News from Thailand – August 26, 2013

It has taken 9 years of legal battle, but yesterday finally a start was made with the demolition of three illegally constructed holiday parks on Koh Samet.

Two hundred employees of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conseration (DNP) were called in to dismantle the wooden buildings and transport them to the mainland in parts.

Minister Vichet Kasemthongsri (Environment) witnessed the work for fifteen minutes, which is expected to take two weeks. He said a ministerial commission is working to identify illegal construction in national parks and forest reserves. Legal action will be taken against the owners. Holiday parks in Thab Lan National Park in Nakhon Ratchasima Province will be the first to be addressed.

In the meantime, the DNP is working on a recovery plan for the area of ​​approximately 2 million square meters that will be released by the demolition. The owners will be billed for the demolition costs.

– The fifth Bangkok Chefs Charity Fundraising Gala Dinner at the Mandarin Oriental hotel in Bangkok has raised 17 million baht. Twenty-six top chefs from five-star hotels in Bangkok, Phuket and Chiang Mai and a chef from Thai Airways International presented the 350 guests, including Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, with a ten-course menu of dishes that I will never taste in my life because they are way beyond my budget. to go.

The proceeds of this dinner will also be donated to the Sai Ja Thai Foundation and the Border Patrol Police Schools. In recent years, money has also gone to needy schools in the North and Northeast for learning materials, scholarships and meals and to Ban Nonthapum in Nonthaburi, an orphanage for children with multiple disabilities. In 2011 during the floods, residents of the heavily affected suburbs of Bangkok were supported.

– The first meeting of the Reform Assembly, chaired by initiator Prime Minister Yingluck, started yesterday with 57 people. Major absentees were opposition party Democrats and the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD, yellow shirts). Plus the population, noted Tida Tawornseth, chairman of the United Front for Democracy against Dictatorship (UDD, red shirts) and former Prime Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh.

Chavalit said that despite earlier attempts to resolve conflicts, military coups and constitutions, which have been abolished and rewritten, the population has had little input. Nevertheless, he believes that the Forum will prove useful and that the proposals it makes will be put into practice.

Yingluck's initiative includes a forum with foreign guest speakers on September 2 and a political reform assembly (which therefore started yesterday and meets monthly). In addition, three working groups have been formed to deal with political, economic and social reform.

– State Councilor Prem Tinsulanonda, president of the Privy Council and, according to some, director of the military coup in 2006, has called on the army to support Prime Minister Yingluck, who has also been Minister of Defense since the cabinet change. He said that yesterday, when he was visited by Yingluck and the military top at his home in Sisao Thewes (Bangkok) on the occasion of his 94th birthday. The birthday visit took 15 minutes in words; the media had to stay outside.

According to Thanongsak Apirakyothin, permanent secretary of the defense ministry, Yingluck did not ask Prem to participate in her reconciliation forum. The grise eminence said earlier this week that it had not yet made a decision on this.

– With 2.000 participants from 80 countries, the 21st International Union of Health and Education World Conference on Health Promotion started in Pattaya yesterday. Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong (Finance), chairman of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, opened the conference with nice words about the government's investments in public health and health promotion. He said that healthy citizens are a basis for strong economic growth and therefore called on them to exercise regularly to prevent high blood pressure, diabetes and heart disease.

– The medical services in seven provinces along the border with Cambodia have been asked by the Ministry of Health to be alert to the spread of the H5N1 virus. Some cases have already been reported in Cambodia. The virus is most active during the rainy season and in cool and humid weather. Children and the elderly are most susceptible to infection.

– A rubber factory in Tha Sae (Chumphon) was reduced to ashes for 30 to 40 percent on Saturday evening. Twenty fire engines were deployed to fight the fire. It took firefighters ten hours to bring the fire under control. About 68 tons smoked rubber sheets worth 6 million baht went up in flames.

– The municipal police of Bangkok wants to install 1 million surveillance cameras in the city over the next three years. The cameras are installed at homes of residents who participate in the Miracle Eyes project of the municipality in collaboration with TOT Plc (Telephone Organization of Thailand). The project will start on November 5.

– Two boys aged 8 and 10 drowned yesterday while fishing in the Chiang Rak channel in Pathum Thani. When police arrived, residents were trying to resuscitate the boys, but it had no effect. Presumably the boys entered the water to untie a fishing line. That was fatal to them because the channel on site is quite deep.

– A shipment of rice refused and returned by the American importer is not chemically contaminated, says the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The buyer had sent the rice back because it smelled.

The paper links it to the Foundation for Consumers' survey in July. Packaged rice from shopping centers was then found to contain residues of inorganic bromide and bromide ions, in one sample even exceeding the safety limit. The FDA has examined 223 samples in the past two months. One sample was suspicious. The relevant rice has been withdrawn.

– The rubber farmers who block highway 41 in Nakhon Si Thammarat can stand upside down, but the government does not intend to buy the rubber latex for 120 baht per kilo, as demanded by them. The market price is currently 71 to 72 baht per kilo. So far, the government has bought 22 tons for 200.000 billion baht.

What the government can do, says Minister Yukol Limlaemthong (Agriculture), is help with taking out loans and purchasing fertilizer. It also encourages the felling and sale of trees older than 25 years and the cultivation of other crops in parts of the rubber plantations. 'This is what we can do. We expect this to be a more sustainable solution than continuing to influence prices," said the minister.

The blockade entered its third day yesterday. Democratic MPs from the South have argued for a price of 84 baht per kilo. That amount is based on the total costs of 64 baht per kilo plus profit. The party is prepared to 'walk side by side with the rubber farmers'.

Thavorn Senniam, MP for Songkhla, warns of nationwide demonstrations if the government continues to turn a deaf ear to farmers' demands. Rubber farmers in 3 northern provinces have already announced to block a highway in Uttaradit on September XNUMX.

– To combat traffic congestion on the Phetkasem Road, Bangkok Municipal Works wants to build exits at five intersections. An amount of 1,45 billion baht is required for this. The road handles 120.000 vehicles per day and 9.000 to 10.000 vehicles pass through each intersection during peak hours. “Each intersection can function properly if they don't handle more than 6.000 vehicles. So a solution is badly needed', says project leader Kraiwuth Simtharakaew.

The plan was developed by two consultancy firms that were hired by the municipality last year. It was presented at a public hearing on August 15. It will be presented to the municipality at the end of this year.

www.dickvanderlugt.nl – Source: Bangkok Post