A poster for the “Bike From Time to Time" event in Buriram.
BURIRAM — The Election Commission on Wednesday ruled that posters advertising a cycling event in Buriram province must be removed for resembling election posters.
Commissioner Kriangsak Wonglertprayoon said the posters, which promote a biking tournament to be held in May, are too similar to campaign materials, such as the font, style and what appears to be a party name and number.
“These advertisement posters might cause confusion to voters,” Kriangsak said.
The posters were made by organizers of the Buriram Bike Fest, in which cyclists will bike up to 147 kilometers on May 19. They bear close resemblance to thousands of campaign posters that currently plague sidewalks and streets.
“Bike From Time to Time,” the posters declare, using a Thai wordplay on the term pak, which can mean both times and political parties, while a woman on bicycle smiles at the camera in the manner similar to MP candidates.
Listed under “policies” are three different biking routes available in the event. Similar to campaign posters, there’s also a big “X” mark next to number 19, which turns out to be May 19 at a closer look.
It might be a clever marketing strategy, but the election regulators are not amused. Kriangsak said at today’s conference that organizers must remove them immediately and use different designs to avoid confusion.
Boonyos Tala-upara, left, smiles Wednesday at a lump of what could be ambergris on Koh Samui.
KOH SAMUI — A bar owner said Wednesday that a lump he found on the beach a year ago may be a valuable lump of whale vomit.
Boonyos Tala-upara, owner of Beryl Bar on Koh Samui, believes he may have found a 10-kilogram lump of highly valuable ambergris, and is asking for experts to help him identify the lump.
Ambergris, is a rare excretion of digestive products from sperm whales highly valuable in the perfume industry. However, waxy lumps found in the ocean can also be “fool’s gold,” made of clustered pollution.
The lump Boonyos’s found is 50 centimeters long and has a hard brown outer layer and a softer, waxy yellow inside with a raw smell. Boonyos also compared the lump to a candle, and said the lump was definitely not of the same material. When heated with a direct flame, he said the lump melted and regained its form after cooling.
Boonyos said he found the lump about a year ago on the beach at Ao Kaki and took it home. Eventually some of his friends told him it was whale vomit.
In April 2016, a 1.57 kilogram ambergris ball found in Lancashire, England, sold for GBP50,000, or more than 2 million baht. In November of the same year, three Omani fishermen found 80 kilograms of ambergris and sold it for USD3 million, or more than 94 million baht.
Burnt wreckage of a truck used to kidnap two local policemen is seen Wednesday in Narathiwat province.
NARATHIWAT — Two policemen were found shot dead in Narathiwat province early Wednesday after they were abducted by gunmen last night.
Police said they were notified of the abduction at about 7:30pm on Tuesday. Witnesses said nearly 10 armed men dressed as soldiers kidnapped the two officers of Cho-airong police station while they were resting in a local tea shop and drove them away in a truck belonging to one of the officers. Their bodies were found in a roadside ditch past midnight about 200 meters away from where they were last seen.
Both policemen were found with two gunshot wounds to the head and torso, and their hands tied with ropes. Police said a preliminary investigation suggests they were forced out of the car before being shot at close range and dumped at the scene.
Burnt wreckage of the stolen truck was found hours later in the neighboring Tak Bai district which shares the border with Malaysia. Investigators said they were unable to retrieve DNA or fingerprints from the vehicle due to the fire.
Police said three guns including an automatic rifle belonging to the two officers were missing and believed to have been taken by the perpetrators. Authorities suspect they may have fled the country.
Maj. Gen. Dussadee Chusangkij, Narathiwat province police chief, said the attack could be a retaliation for when police shot dead two leaders of an insurgency group Feb. 11 in Chanae district.
Authorities on Wednesday patrol the scene where the bodies of two local police officers were found in Narathiwat province.
Soldiers at the scene of the bomb discovery Tuesday.
PRACHUAP KHIRI KHAN — The military on Wednesday urged commuters to keep out of an abandoned airfield in Prachuap Khiri Khan where a 450-kg bomb was to be destroyed this afternoon.
The bomb, thought to have been dropped by the Allied forces during World War II, was discovered Tuesday close to a railtrack, causing hours of train delays. An air force EOD team estimated the device to have a blast radius of about 1.8 kilometers.
The explosive was moved from where it was found to a disused airfield in Wang Pong subdistrict. It was buried two meter deep to lessen the impact, but the area was nevertheless cordoned off for safety reasons, EOD officer Nawin Wutthiranarit told the media.
The discovery was made by construction crew in Pranburi district who were building a new train track underneath an existing rail bridge, about 500 meters away from Wang Pong Train Station. An excavator hit a metal object while digging, and the crew soon realized it was a large bomb.
“At first I thought it was a bridge pillar, so I picked it up, but my colleagues rushed to tell me it looked like a bomb,” excavator operator Ruangthong Poonriboon told reporters. “I was very shocked … It was lucky the bomb didn’t explode.”
The railway authority immediately halted train travel in the area as a precaution while an EOD team removed the explosive. The team was part of a provincial air force base known for fighting the Japanese army when Japan invaded Thailand in 1941. Rail service resumed at about 8pm Tuesday.
The military said the bomb was one of the explosives dropped by the Allied air force in its campaign against Thailand’s railway after the country joined the war on the Axis side.
Many such explosives remain buried in Thai soil, over 70 years after the war. Officials in Ratchaburi province are struggling to dismantle a cluster of similar bombs found underwater close to a railway bridge there.
The bombs were dropped in 1942 during air raids targeting Chulalongkorn Bridge over the Mae Klong River. The raids destroyed the crossing and killed the Ratchaburi governor at the time.
Future Forward Party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit, center, arrives at the Office of the Attorney General Wednesday in Bangkok.
BANGKOK — Prosecutors on Wednesday accepted a cybercrime case against Future Forward Party leader.
Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit and two senior party members went to the Office of the Attorney General today over their online criticism of the junta last year. Prosecutors accepted the case from investigators and scheduled the first hearing for March 26, two days after Election Day.
The office said it would announce that day whether to indict them over the case.
The three were charged with “spreading false information online” on two separate cases in June involving the livestream video “Return Friday to the People” on the party’s Facebook page and Thanathorn’s criticism written on his own profile.
Thanathorn thanked his supporters and said the party would continue to campaign in an online post.
“Thank you for all of your support. From today on, the Future Forward Party and I will still fully commit to our work. However, I believe what happened won’t be the last obstacle to throw us off our game,” he wrote on Twitter.
The party has also recently been under fire after it was revealed that its website published wrong information under Thanathorn’s profile, saying he was a chairman of the Federation of Thai Industries while he was in fact a chairman of a provincial branch in Nakhon Nayok.
The party spokeswoman said it corrected the profile within hours of being notified, adding that it was an honest mistake. A complaint later filed in early March to the Election Commission over the issue was later dismissed.
Thanathorn once served on the board of Matichon Group, which owns Khaosod English.
Update: This story has been updated with the disposition of a complaint against party leader Thanathorn over his online biography.
This image from video shows Ryuichi Sakamoto, left, and David Bowie in 'Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.'
BANGKOK — It’s a chance to see two British and Japanese music icons as enemies on the big screen in March and April.
Cinephiles will get the chance to see the late David Bowie portray a British prisoner of war in a Japanese camp where Oscar-winning composer Ryuichi Sakamoto poses as a commander when “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence” screens in Bangkok starting next month.
The screeningswill be organized by the Documentary Club.
Based on Laurens van der Post’s experience as a Japanese prisoner of war and directed by Nagisa Oshima, the 1983 British-Japanese film is set during World War II, when the two cultures collided at a Japanese prison camp on Java, Indonesia.
The 120-minute movie – known in many European editions as “Furyo” – stars Bowie and Tom Conti as British military officers. The Japanese are played by Sakamoto and Takeshi Kitano.
Sakamoto won the 1983 BAFTA Award for Best Film Music for the movie’s soundtrack.
It will screen March 21 through April 3 at SF Cinema Central World and from April 4 at alternative cinemas House RCA and Bangkok Screening Room.
Ticket details will be announced at a later date. Central World is reachable via the Skywalk bridge from BTS Siam and BTS Chit Lom.
A landslide in 2014 in West Java, Indonesia. Photo: Devitapra / Wikimedia Commons
JAKARTA — The collapse of an unlicensed gold mine in Indonesia’s North Sulawesi province has buried dozens of people, disaster officials said Wednesday, as emergency personnel struggled to rescue victims in a remote location that’s inaccessible to heavy earth-moving equipment.
Local disaster official Abdul Muin Paputungan said one person is confirmed dead and at least 13 people with injuries ranging from light to serious have been rescued. Dozen could be buried, he said.
“It is estimated that as many as 60 people are buried under landslide and rock material,” he said in a statement released by the national disaster agency.
Makeshift wooden structures in the mine in Bolaang Mongondow district collapsed on Tuesday evening due to unstable soil and the large number of mining holes, burying people in the mine pit.
Informal mining operations are commonplace in Indonesia, providing a tenuous livelihood to thousands who labor in conditions with a high risk of serious injury or death.
Police, search and rescue agency workers, military and Indonesian Red Cross personnel are involved in the rescue effort but the operation is complicated by the remote locale.
Paputungan said the mine and a village connected to it are in a steep area that can only be reached by foot. Earth-moving equipment and ambulances can’t reach the location, he said.
PRACHUAP KHIRI KHAN — The national post service on Wednesday apologized for not delivering letters and packages to homes in Prachuap Khiri Khan province for six months.
The admission came after residents of Bang Saphan Noi district complained online that they had not received any mail. An investigation revealed piles of undelivered mail hoarded at the postman’s home, an official from Thailand Post said today.
Teerapong Thepmanee, in charge of mail service in Prachuap, did not identify the postman in question, but said he quit his job following the discovery.
The complaints affected residents posted said they missed many important documents such as tax forms and even court warrants. One of them posted online that they had to travel to these agencies by themselves to receive documents.
“I was criticized by my clients. The bank documents went missing. I tried to track them down many times. I complained in many channels but they all went silent,” Santat Detkerd wrote. “In the end, I had to drive 400 or 500 kilometers to get the new documents.”
Teerapong said all hoarded mail will be delivered to the intended recipients.
The news is likely of little surprise for those familiar with Thailand Post’s track record. In December, the state enterprise apologized after one of its mailmen dropped packages at a local grocery store instead of delivering them.
Earlier last year, a woman also complained to the media that boxes of chocolate mailed by her Canadian husband were opened and damaged by Thailand Post staff, who reportedly refused to pay compensation.
In this Feb. 25, 2019, photo, Tran Lam Binh poses for a photo with part of his creations in Hanoi, Vietnam. Photo: Tran Van Minh / Associated Press
HANOI — The stereotype of artists as eccentric is a common one, and the work of Vietnamese artist Tran Lam Binh seems to support that view. Since 2015 he has turned out painting after painting of Donald Trump. Many can be seen this week in Vietnam’s capital, Hanoi, where Trump is holding a summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
Binh has also fashioned a statue of the American president that’s almost 2 meters (6½ feet) tall, more or less life size.
Don’t assume Binh is single-minded, however.
In 2017, he began diversifying his portfolio of roughly 50 depictions of Trump by painting portraits of Kim Jong Un as well.
So this week is kind of a perfect storm for 36-year-old Binh with his two favorite subjects coming to his homeland to discuss peace on the Korean Peninsula.
To mark the event, Binh has created about 10 pop-art portraits of Trump and Kim on canvas and paper in bright pink, blue, orange and yellow colors decorated with hearts and the words “Love” and “Peace.”
Binh said he won’t sell the portraits and instead will keep them as a souvenir of the historic event. He may not be turning a profit, but has been reaping a motherlode of publicity as the summit has brought foreign and local media in droves to see him and his work.
Binh started painting Trump portraits in 2015 when the American real estate mogul launched his campaign for the presidency. After Trump’s election victory, Binh staged an exhibition of his works on a sidewalk near the White House.
Binh’s style, with garish colors and casual brush strokes, somewhat recalls the paintings of Canadian comedian Jim Carrey, another Trump obsessive.
Carrey’s barbed caricatures, posted on the internet, make no secret of the fact that he is a fierce critic of Trump and his politics.
Binh, on the other hand, is a fan.
In this Feb. 25, 2019, photo, Tran Lam Binh puts the final touches to a portrait of U.S. President Donald Trump in Hanoi, Vietnam.Photo: Tran Van Minh / Associated Press
“I liked his expression when he was running for president,” Binh said. “He seemed like the world’s most contemporary artwork. He’s at a relatively advanced age, but very youthful, dynamic, fashionable and with inner strength that shows the greatness of a man who can change the world – and so I began my paintings.”
Binh said he wants to invite Trump and Kim, “if they have time,” to visit his studio and view his work.
“I will invite them for coffee and paint portraits of them and give them the paintings as a token with a message of love and peace,” he said.
Tran Tuan Anh, the owner of the cafe where Binh’s works are being displayed, said he hopes Trump and Kim can strike a deal at their meeting in Hanoi.
“With a message of peace in the city of peace, I’m very hopeful that the two leaders will achieve peace for the two countries as well as for the whole world,” he said.
Nigeria's President Muhammadu Buhari speaks Saturday to the media after casting his vote in his hometown of Daura, in northern Nigeria. Photo: Ben Curtis / Associated Press
KANO, Nigeria — Nigeria’s president was declared the clear winner of a second term in Africa’s largest democracy early Wednesday, after a campaign in which he urged voters to give him another chance to tackle gaping corruption, widespread insecurity and an economy limping back from a rare recession.
While many frustrated Nigerians had said they wanted to give someone new a try, President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military dictator, profited from his upright reputation in an oil-rich nation weary of politicians enriching themselves instead of the people.
Supporters began dancing in the streets of the capital, Abuja, on Tuesday night as vote counting stretched his lead from the weekend election to nearly 4 million votes over top opposition challenger Atiku Abubakar, a billionaire former vice president who made sweeping campaign promises to “make Nigeria work again.”
Buhari received 15.1 million votes, the electoral commission said in making its official declaration before dawn Wednesday. Abubakar received 11.2 million. The average national turnout was 35.6 percent, continuing a downward trend.
In a failed last-ditch effort to stop the official declaration, Abubakar’s party claimed that election data had been manipulated and demanded fresh elections in four of Nigeria’s 36 states.
Buhari’s party rejected the accusations. It also called on Abubakar, who hasn’t made a public appearance since Saturday’s election, to accept his loss gracefully and concede. “Let this nation move forward,” campaign spokesman Babatunde Fashola said.
The election, once described as too close to call, suffered from a surprise weeklong postponement and significant delays in the opening of polling stations. While election observers called the process generally peaceful, at least 53 people were killed in an attack claimed by the Islamic State West Africa Province extremist group and other violence, analysis unit SBM Intelligence said.
It remained to be seen whether Abubakar will follow through on pledges to accept a loss, or challenge the results. A former U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, John Campbell, said the troubled election had given the candidates grounds to go to the courts. That route could take months.
Many Nigerians have prayed for peace. They were surprised in 2015 when President Goodluck Jonathan took the unprecedented step of conceding to Buhari before official results were announced. It was the first defeat of an incumbent president by the opposition in the country’s history.
“Jonathan set the benchmark on how electoral outcomes should be handled,” Chris Kwaja, a senior adviser to the United States Institute of Peace, a U.S. government-backed institution promoting conflict resolution worldwide, told The Associated Press. “Accept defeat in the spirit of sportsmanship. This is a critical vehicle for democratic consolidation.”
Nigerians were praised for their patience and resilience in this bumpy vote.
