A public service announcement by the Cam Chau Ward People's Committee reads "Youth, please stay away from drugs" in Vietnamese in 2014 in Vietnam. Photo: lightwrite / Flickr
HANOI — A court in northern Vietnam has sentenced nine people including three women to death after finding them guilty of heroin trading and possession.
Three others were given life sentences while the court in Ha Nam province, 60 kilometers (38 miles) south of Hanoi, handed down jail terms between 12 to 20 years to nine others on the same charges at the end of the five-day trial Friday.
The official Vietnam News Agency says they were convicted of trading and possessing nearly 19 kilograms (42 pounds) of heroin between June 2016 and March 2017.
Vietnam has one of toughest drug laws in the world where trafficking 100 grams of heroin or 600 grams of opium is punishable by death.
People rally in 2013 outside the Broadmeadows Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) Centre, advocating for the acceptance of refugees in Melbourne, Australia. Photo: Takver / Flickr
MELBOURNE, Australia — Australian officials have raised with Thai authorities the plight of an Australia-based refugee professional soccer player who was detained in Bangkok and fears deportation to his native Bahrain, Australia’s foreign minister said Friday.
Rights groups are urging Thai authorities not to deport Hakeem Ali Mohamed Ali AlAraib to his homeland, where he faces imprisonment for what his supporters say are political reasons. AlAraib was detained at a Bangkok airport on Tuesday.
Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said AlAraib, 25, was accepted as a refugee and resettled in the Australian city of Melbourne last year, but is not an Australian citizen. Australia can demand consular access to its citizens detained overseas.
“He’s not an Australian citizen … and he’s also traveling on U.N. papers. So we have raised that matter. Our post in Thailand is aware of it and is following up on that,” Payne told a reporter at a Sydney foreign policy think tank.
Payne did not directly respond when asked whether AlAraib is at risk of being deported to Bahrain.
Her department later said in a statement that Australian embassy officials in Bangkok were in direct contact with Thai authorities regarding AlAraib. The department would not make further comment due to privacy obligations.
The Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy says AlAraib was tortured after a 2012 arrest and fled in 2014 to Australia, which granted him political asylum. He had played for Bahrain’s national soccer team and now plays for Melbourne’s Pascoe Vale Football Club. He has been publicly critical of Bahrain’s royal family’s alleged involvement in sports scandals.
The London-based group says AlAraib was detained at the Bangkok airport on the basis of an Interpol notice issued at Bahrain’s request that says he is sought because he was sentenced in absentia in 2014 to 10 years in prison for allegedly vandalizing a police station, a charge he denies. He says he was playing a match that was televised live when the alleged crime occurred, but when his family reached out to Bahrain’s soccer association to confirm his alibi, their requests went unanswered.
Rights groups say the Interpol Red Notice – which is a request to locate and provisionally arrest an individual pending extradition – violates the international police organization’s policy that such notices will not be issued “if the status of refugee or asylum-seeking has been confirmed.”
No comment was immediately available from Thai officials.
Australia’s SBS News said AlAraib told them on Thursday that he fears being returned to Bahrain.
“It’s very dangerous there (for me). … In Bahrain, they want to kill me,” he said. “I told (Thai Immigration) I (didn’t) come from Bahrain, I have an Australian travel document … Bahrain is not my country now, I live in Australia.”
An electronic board displays stock prices Friday at a private stock market gallery in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Photo: Yam G-Jun / Associated Press
BANGKOK — Share prices were mixed Friday in Asia ahead of the planned meeting by Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 major economies summit this weekend.
Keeping Score
Thailand’s set gained 0.5 percent, trading at 1,644.97 on Friday morning. Japan’s Nikkei 225 index climbed 0.4 percent to 22,351.06 and the Hang Seng in Hong Kong added 0.5 percent to 26,586.53. The Shanghai Composite index jumped 0.8 percent to 2,587.72 and India’s Sensex gained 0.2 percent to 36,235.61. South Korea’s Kospi fell 0.8 percent to 2,096.86 while the S&P ASX/200 in Australia tumbled 1.6 percent to 5,667.20 on heavy selling of financials and consumer goods companies. Shares rose in Taiwan and Singapore but fell in Indonesia.
G-20 Summit
The working dinner meeting between Trump and Xi could bring a breakthrough in a bruising trade war that has the U.S. and China imposing punitive tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of each other’s exports. Or not. Analysts are not optimistic about prospects for improvement a month before U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods are due to ramp up.
Analyst’s Comment
“As investors shift their attention to the upcoming G-20 Trump-Xi meeting this weekend, Trump has hinted that he is very close to ‘doing something with China’ on trade,” Mizuho Bank said in a market note. “Though a comprehensive agreement is still unlikely, agreeing on a framework for future talks together with a delay in implementation of a 25 percent tariff hike on USD$200 billion of Chinese imports” would “constitute a good outcome.”
Chinese Manufacturing
A measure of China’s factory activity slipped to its lowest level in more than two years in November, adding to pressure on Beijing amid the tariff battle with Trump. The China Federation of Logistics & Purchasing said Friday its monthly purchasing managers’ index declined to 50 from October’s 50.2 on a 100-point scale on which numbers above 50 indicate activity is increasing. It blamed weak domestic demand for the latest decline. But investors often see such news as a signal more market-boosting stimulus may be coming.
Korean Rate Hike
South Korea’s central bank lifted its benchmark rate by a quarter of a percent to 1.75%, in line with expectations. The first increase by the Bank of Korea in a year, it reflects concern over rising household debt and property prices.
Wall Street
U.S. stocks finished lower Thursday after an afternoon rally faded. Banks and technology companies fell after the market pulled off a huge rally the day before when Federal Reserve chair Jerome Powell suggested in a speech that the Fed might be almost done raising interest rates, and is willing to stop raising rates at least temporarily so it can assess the effects of the last few years of increases. The S&P 500 index shed 0.2 percent to 2,737.76. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 0.1 percent lower at 25,338.84. The Nasdaq composite slid 0.3 percent to 7,273.08 and the Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks lost 0.3 percent to 1,525.39.
Energy
Benchmark U.S. crude added 2 cents to $51.47 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose 2.3 percent to finish at $51.45 a barrel on Thursday. Brent crude gained 11 cents to $60.02 per barrel. It edged up 1.3 percent to $59.51 a barrel in London.
Currencies
The dollar slid to 113.39 yen from 113.48 yen on Thursday. The euro was flat at $1.1391.
Thousands of students gather Friday during a rally demanding the government act on climate change, in Sydney. Photo: Associated Press
SYDNEY — Thousands of schoolchildren across Australia skipped classes Friday to attend rallies demanding the government act on climate change.
But Resources Minister Matt Canavan said the students should be in school learning about science and mining, rather than discovering how to get on welfare.
The coordinated rallies Friday were held in close to 30 cities and towns and were inspired by a 15-year-old Swedish girl’s activism.
In Sydney, more than 1,000 children, most in school uniforms, chanted slogans, while similar numbers blocked streets outside the Victoria state parliament in Melbourne.
The rallies were inspired by Greta Thunberg, who protests every Friday outside Sweden’s parliament, demanding leaders do more about climate change.
Sydney student Siniva Esera said Australia needs to be the big brother to the low-lying Pacific islands, including her relatives on the Tokelau atolls.
“Our prime minister thinks we should be in school right now, and maybe we should,” the Chifley College Senior Campus student told the Sydney protest. “But how can I just sit by and not do anything to protect the future of this planet, and as my family on the islands worry about the rising sea level?”
Forest Lodge Primary school captain Lucie Atkin Bolton said she’d learned in class that leaders need to look after everybody and take responsibility when things go wrong.
“I wish I lived in a country where our adults, especially our politicians, actually cared about my future,” the 11-year-old said.
Canavan, the resources minister, said he’s on the side of science and wants Australia to develop all energy sources, including solar and coal. He said he’d rather the kids learn about mining and science.
“These are the type of things that excite young children and we should be great at as a nation,” he told Sydney radio station 2GB. “The best thing you’ll learn about going to a protest is how to join the dole queue.”
BANGKOK — Thailand’s state postal operator said its services in some of the capital’s offices will open every day, even during national holidays, starting tomorrow.
Thailand Post said a number of stations in Bangkok and metro areas will open seven days a week and extend service times, some as late as 11pm, with the aim of expanding to other provinces in the near future. Times will vary in each station and can be checked online.
For example, the Bang Na Post Office announced it would open 8am through 8pm on weekdays, 8am to 5pm on Saturdays and 8am to noon on Sundays. The same schedule applies to national holidays.
The extended schedule will complement its offices in department stores and privately operating franchises nationwide that already provide seven-day services.
Thailand Post has often come under fire for poor customer service. It has attempted to improve operations in recent years due to the rise of private competitors in delivery services, including retail giant 7-Eleven, which launched mailing services last month.
In the latest scandal, the operator said Wednesday it had filed charges against one of its temporary workers in the capital’s Rangsit district after a woman complained and posted pictures online showing a large pile of letters and packages abandoned in shrubs in Pathum Thani province.
BANGKOK — A teacher accused by students of being a sexual predator is teaching again in Bangkok, a school official said Friday.
Two years after students at the elite, all-male Suankularb School accused Saroj Meepai of preying on children, the teacher was transferred to a school in western Bangkok earlier this week, according to Suan Kularb deputy rector Amnuay Chanhom.
“Disciplinary action was already taken against him. It’s time for him to return to school because he’s a teacher by profession,” Amnuay said in an interview. “But he can’t return to teach at our school because of the incident. That would be inappropriate.”
Instead, Saroj was sent to teach at Suankularb Thonburi, a co-ed sister institution located in a western suburb.
Amnuay said that despite Saroj’s posts on a now-deleted Twitter account boasting of sexual relations with many students, education officials ruled there was insufficient evidence a crime had occurred, as no victims stepped forward to testify against him.
“No student would confirm it. None,” the deputy rector said. “He was only punished for the inappropriate photos.” His pay was also reduced.
Though Saroj was also charged with spreading pornographic materials online, Amnuay said he’s unaware of the outcome of the criminal case. Col. Siriwat Deepor, the police officer in charge of Saroj’s case, could not be reached for comment as of publication time.
Suankularb Thonburi rector Pisanu Sripol could not be reached for comment. Someone who answered the phone at his office said Pisanu and his deputies were in a meeting.
The news was met with anger from the Suankularb communities.
“As a teacher at Suankularb Thonburi, I cannot tolerate this man. I will boycott him and not talk to him at all,” Thanachit Kobamrung wrote in reply to a news thread.
The anonymous student in charge of the Facebook page that first published allegations against Saroj in 2016 expressed disappointment that he was allowed to continue teaching.
“That’s bureaucracy,” the Troll Students of Suankularb admin wrote in a message. “If I have children, I won’t send them to a public school.” The admin also said none of the alleged victims would step forward because they feared the shame.
“The boys didn’t want to identify themselves and file charges,” he wrote. “I got in touch with one of them. He said he’s afraid his parents would find out.”
Surat Phaeoket tends to Tongkum Thursday night at Khan Na Yao Police Station.
BANGKOK — A farmer accused of serious crimes for crowdfunding a buffalo has denied all charges and says the animal is suffering in police lock-up.
Surat Phaeoket, whose heartwarming photos bonding with Tongkum the buffalo drew the donations needed to buy the animal, denied committing fraud, laundering money and spreading false information online one day after they were filed by police. Most of all, he says he’s worried the animal is suffering physically and emotionally locked up behind a police station.
“He’s depressed and lonely from being all alone. He also has wounds from the metal fence. Flies could lay eggs in the wounds and there could be pus. I asked the police to get mud to cover him, and they said they would,” Surat said.
Tongkum was removed from the fields of Chai Nat province and impounded behind a Bangkok police station since Tuesday.
Station chief Col. Singh Singhdet said Surat’s Thursday testimony was helpful to the case and could leading to some charges being withdrawn. Singh said Tongkum could be released on a bond into the care of Surat or the former owner who complained after learning of the animal’s online fame and donors.
Tongkum is beind held in a corral behind the Khan Na Yao police station.
Singh said Surat would not be held because he promised not to tamper with evidence and promised not to talk to the press about details of the investigation.
Boonlert Kanpakdee – Tongkum’s former owner and a small functionary in Chai Nat province – slammed Surat as a beggar Monday after learning he’d raised 100,000 baht to buy Surat. That was after the sale and transfer of the buffalo, or kwai, was completed last week.
“Boonlert isn’t holding any grudges because he took the 100,000 baht and intended to sell to Surat. Boonlert was afraid the money wasn’t obtained legally so he gave it to the police. He wasn’t trying to get the kwai back.” Singh said. “From talking with Surat, we found out that he really does love the kwai and wants to care for it, but there are discrepancies in his intentions for getting the money to buy the kwai.”
Singh said that Surat’s online appeals could possibly be construed as misleading and therefore make him liable for fraud.
Police said they would investigate and gather witnesses and give an update Monday.
“I want to reaffirm that I love kwais and want to create smiles for my friends. My intention was to preserve kwai, promote Chai Nat and make people happy,” Surat said. “I miss being with him a lot. His eyes have lost their shine.”
“I had so many dreams about building a farm, growing salad greens and having kids come play with the buffaloes. But everything is ended now. The mayor pointed at my face and told me I took thieves’ money to pay for Tongkum.”
Speaking perhaps for many, a deputy director in the attorney general’s office called the entire issue a “non-case.”
Poramet Intarachoomnoom said Surat is unlikely to be prosecuted for most of the alleged offenses. The legal expert said that he did not see how Surat violated the Computer Crime Act, since he did exactly what he said he would do with the money.
“Why did the original owner take the money, finish the transaction with Surat and then hand the money over to the police? This is a civil case. Why did the police impound the buffalo? If the kwai dies in their care, the police will be in hot water, because it would have died at the police station,” Poramet said.
Poramet said he thinks Boonlert may have been afraid he’d committed a crime by accepting the crowdfunded money, and that actions by the police have been confusing.
“If you break the Computer Crime Act, police take your computer, not your buffalo,” he said. “If Boonlert really didn’t want to sell, he could have return the money and taken back the buffalo. I don’t understand how the authorities viewed this as fraud.”
Responding to the criticism, Singh defended his police work.
“That’s just one opinion and criticism of the investigating officers. I’m an investigation officer, and I know how the process works,” he said. “This case has a lot of public attention and we are ready to give justice to all sides.”
BANGKOK — Who owns Khon? The United Nations on Thursday settled a long-disputed question by recognizing both forms of a traditional dance in Thailand and Cambodia as world heritage.
The UNESCO announced Khon, the Thai masked dance drama, and Lkhon Khol of Cambodia are intangible cultural heritage of humanity. The version in Cambodia, where much of the tradition was obliterated by the genocidal Khmer Rouge, was designated in need of urgent safeguarding. The results were announced at a world heritage conference in Port Louis, Mauritius, which ends tomorrow.
The Thai version is recognized on the list for being a distinct, important cultural practice. The Cambodian Khol is under a category of cultural elements considered endangered and in need of urgent conservation.
Both nations have claimed to own the masked dance, and attempts by each to win international recognition prompted a bitter feud between the two neighboring countries.
The Thai government on Friday welcomed the decision and promised more campaigns to promote and conserve the traditional performing arts.
Pichet Klunchun, a contemporary choreographer and practitioner, commended the UNESCO decision online today, saying it could prevent another spat between the two countries by simultaneously recognizing both versions of the dance.
As a master who’s rebelled against Thai Khon conservatives, he said the move means Khon now belongs to the world.
“We can no longer use our own rules or cultural principles to judge what can and cannot be done to Khon. We need to listen to the opinions of the whole world, because Khon is now humanity’s cultural heritage.”
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
NEW YORK — In what may be the just the first of many such sweeps, Alfonso Cuaron’s masterful, memory-drenched drama “Roma” dominated the New York Film Critics Circle Awards on Thursday, winning best film, best director and best cinematography.
The overwhelming show of support for “Roma” by the critics group wasn’t a surprise. Cuaron’s film has been hailed as a masterpiece since winning the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It’s widely expected to contend for best picture, among other categories, at the Academy Awards, and Netflix has put its full weight behind an awards campaign. Cuaron made the black-and-white 1970s-set film based on his own upbringing in Mexico City, serving as his own cinematographer.
The critics voted Ethan Hawke best actor for Paul Schrader’s “First Reformed,” and named Schrader’s script best screenplay. Those wins provided yet another boost to Schrader’s anguished tale of a doubt-riddled pastor (Hawke), which took the same awards at Monday’s Gotham Awards.
While the selections of critics groups like the New York Film Critics Circle and the Los Angeles Film Critics Association often deviate from awards-season favorites, their prestige and early timing can bring less heralded films and performers into the Oscar conversation. That may have happened with the group’s pick for best actress: Regina Hall, star of Andrew Bujalski’s indie comedy “Support the Girls,” about the waitress staff of a Texas sports bar. Hall bested the likes of Lady Gaga (“A Star Is Born”) and Olivia Colman (“The Favourite”).
Supporting acting prizes went to more widely acknowledged contenders: Regina King for her performance as the matriarch of Barry Jenkins’ James Baldwin adaptation “If Beale Street Could Talk”; and Richard E. Grant as Melissa McCarthy’s debauched conspirator in the literary forgery drama “Can You Ever Forgive Me?”
Leaving the bigger categories to “Roma,” the critics voted Pawel Pawlikowski’s “Ida” follow-up “Cold War” best foreign language film. Best documentary went to “Minding the Gap,” Bing Liu’s directorial debut about a trio of skateboarding friends in Rockford, Illinois. Bo Burnham’s tender coming-of-age tale “Eighth Grade” took best first film.
And fresh off its glowing reviews, “Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse” was chosen as best animated film over Pixar’s “Incredibles 2.”
The critics also added special awards for the retiring chief curator of the Museum of the Moving Image, David Schwartz, and Kino Classics’ DVD box set “Pioneers: First Women Filmmakers.”
BANGKOK — A mass melee involving a taxi driver and security guards at a downtown shopping mall this week ended up at the police station Friday after footage of it hit the internets.
Driver Khettikun Rattana and Montri Sitabian, a guard at the Terminal 21 shopping mall, were charged with fighting in public this morning for a fight which broke out two days ago over a jilted passenger. Each man was fined 500 baht.
The brawl began at about 4pm on Wednesday in front of the mall after Khettikun allegedly rejected a waiting fare, prompting Montri to ask him to leave.
Enraged, Khettikun refused to drive away and got out of the cab, at which point a wild scrum of feet and fists erupted, drawing several more security guards into the action.
Fortunately for internet voyeurs, someone recorded the incident and posted it online.
On Thursday, Terminal 21 condemned the taxi driver in a statement.
“We do not support taxis that reject passengers and do not use the meter,” the statement read. “When a security guard asked the taxi driver to leave the area to make way for other taxis, the driver exited the vehicle and assaulted the guard.”
“Terminal 21 does not support violence, however,” the statement continued, saying that the mall had contacted the security company to penalize the guards.
