Barkar Nash (Page 1,022)

NARATHIWAT: A man from neighbouring Pattani was shot dead in broad daylight on a road in Bacho district of this southern province on Tuesday.

The victim was identified by police as Bukholee Toryae, a native of Pattani’s Mai Kaen district.

He was found dead with gunshot wounds, on the ground beside his motorcycle and sidecart, in the middle of a road at Khlorae village Moo 3 in tambon Barae Tai of Bacho district.

The murder was reported to police around 10.45am on Tuesday.

Police were investigating. 

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Five alleged members of a major drug trafficking network have been arrested and 8 million methamphetamine pills worth about 50 million baht seized in Saraburi province.

The four Thai men and one Lao woman are members of the Jae Cake Sanam Chai drug trafficking network, according to Pol Lt Gen Jiraphat Phumjit, chief of Provincial Police Region 1.

He was briefing news reporters at Kaeng Khoi police station in Saraburi province on Tuesday. 

The suspects were identified as Theerahong Phuphiewluang, 32, Phromphong Seelakan, 25, Saran Ketkaew, 23, Thawatchai Intharasongkhor, 66, and Lao national Kesone Misy, 31.  They were caught in  possession of 8 million meth pills worth about 50 million baht, Pol Lt Gen Jiraphat said.

The arrests were made following an investigation into the activities of a woman named only as Ms Jenjira, known as Cake, the leader of a major drug network, he said.

She had arranged for the transportation of smuggled drugs from a border area in the Northeast to buyers  in the Central Plains and the South. (continues below)

Seventeen fertiliser sacks containing 8 million speed pills are found in a Toyota Fortuner on June 2.(Photo: Saraburi public relations office)

On June 2, police began a pursuit of two sport utility vehicles, a Toyota Fortuner and an Isuzu Mu-X, travelling along Chok Chai Road heading towards Lam Phra Phoeng intersection in Pak Thong Chai district of Nakon Ratchasima. The fleeing drivers turned off the highway onto a side road, temporarily evading them. The vehicles were later intercepted and five suspects arrested in Kaeng Khoi district of Saraburi.

The Fortuner was carrying 17 fertiliser sacks containing 4,000 packages with a total of 8 million meth pills.   Mr Theerahong was the driver of the Fortuner. The four other suspects were on the Isuzu Mu-X, which travelled ahead as a lookout. Mr Saran drove this vehicle.

During questioning, the suspects allegedly confessed to being paid 40,000 baht each to deliver the drugs. They refused to name the person who hired them.

All were charged with collusion in possession of illicit drugs with intent to sell and handed over to Khaeng Khoi police for legal action, Pol Lt Gen Jiraphat said.

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A shortage of medical personnel, especially doctors, has led to staff being overworked at some hospitials and is a problem for the Public Health Ministry, a top health official said on Tuesday.

Dr Opas Karnkawinpong, the ministry’s permanent secretary, was responding to a news report that many new doctors were resigning shortly after entering government service because they were unable to withstand the heavy workload.

The report cited, as an example, actress Noppasorn “Puimek” Veerayuthawilai, who graduated from the faculty of medicine at Rangsit University.

She said in an interview that after six years of hard study she thought she would fulfil her dream of being a doctor. But after a short time in the job she resigned from the government health service.

Puimek said the system forced her to accept a heavy workload. It was too heavy, and she could not stay on. So she had resigned.

Dr Opas said it was true the health ministry suffered from a shortage of doctors and wanted to recruit more. However, the number it could recruit was decided by the Civil Service Commission and the government.

Dr Opas said people had a high need for public health services, particularly during and after the Covid-19 pandemic, but the ministry had only limited personnel.

He thanked the government for having approved 45,000 new positions for medical personnel to cope with the coronavirus outbreak. But more were still  needed, he said.

Apart from the personnel shortage, there was a problem with the allocation of funds for the National Health Insurance Office, which had to provide universal healthcare coverage. More money was needed to cope  with the growing number of people seeking its services.

All this was outside the ministry’s control, he said.

Dr Opas said the ministry had tried to make the best use of its limited resources and he thanked all medical personnel who had made sacrifices to best serve their patients.

Asked whether there could be a “brain drain” problem, Dr Opas said steps were being taken to prevent this. Knowing that the average income of medical personnel was below that offered by the private sector, the ministry had increased the overtime rate, built housing for staff and provided them with better welfare benefits.

Many government doctors had been promoted to C-9 level and nurses to C-8 and C-9 levels, he said.

The problem of overwork was the most difficult to solve, mainly due to the shortage of personnel. A bigger budget allocation and higher staff ceiling would help solve the problem.

Dr Opas said he had instructed all departments to make sure their personnel were provided with sufficient welfare and not given too heavy a workload.

Regional hospitals in cities had a bigger problem with overwork than smaller hospitals in districts.

On the issue of “brain drain”, Dr Opas said about 2,000 doctors resigned each year on average. Only about 10% did so to pursue further study. Most doctors who entered the public health system remain in the service, he said.

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Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has falsely claimed that the election-winning Move Forward Party plans to expel Cambodian workers from Thailand.

The veteran strongman made the claim at a rally attended by 17,000 workers from an industrial park in Kandal province on Saturday, the Khmer Times reported.

He said any plan by Thailand to expel foreign migrant workers especially those from Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar — may have a dramatic impact not only on the three countries’ economy, but also on the Thai economy which relies heavily on foreign labour.

Hun Sen himself will also face the voters in national polls on July 23, albeit without any meaningful challengers since the Supreme Court dissolved the country’s only remaining major opposition party. 

“Under the caretaker government, led by Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, millions of illegal foreign workers have been granted legal status, but if they are expelled, there will be impact on the Thai economy,” Hun Sen said.

It is not clear how Hun Sen reached the conclusion that migrant workers were in danger of being forced to leave Thailand. However, one Thai administrative provision related to migrant workers was recently extended to ensure policy continuity during the period between the election and the formation of a new government.

None of the parties campaigning for the May 14 election in Thailand made any mention of policies to repatriate migrant labourers. In fact, the country’s recovering economy continues to face a labour shortage in sectors such as tourism and construction.

Successive governments have taken many steps to ensure a smoother path to legal migration and basic labour rights, working with neighbouring countries, for workers who want to come to Thailand.

Hun Sen also offered some unsolicited political advice to Move Forward, saying that the winning party should look further as “winning the election does not mean you become the Prime Minister. Up to 376 votes are needed to form a government, not just 151 votes”.

A group that helps Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand acknowledged that they were worried about their status as rumours had circulated that they would no longer be able to work in the country.

A small group of Thai people biased towards Cambodian workers have been spreading fake news, indicating that they have to return home immediately as Cambodian workers are no longer wanted in Thailand, said Ry Chay, first vice-president of The Charity Association of Cambodia.

“They distort the official information around, saying Thai authorities don’t need Cambodian and Laotian migrant workers anymore and spread it out across the country,” he told the Khmer Times.

“I get so many calls every day from Cambodian workers in Thailand who are concerned about the news, as they still want to work in Thailand. I explained to them by phone and on my Facebook page and now 60% of them have understood the information from Thai authorities.”

He said some confusion had arisen after Thai authorities informed employers that they no longer needed to register their quota of workers at the Department of Labour in Bangkok. They can now do it at the department offices in the province where their business is located.

“The Thai authorities now allow employers who need Cambodian and Laotian migrant workers to apply in their respective province, which is easier for them,” Ry Chay said.

The cabinet last week approved an extension to employment contracts that allows more than 200,000 migrant workers to keep their jobs.

The contract extension, under the terms of a broader memorandum of understanding that regulates migrant labour, will last only as long as the current government remains in its caretaker capacity.

The measure is subject to review once a new administration is formed.

According to Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam, without the extension the migrant workers would have had to return home and wait until a new government took power before they could come back to resume their employment in Thailand.

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Pita Limjaroenrat, leader of the election-winning Move Forward Party (MFP), said on Tuesday his iTV shares were transferred to relatives’ names to ensure he could be the next prime minister, amid attempts to block him from entering government.

He was confident there was nothing to disqualify him from serving as an MP or becoming prime minister at the head of a new coalition government.

Mr Pita wrote on Facebook on Tuesday morning that the Prime Minister’s Office terminated its contract with iTV on March 7, 2007, and iTV had not been a media organisation since then.

The constitution prohibits a shareholder of a media organisation from running in a general election. Mr Pita’s 42,000 iTV shares recently led to complaints challenging his eligibility to be an MP at the 2019 general election, to approve his party’s candidates and to lead the next government.

Mr Pita wrote that after the contract’s termination, iTV’s frequency was re-allocated to the Public Broadcasting Service of Thailand (Thai PBS), and iTV did not have a frequency for any media role.

He said that from March 16, 2007 he held iTV shares on behalf of relatives in his capacity as manager of  his late father’s estate.

“But now there are attempts to revive iTV as a mass media organisation, to attack me,” Mr Pita wrote.

He said that in its 2018-2019 financial statement, iTV was defined as a holding company but in two following financial statements it was defined as a TV organisation.

At the iTV shareholders’ meeting on April 26 this year, a shareholder asked if iTV was a media organisation. “Was the question politically motivated?… Was it an attempt to revive iTV as a mass media organisation?” Mr Pita asked on Facebook.

The irregularities prompted him to discuss the issue with relatives who had him holding iTV shares on their behalf, and they concluded that he should transfer the shares to relatives to prevent any issues from “attempts to revive iTV as a media organisation”, Mr Pita wrote.

“I am highly confident there is nothing to disqualify me from the election or being a candidate for prime minister,” he wrote.

He denied the share transfer had an ulterior purpose.

“From now on I will proceed with preparing the transition to the successful formation of the Move Forward government with Pita as the prime minister,” he wrote.

“No one and no power can block the consensus that fellow people expressed in the May 14 election through as many as 14 million votes,” Mr Pita wrote, referring to the support his party received through the ballot box at the general election.

Reporters waited outside Pheu Thai Party headquarters on Tuesday morning to question Mr Pita when he arrived there for a meeting with coalition allies. He avoided them, entering through the back door.

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Two women were seriously injured when their family home collapsed without warning overnight in Muang district of Samut Songkhram province.

The incident was reported around 2am, police said.

Rescue workers rushed to the single-storey wooden house in Soi Thanom Suksamran, tambon Laem Yai.

Five members of the family were trapped in the collapsed building. All were released from the wreckage. Two women had serious injuries – Somprung Nakprasert, 77 and Orasa Niamchaloey, 50. They were rushed to Somdet Phraphutthalertla Hospital, police said.

Arisara Nakprasert, 32, said she and the other family members were asleep when their house suddenly collapsed. It was only luck that no one was killed, she said.  

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TAK: The Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) of Thailand has cut off the supply of electricity across the Moei river to two border towns in Myanmar where groups of Chinese businessmen have made huge illegal investments, at the request of the Myanmar government, Thai official sources said.

The two border towns are Shwe Kokko, opposite Thailand’s Ban Wang Pha in tambon Mae Charao, Mae Ramat district, and Ban Le Le Ko, opposite Mae Ku Mai Tha Sung, the Moo 3 village in tambon Mae Ku, Mae Sot district. Both are in Myanmar’s  Karen State.

Chinese businessmen were reported to have invested more than US$1.5 billion in  casinos, entertainment complexes and housing estates at Shwe Kokko. Le Le Ko is another border town where Chinese investors had reportedly made similar investments.

The sources said on Tuesday the Myanmar government had stopped supplying electricity to the two towns and asked Thailand to do likewise. The PEA, in response, had also stopped supplying them with power from midnight.

It was not clear whether the action was linked to a memorandum of understanding signed by Thailand, China and Myanmar on joint suppression of drugs, cross-border criminals, online gambling and call centres, the sources added.

A Thai businessman who is involved in the cross-border trade said residents at Shwe Kokko had prepared to cope with the blackout, buying power generators for their own use.

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The government has broadened paternity leave periods to cover male government employees, allowing them to have 15 days’ paid leave after their child’s birth.

The leave extension was part of a new Government Employees Executive Committee’s announcement regarding government employee benefits that was signed on Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Wissanu Krea-ngam said.

The paternity leave regulation was added to the section regarding maternity leave in the older version of the announcement issued in 2011. The previous version limited the right to only government officials, a 98-day maternity leave and a 15-day paternity leave with full pay for both males and females. Female government employees already have 90 days of maternity leave.

Mr Wissanu said the updated regulation would give equal rights to government employees employed by government agencies but who do not have fringe benefits like government officials.

Government employees work like government officials, but they do not have to pass a national government test, and they don’t get a pension after retiring. The government introduced government employees (some of whom are on limited contracts) to cut costs.

According to the announcement, male employees wanting to take the 15-day paternity leave must notify their supervisor within 30 days after the delivery day.

Supervisors have full authority to require evidence from the employees.

Those who want to take leave after a child is more than 30 days old can take leave without pay for 15 days unless their supervisors approve the leave with full pay.

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