Thailand Approves Weed Killer Linked to Palsy

By

Chayanit Itthipongmaetee, Staff Reporter

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15 February 2019, 12:08

Advocates for banning paraquat, a popular herbicide linked to serious illness in humans, protest Thursday outside the Industry Ministry in Bangkok.

BANGKOK — A toxic herbicide linked to Parkinson’s disease was approved by officials Thursday for use in Thai agriculture for at least two more years despite health concerns.

Paraquat is among three controversial chemicals that will still be permitted for agricultural use, the Hazardous Substance Committee announced Thursday to the disappointment of advocates calling for its ban. The other two are glyphosate and chlorpyrifos.

The use of the three herbicides and pesticides will be allowed for six crops: rubber, cassava, maize, sugar cane and fruit trees.

The decision passed with 16 votes in favor and five against. There were five abstentions.

On Thursday anti-paraquat organizations such as the Thai Pesticide Alert Network (Thai-PAN) and Biothai Foundation protested outside the Ministry of Industry. One farmer showed reporters lacerations on his leg he said resulted from exposure to paraquat.

After the committee announced its decision, Thai-PAN issued a statement saying its members were “disappointed and saddened” by the decision.

“[We’ll] apply for consideration again in two years,” the statement read. “Such a decision shows indifference toward the strong academic evidence and demands from several organizations.”

Paraquat is the main ingredient in Swiss-based Syngenta AG’s Gramoxone – one of the world’s three most widely-used weed killers – but is also sold under other brand names.

It is banned in nearly 50 countries including all of Europe, which banned it in July 2007.

Syngenta says paraquat is “safe and effective … when used as directed on the label.”

A 2011 study by the US National Institutes of Health found a link between the chemical and Parkinson’s disease in farm workers.

Govt Ups Restrictions on Paraquat, Other Farm Chemicals

UK’s May Suffers Embarrassing Defeat on Brexit Strategy

By

Associated Press

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15 February 2019, 12:08

British Prime Minister Theresa May leaves 10 Downing Street in London, to attend Prime Minister's Questions in 2017 at the Houses of Parliament. Photo: Matt Dunham / Associated Press

LONDON — British Prime Minister Theresa May suffered an embarrassing defeat by lawmakers Thursday in a vote that left her bid to secure a European Union divorce deal stuck between an intransigent EU and a resistant U.K. Parliament – with Brexit just six weeks away.

A rebellion by hard-core Brexit backers saw the House of Commons vote by 303 votes to 258 against a motion reiterating support for May’s approach to Brexit – support expressed by lawmakers in votes just two weeks ago.

The defeat is symbolic rather than binding, but shows how weak May’s hand is as she tries to secure changes to her divorce deal from the EU in order to win backing for it in Parliament. It is likely to leave EU leaders wondering whether May can win support for any kind of Brexit deal, given Britain’s political instability.

May tried to put a positive spin on the result. The prime minister’s office said in a statement that “while we didn’t secure the support of the Commons this evening,” the government believed Parliament still wanted May to seek changes to the Brexit deal that lawmakers could support.

“The government will continue to pursue this with the EU to ensure we leave on time on 29th March,” it said.

Others were blunter.

“What an absolute fiasco this is,” said pro-EU Conservative lawmaker Anna Soubry. A leading pro-Brexit colleague, Bernard Jenkin, used the same word: “Fiasco.”

The vote is the latest outbreak of Brexit-driven chaos that is roiling Britain’s Parliament and imperiling Britain’s orderly exit from the EU.

Two weeks ago, Parliament sent a contradictory message, voting to send May back to Brussels to seek changes to a section of the withdrawal agreement intended to ensure an open border between the U.K.’s Northern Ireland and EU member Ireland after Brexit.

But lawmakers also voted to rule out a “no-deal” exit, though without signaling how that should happen.

On Thursday the government was defeated on an uncontroversial-sounding motion reiterating the earlier decision, when hard-line pro-Brexit lawmakers in the governing Conservatives abstained, accusing the government of effectively ruling out the threat of leaving the EU without an agreement on departure terms and future relations, a move they say undermines Britain’s bargaining position.

“Conservative MPs (members of Parliament) really ought not to be associated with anything, express or implied, which seems to take ‘no deal’ off the table,” Brexit-backing Conservative lawmaker Steve Baker tweeted before the vote.

Pro-EU lawmakers in Britain’s divided Parliament feel the opposite. They fear time is running out to seal a deal before Britain topples off a “no-deal” cliff, with economically devastating results. But the Commons on Thursday rejected two amendments from the opposition that sought to postpone Brexit or steer the U.K. away from the cliff edge.

Lawmakers intent on averting a “no-deal” Brexit are gathering their strength to make a push in a new series of votes on Feb. 27 to force the government’s hand.

By then, Brexit will be only a month away.

May is struggling with little sign of success to win backing for the divorce deal she struck with the EU from both pro-Brexit and pro-EU lawmakers in Parliament, which rejected the agreement by a whopping 230 votes last month.

May has refused take a “no-deal” Brexit off the table as she attempts to win concessions from the bloc. Most businesses and economists say the British economy would be severely damaged if the country crashed out of the EU on the scheduled Brexit date of March 29 without a deal, bringing tariffs and other impediments to trade.

Jeremy Corbyn, who heads the main opposition Labour Party, accused May of sitting on her hands, “hoping that something will turn up that will save the day and save her face.”

Brexit Secretary Stephen Barclay told lawmakers that “the only way to avoid ‘no-deal’ is either to secure a deal on the terms the prime minister has set out” or to cancel Brexit – something the government says it won’t do.

The remaining 27 EU nations insist that the legally binding withdrawal agreement struck with May’s government in November can’t be renegotiated.

Leaders of the bloc have expressed exasperation at Britain’s desire for last-minute changes, and its failure, amid seemingly endless wrangling in the U.K. Parliament, to offer firm proposals.

European Council President Donald Tusk, who chairs summits of EU leaders, tweeted: “No news is not always good news. EU27 still waiting for concrete, realistic proposals from London on how to break #Brexit impasse.”

Labour lawmaker Yvette Cooper said some British politicians were “living in a fantasy world” by believing a solution would magically appear.

“It’s as if we’re all standing around admiring the finery of the emperor’s new clothes and actually the emperor is running around stark naked and everyone is laughing at us – or at least they would be if it wasn’t so sad,” she said.

Story: Jill Lawless

522 Foreigners Got X-Ray Outlawed So Far This Month (Video)

By

Asaree Thaitrakulpanich, Staff Reporter

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15 February 2019, 11:50

BANGKOK — Police arrested more than 500 people in their sweep of foreigners violating immigration law this month.

At 1am this morning, Immigration deputy police chief Maj. Gen. Itthipol Itthisaronnachai invited the media to the Chana Songkhram Police Station on Khaosan Road where he displayed some of the 522 foreigners arrested in the past month.

Many of the arrests were made at hotels, hostels and other lodgings between Chinese New Year and Valentine’s Day, Itthipol said.

The raids were part of Operation X-Ray Outlaw Foreigner, an ongoing operation credited with taking nearly 7,000 foreign nationals off the streets since 2017. It was spearheaded by now-Immigration Bureau Police Commander Lt. Gen. Surachate “Big Joke” Hakparn.

Only 15 were arrested for overstaying their visas, while 287 were arrested for having entered the country illegally. The latter group included nationals from Myanmar (143), Laos (102), Cambodia (38), India (3) and Bangladesh (1).

The remaining 220 were arrested for various other suspected offenses. They included 87 Thais, 79 Burmese, 31 Cambodians, seven Chinese, five Laotians, three Vietnamese, three Turks, and one person each from Israel, India, the Philippines and Iraq. One stateless person was also arrested.

Party Fields Transgender Candidate for Prime Minister

By

Associated Press

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15 February 2019, 11:29

Pauline Ngarmpring, right, a transgender person and a prime minister candidate, and Namklenginarin, center, a candidate for the parliament, both representing the Mahachon party for the upcoming Thai general election, greet people Wednesday during an election campaign in Bangkok. Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe / Associated Press

BANGKOK — As Pinit Ngarmpring, he was a CEO and sports promoter, well known in the world of Thai football. Now, under her preferred new name of Pauline Ngarmpring, she’s pursuing a bid to become the country’s first transgender prime minister.

The 52-year-old is one of three candidates put forward by a political party for the post in next month’s general election.

She says she wants her nomination to bring hope to the marginalized and to open up political space for future generations of LGBT people.

With over a month to go before the March 24 polling day, she campaigned this week in one of Bangkok’s more infamous nightlife areas.

Many vulnerable or exploited people work in this twilight zone of go-go bars, cheap hotels and massage parlors. It’s exactly the constituency the Mahachon party seeks to represent, and she’s eager to hear their concerns.

“Our welfare, mostly. Health,” masseuse Wassana Sorsawang says are her concerns, as she stands outside a shop in an alley off the street. She complains that she and her colleagues often work double shifts, and it affects their health.

The Mahachon party is contesting some 200 seats in the 500-member House of Representatives. About 20 of the candidates are openly LGBT. Pauline joined only last November. Now, as their second-ranked nominee for prime minister, she finds herself a political trailblazer, a unique symbol of the fight for equality.

Pauline Ngarmpring poses for a photograph Thursday at the Mahachon party head office in Bangkok. Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe / Associated Press

It’s fine, she said, even if she cannot achieve her goal of becoming prime minister “because I am the first one who dares enough to announce, ‘hey, we can do it!'”

“We are not saying we are better than male or female,” she said. “We just want to say we are equal.”

Until three years ago, Pauline was Pinit: a father of two, a reporter turned businessman who became well known by founding a soccer fan association that became influential in sporting circles.

Since her gender transition she’s made it her mission, she said, to educate society. Her new political role gives her the perfect platform to counter those who still view LGBT rights – and her candidacy – with skepticism.

“Nowadays people say, ‘Oh you are transgender? You want to become our prime minister. It’s going to be funny, it is going to be a very strange story,'” she said.

“But I don’t think that way,” she said. “Whatever you are, you have your value. You love yourself and then you share with people.”

The party hopes its human rights-based agenda will appeal in particular to the country’s large LGBT and sex worker population. One policy is to legalize prostitution.

The result, Pauline says, could be up to 10 lawmakers in Parliament, thanks to a new electoral system that allocates some of the seats through proportional representation.

But, even given the country’s traditionally accepting view of sexual fluidity, she knows she is not destined to lead the country.

“I will not be a prime minister. But it doesn’t matter. It will take some time and it is not going to be the end of the world after the next election,” she said.

“It doesn’t have to be me. It can be the next generation.”

Story: Jerry Harmer, Tassanee Vejpongsa

South Africa Reports Drop in Rhinos Killed by Poachers

By

Associated Press

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15 February 2019, 11:13

Rhinos walk in the Hluhluwe-Imfolozi game reserve in 2015 in South Africa. Photo: Schalk van Zuydam / Associated Press

JOHANNESBURG — The South African government is reporting progress in the fight against rhino poaching.

The environmental affairs ministry said Wednesday that poachers killed 769 rhinos last year, a 25 percent decrease from the number killed for their horns in 2017.

Authorities attribute the decrease to better security and other nationwide efforts to protect rhinos. The new data shows fewer rhinos killed in most provinces in South Africa, home to most of the world’s rhinos.

However, some conservationists speculate that the killing in past years has reduced poaching opportunities for traffickers.

Vietnam and China are key illegal markets for rhino horn. Some consumers believe it cures illnesses if ingested in powder form, although there is no evidence that the horn, made of the same substance as human fingernails, has medicinal value.

Indonesia Land-Burning Fines Unpaid Years After Fires

By

Associated Press

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15 February 2019, 10:59

Pandu Wibisono, a conservationist of Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Program (SOCP) carries a medical pack in 2017 as he walks on a cleared forest during a rescue operation for orangutans reportedly trapped in its disrupted habitat near a palm oil plantation at Tripa peat swamp in Aceh province, Indonesia. Photo: Binsar Bakkara / Associated Press

JAKARTA — Indonesian plantation companies fined for burning huge areas of land since 2009 have failed to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in penalties meant to hold them accountable for actions that took a devastating environmental and human toll.

The palm oil and pulp wood companies involved in fires owe more than USD$220 million in fines and the figure for unpaid penalties for environmental destruction swells to $1.3 billion when an illegal logging case from 2013 is included, according to separate summaries of the cases compiled by Greenpeace and the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.

Indonesia’s annual dry season fires were particularly disastrous in 2015, burning 2.6 million hectares (10,000 square miles) of land and spreading health-damaging haze across Indonesia, Singapore, southern Thailand and Malaysia. The World Bank estimated the fires cost Indonesia $16 billion and a Harvard and Columbia study estimated the haze hastened 100,000 deaths in the region.

President Joko Widodo and other senior officials vowed action but repeated legal appeals by the 10 companies taken to court by the environment ministry have dragged the cases out for years.

The ministry has issued statements trumpeted progress in sanctioning companies involved in land fires. But the two companies mentioned in those statements that have paid fines totaling $2 million involved environmental damage from open cast mining, not fires, the ministry’s law enforcement director-general, Rasio Ridho Sani, told The Associated Press.

Greenpeace Indonesia said the unpaid fines are money owed to the Indonesian people that could pay for large-scale forest restoration and for health and emergency infrastructure for when the fires strike again.

“By not enforcing these laws the government is sending a dangerous message: company profit comes before law, clean air, health and forest protection,” forests campaigner Arie Rompas said in a statement Friday.

In a case that cited fires between 2009 and 2012, palm oil company Kallista Alam appealed its 336 billion rupiah ($24 million) fine all the way to the Supreme Court and then sought a judicial review of the Supreme Court decision against it.

Fires intentionally set by the company in 2012 to clear land for palm oil tore through the Tripa peat swamp in Aceh on the island of Sumatra, killing wildlife including endangered Sumatran orangutans and blanketed surrounding areas in a thick haze.

Tripa is part of the 2.6 million-hectare (6.4 million acre) Leuser national park, which is that last place on earth where endangered Sumatran orangutans, tigers, elephants and rhinos share the same wild environment.

When the Supreme Court rejected Kallista Alam’s judicial review, the company appeared to have exhausted all its legal options.

But it avoided payment by getting a legal protection order last year from the Meulaboh district court in Aceh which is responsible for enforcing the fine, according to a ministry document that details the court’s numerous instances of apparent non-cooperation in the case. The ministry said it has appealed the order to the Supreme Court.

Activists who said they’d gathered 200,000 signatures on a petition against Kallista Alam, protested outside the Meulaboh court in January, media in Aceh reported. Kallista Alam couldn’t be a contacted. The phone number listed for it in an online companies database is inactive.

Sani, the environment ministry official, said in seven cases enforcement of fines is held up because the local courts responsible for enforcement and the companies involved haven’t received copies of final rulings.

“The Ministry of Environment and Forestry is consistent in making efforts in environmental law enforcement, including forest and land fires, by filing lawsuits in civil, criminal and administrative courts,” he said.

In a case from 2014, the ministry sought a 7.8 trillion rupiah ($553 million) fine for fires on 20,000 hectares of land controlled by Bumi Mekar Hijau, a pulp wood company that is part of Indonesia’s Sinarmas conglomerate.

A provincial court in 2016 imposed a far smaller than demanded fine of 78 billion ($5.5 million) but it remains unpaid.

A spokeswoman for the Asia Pulp & Paper arm of Sinarmas, owned by one of Asia’s richest families, said a director dealing with the case was on sick leave and couldn’t immediately respond.

“As citizens, if we don’t pay our taxes we get sent to prison,” said Rompas, the Greenpeace campaigner. “So why aren’t the owners of these big companies being forced to pay what they owe or sent to prison if they don’t pay?”

Story: Stephen Wright

Jimmy Carr’s ‘Weird Honking Goose’ Laughter to Return to Bangkok

By

Chayanit Itthipongmaetee, Staff Reporter

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15 February 2019, 10:56

Update: The show was rescheduled to March 29 instead of its original date April 6.

BANGKOK — Get ready to be heckled by the comedian with the funniest – or most annoying – laugh in the world.

Notorious British stand-up comedian Jimmy Carr will return to Bangkok in ~~April~~ March to play with his hecklers and deliver sex and Mum jokes with a straight face, The Comedy Club Bangkok announced Thursday night.

The show is a part of Carr’s latest “The Best of Ultimate Gold Greatest Hits World Tour.” Tickets range from 1,800 baht to 3,500 baht and can be reserved online.

The show will take place ~~April 6~~ at 8pm and 10:30pm on March 29 at The Grand Ballroom of The Westin Grande Sukhumvit. The five-star hotel is located on Soi Sukhumvit 19 and can be reached by a short walk from BTS Asok.

Carr, 46, is a comedian of British and Irish citizenship. Apart from his dark humor, unapologetically controversial jokes and interaction with hecklers during shows, Carr is known for his unique and unnatural laughter, which has been compared to the sound of a “weird honking goose.”

High Stakes: Thai Party Plants Seeds for Pot Revolution

By

Pravit Rojanaphruk, Senior Staff Writer

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14 February 2019, 18:20

Bhumjaithai Party leader Anutin Charnvirakul has gone all in on legalization of cannabis. He leads the largest party to call for full legalization.

BANGKOK — The party which has covered Bangkok with images of cannabis leaves says not only is full legalization a core campaign policy – it won’t join a ruling coalition that supports anything less.

Though not alone in advocating for full legalization, Bhumjaithai, which won 34 seats in the 2011 general election, is the most viable one to go all in on Thailand’s decriminalization push, literally framing the issue as a win for the people in campaign posters everywhere.

“Marijuana is not a drug that should be illegal,” party leader Anutin Charnvirakul said Wednesday night at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Thailand, adding that, unlike alcohol and cigarettes, marijuana has great health benefits such as treating cancer, Alzheimer’s and insomnia.

“This policy will surely improve a lot of people’s well-being,” Anutin said, cautioning it will take time to put the policy into action – and change attitudes.

The party has proposed allowing every household to grow six plants that could only be sold to state agencies. Anutin estimated it could generate 420,000 baht per family.

Cannabis is a campaign issue going into the March 24 election. These widely distributed Bhumjaithai Party posters promote it as a boon to Thai farmers. Photo: Bhumjaithai Party

On Thursday, party policy advisor Julpas “Tom” Kruesopon said that cannabis has the potential to become a more lucrative cash crop for Thai farmers if its growth and sale is legalized. Julpas said the combined worth of the five largest cash crops – rice, tapioca, sugarcane and rubber – would be worth less than that of cannabis. He cited California as an example.

“If you look at the state of California, they collected 4 billion US dollars in taxes last year from cannabis sales,” he said.

The party is supporting not only the medical use of marijuana, but recreational as well. Asked if Bangkok could turn into Amsterdam with many “coffee shops” selling cannabis, Julpas said “Bangkokians would then be very happy.”

Julpas said the policy is one of the tangible policies set forth by the party alongside legalizing Airbnb and Grab services.

“We want to introduce policies that are helpful to people instead of policies that cause more infighting,” Julapas said.

The advisor, who is not a party member, said no major parties have come out against Bhumjaithai’s proposal.

That doesn’t mean everyone’s on board, however. The Democrat Party’s deputy leader said the party would only support the cultivation and use of cannabis for medical use, not recreational.

“The party doesn’t support smoking marijuana freely,” Nipit Intarasombat said. “Marijuana is the beginning of drug addiction. It’s okay to use it for medical purposes but there must be limits to its use.”

According to Julpas, legalizing marijuana doesn’t mean anyone can just smoke it for fun. Like alcohol, he said, its sale and use will be restricted to those of legal age.

The spokesman of a progressive fringe party said Thursday it supports a similar push to fully legalize marijuana.

Pakorn Areekul of the Commoner Party said it would want to ensure big agribusiness could not monopolize production. It will also consider limits on how much farmland can be used to grow it.

“It’s a measure to protect monopolization,” Pakorn said, adding that anyone should be free to grow marijuana in their backyards, like a small vegetable garden.

Some other parties have taken internal, pro-cannabis positions but don’t see it as a winning issue with voters. The party that has struck some of the most aggressively progressive positions, Future Forward, has not stated a position.

Additional reporting Chayanit Itthipongmaetee

Bangkok Biker Bowls Over Pedestrian With Temerity to Warn Him

By

JINTAMAS SAKSORNCHAI

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14 February 2019, 16:49

BANGKOK — A man waits for a bus. Seeing a motorcycle trespass on the sidewalk, he warns the rider. Moments later, the bike returns and plows into his body, knocking him to the ground before speeding off.

That was the incident described online by someone whose security footage of the assault baffled netizens and quickly spread through the Thai net on Thursday. It was revealed later that it happened Feb. 1 in the old royal quarter on Lan Luang Road.

“They just turned around to hit him. It’s my friend’s brother. I don’t have more details,” user Prasert Sae-ung wrote in the video’s caption.

The man who was hit said today that he had warned the rider not to ride on the sidewalk before he was hit, which injured his hip. He added that police contacted him yesterday to say his attacker offered 5,000 baht to withdraw the charges, which he refused.

The video had been shared more than 16,000 times and watched over 1.2 million times as of Thursday afternoon. Most comments condemned the rider.

City Hall in October announced it was doubling fines for sidewalk riders as hundreds of checkpoints set up across Bangkok haven’t discouraged them.

ขี่บนทางเท้า บอกว่าบีบแตรทำไม ขี่ย้อนกลับมาชนเลย ครับ น้องชายเพื่อนครับ ไม่มีรายละเอียดครับ

โพสต์โดย ประเสริฐ แซ่อึ๊ง เมื่อ วันพุธที่ 13 กุมภาพันธ์ 2019

Court Accepts Request to Disband Pro-Thaksin Party

By

Teeranai Charuvastra, News Chief

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14 February 2019, 16:27

Reporters take photos of a statement by the Constitutional Court declaring that it has accepted a request to disband Thai Raksa Chart Party.

Update: The Constitutional Court postponed the next hearing for the Thai Raksa Chart Party to 3pm on March 7.

BANGKOK — The Thai Raksa Chart Party appeared headed toward oblivion Thursday after a court with the power to disband political parties agreed to take up the case against it.

The Constitutional Court said representatives of the accused party must report to the tribunal within seven days and state their wish to fight the case. Failure to appear will be considered the same as declaring no contest to the charge, the court said in a statement released Thursday.

Read: Facing its Demise, Thai Raksa Chart Demands Fair Trial

Thai Raksa Chart, part of a faction loyal to former leader Thaksin Shinawatra, said it’s confident of proving its innocence in court.

“I cannot see any allegation that we cannot explain,” Surachai Chinchai, the party’s head attorney, told reporters moments after the news broke.

If found guilty, the party will be disbanded and its executives banned from politics for up to 10 years. More than 200 candidates fielded by the party for the March 24 election would also be removed from the race.

Other pro-Thaksin parties have been dissolved by the same court in the past decade, including the governing People’s Power Party on alleged counts of vote buying in 2008. Two parties in the Thaksin-led coalition were also disbanded in the same year.

The complaint was filed to the court Wednesday by the Election Commission, which argued that Thai Raksa Chart broke election law by nominating princess Ubolratana Mahidol as its prime minister candidate last week.

Hours after the nomination became public, His Majesty the King decreed Ubolratana cannot run for office because she’s part of the royal family despite resigning from the nobility in 1972. Ubolratana herself has disputed the king’s interpretation in an Instagram post.

The commission accused the party of drawing the monarchy into politics, which election regulations prohibit.

The first hearing against Thai Raksa Chart is set for ~~Feb. 27~~ March 7.

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