More than 870 people were crammed into a Bago monastery on Friday night and were receiving food from monks and donated supplies. “We arranged spaces for them to stay,” said local official Khin Maung. Min Thaw, 66, said the ground floor of his two-storey house was inundated with water andContinue Reading
Four people, including Mr Tharman, have declared their intention to contest the election. The other three presidential hopefuls are businessman George Goh, former GIC chief investment officer Ng Kok Song and former NTUC Income CEO Tan Kin Lian. Mr Tan, who finished last in the 2011 Presidential Election, held aContinue Reading
Umphang Hospital gets B20m lifeline as more people flee conflict in Myanmar
PUBLISHED : 11 Aug 2023 at 20:05
The Ministry of Public Health has sent 20 million baht to Umphang Hospital in Tak province to help it cover the increased costs of treating the rising number of migrants fleeing the conflict in neighbouring Myanmar.
The hospital has been facing an increase in operating costs, putting a strain on liquidity and resulting in a deficit of 40 million baht, said Dr Opas Kankawinpong, the ministry’s permanent secretary.
“I have assigned officials to investigate if other local hospitals along the Thai-Myanmar border are facing the same situation as Umphang Hospital and for them to draw up solutions,” he said on Friday.
Umphang Hospital is listed under the “One Province One Hospital” scheme, under which hospitals in each health district share medical staff, budgets and resources to support one another.
Dr Worawit Tantiwattanasap, the director of Umphang Hospital, said on Thursday that this was the first year in three decades that the hospital has faced such a large deficit resulting from treatment for migrant patients from Myanmar.
One-quarter of migrant inpatients and half of migrant outpatients cannot afford medical bills, he added.
Many patients have been admitted to hospital because of the conflict in the border town of Kawkareik in Karen state and the ongoing malaria outbreak, said Dr Worawit.
As well, he said, more migrants have been crossing the border to give birth to their children as conditions at hospitals in Myanmar have deteriorated since the military coup two years ago.
Umphang Hospital has set up a community isolation programme in Myanmar in an effort to slow down migration to Thailand. However, the operating cost of the programme cannot be reimbursed from the public health ministry, resulting in a deficit in the hospital’s budget.
Wilhelm SteindlA well-known Norwegian mountaineer has denied accusations that her team climbed over an injured sherpa during a bid to break a world record.
The sherpa, named as Mohammed Hassan, had fallen off a ledge on Pakistan’s K2 – the world’s second-highest mountain.
Video posted by other climbers appears to show a group walking by Mr Hassan, who reportedly died a few hours later.
But Kristin Harila said she and her team tried everything to help him in dangerous conditions.
The Norwegian was heading for K2’s summit to secure a world record and become the fastest climber to scale all peaks above 8,000m (26,000ft).
But during the ascent on 27 July, Mr Hassan reportedly fell from an extremely narrow path known as a bottleneck.
Austrian climbers Wilhelm Steindl and Philip Flämig have posted pictures appearing to show people climbing over him.
The pair were also on the mountain that day, but had cancelled their ascent because of dangerous weather conditions and an avalanche.
They had been filming for a documentary about Mr Steindl’s attempt to reach the summit.
As their camera display was small, they say they only saw the details of what their drone captured the next day.
“We saw a guy alive, lying in the traverse in the bottleneck. And people were stepping over him on the way to the summit. And there was no rescue mission
“I was really shocked. And I was really, I was really sad. I started to cry about the situation that people just passed him and there was no rescue mission,” Mr Steindl told the BBC.
Mr Hassan was being treated by one person “while everyone else” moved towards the summit in a “heated, competitive summit rush”, Mr Flämig told Austria’s Der Standard newspaper.
Ms Harila, however, has denied the accusations that Mr Hassan was left to die.
She said no-one was to blame for his death, adding that she had decided to make the statement to stop the spread of “misinformation and hatred”.
It is unclear what point of the incident the posted footage purports to show.
In an Instagram post describing what happened, the Norwegian climber says she had been walking when she saw the other team Mr Hassan was part of a few metres ahead before the “tragic accident” happened.
She said she did not see exactly what took place, but the next thing she knew, Mr Hassan “was hanging upside down” on a rope between two ice anchors, with his harness “all the way down around his knees. In addition, he was not wearing a down suit and his stomach was exposed to snow”.
Her team tried for an hour and a half to fasten a rope to the sherpa and give him oxygen and hot water, she recounted, until “an avalanche went off around the corner”.
Having established her team were safe, she said she understood more help was coming and decided to move forward to avoid overcrowding on the bottleneck. Her cameraman stayed behind to help until he himself ran low on oxygen.
“It was only when we came back down that we saw Hassan had passed and we were ourselves in no shape to carry his body down.”
She does not say if anyone was with the injured sherpa when her cameraman left, or when they passed his body upon their descent.
K2, along the Pakistan-China border, stands at 8,611m (28,251ft) and is regarded as one of the most challenging and dangerous mountains to climb.
SINGAPORE: Two police officers were charged in court on Friday (Aug 11) with criminal breach of trust after taking money over several years from suspects they were investigating. The alleged acts by the suspects, Mohamed Mohamed Jalil and Mohamad Danial Mohamad Nazali, came to light following “proactive regular case reviews and dueContinue Reading
BEIJING: Floods have damaged corn and rice crops in China’s key northern grain-producing belt, traders and analysts said, with more rain in the forecast as another typhoon approaches, threatening to add to global food inflation pressures. The hit to China’s cereal crops – the full extent of which is notContinue Reading
This year’s floods were the most extensive in Hebei since 1963, with 51.5 per cent of its landmass receiving over 100 millimetres of rainfall, provincial officials said told the briefing. Some residents in the city of Zhuozhou, one of Hebei’s worst-affected areas, have criticised the local government for not providingContinue Reading
President Joko Widodo last month warned of a long summer dry season in Indonesia that could stoke dangerous weather conditions and even wildfires across the archipelago nation, blaming it on the El Nino global weather phenomenon. He said on Monday that the pollution spikes could be managed by building betterContinue Reading
Total of B107 million now available to help rebuild damaged community in Narathiwat
PUBLISHED : 11 Aug 2023 at 18:15
The prime minister has approved an additional allocation of 64 million baht to help victims of the fireworks warehouse explosion last month in Narathiwat, a spokesman said on Friday.
The latest grant brings the total awarded to the victims of the July 29 incident to 107 million baht, said Anucha Nakhasai, Minister Attached to the Prime Minister’s Office who chaired a meeting of disaster relief fund board.
The funds will be spent on rebuilding or repairing victims’ houses as well as on providing other necessary aid, he said.
Caretaker Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha last week visited the stricken community in Sungai Kolok district of Narathiwat and assured residents that financial support was being expedited. He also asked his office to consider whether to grant additional funds.
The blast killed 12 people and injured 389, while three schools were destroyed and 682 houses damaged.
Sompong Nakul, 42, and his wife Piyanuch Puengwirawat, 42, the owners of the illegal warehouse, surrendered to police after returning from Malaysia last Saturday.
The couple were initially charged with negligence causing deaths, importing and/or selling fireworks without a permit and violating the Emergency Decree in the southern region.
SINGAPORE: Public Transport Council (PTC) chief executive Tan Kim Hong will step down on Mar 1, 2024 after about seven years at the helm.
Deputy group director of policy and planning at the Land Transport Authority (LTA) Leow Yew Chin will be appointed as chief executive (designate) of PTC from Sep 1, before taking over from Mr Tan on Mar 1 next year, the Ministry of Transport (MOT) said on Friday (Aug 11).
The PTC regulates public transport fares and ticket payment services, as well as advises the Minister for Transport on public transport matters.
Mr Tan was appointed chief executive of PTC on Jul 1, 2017. During his time, he oversaw six fare review exercises and a mid-term review on the Network Capacity Factor, where he sought to balance the need to ensure fare affordability and the financial sustainability of Singapore’s public transport system.
He also played an instrumental role in the recent review of the fare adjustment formula and mechanism.
“Mr Tan also led PTC to grow the Caring SG Commuters Movement and supported the Caring SG Commuters Committee to drive the transformation of Singapore’s public transport system into a more caring, welcoming and inclusive one,” MOT said.
Under his leadership, PTC further collaborated with the community and industry stakeholders to launch CARE Ride @ South West 2022 and CARE Bus with Cerebral Palsy Alliance Singapore School.
“These initiatives aim to build greater empathy and willingness in commuters to help seniors and persons with disabilities in using the public transport system,” MOT said.
It thanked Mr Tan for his contributions as PTC chief executive.
