Missing German broker found dead
Missing German discussed property sales with another broker before his body was found
CHON BURI: Police found the body of a missing German property broker hidden in a freezer at a house in tambon Nong Prue of Bang Lamung district on Monday night.
Detectives found the body of Hans Peter Ralter Mack, 62, as they were conducting a search based on surveillance camera footage. Police were trying to find the whereabouts of the German who went missing from his family on July 4.
Forensic officers were examining the scene to determine the cause of death.
Pol Maj Gen Theerachai Chamnanmor, investigative chief of the Provincial Police Region 2, said there was evidence pointing to the offenders. He attributed the death to extortion, adding that about 2 million baht had been transferred from the man’s bank account.
On July 5 Mack’s 24-year-old Thai wife, whose name was not released, told investigators that he had left their house in Swiss Paradise housing estate in Pattaya, Chon Buri, on July 4 to meet a foreign property broker. The meeting was to discuss property sales in Pattaya and Koh Samui of Surat Thani province.
Mack’s silver Mercedes-Benz E350 coupe was found in the CC Condominium parking lot on Khao Noi Road in tambon Nong Prue on Sunday morning.
Inside the car police found stains of a chemical cleanser apparently used in an attempt to destroy evidence.
According to his wife, she had been living with the German for about five years. The man had two sons from a previous marriage.
A photograph on a smartphone shows Hans-Peter Mack, a missing 62-year-old German businessman. (Photo: Chaiyot Pupattanapong)
White Island: New Zealand volcano tragedy trial begins
Getty ImagesTour operators accused of safety failures in the lead up to the deadly White Island volcano disaster are facing a landmark trial in New Zealand.
Twenty-two people died when the country’s most active volcano suddenly erupted on 9 December 2019.
It had been showing signs of unrest for weeks, with workplace regulators saying the eruption was not unforeseeable but tour operators were unprepared.
Six parties face fines of up to NZ$1.5m ($928,000; £724,000) if found guilty.
At the time of the eruption, 47 people were on White Island – also known by its Maori name of Whakaari. Almost half of those present were killed, including 17 people from Australia, three from the US, and two from New Zealand. Another 25 people were injured, many suffering horrific burns.
The disaster prompted the most extensive and complex investigation ever undertaken by WorkSafe NZ, the nation’s main health and safety regulator, which itself has been criticised for failing to monitor activities on the island between 2014 and 2019.
Thirteen parties were initially charged in December 2020 with exposing people to risk of harm under the health and safety act. They were accused of failing to assess and mitigate risks, to adequately inform tourists of the dangers, and to provide protective equipment.
“This was an unexpected event, but that does not mean it was unforeseeable and there is a duty on operators to protect those in their care,” WorkSafe chief executive Phil Parkes said at the time.
None of the charges relate to events during or after the eruption, and the defendants include companies which did not have tourists at the volcano at the time.
The case against one tour operator has since been dropped, and another six pleaded guilty before trial – some just days ago. Most are yet to be sentenced.
White Island Tours, which was responsible for the safety of all except one of those killed, is among the companies which have admitted the charges.
Six defendants remain, including members of the Buttle family, who have owned White Island since 1936.
Peter, James and Andrew Buttle, the three brothers who inherited the island, have been charged in their roles as directors of Whakaari Management – which granted licences to tour operators and also faces charges at a company level.
ID Tours New Zealand Limited and Tauranga Tourism Services Limited are also contesting their charges in court.
The judge alone trial, which begins hearing evidence on Tuesday, is expected to last four months.
Once a popular sightseeing destination visited by thousands every year, tourists have not been back to White Island since the tragedy.
The volcano had been erupting in some form since 2011, and was rated at Volcanic Alert Level 2 at the time of the disaster, indicating “moderate to heightened volcanic unrest”.
Related Topics
-
-
30 November 2020
-
-
-
10 December 2019
-
-
-
17 December 2019
-
Multiple sclerosis affects more women than men in Singapore: What treatments help fight this autoimmune disease?
Secondary progressive MS (SPMS): This is the second stage of MS diagnosis and often a progression of RRMS where the disease becomes more severe, without improvement in the symptoms or any remissions. SPMS symptoms show more nerve damage, which indicates steady progression of the disease.
Without treatment, 50 per cent of people with RRMS get SPMS within 10 years while almost 90 per cent of RRMS cases develop into SPSS in 25 years.
Primary progressive MS (PPMS): The rarest of MS cases, where symptoms accumulate, and neurologic functions and ability worsen. This type of MS accounts for 10 to 15 per cent of all MS diagnoses and affects both men and women equally.
PPMS tends to be diagnosed in people in their 40s and 50s. Those with PPMS tend to have more problems with walking, along with other symptoms that become more severe.
MULTIPLE SCLERORIS AFFECTS MORE WOMEN THAN MEN
Dr Quek said that in Singapore, multiple sclerosis affects more women: ”Four in five MS patients are women.”
It’s not fully understood why more women than men develop MS, she said. Researchers have proposed explanations that involve an “interaction between genes, hormones and differences in the immune system” but more research is needed.
According to this Johns Hopkins report, a woman’s nervous and immune system is different to that of a man’s, and coupled with hormonal fluctuations, may be why MS is more common in women.
A University of Pennsylvania study stated that women suffering from MS find their mobility impacted, and their MS symptoms can flare up during their menstrual cycle and at menopause.
The Multiple Sclerosis Society in the United Kingdom also said that some contraceptives may increase the risk for blood clots due to mobility issues from nerve damage, leading medical experts to say there is a risk of clotting using certain birth control.
MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS IN PREGNANCY AND MENOPAUSE
There is a common misconception that MS affects fertility in women and the hormonal changes during pregnancy can worsen the disease, said Dr Quek.
However, she said that while MS often affects women who are diagnosed in their child-bearing years, patients with multiple sclerosis are just as likely to become pregnant and have a healthy pregnancy and baby as their peers without MS.
“Studies have even shown a decrease in the frequency of MS relapses during pregnancy,” she said.
Network notes antiretroviral shortage
The Thailand Network of People Living with HIV (HIV network) is calling on the National Health Security Office (NHSO) to provide more antiretroviral drugs to patients amid a shortage at the Government Pharmaceutical Organization (GPO).
Apiwat Kwangkaew, chair of the HIV network, and other representatives filed a letter with the NHSO, demanding that the government agency solve the problem.
Mr Apiwat said the shortage of the drugs has been going on for a long time, with many patients having been prescribed month-long courses instead of for three to six months.
He said that the shortage has affected the lives of people who require such medication. Some of them were not prescribed the adequate amounts of pills required to resist HIV.
The shortage of HIV medication will eventually lead to overburdening at hospitals, he noted.
The GPO is responsible for providing medication to people living with HIV in Thailand via three programmes — the social security, universal healthcare and government official schemes.
Mr Apiwat said the GPO should clarify why it fails to provide enough HIV medication to hospitals across the country.
“Even if people have enough money, they still cannot buy the medication. The GPO still has not paid for the medication bills that hospitals had reimbursed to their patients,” Mr Apiwat said, adding the GPO can provide half of the medication needed by hospitals.
Mr Apiwat said he had spoken to GPO officials and found that the organisation had struggled with the drug’s production for over a year, and the situation worsened this year.
PM failed to curb pollutants
Chiang Mai: The Administrative Court on Monday ruled that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha and the National Environmental Board (NEB) had neglected their duties in tackling toxic air pollutants in the province, in a case brought forth by a local resident.
Wasuchart Pichai had petitioned that he was affected by the haze problem and claimed that Gen Prayut and the NEB had failed to address ultra-fine dust or PM2.5 pollutants.
In it, he asked the court to order Gen Prayut to take action, including ordering cloud-seeding operations to improve the air quality. He also called for the entire province to be declared a disaster zone so the authorities could disburse funds to mitigate the pollution’s impact.
At the hearing, the court heard from agencies concerned and expert witnesses, including the dean of Chiang Mai University’s Faculty of Medicine, the director of the National Health Security Office Zone 1 and the director of Maharat Nakhon Chiang Mai Hospital.
The court said that based on the testimonies of witnesses, fine dust pollution had worsened every year and negatively affected the health of people both in the short and long term. It found that the defendants had neglected their duties in resolving the problem under the law.
The court then ordered the defendants to exercise their power under the law on the prevention and mitigation of disasters, the law on the enhancement and conservation of national environmental quality and others to better regulate and manage air pollution in the province.
In April, about 1,700 residents in the province also filed a lawsuit with the Administrative Court against Gen Prayut and related state agencies over their alleged failure to resolve the haze issue in the North.
The residents claimed that people living in urban areas were at risk of being exposed to unsafe levels of ultra-fine dust particles, which could shorten lifespans by up to five years due to prolonged exposure.
Pita future in doubt
EC move could end MFP leader’s PM bid
If the Election Commission (EC) forwards a case involving Move Forward Party (MFP) leader Pita Limjaroenrat’s previous iTV shareholdings to the Constitutional Court, this could sway senators in the crucial vote for a new PM on Thursday, according to a former election commissioner and an academic.
Former election commissioner Somchai Srisutthiyakorn said if the court accepts the case for consideration, the court can order Mr Pita to be suspended from duty as an MP, which will affect voting on Thursday.
Mr Pita would not be allowed into parliament as an MP, though he still could enter the premises as a prime ministerial candidate, Mr Somchai said.
This would also be cited by senators as a reason to abstain from voting as they would fear the vote could be problematic due to Mr Pita’s alleged ineligibility, he said.
Mr Pita, who is the MFP’s sole prime ministerial candidate, stands accused of being ineligible to contest the election because he held 42,000 shares in iTV, which is believed by some critics to be an operational media company when he registered his candidacy in the 2019 election. Mr Pita has denied the allegation, saying he only served as executor of the family’s inherited shares.
The constitution bars individuals with media shareholdings from running for office.
Mr Somchai said the EC should summon Mr Pita to defend himself against the accusation before it decides to forward the case to the court.
An EC inquiry panel looking into Mr Pita’s alleged ineligibility wrapped up its investigation and forwarded findings to the EC’s main committee yesterday.
EC chairman Ittiporn Boonpracong on Monday said that the poll agency has yet to forward the case to the Constitutional Court as the inquiry panel only briefed the EC’s main committee on its findings on Monday.
Jade Donavanik, a legal scholar and ex-adviser to a charter drafting panel, echoed the view, saying if the EC finds grounds for the accusation against Mr Pita, the next step is for the poll agency to forward the case to the court.
If the court accepts the case, it will ask the House speaker to suspend Mr Pita as an MP pending a trial, Mr Jade said.
However, Mr Pita can still be nominated for prime minister in the vote on Thursday, Mr Jade said.
Even if Mr Pita wins the vote, he still cannot carry out the duties of a prime minister pending the trial, Mr Jade added.
In that case, senators may decide to abstain from voting until the court rules on his eligibility, Mr Jade said, adding that another way out of the problem is for political parties to nominate another alternative candidate.
“It is not easy. I don’t think a new prime minister can be elected in the July 13 vote,” Mr Jade said.
MFP secretary-general Chaithawat Tulathon said on Monday he sent an urgent letter to the EC to protest any decision to forward the case to the court.
He said the poll agency was trying to rush the case, and the EC’s inquiry panel had failed to summon Mr Pita to explain himself before the panel first, as stipulated by its regulations.
Mr Pita said on Monday that the EC had not summoned him yet, but he is ready, adding that talks between the MFP and senators would yield a favourable outcome.
According to sources, the Senate committee on political development and public participation believes if Mr Pita fails to win his PM bid in the first round of voting on Thursday, he cannot be nominated for any further voting rounds.
Commentary: Outside of politics, Thailand has a good story to tell
SINGAPORE: When central bankers line up almost daily to assert their commitment to fighting inflation, it makes me think of Thailand. Not the fine resorts and great food. The country’s untrumpeted success is seriously taming prices to the point where officials might want to think about easing up, lest the economy slows too much.
Like the rest of Southeast Asia, Thailand has been blindsided by the modest nature of China’s rebound. Tourism, a key industry, is gradually recovering. The number of Chinese visitors is heading in the right direction, but nothing like the surge that was anticipated when Beijing canceled zero-COVID.
Thailand’s divisive politics aren’t helpful: Two months after an election, the country is without a prime minister.
Don’t let these caveats subtract from a fine story. Most policymakers would prefer to forget that when inflation first started to climb in 2021, they played it down. Having wrestled with how to fire it up in the years before the pandemic, they weren’t going to jump at the initial upticks.
A host of terms were used to describe the benign scenario: Temporary, short-lived and, of course, the now infamous “transitory.” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stuck by the “T” word too long, before ultimately burying it and embarking on an aggressive tightening.
The Bank of Thailand, by contrast, has embraced transitory – and rightly so. The pace of consumer price increases retreated to 0.2 per cent in June from a year earlier. That’s a dramatic decline from almost 8 per cent in August 2022.
Officials don’t see it staying so anemic for long, but even forecasts of 2.4 per cent next year mean inflation is well and truly reined in. And they did it without smothering the economy by panicking and ratcheting up borrowing costs too rapidly.
Yellen sees ‘desire on both sides’ for productive US-China ties
WASHINGTON: Washington and Beijing both want to stabilise US-China ties and deal constructively with problems in their relationship, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in an interview airing on Monday (Jul 10). Yellen’s comments on National Public Radio’s Marketplace program come after a four-day visit to Beijing during which she metContinue Reading
Commentary: Should Singapore worry about a loneliness epidemic among seniors?
We also quantified, for the first time, the impact of loneliness on life expectancy among older adults, using data from Singapore. We found that people aged 60, who perceived themselves to be lonely, live three to five years less, on average, compared to peers who perceived themselves as not lonely.
Similarly, at ages 70 and 80, lonely older persons could, on average, expect to live three to four and two to three years less, respectively, compared to non-lonely peers.
LONELY IN A CROWD
It is important to note that loneliness is distinct from social isolation. Loneliness refers to the state of distress or discomfort that arises from a gap between one’s desire for social connection and actual experience of it. Whereas social isolation is marked by a low number of family and friends, and the quality of those interactions.
We often think that socially isolated people, for instance those living alone or with spouses only, must be lonelier than those living in multigenerational households with family members all around them. In fact, a significant percentage of older Singaporeans who are living in multigenerational households report being sometimes or mostly lonely.
Similarly, an individual could be in a marriage and feel lonely due to the lack of connection with one’s spouse. As the saying goes, one can be lonely in a crowd.
This is exemplified by the experience of Madam Lau*, a participant in one of our research studies. 72-year-old Mdm Lau lives with her husband and son in a large condominium. She describes Mr Lau as a “macho man” who has never helped with chores or taken care of their children because his job was to earn money. He does his own activities and does not initiate conversations.
Commentary: To dispel war talk, US and China must forge a new understanding on Taiwan
To better understand the situation, a bit of history is in order. From 1979 when China and the US re-established diplomatic ties until the start of the Donald Trump administration in 2017, both countries had largely managed the Taiwan issue well as Washington promised to refrain from official relations and to restrain Taiwan from pursuing independence. Meanwhile, the US continued to sell arms to the island under the Taiwan Relations Act, to which China lodged strong protests but did nothing else.
From China’s view, the relative calm over Taiwan was shattered after Trump launched a trade war against China in 2018 and China hawks in the administration started to play the Taiwan card, sending bilateral ties spiralling.
Joe Biden’s administration continued to play the Taiwan card as senior legislators, including then US Congress speaker Nancy Pelosi and legislators from Europe, visited Taipei and met the Taiwanese president and other leaders.
To Beijing, those visits were a clear breach of bilateral agreements. Biden further muddied the waters by talking at least four times about defending Taiwan while insisting the US does not support its independence.
Moreover, over the past few years, the US has succeeded in internationalising the Taiwan issue, which Beijing considers an internal affair. These developments, in Beijing’s view, have galvanised the pro-independence movement in Taiwan.
Hence, Beijing’s more fevered rhetoric and military exercises are aimed at deterring the pro-independence camp.
If polls are any guide, Taiwanese Vice President William Lai Ching-te, who once called himself a “pragmatic worker for Taiwanese independence”, is the favourite to become president in the election scheduled for next January.