A Kerry Express worker poses for pictures with sex toys meant for a customer. Photo censored by original poster. Image: laanews / Facebook
BANGKOK — A major delivery service on Tuesday said it fired four of its employees for unboxing a customer’s sex toys and playing with them.
Without naming any of the offenders, Kerry Express said the four violated the firm’s privacy policy by not only opening the packages without consent, but also posting photos of the contents on social media and forwarding the client’s private details to their coworkers.
“Every executive member of the company feels deeply sorry for this incident,” a statement posted online by the company said. “We are sorry for the disappointment and embarrassment it has caused.”
In photos uploaded by the now-expelled deliverymen – which were set to public – the men can be seen posing for pictures with the unboxed sex toys and laughing with their friends. They also made sexually-charged comments about the customer.
“I’ll hurry up and deliver it to you,” one of the staff members, who goes by Facebook username Bom Dongked, wrote in a caption. “You are probably really horny.”
Another man, using the username Chuttakan Kitsakul, also revealed he sent the address, phone number and even pictures of the unnamed client to his colleagues in a private message.
“I already found the owner,” Chuttakan wrote in reply to his friend’s post about the sex toys.
Both Bom and Chuttakan appear to have deactivated their Facebook accounts at publication time.
In its statement, Kerry Express said the supervisor in charge of the four employees will also be subject to disciplinary punishment. The company also promised to take “legal actions” against those responsible.
The reaction from social media users has been overwhelmingly negative, with many of them raising concerns about their privacy in using Kerry – which is widely regarded as superior to the state-owned mailing system.
Another general complaint referred to the absence of any protection or safety measures for the affected customer.
“The company should also compensate and be responsible to the customer,” one user wrote. “And there’s a safety concern for the customer too. If the expelled employees harm them, who will take responsibility?”
Another user wrote, “In this case, you must find new homes for the affected customer. You fire those people, but they still know the address. These kinds of people won’t know remorse. They will end up harassing the customer, trust me.”
Batman and Kamen Rider share a "big bike" during a charity drive in Korat on March 17, 2018.
BANGKOK — A proposed tax hike on high-powered sports motorcycles due to their large carbon footprint will soon be submitted to Cabinet for consideration, a source has revealed.
The source from the Government House said the proposal – which is to be made by the Excise Department – will aim for a tax rate increase from 2.5–9 percent to that of 3–18 percent on large motorbikes, known as “big bikes” in Thailand.
If approved, a big bike – defined as a motorcycle with engine size 400 cc onward – formerly priced at one million baht could cost as much as 90,000 baht more.
The proposal rides on bigger motorcycles emitting higher levels of carbon and consuming more gasoline.
The proposal states that a 3 per cent tax will be applied to motorcycles which emit no more than 50 grams of carbon dioxide per km. A 5 per cent tax will be applied on motorcycles that emit 50 to 100 grams of carbon per km.
Motorcycle emitting 100 to 130 grams of carbon dioxide per km will be levied a 9 per cent tax. Those emitting over 130 grams of carbon dioxide will come with an 18 per cent tax, the report said.
Under the proposal, the new rate will be effective in 2020 and apply to new vehicles whether produced or assembled locally or in another a country.
This Sunday, April 28, 2019 photo provided by Raymond Huffman shows Massachusetts Institute of Technology's signature Great Dome draped with a giant cloth version of Captain America's red, white and blue shield, in Cambridge, Mass.(Raymond Huffman via AP)
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Student pranksters at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have struck again, drawing inspiration from America’s hottest movie.
MIT students over the weekend draped the university’s signature Great Dome with a giant cloth version of Captain America’s red, white and blue shield.
Their efforts drew a Twitter “Very cool!” from actor Chris Evans, the Massachusetts native who plays Captain America in “Avengers: Endgame.”
The shield went up Saturday night and was taken down Monday morning.
MIT students have for generations centered similar pranks, which they call “hacks,” on the dome.
A realistic police cruiser was placed on the dome in 1994. In 1999, it was decked out to look like R2D2, the robot from “Star Wars.”
Raymond Huffman, a 20-year-old from New York’s Long Island, says he didn’t have anything to do with this year’s prank, but posted on YouTube aerial video he shot from his drone of the final product that’s since generated tens of thousands of views.
Huffman said a friend involved in the prank told him the group had spent about six months planning the effort.
The prank tradition isn’t an annual event at MIT and tends to happen spontaneously by groups of students that, for the most part, want to remain anonymous, he added.
“It’s kind of cool to see the hacking culture has been maintained,” Huffman said. “These are things you hear about when you first come to MIT.”
Migrants gather at the Mexico-U.S. border after getting past a line of Mexican police at the Chaparral crossing in Tijuana, Mexico, Sunday, Nov. 25, 2018, as they try to reach the U.S.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is proposing charging asylum-seekers a fee to process their applications as he continues to try to crack down on the surge of Central American migrants trying to cross into the U.S.
In a presidential memorandum signed Monday, Trump directed his attorney general and acting homeland security secretary to take additional measures to overhaul the asylum system, which he insists “is in crisis” and plagued by “rampant abuse.”
The changes are just the latest in a series of proposals from an administration that is struggling to cope with a surge of migrant families arriving at the southern border that has overwhelmed federal resources and complicated Trump’s efforts to claim victory at the border as he runs for re-election. Most of those arriving say they are fleeing violence and poverty and many request asylum under U.S. and international law.
As part of the memo, Trump is giving officials 90 days to come up with new regulations to ensure that applications are adjudicated within 180 days of filing, except under exceptional circumstances.
And he is directing officials to begin charging a fee to process asylum and employment authorization applications — which do not currently require payment.
The White House and DHS officials did not immediately respond to questions about how much applicants might be forced to pay, and it is unclear how many families fleeing poverty would be able to afford such a payment.
The memo says the price would not exceed the cost of processing applications, but officials did not immediately provide an estimate for what that might be.
Trump also wants to bar anyone who has entered or tried to enter the country illegally from receiving a provisional work permit and is calling on officials to immediately revoke work authorizations when individuals are denied asylum and ordered removed from the country.
He is also calling on Homeland Security to reassign immigration officers and any other staff “to improve the integrity of adjudications of credible and reasonable fear claims, to strengthen the enforcement of the immigration laws, and to ensure compliance with the law by those aliens who have final orders of removal.”
Arrests along the southern border have skyrocketed in recent months, with border agents making more than 100,000 arrests or denials of entry in March, a 12-year high.
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Associated Press writer Colleen Long contributed to this report.
United States Attorney Nick Hanna stands next to photos of Mark Steven Domingo, during a news conference in Los Angeles on Monday, April 29, 2019. (AP Photo/Richard Vogel)
LOS ANGELES — An Army veteran who converted to Islam and discussed launching various terror attacks throughout Southern California was arrested as he plotted to bomb a white supremacist rally as retribution for the New Zealand mosque attacks, federal prosecutors said Monday.
Mark Domingo, an infantryman who served a combat stint in Afghanistan, was arrested Friday after visiting a park in Long Beach where authorities said he planned to plant home-made explosive devices made with nail-filled pressure cookers in advance of a Nazi rally scheduled Sunday.
Domingo, 26, was arrested on a charge of providing material support to terrorists. A criminal complaint said he had been planning since March to “manufacture and use a weapon of mass destruction in order to commit mass murder.”
U.S. Attorney Nick Hanna told a news conference that Domingo supported violent jihad and spoke about becoming a martyr and of pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group if it established a presence in the United States.
“This is a case in which law enforcement was able to identify a man consumed with hate and bent on mass murder, and stop him before he could carry out his attack,” Hanna said. “The criminal case outlines a chilling terrorism plot that developed over the past two months and targeted innocent Americans that he expected to gather this past weekend.”
Investigators said Domingo posted an online message March 3 that said “America needs another Vegas event,” an apparent reference to the 2017 mass shooting that killed 59. He allegedly said it would spark civil unrest to weaken “America by giving them a taste of the terror they gladly spread all over the world.”
After Domingo began to discuss seeking revenge for the March 15 attacks that killed 50 people at New Zealand mosques, a confidential source who has worked with the FBI since 2013 began chatting with him about his plans.
Domingo said he had an assault rifle, semi-automatic rifle and several magazines of ammunition. He discussed picking off Jews walking to synagogue, shooting police officers or attacking a church or military base, according to investigators.
When the source asked him how he planned to carry out violence without getting caught, court records said Domingo replied: “Martyrdom, bro.”
He also allegedly discussed killing a neighbor he was upset with as a prelude to broader violence and later contemplated bombing the Santa Monica Pier, where he said a summer attack on the crowded tourist spot would maximize casualties because people wouldn’t be able to escape the blast in the enclosed space.
Eventually, he settled on the idea of planting an improvised explosive device that would be remotely triggered or detonated by a timer at a white supremacist event, investigators said. The confidential source connected him with a purported bomb maker who was actually an undercover police officer.
Domingo bought 8 pounds (3.6 kilograms) of nails long enough to puncture internal organs and provided them to the bomb maker, though the resulting contraption contained only inert materials, authorities said.
If he survived the planned bombing, Domingo allegedly discussed launching further attacks on the Long Beach Port or on a train.
The plot was thwarted just two days ahead of the event, investigators said, when an FBI SWAT team arrested Domingo after he was given the pressure cookers and surveyed Bluff Park in Long Beach, where the rally was supposed to happen.
White nationalists, however, never showed up at the park Sunday. Instead, a large group of counter protesters demonstrated for peace.
Phone and email messages seeking comment from the public defender representing Domingo were not immediately returned. A voicemail left at a phone number listed for Domingo was not returned.
A statement from his family asked for privacy.
“We do not know what is going on at this point,” the statement said. “We are surprised by all of these events in regard with Mark.”
The suspect’s younger brother told reporters outside the family’s Los Angeles home that Mark Domingo had converted to Islam in recent months.
“Like anybody else, I don’t want to assume a thing when someone joins a new religion,” James Domingo said. “If anything, I thought it was a good thing. I thought maybe my brother finally found some sort of guidance in this world.”
James Domingo declined to speculate on whether his brother was guilty, only saying he would “wait for the trial.”
Domingo is believed to have acted alone and authorities said the public was not at risk. After Domingo was identified online by the FBI, he was under surveillance around the clock, said Ryan Young, the FBI special agent in charge of counter terrorism at the Los Angeles office.
“Our biggest fear is this was a rapid what we call ‘radicalization to mobilization to violence,‘” Young said. “Sometimes we get asked ‘What keeps you up at night?’ This is a case that keeps us up at night.”
While Domingo had appeared committed to carry out the plot, court papers portray him as suddenly reluctant as the bomb plot came together.
He told the others he thought were his confederates they should consider postponing so he could finish reading the Quran and experience the Muslim holy month of Ramadan beginning in May.
Last Wednesday, he told the confidential source he wanted to think about it for a night.
“Let’s just sleep on it,” he said, according to court papers. “If we’re still as motivated … I’ll give the go-ahead.”
The next day he sent a message to the supposed bomb maker that the plan was on. The two referred to the bombs as “presents” they needed to wrap for a party.
“Keep the presents somewhere safe lol,” Domingo wrote back Friday morning before making plans to meet that night.
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Associated Press reporters Christopher Weber and John Antczak contributed to this report.
BANGKOK — 90s and noughties fans will flock to squeal at five men singing love ballads when the Backstreet Boys croon at their third concert in Thailand this October.
The Backstreet Boys will make their first Southeast Asian stop of their “DNA World Tour” on Oct. 24 at Impact Muang Thong Thani, announced BEC-Tero entertainment company.
Tickets will go on sale on May 11, with prices starting at 3,000 baht. This will be the boy band’s third concert in Thailand. Previously they visited in 2006 for their “Never Gone” tour and in 2015 as part of the “In A World Like This” tour.
The boys – Howie Dorough, Nick Carter, Kevin Richardson, Brian Littrel and AJ McLean – are expected to perform both late-nineties hits such as “I Want It That Way” and “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” as well as more mature singles like “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” from their 2018 album.
The Backstreet Boys, active for 26 years since their founding in 1993, are one of the most enduring as well as best-selling boy bands of all time. They have released nine studio albums (on top of a number of live and compilation albums) and were the first act since Led Zepplin to have their first 10 albums all land in the top 10 of the Billboard charts.
Chanvith Iddhivadhana, Country Manager at Fortinet (Thailand) shakes hands with Somchai Hiranyakorn, Managing Director of Exclusive Networks (Thailand) in new distributor appointment inauguration.
Bangkok, 26 April 2019 – Fortinet® (NASDAQ: FTNT) has appointed Exclusive Networks (Thailand) as its new value-added distributor (VAD) to expand its business and security footprint in the Thailand market.
Effective since April 1, 2019, this agreement authorizes Exclusive Networks, the global specialist VAD for cybersecurity and cloud transformation, to offer Fortinet’s advanced threat management solutions in its enterprise customer base whilst providing associated technical expertise, services and support in consultancy design, engineering deployment as a turnkey solution provider.
Chanvith Iddhivadhana, Country Manager at Fortinet (Thailand) says, “We are confident that Exclusive Networks will capitalize on the great value-added distribution momentum with this move for both organizations’ business success. We, at Fortinet believe that along with technological performance, we need to adopt new value-added distribution models to drive market transition and deliver optimum value to our customers.”
Exclusive Networks is the global specialist VAD for cybersecurity and cloud transformation who believes in disruptive distribution models more than selling product boxes. With the strong reseller network, customer understanding, new technology expertise, complete technical pre-sale to post-sale support; Exclusive Networks has high capabilities in pushing Fortinet’s solution through its reseller channel to enterprise customers.
Currently, 80% of Exclusive Networks’ 200 resellers have an active presence in the enterprise market including 5 strategic verticals in government, education, telco, manufacturing and FSI. Exclusive Networks can help Fortinet maximize the reach to these potential markets and blend the best-of-breed capabilities of the world’s leading cybersecurity technologies into the infrastructure.
According to Somchai Hiranyakorn, Managing Director of Exclusive Networks (Thailand), “We have a strong reputation and in-depth understanding of the cybersecurity and our long standing expertise in the area confirms that Fortinet is unique and a clear leader in cybersecurity industry. We regard Fortinet as strategic vendor and a key partner for us in this sector.”
With this partnership, Exclusive Networks is committed to supporting Fortinet’s business by providing a dedicated team to focus exclusively on Fortinet’s product marketing management, inside sales representative, pre-sales and post-sales functions, as well as internal resource pool who will design regular marketing programs, partner enablement and training sessions so as to improve the necessary knowledge and skills to sell Fortinet’s solutions.
“We believe that Fortinet’s fabric security ecosystem, an open advance security platform delivering broad protection and visibility to every network segment, device, and appliance, whether virtual, in the cloud, or on-premises can meet the demands of the enterprises in Thailand. This partnership is a strategic move designed to further strengthen our focus on the advanced security technologies space where we see a huge opportunity for incremental growth”, added Somchai.
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About Fortinet
Fortinet (NASDAQ: FTNT) secures the largest enterprise, service provider, and government organizations around the world. Fortinet empowers its customers with intelligent, seamless protection across the expanding attack surface and the power to take on ever-increasing performance requirements of the borderless network – today and into the future. Only the Fortinet Security Fabric architecture can deliver security features without compromise to address the most critical security challenges, whether in networked, application, cloud or mobile environments. Fortinet ranks #1 in the most security appliances shipped worldwide and more than 385,000 customers trust Fortinet to protect their businesses. Learn more at https://www.fortinet.com, the Fortinet Blog, or FortiGuard Labs.
About Exclusive Networks
Exclusive Networks is the global specialist VAD for cybersecurity and cloud transformation and ‘go-to’ value-added distributor that accelerates market entry and growth for its vendor and reseller partners. Combining specialist value-adding technical and marketing support inside each local territory, with the volume and reach of a global distributor, reseller partners rely upon Exclusive Networks to boost business opportunities and help achieve new revenues from the changing enterprise technology landscape.
Exclusive Networks continually challenges traditional VAD models, redefining value and creating differentiation. We call this ‘Disruptive Distribution’.
Exclusive Networks is an Exclusive Group division.
Future Forward leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit observes a recount in Nakhon Pathom on April 28, 2019.
NAKHON PATHOM — Future Forward Party on Monday called for a poll to be re-organized entirely in a constituency where a rival party is disputing its narrow victory.
The call came after the Election Commission admitted “errors” had occurred during Sunday’s confusing recount of ballots in Nakhon Pathom’s no.1 constiuency, when officials announced Future Forward as the winner over the Democrat Party by 62 votes.
“There is reliable evidence suggesting that the election in Constituency 1 of Nakhon Pathom province was neither free nor fair,” a statement issued by Future Forward Party read.
The statement also noted that the Election Commission has reported different results for the constituency five times, and that a brief blackout took place during the recount on April 28.
The recount initially found that Future Forward Party candidate Sawika Limpasuwanna secured a very thin majority over Democrat Sinthop Kaeophichit. However the commission made a U-turn today and said a formal result could not yet to be announced – citing unspecified human errors.
“I have to admit that there were errors in the counting process, both on March 24 [election day] and during the recount,” Commissioner Sawaeng Boonmee told reporters. “It has damaged our organisation’s credibility.”
He added, “Let me say that those errors were caused by personnel.”
Yesterday’s recount was thrown in doubt when the Democrat Party said its own count showed Sinthop defeated Sawika by four votes.
The controversy is the latest to dog the Election Commission, which has come under heavy criticism from anti-junta politicians for its failure to confirm official election results even though a month has passed since the poll.
Responding to the criticism, Sawaeng said officials can only release formal results after all legal challenges and fraud allegations are resolved.
“The Election Commission can only release the results of the MP elections when preliminary investigations confirm that they were transparent and fair,” he said.
BANGKOK — Netizens on Monday were floored to see a pavement privately built by JW Marriot Hotel torn apart by City Hall, who said the material was not up to standard.
According to Bangkok governor Aswin Kwanmuang, the pavement was destroyed on the hotel’s request because the path turned slippery when raining. JW Marriott refused to confirm whether this was the case.
“We don’t have any details yet,” public relations officer Alex Sasirote said by phone when questioned about City Hall’s explanation.
Built by the five-star hotel between Soi Sukhumvit 2 and 4, the upscale pavement was hailed by many advocates of pedestrian rights as superior to government-sponsored footpaths – many of which are plagued by random potholes, uneven ground and various obstacles.
Anti-Hawkers, a Facebook page dedicated to advocating for a walkable city, first posted photos of the demolition on April 27 with a caption reporting that city officials had judged the structure “not up to the standard”. The move was hammered by many netizens mourning the ideal sidewalk.
“When the bureaucracy said the structure built by the private firms was not up to its standard, it’s true,” user Kritsanat Wangsakratit wrote. “The private firms build their stuff stoutly, beautifully and way beyond the bureaucracy’s standard.” But governor Aswin insists it was JW Marriot who asked for the demolition, citing concerns that the pavement turned slippery when it rained.
“They were afraid that members of the public and tourists who walk by could suffer accidents,” Aswin told reporters.
Some netizens sided with City Hall and confirmed the area indeed becomes treacherous under the rain.
“I fell on my butt there once when the ground was wet,” Narin Gop Yenthanakorn wrote in a comment thread.
Soldiers confront reporters as the junta seized power on May 22, 2014.
BANGKOK — The junta will publish a report on progress made to the country to mark five years in power, a regime spokeswoman said on Monday.
Col. Sirichan Ngathong said various organs under the junta have been instructed to compile a report summarizing accomplishments and milestones in national development achieved since coming to power in May 22, 2014.
Those documents will then be publicized to the public, Sirichan said.
The junta, known formally as the National Council for Peace and Order, ousted the Pheu Thai-led government in 2014 amid street protests.
Sirichan’s announcement came after the World Bank forecast last week that the GDP growth rates of Thailand and Vietnam will decline in 2019. Thailand’s growth rate was projected at 3.8 percent this year, down from 4.1 percent in 2018.
The military government is now mulling new stimulus measures, including a possible tax deduction of up to 20,000 baht for domestic tourists and a cash handout for welfare cardholders to buy school textbooks, school uniforms and textbooks.
