Fuel reform now
Re: "PM apology a good start," (Editorial, March 30).
PM Anutin is right on when he asks each household to save a litre of fuel consumption per day.
Low-hanging fruit he should pick towards this end include: (1) Sharply slashing all fossil-fuel subsidies, as Indonesia and India did. These disproportionately benefit higher-income users, so this will not only save taxpayer money and reduce CO2 emissions but also help narrow our massive rich-poor gap. (2) Carbon pricing is one of the most cost-effective ways to shift away from fossil fuels, as proven in Sweden and the US. This could be particularly effective in our power sector. (3) Accelerate the usage of renewable energy (solar, wind), as shown in Vietnam and Germany. When my wife and I built our Honolulu home, installing solar panels was a no-brainer, thanks to generous tax incentives, and that was half a century ago. (4) Strengthen building codes and appliance standards to use less energy, as done in Japan and the EU.
Get moving, Anutin.
Burin Kantabutra
It's selective outrage
Re: "Selective outrage will not end the war in Iran", (Opinion, March 27).
Prof Jayati Ghosh's portrayal of Iran as the victim in the current conflict is one-sided and blatantly absurd.
The Iranian regime has been calling for the annihilation of Israel for 47 years. Tehran has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on nuclear research, whose only purpose can be military, and it played a major role in the genocidal invasion of Israel on Oct 7, 2023.
Iran has also carried out attacks on Jewish communities worldwide and bankrupted its economy by spending hundreds of billions on missiles and financing proxies which attack Israel.
The war would be over in a day if Iran were to agree not to annihilate Israel. Something the esteemed professor fails to address.
Frank Scimone
Failing institutions
Re: "Bully backlash", (PostBag, March 31).
Anyone who believes Israel has been bullied must be living in Trump's through-the-looking-glass world, where everything is upside down. If there really were an international institution that could impose the laws and convict the guilty, the US would long ago have been standing in the dock with Israel beside them. But as we now know, the UN, ICC, and ICJ are ineffectual, leaving the world's bullies free to act violently and illegally.
International law held that Israel's occupation of Palestinian land is illegal, but in almost 60 years, nothing has been done to stop it. Much of the world is insistent that the horrors of Gaza are genocidal war crimes, but no court exists to enforce it. Religious extremist politicians, with blood on their hands, seem quite happy to condemn innocents to death.
Once the creators of laws to govern war crimes, Western nations now sit back and allow wealthy media owners to ignore the truth and create fictional stories to appease their citizens' minds.
Steve Merchant
Headline overreach
Re: "Population shrinks to 65.8m", (BP, March 27).
I think the use of the word "shrinks" is ill-conceived in this context. According to the figures cited in this article, the total population declined by only 142,000 from 2024. This is a 0.2% decrease. Not statistically significant. Hyperbolic headlines like this one only tarnish the Post's literary standards.
CNX Jon
