Barkar Nash (Page 310)

A 45-year-old fruit vendor has died after being shot over a 400 baht interest payment he could not pay to a loan shark in Chon Buri.

The shooting took place on Tuesday at 7.10pm in soi Sukhumvit 109 of tambon Phlu Ta Luang of Sattahip district. Ittipon Pintong, the fruit vendor, was shot and later sent to Somdech Phra Nang Chao Sirikit Hospital where he died.

Ittipon’s 41-year-old partner, identified only as Sangduen, told Phlu Ta Luang police that Ittipon had taken out a 10,000-baht loan with interest at 200 baht per day.

However, Ittipon had not been able to pay the interest for two consecutive days. On Tuesday night, a man and a woman met Ittipon and had a brief chat with him before shooting him. Ms Sangduen said they escaped on a green motorbike.

Phlu Ta Luang police said they are tracking down the suspects who have an arrest warrant issued against them and who have already left the province.

A political science scholar yesterday pointed to the need to first amend the 2021 Referendum Act before moving on to amending the 2017 constitution, saying he was concerned the referendum law’s complicated requirements might lead to the charter-rewriting bid failing right from the start.

If any opponents of the government’s charter amendment process only campaign for their supporters to boycott the referendum and the turnout becomes less than half of the number of eligible voters, the referendum will collapse, said Yuttaporn Issarachai, a political science lecturer at Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University.

He is also a member of the government committee drafting a new guideline on conducting a referendum to gauge public opinion to find an ideal solution to political conflicts associated with the planned rewriting of the charter.

The Constitutional Court has ruled the referendum is required to be conducted twice to ensure the new charter is acceptable to all sides, in terms of not only its legitimacy but also its potential to bring about political reconciliation, he said.

In his opinion, the two-factor requirement for passing the referendum should be relaxed and changed so that only a majority of votes is required to approve the referendum’s result, not necessarily required to also be more than half of the eligible voters and the number of voters who actually take part in the referendum, he said.

Senator Wanchai Sornsiri, also chairman of the Senate’s committee on political development and public participation, meanwhile, insisted he saw a need to change the referendum law.

“If the referendum turnout is only 20% or 30%, doesn’t it clearly show the referendum isn’t approved of by most people?” he asked.

Worse still, if the referendum law has to be amended first, the government’s charter amendment might not be completed before the government’s four-year term ends, said the senator.

Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Phumtham Wechayachai, on the other hand, said that he was confident the government’s main charter amendment committee would be able to successfully conclude the charter amendment referendum by the end of this year, then forward the conclusion to the cabinet the following year and ultimately get the charter amendment completed within the government’s four-year term.

Molecular biologist and visiting Nobel laureate pushes for results

A Nobel Prize awardee says putting more money on pure science research and development is worth it due to the unexpected results that could end up changing the world or, in the very least, turn out to be a good commercial business.

Speaking with the Bangkok Post during his recent visit to Bangkok as a keynote speaker at the Japan-Asean Bridges event, Nobel laureate Dr Sir Richard Roberts — who won the Nobel Prize for medicine in 1993 — said pure science, including molecular biology, has taken a long experimental period to get results.

The study of pure sciences needs time, investment, and strong support from the government to achieve good outcomes.

“It is difficult sometimes to do scientific research. If you are saying something different, you have to ensure it is accurate and backed with good evidence. We know that nature is trying to tell us something,” he said.

“If you support pure science, it might lead to a discovery of something that people may have never known before. Biology is a great area to spend money on. And in the future, it could be easily diverted into a good commercial business.”

Dr Roberts’ achievement was related to the discovery of split genes and mRNA splicing. He began work on the newly discovered Type II restriction enzymes in 1972. A few years later, more than 100 such enzymes were discovered and characterised in his laboratory, which sequenced the 35,937 nucleotide Adenovirus-2 genome and wrote some of the first programmes for sequence assembly and analysis.

His discovery completely changed the way biologists thought about genes and led to decisive progress in many fields — including cancer research.

His discovery, he added, was later expanded for research and development by his young partners, who fixed the problem caused by the previous defective mechanism, which finally led to better and more effective medical treatment and longer lives for patients.

It also included the development of Loop-Mediated Isothermal Amplification (LAMP) technology for a quick diagnosis of elephantiasis disease, leading to easy-to-use kits such as the Covid-19 rapid test kit. It is beneficial for health workers working in the African region, where the disease is still very active.

“I am not a big fan of the Nobel Prize. I think people should have a passion for the things that they want to do and put in strong efforts to make it better. The Nobel prize should not be the top priority, but it might arrive to you if you are lucky,” he said.

Dr Roberts is among nine Nobel Laureates in Economics, Physics, Chemistry and Medicine who will be visiting Thailand from November to March 2024 under the event of Japan-Asean Bridges, which is organised by the International Peace Foundation.

It aims at supporting education in Thailand and promoting the country as a hub for science, technology and innovation.

He is the first visiting Nobel Laureate and delivered his speech at the Ramkhamhaeng University in Bangkok.

The first group of 41 Thais who were stranded during clashes between the Myanmar military and ethnic rebel groups in the China-Myanmar border town of Laukkai will be repatriated to Thailand on Thursday at the earliest, the premier said on Wednesday.

Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin told reporters during a trip to San Francisco on Tuesday (at around 4pm local time in the US) that the Defence Ministry is planning to repatriate 41 Thais from Myanmar’s Tachileik border town by Thursday or perhaps Friday at the latest.

The Third Army Area is scheduled to brief the media about the repatriation efforts on Thursday to inform the public.

Government spokesman Chai Wacharonke on Wednesday said that the Thai army has coordinated with the United Wa State Army through the Thailand-Myanmar Township Border Committee (TBC) to help evacuate the 41 stranded Thais to Myanmar’s Kengtung state.

The group is part of the 164 Thais who were recently recused by the Myanmar authorities and deemed unqualified to work after it was found they had been lured to work in illegal call centres or had become victims of human trafficking networks.

Another 60 Thais are on the waiting list for local authorities to help them be taken to Laukkai before they return to Thailand.

The Myanmar army will transport the 41 Thai nationals to Tachileik border town on Thursday or Friday, Mr Chai said on Wednesday.

The TBC’s Thai unit will then repatriate them back to the kingdom through the Mae Sai border district in Chiang Rai, he said.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is coordinating with Myanmar and China to repatriate the remaining Thais who are stranded in Laukkai as soon as possible, Mr Chai said.

The Defence Ministry is also coordinating with state agencies to follow up on the situation and to devise an evacuation plan for Thais stranded in Laukkai.

“The premier has instructed the state agencies to provide coordination and assistance to Thais in Myanmar with the utmost effort,” said Mr Chai.

The Criminal Court on Wednesday released singer Baitoey on bail of 5 million baht and ordered she be fitted with an electronic tag, in the multi-billion-baht Forex-3D Ponzi case.

Suteewan “Baitoey” Thaweesin, 35, is also prohibited from leaving the country without the court’s prior permission.

She expressed her tearful gratitude to the court. It was the third time she had applied for release on bail. The request was filed on Oct 19. Previous requests were rejected because of the huge damages alleged in the case, the large number of victims and the risk of her fleeing the country.

Her family had handed in her passport and proposed the use of a monitoring device when offering an asset worth 5 million baht as a bond for her release.

In May, Ms Suteewan and her husband Pattanapon Minthakin, aka DJ Man, 40, were arraigned for alleged fraud in connection with the Forex-3D Ponzi case and denied bail.

She was remanded in custody to the Central Women’s Correctional Institution and her husband to  Bangkok Remand Prison.

They were among 16 suspects in the Forex-3D scam.

They earlier said they had never enticed anyone to invest in Forex-3D, and were not listed as business partners in Forex 3D Co.

Forex-3D claimed to be an online dealer in foreign exchange. It was unlicensed but had a flashy website. Celebrities were paid to promote it. Forex-3D allegedly cheated thousands of people out of about 2 billion baht in total.

Popular actress Sawika “Pinky” Chaidet was also arraigned on charges of operating the forex Ponzi scheme. She was released on bail in November last year and allowed to remove her monitoring device in January.

The alleged Ponzi was run by Apiruk Kothi, who lured thousands of victims into investing in foreign currencies with the promise of high returns. Instead, they lost billions. He was arrested in 2021.

Date for rulings not known but party believes more hearings will be held

The Constitutional Court said on Wednesday that it would continue deliberating two cases involving the Move Forward Party and its former leader on Nov 22.

The court has been asked to rule whether the country’s main opposition party and winner of the most votes in the May 14 election should be dissolved because of its policy to amend Section 112 of the Criminal Code, the lese-majeste law.

It has also been asked to rule on the MP status of former leader and prime ministerial candidate Pita Limjaroenrat because of his shareholdings in a defunct media company, the former broadcaster iTV.

It is not known whether a ruling will be issued in one or both cases next week, though Move Forward executives believe the court will want more time to review the evidence.

The court on July 19 accepted a petition submitted by the Election Commission against Mr Pita in the iTV shares case, and he was ordered suspended as an MP the same day pending a ruling. He subsequently stepped down as the party leader.

Mr Pita was given two extensions of 30 days each to submit his defence, and the court has conducted a total of 12 hearings, including one on Wednesday, related to the case.

The case against the party was filed on July 12 by lawyer Thirayuth Suwannagasorn. He is best known for representing Phra Buddha Isara, a monk who was a key agitator in the Bangkok Shutdown protests that led to the 2014 military coup. He was later defrocked and is now known as Suwit Thongprasert.

Mr Thirayuth argued that Mr Pita and Move Forward violated Section 49 of the Constitution with their proposal to amend Section 112, an action that represents an attempt to overthrow the constitutional monarchy.

Move Forward’s predecessor, the Future Forward Party, was dissolved by the charter court in 2020 over a loan that its then-leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit extended to the party.

Mr Pita in July questioned the motive of the EC for continuing to investigate his shareholding in iTV after an inquiry panel recommended it drop the case.

He said the poll body’s decision to proceed to the charter court looked like “intentional political persecution”.

Activist Srisuwan Janya on Wednesday complained to the Election Commission (EC), accusing Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin and his coalition-core Pheu Thai Party of deception in the 500 billion baht digital wallet handout.

He said they were liable to imprisonment, fines and loss of electoral rights.

At the EC office, Mr Srisuwan said Pheu Thai had earlier told the commission it would fund the handout through the national budget and without the need for borrowing.  That caused the EC to dismiss his previous complaint against the policy.

However, last week Prime Minister Srettha announced the government would push through special legislation allowing it to borrow the money to fund the scheme. That was why he had now asked the EC if the prime minister and his party were being deceitful, and if the campaign policy was intended primarily to raise the popularity of the party and its candidates ahead of the May 14 general election.

Mr Srisuwan on Monday asked the Ombudsman to request a Constitutional Court ruling on the legality of the party’s decision to borrow the 500 billion baht needed for the policy and not fund it through the national budget.

Prime Minister Srettha, who is in the United States for the Apec leaders forum, admitted that the Pheu Thai Party and people in the provinces were concerned whether the Council of State, which is the government’s legal adviser, and the House would support the planned loan bill to fund the digital wallet scheme.

He reiterated his assertion the huge handout was needed to stimulate the national economy.

Deputy Finance Minister Julapun Amornvivat admitted on Wednesday the government had no backup plan if it could not get the required support in the House to pass the loan legislation.