seen in the way YouTube is now all but unusable for TOT subscribers, and how sending large e-mail messages through a foreign server on port 25 often fails, while encrypted, non-standard ports or VPN access over the same network works fine.

A former security-consultant-turned-businessman in Thailand, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the entire situation was seriously damaging business confidence and may be on the verge of being illegal, especially for foreign businesses operating in Thailand.

In many industries, a user has a duty to alert his company or his authorities if he knows that data has been compromised. But what if the leak is to a foreign government? That said, in most countries, national security laws override privacy laws.

He first noted earlier this year that e-mail sending slows down as the work day progresses and fails almost entirely around lunchtime. His company uses a corporate e-mail server located overseas. Analysis of the traffic suggest that the authorities are intercepting anything on standard SMTP port 25, regardless of the destination IP address. He said he has the IP numbers he suspects to be the sniffing machines as the latency incurred there is far too long to be a regular switch.

To circumvent this monitoring, users can simply use a VPN to access their corporate network overseas, use SSL encrypted e-mail ports or even encrypt on an end-to-end fashion. Gmail remains secure when accessed via HTTPS.

That said, the former security consultant said that there was a legitimate need for governments to monitor e-mail for national security but that the way the Thai government had done it had failed miserably.

Rather it should have been done professionally and be totally invisible without the terrorists or the public knowing.

Rather than announce to the world that they were intercepting and monitoring e-mail and thus making everyone use encryption, it would have been much better if the government had kept quiet and had done traffic pattern analysis on individuals to learn more about their network, he said.

For instance, if one person was using encryption all the time, the government should keep a close eye on him and who he contacts, but by botching up this project, it means that everyone has to use encryption and VPN and thus the government has lost its ability to gather information and protect the people.

Another question was who had access to the information being gathered. In the past, the US government launched Echelon and Carnivore, projects aimed at wiretapping the Internet in the name of security. But at least they had clear objectives and responsibilities, unlike the clandestine Thai system that appeared to be in place, he noted.

The long wait for Thailand's first film rating system will continue for at least another few months.

The ministerial regulations on audience age restrictions have not yet been finalised. The rating system had been due to start in June, as stipulated in the Film Act passed by the National Legislative Assembly in December.

The sub-committee has finished drafting the regulations, but we will have to submit it to the cabinet before they become effective, said Somchai Seanglai, the deputy permanent secretary for culture.

Under the Film Act, the Culture Ministry will replace the police as the body that oversees theatre screening of movies.

The law specifies six ratings: G (fit for all age groups); 13-plus; 15-plus; 18-plus; 20-plus; and a special "P" rating for films that deserve to be promoted to all audiences. The authority will retain power to cut or ban films.

The rating committee will comprise government officials, academics and film industry representatives.

Twenty nine "inappropriate" websites are being investigated for content deemed to be critical of or offensive to the Thai monarchy.

A police source at the High-Tech Crime Centre said a list of inappropriate websites, compiled about a month ago, has been handed over to the Special Branch Police.

The SBP is working with the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) in tracking down operators or owners of those websites, the source said.

Note that Lese Majeste accusations are sometimes more to do with settling personal scores rather than strident attacks on the monarchy.

The newspapers published the list of sites under investigation. Having compiled the list, the thorny issue of how to block them seems to be causing problems. The recent law suggests that blocking should be via court orders but these have not been obtained. So it seems that the blocking has been delegated to ISPs with assurances that they will not be prosecuted.

See full article from Prachatai

Information and Communications Technology Minister Man Pattanothai said that so far internet service providers had not dared to block websites found to have lèse majesté content for fear of breaching the National Telecommunications Commission law that forbids blocking information flows, with a maximum penalty of licence revocation.

After consulting with the National Telecommunications Commission, the ICT Ministry has assured all ISPs that they will not be subject to the penalty if they block the truly offensive websites, said the Minister.

The National Telecommunications Commission has confirmed with the ministry that blocking websites offensive to the royal family can be carried out without breaching the law. Therefore, the ICT Ministry can guarantee all ISPs that their licenses will not be revoked, said the Minister.

ICT Minister said that there had been an order from ‘high above’ not to block the websites and to allow the free flow of information, on the grounds that foreigners do not understand the blocking and may form negative perceptions.

See full article from Reporters without Borders

Reporters Without Borders is alarmed about the comments made by Man Pattanotai, the Thai minister of information and communication technology (ICT), in a radio interview on 14 May. He said prosecuting websites because of their content would cause a “big scandal” and that it was better to just “suppress the news” by closing them down or blocking access.

By voicing a preference for radical censorship measures, the minister is in complete contradiction with the Computer Crime Act, which has been in force since the summer of 2007 and which requires the authorities to bring a complaint against a website before requesting its closure, Reporters Without Borders said: We condemn the reinforcement of online controls, which includes the creation of a toll-free number for people to call to denounce any website criticising the monarchy.

Censorship in Thailand has always been accomplished by government in secret. The number of websites blocked, its blocklists and the methods it uses to block have never been disclosed to the Thai public..

However, the new cybercrime law required that the government seek a court order before blocking. However, since passage of the law, Web censorship has become far murkier, with Thailand’s 100 ISPs blocking blocking independently in order to avoid being criminalised under the law for illegal content transiting their servers. And no court orders have been requested.

Now ISPs are required to keep all Internet traffic logs for 90 days. Two cyber-dissidents have already been arrested under the new law tracked by their IP addresses for comments they made on Thailand’s monarchy to public Web discussion boards.

Make no mistake: Internet censorship is illegal in Thailand under at least 11 articles of the 1997 Constitution, by decree of the lawmakers’ Council of State and by order of the Administrative Court. Has this stopped the censors? Didn’t even slow them now.

Now Thailand’s newly-elected government and its new ICT Minister are using lèse majesté as its ongoing excuse to block freedom of opinion and expression by Thais on issues vital to our society.

The past few weeks have seen YouTube blocked again as well as Prachatai, Thailand’s foremost independent news portal and Same Sky, a journal of social criticism. Both sites have popular public Web discussion boards. In the past, both sites have been warned by MICT to self-censor “sensitive” public comments.

However, both Prachatai and Same Sky were closed this week without court order by the ICT Minister who was interviewed on May 14 on the Khao Den Praden Ron radio news programme. His comments reveal that, not only was he completely aware he was acting above the law, but that suggestion for the censorship came from those higher up in Thai government.

Quoting the Minister: [Pursuing legal action] will…become a big scandal. We’d better suppress the news. Someone higher than me is of this opinion. This means, of course, that the rose-apple is rotten to its core and that Thai bureaucrats engage in criminal acts with impunity.

Thailand's Department of Special Investigation (DSI) has conceded it can do nothing about some of the content of the YouTube website considered as lese majeste and against the Thai monarchy, apart from seeking cooperation from the webmaster.

Pol Col Yarnpol Yangyuen, the chief of the DSI's office of technology cases and examination centre, said YouTube is an international website based in another country, so the DSI cannot take legal action against it for lese majeste.

But the DSI has asked YouTube's webmasters to block such content on their website and expects to soon reach agreement about the lese majeste content on the site, said Pol Col Yarnpol.

The Surayud Chulanont government last year slapped a ban on YouTube after clips about the royal family were posted on the site. The ban was later lifted after YouTube operator Google agreed to install filters to bar people in Thailand from gaining access to those clips. However, some controversial content remains on the website.

Pol Col Yarnpol also said that the DSI would not meddle with politically motivated websites and would maintain its neutrality. He added that the DSI would not take action against the publication of internet content aimed at discrediting politicians or websites considered as politically motivated. The department does not want to become a political tool for any political group [by interfering in politically-motivated websites],' said Pol Col Yarnpol.

Thailand's new Film Act will go into effect on June 4. And though nothing ever goes as planned when it comes to the Culture Ministry, moviegoers should brace for the historic introduction of the rating system, which is likely to be accompanied by confusion and clamour.

The Film Act was actually passed last December, but the Ministry Regulations, the practical rules that will implement various provisions of the law, are being written by the scribes at the ministry.

When the new law is applied in June, each movie, Thai and foreign, will be assigned one of six ratings:

• G (fit for all age groups)
• 13-plus
• 15-plus
• 18-plus
• 20-plus
• ''P'' an unusual label designed for films that deserve to be promoted to the society because of its content. For instance, a historical Thai movie that everyone including young children should be encouraged to see it because of its historical and patriotic values.

What's not clear right now is how the ratings and filtering will be enforced. As it is understood, theatre staff at the box office will check the IDs of customers before letting them buy tickets. But since nobody has seen the Ministry Regulations, it's not certain whether the age classifications are simply a guideline for parents and multiplexes, or are actual legal restrictions with punishment clauses.

It's rumoured that the ID check will be carried out only with the 18- and 20-plus movies. But if, say, a 19-year-old wants to see Rambo 4 with his father, will he be allowed to go in? And if not, why? Because when he goes to an election booth, a process more detrimental to his mental health, he doesn't have to bring his dad in there with him to tell him which box to tick or which politician is a thief.

I feel itchy about the 20-plus rating, itchier and sadder still that the new Film Act still has the cutting and banning provisions. Hardly any country in the world restricts access to cinema for its 20-year-old people, except, well, Singapore. What's very funny in the Thai law is that the 20-plus rating will not be applied to those who have reached their legal age of consent by marriage. So if you're a 17-year-old girl who's already married, you can breeze into the theatre to see a 20-plus film, supposedly because since you've already had sex, nothing else can shock you. Just remember to carry your wedding certificate as proof.

Rape is a crime punishable with lengthy prison sentences in a court of law in Thailand. Yet this criminal act seems to be legal and accepted in the country's most popular night-time TV soap operas. This perpetuation of an inhumane act must end and only the main television networks have the power to do it.

Here the author makes a specific call to Channel 3 and Channel 7 to terminate any future soap dramas containing plot lines that justify rape. The script writers of our television dramas are better than this. They can do more than recycle old storylines written in a backward time when apparently, and unfortunately, men were seen as superior to women and invincible to the application of the law.

I am not going to lie and tell you that I don't enjoy the verbal spat between Teeradej Wongpuapan (Ken) and Ann Thongprasom (Ann) on screen. The exchanges are dramatic and the scenes are excitingly heated every Wednesday and Thursday evening on Channel 3. The lead character is the troubled son of a rich businessman who apparently has not been brought up properly. The father's role is especially craftily acted by veteran actor Dilok Tongwattana. The self-obsessed son attempts to gain the attention of his multi-time married father while trying his best, for the major part of the series, to make his father's new wife jealous of his increasingly intense relationship with the lead female character played by Ann. The plot of Sawan Bieng (Heaven Unwilling) is an old one. It is normal practice among TV drama production companies to recycle famous though perennially used screenplays, with a bit of adaptation.

All that is fine and these soaps draw huge ratings. The drama of Sawan Bieng, however, in the end becomes based on a love that is spawned by the sexual violence between the lead male and female characters. Ken vengefully rapes Ann to get back at her sister who happens to be his dad's new wife. Still, as time passes, Ann falls in love with Ken. He is not prosecuted for his criminal invasion of another person's sexual inviolateness. Worse, soon afterwards he gets away with the act by having the victim come to terms, to "appreciate" what has been done to her. She effectively falls for him as a ridiculous "logical consequence" of the sexual violence perpetrated on her. Such is the storyline of the country's most popular TV drama series at the moment.

The other one, on Channel 7, is about slavery during the latter years of King Rama V's reign. And, guess what, a slave girl's falling in love with her master is the central premise of this very popular remake. It is great that Nang Thas (Female Slave) does not necessarily justify rape; it however posits the possibility of a slave being able to come to "appreciate" her being owned and then being impregnated.

For these to be the highest-rated and most talked-about evening series in this country is for us to accept that our culture enjoys sexual violence and hierarchical dominance over women. This is something I don't think I or the people of this country should accept.

Enough is enough. It is time for a change. Change in this sense does not have to be time-requiring. The entertainment industry is packed with talented writers who can put together some of the most socially-adaptive, humanely-appropriate, as well as mass audience-acceptable screenplays. Why rehash ancient scripts from recycled plots which have all been used before? Why not have storylines that move along with a culture that presumably progresses?

Some say art imitates life, but what if - just what if - life in practice actually imitates art? We, as people working in the media and entertainment industry, owe it to our culturally advancing society to influence the Thai nation in the best ways possible.

There is no conceivable way to comprehend a boy growing up watching his favourite soap and all the while learning from that drama that the best way to get a girl is to hold her captive and rape her. If these soaps don't change, boys will grow up to become men who think and act like the lead characters in Sawan Bieng.

The Thai Information and Communications Technology Ministry is to ‘hack and crack' foreign websites deemed offensive to Thailand's revered institutions.

A March 15 report in Krungthep Turakij newspaper (www.bangkokbiznews.com) quoted a source at the ICT that the ministry could pursue legal proceedings only with websites registered in Thailand, and is now planning a ‘hack and crack' programme to hack offensive websites hosted abroad and delete their contents, because the legal process would take too long.

This approach may be somewhat illegal, but sometimes it might be worth it, if [the websites] are really unacceptable, the source said.

One website registered abroad has been found to advertise merchandise including calendars, dolls, bags, hats, glasses, watches, trousers and underwear, all with a logo of the Buddha meditating on a lotus, with the face of a dog. It was reported to have upset some Buddhists.

The Technology Centre has found that the website has its server in California, USA, and the centre has twice asked the ICT Ministry in writing to shut down the website, but it is still online. The centre has also asked the Foreign Ministry's Information Department to address the problem through diplomatic means.

If within one month the problem is still not solved, I will ask for cooperation from ‘internet cop' Pol Col Yanapol Yangyuen, Commander of Office of Technology and Information Cases under the Department of Special Investigation, to shut it down, said Booncherd. He added that his centre has cooperated with relevant agencies in shutting down 5 similar websites which made commercial use of Buddhist symbols.

After dealing with the censorship of his film for nearly a year, Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul will finally screen his acclaimed Sang Sattawat (Syndromes and a Century), with silent, black frames to replace six scenes the Board of Censors found objectionable.

It's cynical, but actually it's a statement for the audience to make them aware that they are being blinded from getting information in this society, says the director.

Apichatpong first planned to show Syndromes last April in a limited release in Bangkok cinemas, but he cancelled the screenings when the censors said four scenes had to go. A petition against the action was started, and the director formed the Free Thai Cinema Movement to call for better treatment for filmmakers.

With the election of a new government and a new film law on the books, Apichatpong said he submitted his film to the censors again, hoping they would view it differently. The censors asked that two more scenes be excised.

I was wrong. It's worse than the first time, but it was still worth the effort. I learned that the problem with the new film law is not the law itself, but the people who will be enforcing it, he says.

For a limited-release screening by the Thai Film Foundation, Syndromes will have the six censored scenes replaced by silent, scratched black frames - the longest of which runs for seven minutes.

More than 600 Muslims gathered in front of the Danish embassy in Bangkok on Wednesday to protest 17 Danish newspapers for reprinting cartoons mocking Mohammad.

The Muslims are also displeased with the Danish government for ignoring the matter as it cited that this is the freedom of expression of the press.

A few hours later, the protesters dispersed peacefully. They said they would present a letter to Foreign Minister Noppadon Pattama on this issue.

They also urged Muslims around the world to boycott products from Denmark.

The Thai censorship appeals committee has upheld the decision to cut four scenes from the art-house movie Saeng Satawat (Syndromes and a Century) and ordered the director to cut an additional scene as well. We upheld the verdict because the movie contains inappropriate images of doctors and monks, said Police Major-General Somdej Khaokam of the Central Investigation Bureau, who chaired the hearing yesterday.

The film's director, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, appealed after the Censorship Board ordered him to cut four scenes from Saeng Satawat last April.

These scenes featured a monk playing a guitar, doctors drinking whisky, doctors kissing and two monks playing with a radio-controlled toy.

The appeal committee ordered him to also cut a scene showing statues of Prince Mahidol of Songkhla and the late Princess Mother.

Apichatpong, who defended his case before the committee, expressed his extreme disappointmentL It was like I was on trial for being a communist. But he said he would cut the film as instructed: I will release the mutilated version as a statement and as a historical record of Thailand.

The author of the book on which the popular soap opera Songkhram Nang Fah (Air Hostess War) was based has been arrested for defamation.

The Children, Juveniles and Women's Division police yesterday pressed the defamation charge against Royrudee Kenny.

Ms Royrudee was taken in for questioning after acknowledging the charge, but was later released on bail.

The charge was filed by Patchara Silapapreecha, a flight attendant, who claimed Royrudee had posted her photograph tagged as ''Cherry'', a villainous female character portrayed in Songkhram Nang Fah, on a website. Patchara said the posting had damaged her image.

However, Ms Royrudee denied the charge and said she had no idea how the photograph had made it to the website.

Police also searched the writer's apartment in the Sathorn area and impounded a computer.

The Thai Prime Minister’s Office Minister Jakrapob Penkair has ordered the Information, Communications and Technology (ICT) ministry to keep a close watch on the use of social networking site www.hi5.com after it emerged a Buddhist monk had been using the site to woo women.

I am upset by this, he said: Any sort of misdeed caused by monks results in the deterioration of Buddhism.

Jakrapob has already consulted with ICT ministry officials to lay down possible measures to ensure that something like this does not recur: We are still determining the pros and cons of blocking the site altogether.

A new cyberlaw passed last year would require court permission to block the site, although the government has broken this law hundreds of times, and several thousands of websites are blocked without court order or explanation.

It seems that Thai-Anxiety is getting blocked by the ISP CyberPoint.

CyberPoint are a public WiFi service accessed with a pre-pay card that seems to be getting installed in a lot of hotels as it's obviously a fair bit cheaper that cabling up all the rooms.

The blocking seems to be of a single page: www.thai-anxiety.com/sexa08a.htm

Surely a sex related page but only in an informational way.

I wonder what offends the censors?

Update: Blocking 'Sex'

13th March 2008

It turns out that the naff CyberPoint censor URLs with sex in the name. I shall have to rename the pages.

Just went to see Sweeney Todd, Demon barber of fleet street at Big C in Pattaya last night. The movie was very well done but I recommend that everyone save there money and not see this movie in a Thailand Theatre as the Thai censors have pixellated out all the scenes of graphic violence.

They censored out many of the highlighted scenes of the movie. It was irritating and would give a second thought to seeing another movie in a Thailand Theatre before putting down my ever weakening dollar for a ticket. The censorship blotting really ruined the movie!

What was even better they censored the label from the drink the boy had when he was drinking then in the following two scenes where the bottle was on the table next to him they showed it. It said Gin. The woman had already said it was gin, the bottle said it was gin; did they think that when he put it into his mouth we wouldn't guess he was drinking Gin?

...I walked out after half an hour, completely unacceptable censorship...

...I just saw the movie, with the censored throat slashings. It is an insult to the movie makers and the audience. Either allow the film or ban it. I think I might have turned my eyes away at the raw film, but that is part of the authentic experience of watching a movie. My reaction to the frequent pixilation was WTF!

In a couple of months' time, the horrors of censorship depicted by George Orwell in 1984 will seem like childish pranks compared to the powers granted to the Russian authorities.

According to the Guardian, Russian internet users, will be completely locked off from foreign traffic, which can be used to access the majority of free information, as currently happens in China. Those whose work requires access to foreign sites (ministries, departments and state companies) will have to be approved by the Special Services.

In practice, this will be achieved by the introduction of Cyrillic domain names, which will automatically cut the whole of Russia off from the World Wide Web and the Internet's other services.

The 'Russian Internet' project will look at the question of how they can best communicate within their own country. The internationalization of domain names will give them the chance to do what is being attempted in China, where three top-level domain names, written in Chinese characters, are used: .net, .com and .cn, says Wolfgang Kleinwachter, member of the UN Working Group on Internet Governance, explaining the technical details.

The key question here is whether Russia's own root servers will use Russian international domain names when deciding where to direct their enquiries on the Internet -- that is will they be autonomous from the already existing root servers of the net, which are mainly based in the USA (5 in the USA, 2 in Northern Europe).

In Kleinwachter's opinion, the worst case scenario would be everyone having to register domain names using the Cyrillic top-level domain .rf. Then Russian would have its own root name server, and it is much easier to control a top-level domain than a hundred thousand subdomains, says the expert.

According to Kleinwachter, it has been suggested that people will be able to access Russian sites freely but will require a password sanctioned by state authorities to access the global Internet. In this way, the Kremlin will be able to control each citizen's contact with the outside world.

The authorities however assert that this will make tracing "cyber-criminals" easier. Anyone wishing to read the European press, including the Ukrainian, will now become a dangerous criminal.

Western IT specialists point out that this innovation would also make all Russian hackers absolutely untraceable without cooperation from the Russian authorities. [Perhaps The ASCII internet world would the have to block all communication from untraceable sources]

The Author of A Coup for the Rich, Professor Giles Ji Ungphakorn, writes:

I have just been informed today by Thammasart University bookshop, the only bookshop to agree to sell my book, that the Thai special branch have issued a letter to the shop banning the sale of  Coup for the Rich.

This book, which was published in January 2007, has sold over 900 copies, almost its entire print run. Mostly the book was sold directly by myself or by Thammasart University bookshop. This is because my own university bookshop refused to sell the book, citing “incorrect procedure”.

A Coup for the Rich criticises the military coup and the liberals who supported the coup. It discusses the role of the Thai Monarchy, citing the work of Paul Handley (The King Never Smiles). There is a chapter on the politics of the Peoples’ Movement. The final chapter deals with the crisis in the South.

Bangkok Metropolitan Police, acting under an appeal from the Special Branch to investigate my book, have issued a letter to the Thamasart bookshop banning the sale of A Coup for the Rich. According to the letter, dated 18 January 2008, the book is currently under investigation concerning charges of lèse majesté. The letter, signed by deputy police chief Chutti Tamanowanij, states that the continued sale of the book risks creating a “misunderstanding” about the Monarchy among the Thai population.

The spat over the Air Hostess War TV soap ended yesterday after a talk hosted by Culture Ministry.

The producers, Exact, agreed to remove any fight scenes of characters in flight attendant uniforms, to make the uniform skirts two inches longer and to add some scenes showing cabin crew working hard for passengers.

Battle of Angels director Nipon Phewnena said the changes were not seen as damaging because he wanted everyone to be happy and feel better about the soap opera, and he affirmed this would not affect the story's intensity, continuity and entertainment.

Nipon admitted audience ratings had actually increased following the flight attendant's movement against it, although he insisted it was not the kind of ratings boost the producers were proud of. He said this had taught drama producers to work more carefully.

The Thai Airways International (THAI) Union acting chairman Somsak Srinuan said the union was satisfied with Exact's proposal and would keep a close watch for such improvements in the soap opera.

The makers of a sexy Thai television soap opera have apologised to aircrew who say it demeans them, and have promised to tone it down.

The Air Hostess War details love rivalries and jealousies among the crew of a fictional airline.

After an outburst of protest, the programme makers have now promised longer skirts and no more "catfights".

But they ruled out cancelling the show, as flight attendants had demanded in an official complaint to the government.

There won't be any more catfight scenes between flight attendants while they are on duty or in uniform in public, said managing director Tokankiet Viravan of the programme makers, Exact.

He added: The skirts our actresses wear are not shorter than those worn by hostesses at other international airlines. But we will make our skirts longer.

The Thai government says it plans to bring all sides together later in the week to resolve disagreements.

OKNation is a Thai blog hosting company associated with the Nation newspaper group. They have recently been deleting blogs without warning.

For instance Lalida's blog about the "3rd gender" (lady boys) was shut down yesterday with no warning. Even the posts about Lalida’s transgender blog have been deleted.]

The blogger wrote: Lalida is banned because it targeted on the “3rd gender” that falls under our rule which wants to keep out attacks on personality and debates that involve racism or sexism.

Putushon of the Republic of Poetry blog recently reported the deletion of his blog on OK Nation. His account has been restricted on December 20. On January 8, the blog has been entirely deleted without warning.

Previously Wayward's blog has been banned due to strong language. Independent Press, an anti-junta government blog, has also been deleted by OK Nation.

OK Nation, part of the Nation Group, is a blog community platform with fine ideals...

OK Nation was established in order to building a place for intellectual freedom. Everyone has his own right to write and distribute via the Internet, the most effective communication channel.

The Nation Group as a media who are honest, trustworthy, updated, and creative, opens blogs for everyone to share stories in your daily life, experiences, knowledge and opinion to others freely."

But censorial rules:

• Any writings or opinions must not insult or affect the institution of nation, religion, and king or affect the stability of the nation.
• Do not use rude, insulting, instigating language giving faults to other or breaking up the society. Also do not include pornographic and obscene image, video clip and words.
• OK Nation reserves right to close any blog and delete any content or opinion that are against the above statement without prior notification to the blog or opinion owners.

Flight attendants are upset over the way their profession is portrayed in a new TV soap opera, Songkhram Nang Fah (The Air Hostess War), and will today make their feelings public.

Cabin crew led by the Thai Airways International labour union will petition Culture Minister Khunying Khaisri Sri-aroon to get the drama pulled off the air.

Acting union president Somsak Srinual said the Channel 5 show, in which female flight attendants battle to win the heart of a pilot, is humiliating and hurts their image. It would also discourage young people from entering the profession

They will petition the television station and the National Human Rights Commission. Thai Airways president Apinant Sumaseranee and air force chief ACM Chalit Phukphasuk will also get an earful.

The drama first aired on the channel last Tuesday and ran for three days last week. Songkhram Nang Fah is scheduled to air Monday to Thursday at 8.25pm. The female lead is a charming air hostess, the envy of her co-workers, and a married pilot takes a fancy to her. The melodrama contains many scenes in which characters exact revenge, get jealous and fight each other.