Barkar Nash (Page 1,112)

Policy priorities include referendum on new charter, land title deed distribution and Marriage Equality Bill

The Move Forward Party (MFP) on Thursday revealed a roadmap for its first 100 days in office, outlining how it will form the next government and make good on its 300 campaign promises.

Party leader Pita Limjaroenrat said the roadmap contained the policy priorities to be implemented within the 100-day time frame. Other policies would be progressively implemented within the first year of government.

Details of all 300 of the party’s policies can be found (in Thai) on its Facebook page.

Mr Pita promised that within its first 100 days in office, a Move Forward-led government would exercise executive power to push for a referendum to pave the way for the constitution to be rewritten by a drafting assembly made up of elected members.

He said the party would also propose that the cabinet seek an immediate resumption of deliberation of the contentious Marriage Equality Bill, currently on the back burner.

Pending legal cases of a political nature will be reviewed, he said, while an amnesty law will be proposed to absolve those being prosecuted or who had been prosecuted in such cases in the past.

In addition, new rules and ministerial regulations will be issued, while some existing ones will be abolished to reform the entire bureaucratic system to improve transparency.

Specifically, many regulations enforced by the Interior Ministry deemed to hold back the progress of local administrative organisations and keep them from achieving administrative independence will be cancelled, said Mr Pita.

Other priority tasks include pushing to enact the party’s progressive liquor bill, which was shot down in its second and third readings in the House last year. The bill sought to amend the Excise Tax Act, with supporters claiming it would break the monopoly held by a handful of corporate distillers and brewers and allow small-scale producers to enter the market.

Other urgent policies would extend to the distribution of title deeds covering 6.5 million rai of land to people in cooperatives and self-established settlements.

As well, the party will introduce “net metering”, an electricity billing tool that uses the grid to “store” excess energy produced by home solar panel systems. Under the policy, energy produced by household solar panels and left unused will be credited back to the household.

Mr Pita said the party has prepared 45 draft laws to be put to parliament if and when it gets to work as the government.

As well, he said, the party stands ready to pass legislation to scrap military conscription and replace it with voluntary enlistment.

He added that Move Forward would also revive the criminal cases related to the crackdowns on the red-shirt protests in 2010.

Managers at Chon Buri factory had arrived in country on tourist visas but had no work permits

Six Chinese nationals who entered the country as tourists have been arrested for working illegally as factory managers during a raid in Ban Bung district of Chon Buri province.

Immigration police and officials from the Chon Buri provincial employment office visited a company in tambon Nong Phaikaew on Thursday after receiving information that some Chinese managers working there did not have the proper paperwork.

Six Chinese — five men and one woman — were found working in an office of Lihua Environmental Technology Co. The firm manufactures paper boxes for mobile phones, security cameras and electronic goods.

When asked to present passports and work permits, the six had no work permits. They had entered the country with tourist visas. All were working as managers such as production manager and maintenance manager, said the arresting team.

Before the officers entered the compound, the factory closed its gate and outsiders were not allowed in. Staff reportedly delayed opening the gate for police. This gave the Chinese time to jump over the wall in an attempt to escape, but they were caught shortly afterward.

The six tourists, aged 35-47, were handed over to police at the Ban Bung police station on charges of working without proper permission.

Carrier strike group led by USS Nimitz calls at Chon Buri

CHON BURI: The US Navy is prepared to go anywhere in the “free and open Indo-Pacific”, says a spokesman for a carrier strike group that is visiting Thailand this week.

The Nimitz Carrier Strike Group is on an 11-month patrol mission in the US 7th Fleet area of operations that began in November last year. It has just finished taking part in drills with Japan and South Korea, said Lt Ben Bushong, spokesman for the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz. It has also taken part in exercises with the Philippines.

During its mission the carrier strike group had passed through disputed parts of the South China Sea without any problem because it was “a free and open Indo-Pacific”, he said.

Lt Bushong did not mention what the group’s next destinations would be after its visit to Thailand, but said it was planning to visit all areas of the Indo-Pacific.

The carrier strike group arrived in Thailand on Monday and is scheduled to stay at the Laem Chabang port until Saturday.

During the visit, its personnel have been granted shore leave in Pattaya and Chon Buri. “We like to visit Thailand,” Lt Bushong said.

The aircraft carrier is as tall as a 23-storey building and as wide as four football fields and has about 5,000 crew members.

It arrived with the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruiser USS Bunker Hill, the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers USS Decatur and USS Wayne E Meyer and a squadron of F/A-18 combat aircraft.

Job-seekers from Myanmar said they had agreed to pay brokers B20,000 to B30,000 each

KANCHANABURI: Forty-two job seekers from Myanmar were arrested after illegally crossing the border into Sangkhla Buri district late on Wednesday night.

Soldiers, border patrol police and immigration officers were dispatched to tambon Nong Lu following a tip-off that a group of suspicious-looking people had been found at a forested area in Song Kalia village, said Col Thatchadet Arbuarat, deputy commander of the army’s Lat Ya task force, who was alerted at around 10pm.

By time the officers arrived, there was no one at the scene. The same informant told them that the people had boarded a vehicle headed towards a pier at Wat Wang Wiwekaram at Wang Ka village Moo 2 in tambon Nong Lu.

The team later found the men and women gathered near the Vajiralongkorn dam behind the pier. On seeing the officers, they ran into a nearby forest. All 42 people — 27 men and 15 women — were subsequently caught. All were Myanmar nationals without travel documents.

During questioning, they told authorities that they had travelled from Mandalay, Bago, Yangon and other parts of Myanmar. They entered Thailand via a natural crossing in Sangkhla Buri and were heading to promised jobs in Bangkok, Chon Buri, Phuket, Samut Prakan, Samut Sakhon and Rayong. Some were promised jobs in Malaysia.

The migrants told officers they had agreed to pay between 20,000 and 30,000 baht each to job brokers. The money was to be paid when they arrived at their destinations.

They were taken for body temperature checks as part of Covid 19-screening. All were normal. They were handed over to police at the Sangkhla Buri station for legal proceedings.

Large numbers of migrants continue to cross into Thailand illegally every day from Myanmar, where economic conditions have deteriorated considerably since the military seized power two years ago.

About 80,000 illegal border crossers, the vast majority of them from Myanmar, were estimated to have been caught in 2021. But as many as 100,000 more probably slipped past authorities and were now employed in various parts of the country, say groups that work with migrants.

A soldier in a protective suit conducts temperature checks on illegal migrants. (Photo: Piyarat Chongcharoen)