BANGKOK — CPN, the property and investment arm of Central Group, announced Tuesday it will open Bangkok’s first outlet stores near Suvarnabhumi International Airport next year.
CPN executive Wallaya Chirathivat said “Central Village” will feature 235 brands including Polo Ralph Lauren, Kenzo, Vivienne Westwood, CK Jeans and Adidas when it opens in August. It will be about 10 minutes by car from the airport with shuttle bus services planned from both the airport and the downtown CentralWorld mall.
The company said it will spend 5 billion baht to build the 40,000sqm on 100 rai (16 hectares) of land. In a release, the company said it will be designed in contemporary Thai style with ample outdoor space, a children’s playground, restaurants and a hotel. The operators expect 17,000 visitors daily for six million annually.
Boonsri Saengyoktrakarn and Rattanachat Saengyoktrakarn hold up photos of people parking illegally in front of their house.
BANGKOK — A court on Monday slapped a 5,000 baht fine on the shopper who blocked a driveway in east Bangkok with her truck, prompting a colorful reprisal.
Rotchanikorn Lertwassana was found guilty of causing a public nuisance to the Saengyotrakarn family, who responded to the illegally parked vehicle by smashing it with an axe and makeshift weapons, footage of which launched them to internet fame this past February.
Apart from the fine, Rotchanikorn was originally sentenced to 15 days in prison, but the court reduced it to a year of probation because she had no previous convictions.
Rotchanikorn told the media at the time that she parked her Nissan there and went shopping at one of five illegal markets that operated around the Saengyotrakarns’ mansion.
A promotional model became the latest new member to join the pro-junta Palang Pracharat Party on Monday. Noppawan Huajaiman, 33, said she has been what in Thai is called a pretty for 10 years and would like to represent their interests in politics. She arrived flanked by fellow models who said they were there to offer moral support.
If the election is held on Feb. 24 as planned, today was the last day to join a political party. Palang Pracharat has been attracting a wide range of celebrities – including former football team manager Watanya “Madam Dear” Wongopasi – as well as key Pheu Thai Party politicians. Pheu Thai accuses it of using money or pressure to convince them to join.
Boonlert Kanpakdee holds 100,000 baht with attorney Songkran Atchariyasap, at right, Monday at Khan Na Yao Police Station.
BANGKOK — A small town official came to the capital Monday to complain about selling a buffalo to a poor farmer whose friendship with the animal made them an internet sensation.
Accompanied by a gadfly ultra-conservative lawyer, an angry Boonlert Kanpakdee went to police in Bangkok’s Khan Na Yao today to complain that he hadn’t meant to sell Tongkum the buffalo and never expected Surat Phaeoket to actually come up with his 100,000 baht asking price.
With the help of donors smitten by their interspecies friendship, Surat on Thursday took possession of Tongkum after handing the money over to Boonlert, a subdistrict chief in Chai Nat province for whom he had been buffalo-sitting.
Boonlert today said he did not like that the purchase was crowdfunded.
“I berated him to his face. How could you act like a beggar? I look bad, as the mayor,” Boonlert said to the media Monday.
With him was Songkran Atchariyasap, a lawyer previously in the news for his outrage over displays of sexuality. He also is the head and sole member of the Network Against Acts that Destroy Kingdom, Religion and Monarchy.
“He solicited funds through people who believed him. I also donated money,” said Songkran, who himself had donated 100 baht. “Soliciting money from citizens is like tricking them. He tricked all the media as well.”
They alleged without evidence Surat’s told people the buffalo was already sold to someone else. Surat denies making such a claim and says a number of media accounts inaccurately embellished his story.
Days after the deal was done, Surat said Boonlert’s just trying to go back on his word.
“[Boonlert] told me he would sell him to me. He’s just changing his mind now,” Surat said by phone Monday. “I did everything correctly with the best intentions.”
As for Tongkum, he said they shall not be parted.
“I just want to be with him forever,” Surat said.
Boonlert said he had no plans to file a criminal complaint against Surat.
Maj. Yuttasilp Plasarn of Khan Na Yao police said they would look into whether any laws had been broken.
Update March 21: Organizer BEC-Tero Entertainment announced that the concert has been canceled due to ‘circumstances beyond our control.’
BANGKOK — Thirty-five years after “West End Girls” became a club anthem, English synthpop veterans Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe, the original Pet Shop Boys, will play Bangkok in April.
Arguably the most successful surviving duo in British music history, Tennant and Lowe, now 64 and 59 respectively, are embarking on an Asia tour announced this morning which includes a Bangkok arena date.
Part of the Super Tour, the gig will take place April 4 at Impact Exhibition Hall 5. Tickets start at 2,700 baht and available online from 10am on Jan. 12.
The duo, formed in London in 1981, is best known for hits “West End Girls,” “It’s a Sin” and an acclaimed cover of “Always on My Mind.” They last played Bangkok in 2013 at Sonic Bang at Impact Arena.
A migrant woman on Sunday helps carry a handmade U.S. flag up the riverbank at the Mexico-U.S. border after getting past Mexican police at the Chaparral border crossing in Tijuana, Mexico. Photo: Ramon Espinosa / Associated Press
TIJUANA, Mexico — Mexico pledged to shore up security near its border with the United States and local authorities said that 39 migrants were arrested after a peaceful march devolved into chaos when U.S. agents fired tear gas into Mexico to stop some migrants who tried to breach the border.
Mexico’s Interior Ministry said Sunday it would immediately deport those who tried to “violently” enter the U.S. from Tijuana. Meanwhile, Tijuana’s municipal government said that more than three-dozen migrants were arrested for disturbing the peace and other charges stemming from the march and what followed.
The vast majority of the more than 5,000 Central American migrants camped out for more than a week at a sports complex in Tijuana returned to their makeshift shelter to line up for food and recuperate from an unsettling afternoon.
Lurbin Sarmiento, 26, of Copan, Honduras walked back to the sports complex with her 4-year-old daughter shaken from what had unfolded a short time earlier at the Tijuana River and U.S. border.
She had been at the bottom of the river — a concrete riverbed conveying a trickle of water — near the border with her daughter when U.S. agents fired tear gas.
“We ran, but the smoke always reached us and my daughter was choking,” Sarmiento said. She said she never would have gotten that close with her daughter if she thought there would be gas.
The gas reached hundreds of migrants protesting near the border after some of them attempted to get through the fencing and wire separating the two countries. American authorities shut down the nation’s busiest border crossing at San Ysidro for several hours at the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.
The situation devolved after the group began a peaceful march to appeal for the U.S. to speed processing of asylum claims for Central American migrants marooned in Tijuana.
Mexican police had kept them from walking over a bridge leading to the Mexican port of entry, but the migrants pushed past officers to walk across the Tijuana River below the bridge. More police carrying plastic riot shields were on the other side, but migrants walked along the river to an area where only an earthen levee and concertina wire separated them from U.S. Border Patrol agents.
Some saw an opportunity to breach the crossing.
A migrant on Sunday waves an Honduran flag along the railroad tracks at the Mexico-U.S. border in Tijuana, Mexico, as a group of migrants tries to reach the U.S. Photo: Rodrigo Abd / Associated Press
An Associated Press reporter saw U.S. agents shoot several rounds of tear gas after some migrants attempted to penetrate several points along the border. Mexico’s Milenio TV showed images of migrants climbing over fences and peeling back metal sheeting to enter.
Honduran Ana Zuniga, 23, also said she saw migrants opening a small hole in concertina wire at a gap on the Mexican side of a levee, at which point U.S. agents fired tear gas at them.
Children screamed and coughed. Fumes were carried by the wind toward people who were hundreds of feet away.
“We ran, but when you run the gas asphyxiates you more,” Zuniga told the AP while cradling her 3-year-old daughter Valery in her arms.
As the chaos unfolded, shoppers just yards away on the U.S. side streamed in and out of an outlet mall, which eventually closed.
Throughout the day, U.S. Customs and Border Protection helicopters flew overhead, while U.S. agents on foot watched beyond the wire fence in California. The Border Patrol office in San Diego said via Twitter that pedestrian crossings were suspended at the San Ysidro port of entry at both the East and West facilities. All northbound and southbound traffic was halted for several hours. Every day more than 100,000 people enter the U.S. there.
Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said in a statement that U.S. authorities will continue to have a “robust” presence along the Southwest border and that they will prosecute anyone who damages federal property or violates U.S. sovereignty.
“DHS will not tolerate this type of lawlessness and will not hesitate to shut down ports of entry for security and public safety reasons,” she said.
More than 5,000 migrants have been camped in and around a sports complex in Tijuana after making their way through Mexico in recent weeks via caravan. Many hope to apply for asylum in the U.S., but agents at the San Ysidro entry point are processing fewer than 100 asylum petitions a day.
Irineo Mujica, who has accompanied the migrants for weeks as part of the aid group Pueblo Sin Fronteras, said the aim of Sunday’s march toward the U.S. border was to make the migrants’ plight more visible to the governments of Mexico and the U.S.
“We can’t have all these people here,” Mujica told The Associated Press.
Tijuana Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum on Friday declared a humanitarian crisis in his border city of 1.6 million, which he says is struggling to accommodate the crush of migrants.
U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter Sunday to express his displeasure with the caravans in Mexico.
“Would be very SMART if Mexico would stop the Caravans long before they get to our Southern Border, or if originating countries would not let them form (it is a way they get certain people out of their country and dump in U.S. No longer),” he wrote.
Mexico’s Interior Ministry said Sunday the country has sent 11,000 Central Americans back to their countries of origin since Oct. 19, when the first caravan entered the country. It said that 1,906 of those who have returned were members of the recent caravans.
Mexico is on track to send a total of around 100,000 Central Americans back home by the end of this year.
Manit Inpim of Transportation for All on the MRT Purple Line in August 2016. Photo: Accessibility is Freedom / Courtesy
BANGKOK — Four years after they won a historic case against the BTS Skytrain, a network of commuters with disabilities said they will file a lawsuit Tuesday over inaccessibility on Bangkok’s MRT subway system.
Manit Inpim of Transportation for All said Monday that they are suing in the Administrative Court because the operator and related government agencies failed to accommodate people with disabilities on the new Purple Line extension despite being warned before construction began. The suit seeks punitive compensation.
“We worked with the public sector from the beginning. I went to observe every station with my wheelchair and made suggestions to all related departments,” he said. “There have been some improvements, but it’s still not enough.”
The Purple Line opened in 2016 after many delays. The activists said they had been trying to work with the city since then on needed improvements.
According to a copy of the suit shared by the group, there are not elevators at each of the 16 stations’ entrances, which are about 200 meters to 350 meters apart. Below them at ground level, sidewalks are not navigable for wheelchairs or those visually impaired, it states. It also alleges that some staircase chair lifts can’t be operated without staff assistance, and onboard wheelchair restraints are not sturdy enough.
The activists said in a statement they chose to file the lawsuit tomorrow to coincide with the first rally 23 years ago by Disabilities Thailand, whose calls for transportation accessibility, they said, have seen little accomplished despite some important legal wins.
“Although every government has policies to improve rights for people with disabilities, enforcement by related agencies is full of problems and obstructions,” the statement read. “The current government has been trying to accelerate the construction and modernization of public transport every day, although the same old problems have yet been resolved. It’s making them permanent, creating more inequality in society.”
The lawsuit demands 16.8 million baht in compensation for six plaintiffs, all representatives from different disabled right groups. It’s based on daily assessed damages per plaintiff since the extension opened in August 2016.
Lawyer Sonthipong Mongkolsawas said they’re considering a class-action lawsuit as the next step.
Manit said administrators should try to think of the bigger picture to understand the issue’s importance.
“This is actually an investment for everyone. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. There’s a possibility for anyone to become disabled,” he said, adding that it would be much easier for the operator to have included such facilities from the beginning.
“Let’s look at the BTS for example. Fixing the stations later is very difficult, nearly impossible,” he said. “The funds spent on additional construction cost them three to four times more than the initial budget.”
He then expressed disappointment with progress four years after winning a landmark court victory that saw City Hall, which owns the system, ordered to make all skytrain stations accessible. The city dragged its feet and has delayed full compliance for years.
“When we won on the BTS, we hoped the government would be shaken and hurriedly solve the problem, but nothing happened,” he said. “The Transport Ministry also has a 20-year strategic plan that includes constructions of skytrains all over Bangkok and the country, but we have no confidence at all that those plans will be completely inclusive for people with disabilities.”
Manit said there has been no further development regarding the BTS case after City Hall in May approved funds for new elevators.
BANGKOK — People were doing double takes in eastern Bangkok at a truck festooned with flags and photos of a smiling man with a number and ballot. Had electioneering already begun?
In fact it was Sirikorn Tanomsup’s unorthodox graduation celebration. On Sunday, a truck emblazoned with flags and campaign-like slogans roamed the streets of Bangkok’s Nong Chok district, announcing to the world the emergence of a new civil engineer from the halls of Mahanakorn Tech.
“Unlocking a civil engineer!” read one sign next to a photo of Sirikorn in his graduation gown. “Really studied. Really graduated. Eight years of waiting,” a series of bullet points read.
The inclusion of a large No. 8 and boxes bore all the hallmarks of that typically seen during electoral campaigns.
Images of the truck spread online, where they have been liked and shared more than 5,000 times. Many saw it as a funny way to fend off nosy neighbors’ questions about his education and advertising his job availability.
It was unclear what hardship doubled Sirikorn’s university years from the usual four required to graduate. Messages sent to him via Facebook were not returned as of publication time.
The internet, as is its wont, did speculate.
“Maybe he was looked down upon for getting an education and no one thought he would graduate. So when he did, it was time to show them by putting signs up and announcing it all over,” user Shigei Tokuda wrote in a comment.
BANGKOK — The wall around the Berlin Wall will come down next week, two weeks after a pair of painted segments were unveiledout of view at the German Embassy. But only for a few hours.
On Friday and Saturday, the German Embassy on Sathorn Road will allow the public in to view two pieces of the original Cold War barrier that divided Berlin for 30 years for one
Friday sessions begin at 1pm and 2pm, while Saturday will see entry at 10am and 11am. Visitors must register beforehand via [email protected] and bring proper identification.
The two segments of the wall were donated to the embassy by German entrepreneur Axel Brauer, where they will remain permanently. All four sides were painted by three street artists from three countries – Mue Bon (Thailand), Kashink (France) and Julia Benz (Germany).
After an unveiling ceremony last month, the segments were kept in the garden of the embassy, which is inaccessible to the public.
Panthongtae 'Oak' Shinawatra, at left, with his father Thaksin Shinawatra and aunt Yingluck Shinawatra in a photo subsequently deleted from his Instagram in February 2018.
BANGKOK — Panthongtae “Oak” Shinawatra, the only son of fugitive former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, entered politics directly Sunday by joining the party founded by his father.
Panthongtae, a 38-year-old billionaire who started Voice TV, said he will campaign for Pheu Thai Party by visiting various constituencies throughout the kingdom. The move put to rest a decade of speculation about whether Panthongtae’s political ambitions. It comes as a number of former Pheu Thai MPs have bolted to either Pheu Thai offshoot parties or those supporting the ruling junta.
“Being a ‘child of Thaksin,’ you can’t lose heart or be indecisive because there’s only two choices, stay quiet and be hunted or move forward with faith and ideology!!” Panthongtae wrote online last night, referring to an ongoing money laundering case against him.
In October, he was accused of laundering billions linked to a loan scandal at state-owned Krungthai Bank. He and his supporters say the charges are the latest in a series of politically motivated prosecutions involving members of the Shinawatra clan.
Panthongtae said he decided to join as “just one ordinary person” because the party, which has won every election for nearly two decades, is shedding members as former MPs switch either for the sake of their political futures or enticements over ideology.
“We will let those who robbed democracy from us, and those who defected out of personal gains, know and learn a lesson that their robbery of democracy won’t last,” Panthongtae wrote on Facebook, where his page has nearly 3 million likes.
As positions are staked out by dozens of parties large and small, new poll results found a statistical tie between Pheu Thai’s de facto leader and the leader of the ruling junta when it comes to who the public would like to see become the next prime minister.
About one-in-four respondents (25.16 percent) said they want to see Sudarat Keyuraphan lead the nation after the general election now slated for late February. Essentially a tie within the poll’s 5 percent margin of error, 24.05 percent of respondents support Prayuth Chan-ocha, who led the 2014 coup which overthrew the previous Pheu Thai-led government. Taking the No. 3 and 4 spots were Future Forward Party leader Thanathorn Juangroongruangkit (14.52 percent) and Democrat Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva (11.67 percent).
The NIDA Poll, conducted this past Tuesday through Thursday, asked 1,260 people over 18 from various professions across the kingdom who they want to see become prime minister after the election.
