BANGKOK — A construction worker trapped in the wreckage of a crane high above Bangkok was brought down safely after an accident killed four of his coworkers, but he later died at the hospital.
The crane partially collapsed Wednesday afternoon at the construction site of the Lumpini Park Rama 3 Riverine condominiums on Rama III Road. Police said the trapped worker, Termsuck Sripituk, 42, suffered a broken leg and could not climb down on his own, as well as lost a lot of blood.
Just before 3pm, rescue workers ascended the collapse crane’s exterior to reach the trapped man.
They said he was conscious and able to communicate. Within half an hour, they had secured him by rope and harness and were bringing him down slowly. The man reached the ground safely around 4pm and has been sent for medical treatment at Charoenkrung Pracharak Hospital.
Termsuck later died at the hospital Wednesday night from his injuries, bringing the total death count to five.
This is a developing story that may be updated at any time without notice.
In this photo taken through frosted glass, Burmaa Oyubchineg, cousin of the murdered Mongolian model Altantuya Shaariibuu, arrives Wednesday at Shah Alam High Court in Shah Alam, Malaysia. Photo: Yam G-Jun / Associated Press
SHAH ALAM, Malaysia — The family of a Mongolian woman murdered in Malaysia 13 years ago hopes to find answers with a lawsuit that opened in court this week, their lawyer said Wednesday.
Altantuya Shaariibuu was shot dead and blown up with military-grade plastic explosives in a jungle outside Kuala Lumpur in October 2006. Her killing touched off a scandal linked to former Prime Minister Najib Razak, but he repeatedly denied any involvement.
Two members of an elite police unit who were Najib’s bodyguards were convicted of killing Altantuya. Her lover Abdul Razak Baginda, a close aide to Najib, was tried but acquitted of abetting the crime, whose planner was never determined. Altantuya was 28 and pregnant at the time of her death.
There was speculation that Altantuya, who was also working as a translator for Abdul Razak, was killed to shut her up from exposing alleged corruption involving the purchase of submarines from France under Najib, who was then defense minister. Najib later became prime minister, until his party lost power in a shocking defeat in May last year.
The new government last year ordered investigations into her death to be reopened following appeals from Altantuya’s family. The family filed a lawsuit in 2007 seeking 100 million ringgit (USD$24 million) for the shock and trauma they suffered over her death, but the case was delayed pending conclusion of the criminal trial.
Lawyer Sangeet Kaur Deo said Altantuya’s family wants justice for her. One of her two sons died last year, she said.
The family “wants to know who ordered her murder and we hope to get some answers from this trial,” she told The Associated Press. The lawsuit names the government, Abdul Razak and the two policemen as defendants.
Burmaa Oyunchimeg, a cousin of Altantuya, testified Wednesday that Altantuya and Abdul Razak were lovers since 2004. She said Altantuya had shown her photographs of a trip to Paris with Abdul Razak in 2005, including one of her taken with Abdul Razak and Najib.
“I remember I saw a picture of three people, two men and Altantuya. I asked her who they were, and she said one was the deputy prime minister and the other was (Abdul) Razak who worked with him and do business together,” said Burmaa, the first witness in the trial. She didn’t elaborate further.
Najib has sworn that he didn’t know the Mongolian nor had any connection with her.
One of the policemen convicted of the murder fled to Australia while his conviction was on appeal. Sirul Azhar Umar has been detained there since 2015 for overstaying his visa and has offered to return to Malaysia to provide evidence in the case if he is promised a pardon. His colleague is on death row.
Altantuya’s father, Shaariibuu Setev, is due to testify later this week.
A landslide in 2014 in West Java, Indonesia. Photo: Devitapra / Wikimedia Commons
JAKARTA — Torrential rains that overwhelmed a dam and caused landslides killed at least six people and displaced hundreds in the central Indonesian district of Gowa, an official said Wednesday.
The dead included two infants who drowned and a man who was electrocuted after the floods began late Tuesday, said Adnan Purichta Ichsann, the chief of Gowa district in South Sulawesi.
Rescuers were still evacuating residents to shelters at a government office and mosques, Ichsann said.
Staff at the Bili Bili dam, a rock-fill embankment dam, didn’t have time to provide advance warning of the water release, he said.
“Torrential rain caused a dam to be overwhelmed by water, forcing us to open it to prevent a greater danger. This is what caused flooding in some areas,” Ichsann said.
Deadly landslides and floods are a frequent occurrence during seasonal rains in Indonesia. A landslide in Sukabumi on the main island of Java earlier this month killed 32 people.
Ichsann said the death toll could rise as areas hit by landslides are waiting for heavy earthmoving equipment to join the search effort.
Several bridges were damaged by the flooding and power has been cut to the district.
Inmates at Immigration Detention Center, or IDC, speak to reporters Monday.
Top: Inmates at Immigration Detention Center, or IDC, speak to reporters Monday.
BANGKOK — Children are no longer being held in that nation’s immigration detention facilities, immigration police said Wednesday in a move lauded by human rights advocates.
Instead of forcing minors to languish alongside other inmates inside Bangkok’s central Immigration Detention Center, or IDC, prison warden Thatchapong Sarawanangkool said children and their mothers will now live in shelters run by the social affairs ministry.
“At this moment we’re speaking, there is no children being held in any of immigration detention facilities,” Thatchapong said by phone.
Entrance to the Immigration Detention Center.
Sunai Phasuk, a campaigner from Human Rights Watch, confirmed the news.
“It’s true. It is now a government policy,” said Sunai, whose organization has advocated for an end to such child detentions for several years. “The policy complies with international standards … It’s a welcome step.”
Thatchapong spoke two days after he and new immigration police chief Surachate Hakparn led reporters on a tour of the largest such prison tucked away near hips bars and eateries on Bangkok’s Soi Suan Phlu.
The facility has gained infamy for tales of filth, dire conditions, overcrowding and children as young as 3 locked up behind bars without any opportunity to attend school.
But that’s not the case anymore, according to Lt. Gen. Surachate, who goes by nickname Big Joke. After announcing last week that the jail was now free of children, Surachate invited reporters to see living conditions inside the prison for themselves.
Entire families with children were among about 200 Uighur refugees captured in southern Thailand in 2014 and subsequently held at Immigration Detention Centers. Photo: Associated Press
“I won’t comment on what happened in the past, but from now on, the Immigration Bureau has to be transparent,” Lt. Gen. Surachate spoke last Wednesday at the Foreign Correspondent’s Club of Thailand. “Everything has to be brought out to the open.”
The prison visit on Monday also coincided with the Thai government’s signing of a pledge to end child detentions, though Sunai the activist said the change already happened months ago.
“As far as I know, it started late last year, when Big Joke was launching his ‘xray operations’, and some children were caught up in it,” Sunai said, referring to raids on foreigners living and working illegally in the kingdom. “Some organizations reminded the Immigration Bureau to implement the policy, and the bureau complied.”
Hell on Earth – No Longer?
The new measures are a big step since 2016, when the BBC published an expose of children living in the squalid and overcrowded jail with their mothers. Some of them suffered from diarrhea and nausea due to poor sanitation.
The prison used to hold up to 3,000 people in the past, but that number stood at 825 on Monday, Thatchapong and Surachate told reporters during the visit. Most are from the Middle East.
A famous group of Russian and Belarussian sex instructors had been locked up there for nearly a year until they pled guilty to the court on Jan. 16. They were deported the following day.
Those remaining are probably the most diverse group you can find in one place in Bangkok – Britons, Syrians, Pakistanis, Russians, Turks and even a Thai.
The tour included the prison yard, where newcomers were searched and fingerprinted, three shared cells – including one for female detainees – a telephone area, an exercise yard and a doctor’s office.
There is also an office of United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, inside the compound. Col. Thatchapong said UN officials work there on weekdays. In an emailed statement, the UN agency confirmed it has access to the detainees.
“UNHCR has a regular presence at the IDC to counsel persons of concern, as well as conduct necessary interviews,” the agency said. “Ultimately, access to this government facility is determined by the immigration authorities.”
Reporters were allowed to speak to the prisoners on the condition their identities and photos not be published.
Those inmates, dozens of men stripped to their waist, crowded around a metal barrier when they spotted the reporters. Most simply looked on with curiosity. Those who could speak English or had friends who speak the language laid out their grievances.
Among the complaints were poor food, rampant skin diseases, an unmoving bureaucracy (“It took ages to do anything” one inmate said angrily) and a lack of adequate drinking water.
“It’s hot in here. They should give us more water,” a man who said he was from Iraq complained.
Not everyone was gloomy. By an irony of fate, one man said he was happy to be here. He identified himself as a 20-year-old Thai man born in the United States. He had American citizenship but had lived in Thailand all his life with his Thai parents. Life took a turn when he was caught stealing a motorbike (“I was drunk”) and sentenced to a year in jail.
Inmates’ medical records inside the doctor’s office.
Because of his US nationality, immigration insisted on deporting him to the states after he served his time. The inmate said he will go to Utah, meet up with a friend and find work there.
“I’m pretty excited actually,” the man said, grinning. “I want to go to the US.”
None of those interviewed said they had been abused by the guards. Two British men, arrested for overstays, said they had access to the embassy staff and could make phone calls to their families.
To defuse any potential racial and religious conflicts, Col. Thatchapong said prison guards segregated the inmates into groups based on ethnicities and faiths.
He also maintained that the prisoners have convenient access to in-house physicians. Those feeling ill must inform the group leader, who will in turn inform the guards. Those with serious conditions would be sent to hospital.
Waiting For New Homes
Those held at the facility include not only convicted criminals and visa violators, but also asylum seekers.
Thailand is not a signatory to international conventions on refugees, and the law considers refugees and asylum seekers without valid visas as criminals, much to the chagrin of human rights activists. The Thai authorities also have a history of forcibly repatriating people back to homes they’ve fled despite fears for their safety.
Conversely, it’s allowed thousands of refugees from Myanmar to remain in border camps for decades.
Surachate, the new immigration chief, said there will be no forced repatriations under his watch – a stance he adopted after a young Saudi woman who renounced Islam was detained in Bangkok while trying to escape her family to Australia.
Rahaf Mohammed al-Qunun, 18, was eventually allowed to enter Thailand under care of the UN Refugee Agency, which granted her refugee status and found her a home in Canada.
Luggage of those held at the detention facility.
“We will not send anyone to their death,” Surachate repeated his stance from earlier this month to reporters last week.
He said there are about 200 Pakistani inmates who refuse to go home because of sectarian violence, so immigration lacks any authority to deport them.
Thatchapong the warden said it’s up to the UN Refugee Agency to find countries that will accept them.
Years-long delays without any news are a common complaint of the thousands of refugees living in semi-freedom in Bangkok. Some of those held at the detention center said they have waited years for the UNHCR to resettle them.
“It’s very slow,” said a Palestinian man who fled Syria six years ago. He said he didn’t want to be drafted into the army, so he just ran. “Anywhere is better than home.”
Visiting area for lawyers and embassy officials.
An man holding a refugee ID card identifying him as from Iraq said he has been waiting to be resettled for over a year. Another prisoner said he knew someone in his cell that has spent the last decade waiting for a new home, to no avail.
In its statement, the UNHCR said resettlement can be extremely difficult.
“Less than 1 percent of the world’s refugees are resettled each year and the number of places available continues to decline,” the agency said. “Regardless of nationality or place of origin, UNHCR refers only the most vulnerable refugees for consideration by resettlement countries.”
The statement added, “Ultimately it is up to these countries to decide whether or not to accept the refugees, based on their law, criteria and national policies.”
Students wear masks at at Patai Udom Suksa School on Jan. 15 in Bangkok, where all outdoor activities and physical education classes were canceled.
BANGKOK — Western students have snow days off from school, Thai students have flood days, and now, days off from school due to smog.
Although not mandated by education officials, a few schools in the capital have canceled classes for the rest of the week for fear of students falling sick. Satit Chulalongkorn University School, located downtown, said it was canceling classes after some students had taken ill.
“Students from Kindergarten 1 through Grade 6 were found likely to fall ill in large numbers. We discussed with Bangkok public health officials and were recommended to close the school to curb the spread of illness,” the school said in a post to Facebook.
Satit Chula students well have Wednesday through Friday off.
“The three-day closure will allow the school to clean classrooms, equipment and other items,” the school wrote.
Closure has also been announced at the Roong Aroon School in west Bangkok’s Bang Khun Thian district. But staff answering the phone at both the Education Ministry and the Basic Education Commission Office said they were unaware how many schools had closed due to the smog.
The office presiding over primary through high school did release a warning to schools nationwide on Friday leaving it to administrators to decide whether to close or just halt outdoor activities.
The announcement also said teachers should be in charge of “school hygiene, researching, and creating student histories in the event that a child falls sick from the dust.”
Air quality levels Wednesday morning showed unhealthy levels in western Bangkok and provinces to the west including to Kanchanaburi, Ratchaburi, Samut Sakhon and Nakhon Pathom.
“We concluded that [enusing] health problems would affect students of all ages,” the school announced Tuesday night. “We recommend students stay inside to avoid the pollution.”
MELBOURNE, Australia — Serena Williams was one point – just one – from quite a comeback victory in the Australian Open quarterfinals when she turned her left ankle.
Everything unraveled from there.
In a startling reversal and result, Williams wasted four match points along the way to dropping the last six games of a 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 loss to No. 7 seed Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic at Melbourne Park on Wednesday.
“I was almost in the locker room,” said Pliskova, who trailed 5-1 in the third set, “but now I’m standing here as the winner.”
So instead of Williams moving closer to an eighth championship at the Australian Open and record-tying 24th Grand Slam title overall, it is Pliskova who will continue her pursuit of her first major trophy.
In the semifinals, Pliskova will face No. 4-seeded Naomi Osaka, who advanced by beating No. 6 Elina Svitolina 6-4, 6-1 earlier Wednesday.
Williams’ surprising loss scuttled a much-anticipated rematch after her loss to Osaka in the chaotic U.S. Open final last September.
The 37-year-old American’s match against Pliskova was played under a stifling sun, with the temperature around 80 degrees (25 Celsius), and Williams often stepped into the patches of shade behind each baseline. She did not start well, not well at all, and her mistakes were mounting and deficit was growing.
Only after trailing by a set and a break at 3-2 in the second did Williams seem to get going. From there, she immediately earned her first break point of the match and converted it to get to 3-all, beginning a run in which she claimed nine of 11 games.
That seemed to put her in control. And then it all changed. Serving for the victory at 5-1, 40-30, Williams was called for a foot fault – reminiscent of an infamous such call at the U.S. Open a decade ago. During the ensuing point Wednesday, Williams twisted her left ankle and dumped a forehand into the net.
She grabbed at her foot right afterward, and would go on to cede that game.
Not a big deal, right? She still had a sizable lead.
Except three more match points would follow, and Pliskova staved off each one.
Williams would again serve for the match at 5-3 – and again get broken. The owner of the most feared and respected serve in women’s tennis was broken for a third time in a row at 5-all, and Pliskova was on her way.
“She got a little bit shaky in the end,” Pliskova said. “So I took my chances. And I won.”
A visitor stands in front of stock trading boards at a private stock market gallery Jan. 17 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo: Yam G-Jun / Associated Press
SINGAPORE — Asian markets were flat in subdued trading Wednesday as Japan reported weak export data and news surfaced of possible hiccups in China-U.S. trade talks.
Keeping Score
Thailand’s SET was trading at 1,615.43, gaining 0.9 percent. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index was less than 0.1 percent higher at 20,631.54 and South Korea’s Kospi rose 0.3 percent to 2,123.92. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng edged less than 0.1 percent higher to 27,021.90. The Shanghai Composite index likewise gained less than 0.1 percent to 2,581.62. Australia’s S&P ASX 200 was flat at 5,856.70. Shares fell in Taiwan, Singapore and Indonesia but rose in Malaysia.
Wall Street
U.S. investors returned from a holiday Tuesday to lower global growth forecasts by the International Monetary Fund and news that China’s economy expanded last year at its slowest pace since 1990. Reports that the Trump administration recently rejected a meeting with Chinese trade officials caused major indexes to slip further. The S&P 500 index declined 1.4 percent to 2,632.90. The Dow Jones industrial average dropped 1.2 percent to 24,404.48 and the Nasdaq Composite was down 1.9 percent at 7,020.36.
Japanese Trade
On Wednesday, Japan released weaker-than-expected trade data for December. The country said its exports fell by 3.8 percent from a year earlier, its largest drop in two years. It also posted its first full-year trade deficit since 2015. Imports climbed 1.9 percent in December, missing the market estimate of a 3.7 percent rise, and way below November’s 12.5 percent surge. Weaker Japanese exports suggest that a slowdown in China, the world’s second largest economy, is starting to have an impact on companies elsewhere that rely on it for business.
US-China Relations
Media outlets including the Financial Times and CNBC have reported that the White House turned down an offer by Chinese trade officials to meet in Washington this week, because of the lack of progress on matters like intellectual property theft. According to the reports, which cited unnamed sources close to the matter, the preparatory talks were meant to soften the ground before China’s economy czar, Vice Premier Liu He and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer meet on Jan. 30 and 31. White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow denied that, saying both sides are working toward the higher level talks.
Analyst’s Take
“The U.S. strategy might be to raise pressure on the Chinese ahead of the hard deadline in March, but this makes for uncomfortable interpretation by markets, and could potentially induce excessive volatility in the interim,” Chang Wei Liang of Mizuho Bank said in a commentary.
Energy
U.S. crude picked up 3 cents to USD$53.04 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract closed $1.03 lower at $53.01 per barrel on Tuesday. Brent crude, used to price international oils, gained 7 cents to $61.57 per barrel. It dropped $1.24 to $61.50 per barrel in London.
Currencies
The dollar strengthened to 109.69 yen from 109.37 yen late Tuesday. The euro rose to $1.1366 from $1.1361.
This image released by Netflix shows Yalitza Aparicio, center, in a scene from the film "Roma," by filmmaker Alfonso Cuaron. Photo: Carlos Somonte / Netflix via AP
LONDON — Five movies about individuals and families confronting social and historical tumult are competing in the Academy Awards’ race for best foreign-language film.
Mexican director Alfonso Cuaron’s autobiographical masterpiece “Roma” and Polish filmmaker Pawel Pawlikowski’s 20th-century romance “Cold War” were among contenders announced Tuesday. They are up against German director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s artist biopic “Never Look Away,” Japanese filmmaker Hirokazu Kore-eda’s’s subtle family story “Shoplifters” and “Capernaum,” a powerful neo-realist drama about a Syrian child refugee from Lebanon’s Nadine Labaki.
The winner will be announced at the 91st Academy Awards ceremony on Feb. 24.
“Roma” received 10 nominations in all, making it the Oscars front-runner alongside Yorgos Lanthimos’ pungent period drama “The Favourite.” Cuaron’s black-and-white film is up for trophies including best director and best picture.
“LONG LIVE ALFONSO!!” tweeted Cuaron’s compatriot, director Guillermo del Toro, while the Mexican Institute of Cinematography posted: “Feel the Mexican power!”
The awards-season success of the Netflix-produced “Roma,” which stars best-actress nominee Yalitza Aparicio as the nanny to an affluent Mexico City family, is a sign of the blurring lines between Hollywood movies and international fare.
“Human experience is one in the same, and it’s so gratifying that a black and white film about life in Mexico is being celebrated around the world,” Cuaron said in a statement. “We are living a great moment in cinema where diversity is embraced by audiences.”
Another black-and-white period drama is also a contender: “Cold War,” Pawlikowsi’s tale of romance between a singer and a musician across midcentury Europe.
The film, inspired by the director’s parents, was also nominated for Oscars in cinematography and directing.
“Cold War” cinematographer Lukasz Zal said he was “very touched, very happy” by the nomination, and “terribly happy that I could take part in this great adventure.”
Pawlikowski’s last film, “Ida,” won the foreign-language Oscar in 2015.
Von Donnersmarck, who won the foreign-language Oscar in 2007 for Cold War surveillance drama “The Lives of Others,” is nominated for “Never Look Away,” which follows an artist’s evolution in a traumatized post-World War II Germany.
It also received a cinematography nod for Caleb Deschanel.
“Never Look Away,” which explores the healing power and the limits of art, was inspired by the life of 86-year-old German artist Gerhard Richter.
Richter cooperated with the director for the project but has criticized the finished film, telling the New Yorker that it had managed to “abuse and grossly distort my biography.”
Kore-eda, who won the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize with “Shoplifters,” said he never expected U.S. recognition for his tale of a family on the margins of Japanese society.
“(The) other four nominated titles in the category are absolutely amazing and strong, and I’m proud that Shoplifters is selected among them,” Kore-eda said in a statement.
Labaki, the only female director among the five, was celebrating Lebanon’s second-straight nomination, after Ziad Doueiri’s “The Insult” in 2018.
“We have always thought as Lebanese people that unfortunately nothing is possible because we always thought Lebanon is a very small country and we have always felt that we are almost invisible on the map,” she told The Associated Press.
Labaki, whose film follows a 12-year-old Syrian refugee struggling to survive on the streets of Lebanon, said she hoped its success would show that “anything is possible, it doesn’t matter where you come from, where you are born, what is your background.”
“Anything is possible. You just have to believe in your dream.”
Adam Faulkner, at left, and Tim Stephens earlier this month in Bangkok.
Top: Adam Faulkner, at left, and Tim Stephens earlier this month in Bangkok.
BANGKOK — Chanted Indian prayers, flute notes from a Tajik funerary dirge and a chirping crosswalk button near Bangkok’s Giant Swing.
Those are some of the audio samples collected by a duo cycling thousands of miles from London to Tokyo on a mission to produce an album and hour-long documentary on their musical pilgrimage.
After 10 months on the road, they arrived in Bangkok right on New Year’s Eve. When Khaosod English caught up with them at a cafe in the Phra Khanong area, they showed up in swimming shorts.
“There’s always an amazing sense of achievement cycling into a big city that you’ve looked forward to visiting for a long time, and Bangkok really delivered,” Tim Stephens said.
Total Bike Foreverconsists of Stephens, 30, and 32-year-old Adam Faulkner. Half of a UK quartet called Bear Muda, the pair last year quit their full-time office jobs to embark on an epic journey.
“We wanted to travel and we wanted to play music. We gave it some thought, and we realized we could do both,” Stephens said. “It’s got to a point when we’re like ‘let’s give it a try and see what happens.’”
“It’s another full-time job: cycling, plus music,” Faulkner said with a chuckle. “But we have a balance. We’d stop cycling and make music with people that we meet.”
That means taking a break from pedaling to play ambient electronic music at various stops along the way. They’ve made a number of songs inspired by the cultural diversity and experiences they encounter.
“I Waited Too Much” was improvised when the duo tried to kill some time while stuck waiting four days at a port in Azerbaijan for a ship across the Caspian Sea. Arriving at a gas station in Turkey, they spent a night there and made a song about petrol pumps. It’s called “Fill it Up.”
Inspired by a warden met in Tajikistan’s Pamir Mountains, “Afghan Hound” was born during a live radio performance in Delhi.
“You don’t know what the next sounds would be or what you’d make,” Faulkner said.
Traveling light with limited gear strapped to their bikes, Stephens and Faulkner rely on collaborating with local talents to complete a proper track.
After their first impromptu gig in Macedonia to the live radio show in India, they came to Bangkok with two gigs lined up.
Early this month Stephens and Faulkner took over the deck at Studio Lam and played alongside local electronic trio Orbital XX, who last month were a top-billed act at Wonderfruit.
A week after that, they performed with local keyboardist Keith Nolan at Check Inn 99.
“We loved playing in Bangkok.” Stephens said. “The band we played with and supported were amazing and the venues were very different from each other. Definitely gave the sense that we were just scratching the surface of the city.”
Nolan, who jammed to a couple of songs with Total Bike Forever at Check Inn 99, described the duo’s music “creatively fresh” with “interesting” samples and a strong electro backbeat.
Total Bike Forever performs early January at Studio Lam in Bangkok
“They came to meet me, and I was so impressed with what they have set out to achieve,” Nolan said. “I was also impressed with how they had traveled so far with such clever sampling and music technology. … They can play anywhere including on the top of a cliff and in the middle of nowhere.”
It was one night in Bangkok after a wander through Khaosan Road that Stephens and Faulkner stopped at a crosswalk near the Giant Swing, where they pulled out a recorder to record its unique chirping sound for possible use.
Leaving Bangkok last week, they struck out toward Khon Kaen, where they stopped by to see The Paradise Bangkok Molam International Band play.
“Watching them was amazing as the music really connected with us and we watched them in the province they originated from. They haven’t played there for years, and the crowd’s reaction was electric,” Stephens and Faulkner wrote in an email before hitting the road for Laos. “[It’s] one of the highlights of the trip so far.”
Total Bike Forever jammed with Keith Nolan at Check Inn 99 in Bangkok
After Laos, the Total Bike Forever duo will cycle to Vietnam, South Korea and then in their final destination, Japan.
A social media personality holds a "mock election" on Jan. 7 to lampoon the government's repeated delays of voting. Image: Pangpondontour / Facebook
Update: Election date is set for March 24.
BANGKOK — The final hurdle to holding an election this year was cleared Wednesday morning by a royal decree that brings Thailand closer to the elusive poll.
Signed by King Vajiralongkorn, the brief royal decree empowered the government and related agencies to hold voting for the House Representatives. The Election Commission has five days to set a date for election day after the decree is enacted.
For the past year, the junta had pledged an election would be held Feb. 24, but officials have walked back that vow since early January, when His Majesty the King announced that his coronation would take place May 4.
Election officials said earlier this month they could not finalize the date without a royal decree, which had failed to materialize as expected.
Media reports in recent days cited government sources that a new date would be set for March 24. Minutes after the royal decree was enacted, the Election Commission called an urgent meeting at its headquarters, raising speculation that an election date would be announced as early as today.
Election laws require the poll take place before May 9.
