News from Thailand – September 29, 2013
Cute right? The charter flight on which panda bear Lin Ping left for Chengdu in China on Saturday was codenamed Flight of Love. Hundreds of fans of the bear, which had its own TV channel when it was young, waved goodbye to Lin Ping at Chiang Mai airport after a parade through the city from the zoo. They include former Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat and Chinese Ambassador Ning Fukai.
Lin Ping does not have to be bored along the way, because there are car tires and plastic footballs in his cage. For the inner man – or rather: the inner animal – there is bamboo and other food. Lin Ping doesn't have to feel lonely either, because vet Kannika Jantarangsri accompanies her.
Six males are waiting for her in China. Lin Ping gets to choose the most attractive partner and then just hope that the wedding night pays off. The couple (or is it three?) will return in May next year and stay in Thailand for 15 years. The government pays China 32 million baht per year for this.
The government is also funding an additional $500.000 a year to extend Lin Ping's parents' stay. The 10-year contract expires next month. Last Friday the female was artificially inseminated. The result will be known in two to three weeks.
Photos: Two mascots accompanied Lin Ping on her way to the airport.
– The penalties for poachers are too low, says Deputy Superintendent Akanit Danpitaksat of the police in Kathu (Phuket). The low sentences handed out by the court do not deter poachers. And that also applies to lures who peddle in tourist areas with protected animals, such as the slow loris and the iguana, and lend them as a photo prop. Akanit responds with his statements to photos of pop star Rihanna who had herself photographed with a slow loris and posted them on her Instagram account.
Bangkok Post went to investigate on Soi Bangla, Phuket's main tourist street, a week after the Rihanna incident became known, but the lures were nowhere to be seen. Islanders say they have been a regular streetscape for years.
Akanit does not call the recent arrest of two suspects a publicity stunt. “Normally we check every night, not just because of Rihanna's pictures. We've put up signs warning tourists that loris shows are illegal.' The policeman points out that it is difficult to notice the animals, because it is small and can easily be hidden.
According to Petra Osterberg, a Phuket Gibbon Project volunteer, they may attack if they are not comfortable. Their bites are highly venomous. To prevent this, almost all loris have had their teeth pulled, with the result that they can never be returned to nature.
– Prostitutes are reducing the number of assaults and rapes, said Napanwut Liamsanguan, head of the Children and Women's Protection Unit of the Bangkok Municipal Police. Without prostitutes there would be more crime and there would be more sex assaults. 'That's not disgusting; it's human nature," he says in an interview Spectrum, the Sunday supplement of Bangkok Post. Since I'm going to dedicate a separate article to that, I'll leave it at this one quote.
– In an undercover operation in Rayong, a 36-year-old transvestite was arrested who used women, including minors, as sex workers. Madame Louise, as she is nicknamed, was handcuffed in a hotel on Friday evening after police officers posed as customers. The mama-san (Thai term for whore madam) provided them with seven wives, including two 17-year-olds, for a payment of 17.500 baht. Louise has admitted to doing the job for four years. Most of the girls were high school and university students. He/she charged 2.500 baht per shift, of which he/she pocketed 1.500 baht. Regular customers were civil servants, business people and people with a big wallet.
– Members of parliament should improve their lives and not be so aggressive, according to 67 percent of the 1.873 respondents in a poll by Abac. They are annoyed by the aggressive language and by proxy voting (voting by proxy). On the other hand, 32 percent have no problem with it. 75 percent are disappointed with it proxy voting and 24 percent say this happens so often it seems to be normal. 89 percent think MPs should be more polite, 10 percent think they already are.
[I love polls; mainly because you can make people say anything in a poll, like a public relations officer on the British TV series Yes minister ever said.]
– On October 7 and 9, a working group of Yingluck's reconciliation forum will meet on a framework for national reconciliation. Advisor Banharn Silpa-archa announced this yesterday after a conversation with two cabinet ministers. The first meeting deals with economic and social issues and the second with political matters. When the framework is ready, Banharn goes senior public figures ask for their opinion, but he does not want to say who he has in mind.
– A bread bakery in Lam Luk Ka (Pathum Thani) was reduced to ashes yesterday. Two buildings in the complex, in which bread is baked and stored, were destroyed. The damage is estimated at 10 million baht. There were no injuries.
– A taxi driver hanged himself in a police cell of the Chokechai bureau. He was arrested yesterday afternoon in Lat Prao because he wanted to bribe the police with 100 baht when he was parked incorrectly.
– TV channel 9 (Mcot) has suspended broadcasting of a documentary about the protest against the Mae Wong dam (from the walking tour, you know). She was supposed to be in the program yesterday Khon Khon Khon (People Searching People) are broadcast. According to producer TV Burapha, the broadcast could not go ahead due to 'certain problems'.
An environmental group says the broadcast has been suspended because it would be too biased. After the decision it rained phone calls. Some suspect that the government has intervened. They ask Burapha to distribute the documentary via YouTube.
The Mcot vice president says that the documentary only talks about opponents. The company has asked Burapha to also allow advocates to speak. Then the broadcast can continue.
The producer came under fire earlier for his statements that some brands of packaged rice were contaminated with chemicals.
– The rubber farmers in Nakhon Si Thammarat ended their blockade of the Khuan Nong Hong intersection on highway 41 on Friday evening. They called off the blockade because the police released one of their leaders, who had been arrested and imprisoned on September 16. Many protesters and seventy police officers were injured in skirmishes between police and demonstrators.
The police have also promised that the protesters will not be prosecuted. She offered to write a report praising the protesters to increase the chances of acquitting those already charged.
The four police checkpoints near the protest site remain occupied for the time being. Yesterday the Sart Duean festival started in the South.
Political news
– I have to correct a message. Earlier, I wrote on the paper's authority that Democrats had filed two petitions with the Constitutional Court asking whether the bill to change the Senate election process violates the Constitution. See my post 'Yingluck has a problem' in News from Thailand yesterday.
But today I read in the newspaper that these petitions should go to the Court via the President of the Chamber, who says that he refuses to do so. Prime Minister Yingluck now has her hands free to present the bill to the king for signature.
The bill passed its third and final reading yesterday by a vote of 358 to 2. The Democrats did not participate in the vote. The chamber president bases his refusal on a precedent in 2011, but the Democrats say the two cases are not comparable.
Economic news
– Thailand's credit rating remains unchanged at BBB+ despite risks such as a shrinking payment surplus, a widening budget deficit and high private sector leverage [?]. Andrew Colquhoun, head of the Asia-Pacific sector, said this Friday at a Fitch Ratings seminar in Bangkok. Fitch's XNUMXth birthday was celebrated with the conference 'Global Risks and the Outlook for Thailand'.
According to Colquhoun, Thailand's macro economy and external finances are sound, public finance is neutral and the economic structure is weak. He cited high private debt and low gross domestic product per capita as shortcomings.
The positive potential of the country is constant growth without imbalance and the faster stabilization of the national debt than the current projection. Negative potentials are weak political management and a return of social and political instability.
Fitch Ratings continues to monitor the impact of government policies such as the rice mortgage system, the 2 trillion baht infrastructure plan and rising household debt as a result of the first car programme.
www.dickvanderlugt – Source: Bangkok Post