School executive accused of sexual abuse and threats
PUBLISHED : 28 Nov 2023 at 15:48
A school deputy director in Bangkok has been accused of sexually abusing her 12-year-old student and resorting to threats of exposing explicit photos and videos if the girl did not comply.
The student, escorted by popular social media activist Guntouch Pongpaiboonwet, alias Gun Jompalang, filed a complaint at Nong Chok police station on Tuesday.
The girl, enrolled in Grade 6 at a school in Bangkok’s Nong Chok district, also presented chat messages between her and the accused as evidence to Pol Capt Chaiwat Charasmethawit, deputy investigation chief.
Mr Guntouch said the girl’s mother and elder sister sought his help upon discovering that the 38-year-old former teacher, now a deputy director at another school, had allegedly sexually abused her.
The student had allegedly been lured into sending her naked photos to her teacher, who had also allegedly committed sexual abuse.
The teacher had threatened to send the student’s naked photos to the media if the victim did not comply with her demands, according to the activist.
“In my view, individuals engaging in such behaviour do not deserve to be teachers. Despite being married and living with her husband, she still lured the student into a sexual act at a petrol station,” said Mr Guntouch. “It’s evil and immoral act.”
Having previously handled sexual offense cases involving male perpetrators, Mr Guntouch expressed his concern about a female teacher being the offender this time. The accused teacher also claimed connections with influential figures and politicians, leaving the girl with no one to turn to.
Mr Guntouch said he would take the girl to petition an educational service area office in Bangkok against the accused, who had been promoted to the position of deputy director at another secondary school.
He said there must be an investigation to find out whether the accused had committed similar offences against other students.
The victim’s elder sister said her sister had initially sought the teacher’s guidance during Grade 5 and grew closer to her during the second term of Grade 6. The student believed whatever the teacher told her, the sister said.
The alleged sexual abuse came to light when the victim informed her family about the teacher’s threats to disseminate her explicit photos and videos when she asked for freedom to start a new life.
The teacher had also warned her against befriending others out of jealousy.
Police said they would call a psychologist and concerned agencies to jointly question the girl about the matter before considering a warrant to summon the accused to acknowledge her charges.
North Korea defends satellite launch at UN as Kim takes images of White House
“One belligerent party, the United States, is threatening us with a nuclear weapon,” he said. “It is a legitimate right for the DPRK as another belligerent party to develop, test, manufacture and possess weapons systems equivalent to those that the United States possesses or is developing.” He mocked US chargesContinue Reading
Entertainment venues’ opening extended
PUBLISHED : 28 Nov 2023 at 15:03
The cabinet on Tuesday approved a draft interior ministerial regulation to extend the operating hours of entertainment venues in key tourist destinations, including Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Chon Buri, Koh Samui and Phuket, allowing them to operate until 4am.
Traisuree Taisaranakul, spokeswoman for the Interior Ministry, said the ministry would implement the measure aimed at stimulating tourism in the country.
The extended hours will also apply to entertainment places within hotels registered by the hotel law.
For standalone entertainment venues in other destinations, operators are advised to wait for relevant regulations in their respective provinces, and the Interior Ministry will issue specific criteria for them, Ms Traisuree said.
Initially, the Interior Ministry planned to implement the new rule on Dec 15.
LTA reverses cancellation of service 167; buses will run at 30-minute intervals
SINGAPORE: The Land Transport Authority (LTA) said on Tuesday (Nov 28) that bus service 167 will be retained, but will operate at 30-minute intervals, just days after announcing that the service would be cut due to falling ridership.
LTA had said on Nov 17 that several other bus services would also be changed, including shortening the routes of services 162 and 75.
In a statement on Tuesday, the LTA said that it “looked at the availability of alternative services” when reviewing the bus services and ensured that “most affected commuters” would still have both MRT and bus options after the adjustment.
“Nonetheless, we understand that some commuters may need more time to adjust, and to try out the new travel routes. This is especially so for Service 167, where the change is more extensive.
“Hence, LTA will retain Service 167 for now and operate it at 30-minute intervals throughout the day,” LTA said.
This will be implemented from Dec 17, alongside the other adjustments that had been initially scheduled to start on Dec 10.
“We seek commuters’ understanding that it is not always possible to preserve direct bus connections for every journey,” said LTA, adding: “This is not the best use of our limited resources.”
“As new transport options such as the TEL and other MRT lines become available, and when Singaporeans move into new estates and workplaces, new bus services will be required for these new routes.”
The authority said that it will continue to review its bus network and reallocate their resources “as required”.
Local gaming developers call for more support to ease talent and funding crunch
LABOUR WOES, FUNDING ISSUES
Local game developer The Gentlebros said making any new content or expanding to other markets will require more manpower, which it cannot afford.
The video game studio, which started in 2015, is behind Cat Quest, an award-winning role-playing game where a player assumes the role of a cat and goes on a quest to save the world.
Mr Desmond Wong, CEO of The Gentlebros, said “the video game industry as a whole is a pretty risky business”.
“Most developers are probably one or two video games away from closing if a game isn’t successful,” he added.
“So if you don’t have a hit, if you don’t have success, usually it’s pretty hard to continue running that business.”
In Singapore, it is also tough operating with the rising cost of living and the high cost of hiring staff,” said Mr Wong.
“We also have a lot of bigger companies… that also are able to pay really well for staff and employees, and that kind of jacks up the cost to hire in Singapore, which makes it doubly hard to grow and expand.”
Mr Wong said smaller studios like his try to offer workers a greater sense of involvement in their products and competitive salaries to make it “a more attractive place to work”.
Another game maker, Mighty Bear Games, is facing a similar problem.
Since January this year, the firm has been looking to fill positions for engineers, artists and project managers with more than three years of experience.
However, hiring talent is difficult, as those with the necessary skill sets would rather go to multinational companies (MNCs), said the game developer.
“The Singapore government has a good track record of attracting MNCs to Singapore and they provide them support as well. This makes it very difficult for local studios to compete, because they don’t get access to the same kind of support,” said Mr Fadzuli Said, co-founder and chief technology officer at Mighty Bear Games.
“On top of that, MNCs prefer to hire experienced talents and forgo training the junior talent pool. This extracts a lot of value from the ecosystem and puts a lot of pressure on smaller companies to do the training.”
There is a need for homegrown studios to be better supported for Singapore to have “a resilient and sustainable gaming economy”, he said.
“My main concern is the impact on the gaming ecosystem if major MNCs were to decide to withdraw from Singapore.”
DSI chief reassigned amidst investigation into smuggled pork
PUBLISHED : 28 Nov 2023 at 14:20
The cabinet on Tuesday transferred the chief of the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) to the position of deputy permanent secretary for justice, citing an ongoing investigation into pork smuggling by the organisation.
The transfer order came one day after Pol Maj Suriya Singhakamol, the now former DSI director-general, led officials in a search of the headquarters of cash-and-carry wholesaler Makro in Suan Luang district, Bangkok.
Upon learning of his transfer, Pol Maj Suriya on Tuesday posted a message on the department’s Facebook page, saying it was a typical move for civil servants and he had been prepared for this development since his first day in the top position at the department.
“I do not regret it because I have done my best. I am honoured to work with everyone,” reads the message.
The DSI is investigating active pork smuggling in Thailand following the discovery of a large amount of smuggled pork in 161 refrigerated shipping containers at Laem Chabang Port in Chon Buri province in July. The influx of smuggled pork at relatively lower prices reportedly led to a decline in local pork prices, negatively impacting local farmers and national food security.
Prime Minister and Finance Minister Srettha Thavisin recently urged the DSI to speed up its investigation into pork smuggling and apprehend those responsible.
Pol Maj Suriya earlier said the DSI suspected the involvement of many government officials in the illicit business.
On Monday, the DSI arrested two pork importers allegedly involved in smuggling and searching the Makro headquarters. The move was prompted by suspicions that the importers were supplying the listed wholesale company with smuggled pork and pigs’ internal organs.
Makro’s chief corporate communication officer Siriporn Dechasingha said on Monday that the company procured all pork from registered local sources and imported internal organs of pigs from registered traders to meet the country’s demand.
The company had ceased procuring pig liver from the suspects earlier this year and other internal organs from them in the middle of last year due to substandard supplies, she said.
Makro had also bought fish and seafood from the same longstanding suppliers, she added.
The wholesaler is owned by the Chearavanont family that controls the agribusiness conglomerate Charoen Pokphand (CP).
Europeâs rising tide of immigration hysteria
In The Netherlands, a formerly fringe far-right party wins more seats in the Dutch general election than any other political group.
In Dublin, a knife attack outside a school triggers rioting and looting by right-wing thugs.
In the UK, the latest YouGov poll reveals rising support for the right-wing Reform Party.
The common theme in each of these recent news stories is immigration, a topic that has risen to the top of political agendas across Europe, threatening to transform liberal democracies into illiberal bastions of intolerance.
Make no mistake. This isn’t about “illegal” immigration. It is about racism, pure and simple.
For instance, it suits the UK government to make an issue out of “stopping the boats” crossing the English Channel. But the numbers involved are tiny compared with the number of migrants coming to the UK legally, to work as doctors, nurses and care-home assistants, or to study as students.
And even those students are coming under fire.
The UK is seeing a record number of people coming from overseas to study. Worth millions of pounds to universities, which charge foreign students far higher fees than their British counterparts, they contribute significantly to the nation’s gross domestic product.
Some stay on in the country after completing their course. If they do, it’s because they’ve got a job and are paying taxes to the Treasury.
Regardless, right-wing politicians are now demanding that such students should not be allowed to bring family to live with them.
Europe is walking, eyes tight shut, into a new dark age that makes a mockery of the 70-million-plus lives lost during the Second World War in the effort to rid the world of the cancerous, supremacist ideology of the Nazis.
A fundamental misunderstanding underpins Europe’s rising tide of immigration hysteria: Europe, with birth rates declining, needs immigration.
In the UK in particular, migrants form a large part of the workforce, including doctors and nurses, but also carry out many of the low-paid jobs.
But at the same time, right-wing politicians are peddling the false trope that migrants are taking “our” jobs and housing, clogging up “our” health system and – most sinister of all – “changing the shape of our country before our very eyes.”
False fears
That last incendiary quote comes from Richard Tice, a wealthy British property developer who founded the UK Brexit Party and is now the leader of its successor Reform Party, which says Britain is “broken” and “needs net zero immigration.”
The Conservative government, he said, had “totally betrayed” the British people because immigration to the UK was at a record high.
It is, but only because if it weren’t, Britain’s economy would collapse.
Regardless, traditional, more reasonable political parties across Europe are in a bind. If they ignore the rising tide of racist hysteria, they will be swept away, and so they are pandering to the mob.
In the UK, the Conservative government is fragmenting, torn apart by the competing narratives of the beleaguered party’s few remaining centrist members of Parliament, and the extremists like the recently fired home secretary Suella Braverman, architect of the bizarre policy of dispatching boat people to Rwanda.
In The Netherlands, a four-party coalition government collapsed in July after failing to reach agreement over measures to control the flow of migrants. Into the moral vacuum stepped radical right-winger Geert Wilders, a preposterous man who rants about the “tsunami of asylum and immigration” and who has pledged to “ban” the Koran, close the country’s borders and deliver “Nexit,” a Dutch version of Brexit.
On one level, this growing distaste for non-European foreigners is hilarious, given that it is a direct consequence of the colonialism that European states such as Britain and Holland imposed on the world for centuries.
But such truths cast no shadows on the fantasy landscapes occupied by the likes of Wilders.
The advantages of cultural diversity are obvious, and too numerous to list, and in choosing to present multiculturalism as a threat rather than an asset, right-wing politicians expose themselves for what they are – racists.
In Ireland last week, anti-migrant mobs gathered after an incident in which five people, including a five-year-old girl, were stabbed outside a primary school in Dublin.
In the words of the police, “hateful assumptions” that the attacker was a foreign national spread quickly, and mobs took to the streets, expressing their disdain for foreigners by, oddly, vandalizing and looting Irish shops.
Ironically, the man who risked his own life to save the wounded victims was himself a migrant, a fast-food courier and a father of two, originally from Brazil.
Unfortunately, Europe is increasingly under the spell of those who would highlight our differences rather than our similarities, in a cynical bid to seize power.
The roots of all the disruptions in the Middle East and North Africa that have, to a significant extent, contributed to Europe’s migrant problems can be traced to European intervention in the region dating back to the First World War.
The challenge now for Europe’s moderate, mainstream politicians is to recognize and own this history, to hold the line of decency and to combat, rather than pander to, the false narratives of the extremists.
So far, however, none has appeared capable of rising to this challenge, and Europe is slipping inexorably into a moral dark age.
This article was provided by Syndication Bureau, which holds copyright.
Jonathan Gornall is a British journalist, formerly with The Times, who has lived and worked in the Middle East and is now based in the UK.
Man takes in girl whose father abused her and whose mother killed herself, then sexually assaults her instead
Warning: This story contains references to suicide.
SINGAPORE: A 16-year-old girl who was sexually abused by her father and watched her mother kill herself was subjected to further sexual grooming by a man who took her into his care.
The 39-year-old man, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the victim, sexually groomed the teenager on the guise of “healing” touch before sexually assaulting her on a regular basis.
He was sentenced to 10 years’ jail and nine strokes of the cane on Tuesday (Nov 28).
The man pleaded guilty to four counts of exploitative sexual penetration of a minor who is 16 or 17, with another nine charges taken into consideration.
This is the first prosecution for an offence of exploitative sexual penetration of a minor who is 16 or 17 under Section 376AA of the Penal Code.
The court heard that the girl, who is now 19, was 13 years old when her mother stabbed herself to death in front of her in 2017.
The Institute of Mental Health (IMH) diagnosed the girl as suffering from adjustment disorder with depressed mood as a result.
The girl’s father did not allow her or her siblings to mourn their mother or cry at her funeral as he felt she was not a good mother.
The girl’s father made her attend religious teachings as he wanted her to become a medium. However, the girl converted to another religion after her mother’s death, which made her father extremely unhappy.
The girl was sexually abused by her father in January 2018, several months after her mother died.
She overdosed on medication and was admitted to IMH, where she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
She was removed from her father’s care in March 2018 and placed in the care of a family friend, where she stopped engaging in self-harm.
However, this resumed in June 2018 after a close friend died by suicide.
In September 2018, the Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) placed the girl in a treatment centre that is designed to help teen girls who suffered trauma or abuse reintegrate back into society.
ACCUSED MEETS GIRL THROUGH CAMP
The accused, a married man with two sons, was a manager at a company which conducts camps for children.
He first met the victim in September 2018 when he ran a programme at the centre she was with.
He later suggested adopting the girl, with his wife’s agreement. His family was assessed to be suitable caregivers and began meeting the victim regularly.
The girl was very happy and excited when she heard of the family’s intention to adopt her, as she had never had a “real family” before.
She told her psychologist about her hopefulness for her future and said she was very happy that she had found a family that loved her.
The accused and his wife were briefed on the girl’s mental conditions and past trauma by her psychologist.
The girl began staying over at the offender’s home in December 2019 as part of “home leave”.
In September 2020, the man began preying on the girl sexually. He began by asking her to remove her clothes to participate in an “activity” using a mirror, then he molested her.
He would also molest the girl as she slept between him and his wife, and told the girl that “touch need not be sexual it could be for healing”.
The man began sexually assaulting the girl on an almost daily basis. The girl would experience panic attacks during the assaults.
While the adoption process was ongoing, he continued to sexually assault the girl, showing her pornography and making her perform sex acts.
In November 2020, when the girl was in the car with the offender, she asked him if she was still his daughter.
When he said she was, the girl asked him why he did not treat her like one.
She felt she was being used by the man, and that he was not being fair to his wife, the court heard.
IMPACT ON THE GIRL
She felt that she did not want to be romantically involved with anyone, get married or be sexually involved with anyone, as a result of the offender’s actions.
She also said she was “always filled with shame and guilt” after the sexual incidents and hated herself.
She began self-harming again, having suicidal thoughts and overdosing.
On Nov 27, 2020, the girl sent the offender a message saying that she felt “empty and used”.
“You call me your daughter but I can’t forget the ways you didn’t treat me like one. You’re one of the biggest reasons why I want to die because I can’t live with myself like this and I can’t live with you,” she wrote.
At the time the man was assaulting her, he was still having intercourse with his wife, who got pregnant.
When the girl found out about the ectopic pregnancy, she had a panic attack worrying for the woman. An ectopic pregnancy is when a fertilised egg implants itself outside the womb.
The offender’s wife subsequently had a miscarriage, and the victim blamed herself for it, feeling guilty over the sexual acts she had engaged in with the offender.
Eventually, she told her school teacher what happened, and the teacher lodged a police report.
Deputy Public Prosecutors Nicholas Khoo, Janice See and Ng Shao Yan asked for 12 to 15 years’ jail and caning for the offender, calling his conduct “depraved and exploitative”.
“After a traumatic childhood … the victim, a 16-year-old girl, was supposed to have finally found a sanctuary in the accused’s home,” said the prosecutors.
“However, it was not to be. The accused, a sexual predator, preyed on her vulnerability by sexually grooming her.”
The prosecution said the man defiled her youth and left her with “indelible mental scars”.
The penalty for exploitative sexual penetration of a person who is 16 but below 18 is a jail term of up to 15 years, with a fine or caning.
North Korea cites rare dissent in elections even as 99% back candidates
SEOUL: North Korea on Tuesday (Nov 28) made a rare mention of dissenting votes in recent elections, although analysts dismissed it as an attempt to portray an image of a normal society rather than signalling any meaningful increase of rights in the authoritarian state. The reclusive North has one ofContinue Reading
Rashmika Mandanna: India actress urges women to speak up on deepfake videos
Getty ImagesIndian actress Rashmika Mandanna, who was recently targeted with a deepfake video, has urged people to not share such material.
She particuclarly urged young women to speak up if somebody bullied them with such material.
Ms Mandanna shared the message weeks after a deepfake video about her went viral on social media.
The star’s face was morphed onto an Instagram video posted by a British-Indian woman.
She had described the incident as “extremely scary” at the time.
On Monday, the actress, 27, said the support from her film industry colleagues made her realise that sharing of such videos shouldn’t be normalised.
“It [the support] made me feel safe, and secure,” she told the media on Monday.
“So I want to tell all girls out there that this is not normal. When something is affecting you, you don’t have to keep quiet.”
In a statement on X (formerly Twitter) soon after her deepfake went viral, Ms Mandanna wrote, “If this happened to me when I was in school or college, I genuinely can’t imagine how could I ever tackle this.”
The actor said she was grateful for the support of her family and friends and called for the issue to be addressed with urgency “before more of us are affected by such identity theft”.
India’s Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw has called such deepfake videos a “new threat to democracy”.
Last week, Mr Vaishnaw chaired a meeting with social media platforms and artificial intelligence companies where he said the federal government would soon come up with a “clear, actionable plan” to tackle deepfakes.
The actress has worked in several langauges, including Hindi, Telugu and Kannada, and has also won a number of awards for her roles.
She will be next seen with actor Ranbir Kapoor in the Bollywood film Animal, which is due for release on 1 December.
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