Another PAP MP who arrived separately, Mr Derrick Goh, also said he was attending Pink Dot to support his friends. Two Workers’ Party MPs, Mr Louis Chua and Ms Hu Ting Ru, were at the event in their capacity as parliamentarians. Non-Constituency MP Hazel Poa, who was representing the ProgressContinue Reading
Chinese divers will face charges of violating marine resource protection laws
PHUKET: Two Chinese tourists have reported to police after pictures surfaced of them holding up starfish to take selfies and stepping on coral reefs during a diving trip off Koh Racha Yai.
A representative of the tour company Jinyang Holiday Group took two customers — Sanyang Qin and Wen Zhang — to meet investigators at the Chalong station, police said on Saturday.
They were among three Chinese visitors accused of holding up starfish and climbing on coral reefs to take selfies during their diving trip at Ao La off Koh Racha Yai on Thursday.
On Friday, marine protection officials filed a police complaint against three after photos and videos of their activities were posted on social media. The Phuket marine and coastal resource conservation centre launched an investigation that shed light to the offenders.
During questioning, the two tourists confessed to committing wrongdoing. Police charged them with violating a ministerial announcement on marine resource protection on two islands: Koh Racha Yai and Koh Racha Noi.
After gathering evidence, police plan to take them to court. They are tracking down the remaining tourist wanted for the same offence.
Three Chinese divers are accused of disturbing coral reefs in order to get photos with starfish. (Photo supplied/Achadthaya Chuenniran)
A Chinese man and a woman are interviewed at the Chalong police station in Phuket. (Photo: Achadthaya Chuenniran)
Top two coalition parties will seek to resolve issue on Wednesday, just days before parliament opens
The Pheu Thai Party aims to finalise its stance on the selection of the House speaker on Tuesday, a day ahead of a planned meeting with the coalition-leading Move Forward Party (MFP) to resolve the dispute.
Both parties want the position but they need to settle their differences before the opening of parliament on Monday, July 3. The date was confirmed by an announcement published on Saturday on the Royal Gazette website.
His Majesty the King will preside over the opening ceremony, according to the Secretariat of the House of Representatives. A day later, members of parliament will vote to choose the speaker of the House, who will also serve as the parliament president, and two deputies.
It had been reported earlier that Pheu Thai was open to letting Move Forward have the speaker’s position as long as the runner-up party was given both deputies’ posts. However, Pheu Thai later denied that any such accommodation had been reached.
Pheu Thai deputy leader Phumtham Wechayachai said on Saturday that party executives would meet on Tuesday afternoon to hear a briefing on the results of the May 14 election and the timeline for the opening of the House of Representatives. They will also finalise their decision for a speaker candidate.
The matter has been a key talking point among the eight-party coalition seeking to establish a government behind the Move Forward Party (MFP) and its prime ministerial candidate, Pita Limjaroenrat.
Party leader Cholnan Srikaew said on Thursday that he was paying heed to the wishes of party MPs-elect and members, most of whom believe Pheu Thai should have the speaker’s post.
Mr Phumtham declined to say whether the meeting on Tuesday would produce the name of a candidate. But he said a clear decision would be made by the time Pheu Thai and MFP members meet on Wednesday.
“While it will depend on how the discussion proceeds, I believe a direction that will be productive for the formation of a government will be found,” Mr Phumtham said.
Piyabutr Saengkanokkul, one of the co-founders of the Future Forward Party, the predecessor of the MFP, said Wednesday’s discussion would mark a critical juncture for the setting up of the next administration.
While not predicting the outcome of the meeting, Mr Piyabutr said that avoidance of conflict between the two parties would speed up the process.
Given that Move Forward won more than 14 million votes and Pheu Thai received nearly 11 million in the party-list balloting, it was the responsibility of both parties to ensure that the wishes of 25 million Thais were respected, he added.
BEIJING: Beijing, sweltering in extreme heat, is expected on Saturday (Jun 24) to top 40 degrees Celsius (104F) for a third day, with sizzling temperatures already baking an area the size of California in northern China. In Beijing between 1990 and 2020, the average number of days with temperatures ofContinue Reading
Taiwan defines its contiguous zone as being 24 nautical miles from its coast. Its territorial space is defined at 12 nautical miles from its coast, though the government has not reported Chinese aircraft entering either the contiguous zone or Taiwan’s territorial air space. Taiwan’s defence ministry said in a statementContinue Reading
Two-month closure of Tak attraction will allow for rejuvenation of natural resources
Thailand’s largest and highest waterfall, Thi Lo Su in Tak province, will be closed for two months during the rainy season for environmental rehabilitation.
Noting that tourist visits are lower and trekking to the waterfall is difficult during the monsoon, officials at the Umphang Wildlife Sanctuary announced that the popular tourist attraction would be closed for visits from July 1 to Aug 31.
The head of the sanctuary, Amnat Fongchai, said on Saturday that the temporary closure would allow natural resources in and around the area to recuperate.
During the two-month period, the waterfall will be off limits for leisure visits as well as study tours, said Mr Amnat.
Located within the Umphang Wildlife Sanctuary, Thi Lo Su is a limestone formation 900 metres above sea level. At 250 metres high and 450 metres wide, it is considered the sixth largest waterfall in the world, according to the Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT).
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“There’s always a sense of helplessness because the victims are children,” ASP Chen recounted.
“Some of them are even infants, toddlers, and the experience affects you quite severely because some of these videos depict very, very, extremely violent sexual abuse on the child.”
Frustration comes into play when she unsuccessfully attempts to find out where the victim is, so he or she can be rescued.
She added: “It can be quite mentally overwhelming at times, but then again, despite all these emotions, what spurs me to process all this material is the fact that the offender is still out there.
“Offenders still continue hurting children, and it strengthens my resolve to want to find a breakthrough so that we can try to identify the child.”
HT Cares officer Joseph Chew, who is also a trained counsellor from Fei Yue Community Services, comes in after suspects are arrested – he advises them on how to seek help to avoid reoffending.
Even before alleged offenders are brought to trial, they are given the opportunity, if they want it, to identify underlying social issues such as a longing for intimacy or low self-esteem that contributed to what they are accused of doing.
Mr Chew is currently supporting three clients involved in child sexual abuse material cases.
“A lot of them (struggle with) addiction to material of sexual content or pornographic material. Some of them became reliant or dependent … so we will actually refer them to an agency that has support pertaining to the behaviour that they have,” he added.
Police investigating cause of accident at Pracha Songkhro intersection in Din Daeng
Six people were injured when a bus rammed into a roadside power pole at an intersection in Din Daeng district of Bangkok early Saturday afternoon.
The No. 13 bus hit the concrete pole at the Pracha Songkhro intersection at around 12.45pm. The crash set off a chain reaction, with one pickup truck overturning and then being struck by another pickup. Some motorcycles also slid under the bus, which came to rest atop the curb.
Motorcycle-taxi drivers and passersby rushed to help people who were trapped under the bus. Some vendors were also injured in the crash that damaged the power pole, FM 91 traffic radio reported.
Five men and one woman were injured in the crash and taken to Paolo Phaholyothin, Petcharavej and Rajavithi hospitals. The crash caused heavy traffic congestion on the road and in nearby areas.
Police were investigating what caused the bus to veer off the road.
Passersby tend to people who ended up beneath a public bus that struck a power pole at the Pracha Songkhro intersection in Din Daeng district on Saturday. (Photo: FM91 Trafficpro Facebook)
Deposits paid for services promoted on Facebook with no follow-up
A sham wedding organiser who reportedly swindled more than 20 victims was taken into custody on Saturday by the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB).
Enforcing a warrant issued on June 9, CIB officers on Saturday morning found and arrested a 34-year old man identified only as Korn, wanted on charges of defrauding the public and entering false and detrimental information into a computer system.
The suspect was caught near a condominium in the Pracha Chuen area of Bang Sue district in Bangkok. The warrant was issued following complaints from more than 10 couples who accused him of enticing them to transfer deposit payments for organising weddings and other functions.
Operating under the Facebook page name “Wedding…”, Mr Korn allegedly posed as a wedding organiser and convinced victims to make deposit payments before severing all contact with them.
The scheme reportedly yielded him hundreds of thousands of baht.
Mr Korn has been taken to the Phaya Thai police station for further questioning and legal proceedings. Officers said he had confessed to all charges.
Coastal community of Ban Khun Samut Chin slowly giving way to rising sea
Each morning, four children stand barefoot in a line and proudly sing the national anthem as the Thai flag is raised outside their school, perched on a finger of land surrounded by the sea.
They are the last pupils left at the school in Ban Khun Samut Chin, a coastal village in Phra Samut Chedi district of Samut Prakan, less than 10 kilometres from the edge of Bangkok that is slowly being devoured by the waves.
About 200 people cling on in the village, in a glimpse of what the future may hold for countless coastal communities around the world as climate change melts glaciers and ice sheets, causing sea levels to rise.
“I used to have many friends, around 20 or 21 classmates when I started kindergarten,” says 11-year-old Jiranan Chorsakul.
“I’m a bit lonely and I would like new students to enrol.”
At a Buddhist temple, supported on posts as it juts far out into the turbid brown-green waters of the Bay of Bangkok, village head Wisanu Kengsamut tells AFP that two square kilometres of land have been lost to the sea in the past 60 years.
“Behind me there used to be a village and a mangrove forest and you could easily walk from the village to this temple. … Villagers started moving inland, further and further away from the temple,” he says.
Now the only visible signs of where the village once stood are old power poles sticking out of the water. (Story continues below)
The last four students at Ban Khun Samut Chin school, front row: Peeraphab Butrthong and Cholthee Chorsakul; back row: Napat Ploykhow and Jiranan Chorsakul. (Photo: Manan Vatsyayana, AFP)
Vision of the future
United Nations climate experts warn that sea levels have already risen by 15 to 25 centimetres since 1900, and the pace is accelerating, especially in some tropical areas.
If warming trends continue, the oceans could rise by nearly one additional metre around the Pacific and Indian Ocean islands by the end of the century.
The effects would hit Thailand hard. An estimated 17% of the kingdom’s population — about 11 million people — live by the coast and are dependent on fishing or tourism for their livelihoods.
Dublin City University environmental politics assistant professor Danny Marks says Ban Khun Samut Chin is a vivid warning of what a “climate-ravaged world could look like”.
“We can see this as a stark microcosm of the risk that sea-level rise poses to us, particularly in the developing world,” he told AFP.
The severe erosion at Ban Khun Samut Chin has been exacerbated by poor management of the local environment and storm surges made more powerful by climate change.
Groundwater has been over-exploited and thick mangroves — which acted as a barrier to tame the waves — were destroyed to make way for prawn farms.
And dams upstream on the Chao Phraya — the river that flows through Bangkok and discharges near the village — have slowed the deposition of sediment in the bay.
The village has been working for some years with a Chulalongkorn University research project to put in bamboo and concrete pillars and replant mangroves to hold back the sea.
But in the long term “these measures might not be enough to withstand the force of nature and the village could be lost”, Wisanu says.
“We have no plans to move the village further inland because there is no more land for us to move to, so we must try to preserve what we have somehow,” he says.
Appeals to the government for help have led nowhere, he adds.
“I’ve given up hope that the government will step in. We have to save ourselves.” (Story continues below)
A fisherman in Ban Khun Samut Chin. (Photo: Manan Vatsyayana, AFP)
Bleak future
The village has a homestay programme and hopes to use eco-tourism tours to raise money and educate the public about their fight for survival.
The children are studying the local ecology, learning to identify plants and animals, and might one day be tour guides, school principal Mayuree Khonjan says.
Back in the classroom decked out with four tiny pink chairs and desks, Jiranan concentrates hard as his teacher writes numbers on the board.
“I want to be a teacher so I can pass on knowledge to other students. I want to teach at this school, if it’s still here,” Jiranan says.
But next year one boy will graduate to high school, and only three youngsters will be left to line up and sing the anthem each morning.
A temple surrounded by the sea in the Ban Khun Samut Chin, a coastal village in Samut Prakan less than 10km from the edge of Bangkok. (Photo: Manan Vatsyayana, AFP)
Concrete barriers during low tide in Ban Khun Samut Chin. (Photo: Manan Vatsyayana, AFP)
Mangroves along an elevated path to the school in Ban Khun Samut Chin. (Photo: Manan Vatsyayana, AFP)