News from Thailand – March 28, 2014

That's worth a front page post. The Thai satellite Thaichote has spotted 2.700 kilometers southwest of Perth in the Indian Ocean about 200 objects of various sizes, which may have come from the crashed Malaysian Airlines Boeing. They drifted about 122 kilometers from where a French satellite spotted 2 objects, 16 to XNUMX meters in length, on Sunday.

Thaichote is used for Earth observations by the Geoinformatics and Space Technology Development Agency. It took the agency two days to process the images. To obtain absolute certainty about the observation, the area is re-recorded again.

– When the calf has drowned, the well is filled in. That saying often applies in Thailand. Take the tragic accident in Tak province when a double-decker bus plunged into a ravine, killing XNUMX passengers.

First the Department of Land Transport comes up with the suggestion to ban double-decker buses from mountain roads and now the department will set new requirements for the equipment and tackle the drivers. From now on, they must have a category 3 driving license instead of the current category 2 driving licence. That requirement will take effect at the end of next month.

Other ideas include mandating seatbelts, better seats and stricter requirements for body structural strength in line with international requirements. Those requirements will take effect between next month and June. There are also plans to improve the double-decker braking system.

In some countries, double-decker buses are already banned for transporting tourists because they are not safe. Thailand should do the same, says the Association of Thai Travel Agents. Many tour operators already do not use double-decker buses to transport foreign tourists.

The King Mongkut University of Technology is commissioned to design a blueprint for a body with better balance and stability. Last year, 43 percent of the 1.250 buses higher than 3,6 meters failed the balance test. A bus is placed at an angle of 30 degrees [unfortunately the photo is not on the website, but it is in the newspaper].

– Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul (Foreign Affairs) yesterday signed Thailand's latest Trafficking in Persons report. And now fingers crossed that Thailand is removed from that damned Tier 2 Watchlist of countries that do not do enough against human trafficking.

According to Surapong, Thailand has made significant progress in combating human trafficking in the past year. A special police unit has been formed and human trafficking cases are dealt with more quickly.

Last year, 674 cases were reported. Prosecution is taking place in 483 cases, considerably more than the 56 in 2012, and 225 persons have been punished (2012: 49). Fifteen employment agencies have been charged and two companies' licenses have been revoked. Four applications have been temporarily detained and nine companies are being prosecuted.

Said Surapong, who published these figures as proof that Thailand is not letting things take their course. Whether the US State Department agrees with this will become clear in June. Thailand has been on the Tier 2 Watchlist for the past four years.

– As far as is known, since the start of the civil war in Syria in March 2011, seventeen Palestinian refugees have tried to flee to Sweden via Thailand, but their journey to freedom ended on Suvarnabhumi. Most have been arrested; a few have been released on bail.

The refugees are taking the risk of traveling via Thailand because the alternative, by sea to the UAE, poses a risk to their lives. Sweden announced in September that refugees from Syria will receive permanent residence permits.

– No delay and come in person. The National Anti-Corruption Commission is tough on Prime Minister Yingluck. Previously, she was represented by a lawyer, but this time she will have to defend herself against the accusation of negligence as chair of the National Rice Policy Committee. She would have done too little against corruption and the costs that got out of hand.

Yingluck's lawyer had asked for a 45-day extension, but the NACC refused. We've done her enough favors already, says NACC Secretary General Sansern Poljieak.

– It is not that easy, says the Electoral Council against the CMPO, which was responsible for maintaining the state of emergency and has submitted a bill of 2 billion baht. It would have spent that money on fighting anti-government protests.

Yesterday, the Electoral Council established a list of criteria against which the application is assessed: were the expenses legal, were the expenses useful and did the work of the CMPO yield results? Because the government is outgoing, the Electoral Council must grant permission for all major expenditures.

The Electoral Council has already found deviating allowances. The Department of Special Investigation wants to give its 3.333 officers a daily allowance of 700 baht, while the police pay XNUMX baht per day. Whether the work of the CMPO has been useful will have to be seen from examples of politically related violence that it has engaged in.

– A local radio station of red shirts in Mae Sot (Tak), which would go on the air today on a trial basis, was shot at 4 am on Wednesday night. Four men arrived in a pickup truck and opened fire. Guards returned fire, after which shots were exchanged for about ten minutes. One of the attackers was injured.

– The Royal Rainmaking and Agricultural Aviation Department started artificially generating rain in Prachuap Khiri Khan yesterday. Details are missing.

– Minister Surapong Tovichakchaikul (Foreign Affairs) will discuss by telephone with his Indonesian colleague, who is flying to Thailand today, about the ban on fishing in Indonesian waters by Thai trawlers. That ban was imposed in response to the murder of two Indonesian marines by Thai fishermen. The minister hopes that it will be withdrawn soon.

The Royal Thai Police is investigating the case. According to Surapong, three crew members of the trawler on which the Indonesians were killed have been arrested because they were working illegally in the fishery. An arrest warrant has been issued for XNUMX, but no one has yet been charged. Two crew members have confirmed the murder.

– Rape remains a serious problem in Thailand. It is extremely difficult for victims to get justice because the perpetrator often has a higher social status than the victim, says Supensri Puengkhokesoong, a member of the Women and Men Progressive Movement Foundation. The relationship between the two can be employer-employee, teacher-student or child caretaker-child.

Last year, 3.276 rapes were reported nationwide. Only 169 articles about sexual assault were published in the five most popular Thai newspapers. This shows that most victims avoid the media spotlight. Many don't even report it," says Supensri. 'Victims prefer to tell their story to a female officer, but there are few of them and not all of them understand the sensitive circumstances.'

Victims over the age of 15 are often advised by the police to settle the case out of court due to the difficulties and length of the legal process, which involves testifying against the rapists in court.

– Nothing has been learned from the oil spill and pollution of the beach last year in Rayong. No measures have been taken since then and no environmental successes have been achieved remedy process [?]. This is what Pisut Painmanakul, professor of engineering at Chulalongkorn University, says.

Thailand has had at least 1997 oil spills since XNUMX. A new disaster is not inconceivable if government services do not take effective preventive measures, according to Pisut. According to him, it also lacks law enforcement and efficient monitoring systems.

Pisut points out that large numbers of oil spills were still found on Bang Saen beach in Chon Buri on March 15. And oil and tar residues have been found on Sichon beach in Nakhon Si Thammarat. The illegal dumping of waste oil by ships and fishing boats is likely the culprit.

Economic news

– Fifteen percent of mortgage applications were rejected in the first two months of this year. The main reason is that most applicants cannot spare money because they took advantage of the government's first-car program last year. The number of rejections differs only slightly from the same period last year, when it was 13 to 14 percent.

To accommodate homebuyers, Apichard Detpreechar, vice president of mortgages at Krungthai Bank, says property developers should extend the transfer window by three to six months, during which time homebuyers can make additional monthly payments, reducing the need for mortgage applications.

The first car program was one of Pheu Thai's election pledges and aimed to stimulate the economy. A senior Bangkok Bank official predicts that Thailand will pay the bill for this program as well as for the rice mortgage system within two years. These 'populist' policies have led to an increase in household debt and pose a risk to the economic situation.

Future demand for cars has collapsed due to the car program and the used car market has been disrupted. The rice mortgage system is costing the country hundreds of billions of baht in losses. In addition, domestic consumption has declined as many farmers have still not been paid for the rice they sold to the government.

www.dickvanderlugt.nl – Source: Bangkok Post

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Editorial notice

Bangkok Shutdown and the elections in images and sound:
www.thailandblog.nl/nieuws/videos-bangkok-shutdown-en-de-keuzeen/

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