Re: "PM2.5: Endless deja vu in Thailand", (Opinion, March 13).
Every year we have terrible pollution and no serious measures to rectify this are proposed. Why not simply implement measures that have been proven to work elsewhere?
For example
1) Ban crop burning and have the police/army enforce the ban. Seasonal crop burning used to get a problem in the UK until it was banned. About 40 years ago.
2) Tax diesel to discourage use, rather than subsidising it to promote use.
3) Charge vehicles for driving in cities like Bangkok. As Singapore has done for decades.
4) Use the money from taxing vehicles to fund public transport and make sure the network is designed properly, with far shorter walks between connecting stations than we see on all the new lines. Make public transport quick, cheap and comfortable, so people use it.
5) Pass laws allowing vehicles failing emission tests to be taken off the roads and for the owners to receive heavy fines. Have the police and army enforce this.
6) Ban burning of other rubbish in urban areas.
7) Reduce the number of lanes on city centre roads and widen pedestrian walkways.
J Jones
Flyover mystery
According to your newspaper on 12 Nov 2018, the Na Ranong flyover was due to be finished on 13 March.
No, not today, but on 13 March 2021.
It is two years late from the original schedule, and construction has come to a complete stop for some months already.
None of your intrepid journalists is the slightest bit curious as to what is going on -- or rather, not going on -- within the community, which is happening right outside your own office?
Michael Winckless
Ukraine's problems
Re: "Economy not as flexible as many people thought", (Opinion, March 13).
Paul Krugman should be commended for being one of the first "mainstream" Western journalists I've personally read to quite correctly state: "The most pressing problem, reporting suggests, is that Ukraine is firing artillery shells faster than the West can produce them."
However, what Mr Krugman probably does not know is that Ukraine's problems hardly end there.
Here's what Mr Krugman missed:
Much of the West [specifically many of the particular Western nations providing arms/military aid to Ukraine] are [allegedly] handing the Ukrainians weapons on which they are [allegedly] not well trained -- and not even always adults.
Today it takes months to train modern soldiers in increasingly high-tech weapons, but Ukraine soldiers do not have those months.
Even if Ukraine somehow survives, what will still be standing?
In conclusion, I feel, looking back to how Hitler chose to fight to the last teenage conscript rather than surrender and reduce the suffering of his people, that President Volodymyr Zelensky is prolonging the suffering of his citizens in a war that could drag on for ages.
Jason A Jellison
Correction
The byline of the article 'Consultancy 'warp' drive deepens crisis of capitalism,' published on Monday, should be Mariana Mazzucato & Rosie Collington, not just the first name. We apologise for the mistake.
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