People release sky lanterns during the 2012 Yi Peng festival in Chiang Mai. Photo: John Shedrick / Flickr
CHIANG MAI — It’s that time of the year when Thai airspace becomes contested by the launching of thousands of traditional lanterns.
Chiang Mai International Airport announced Tuesday that more than 100 domestic and international flights will be canceled or rescheduled to avoid accidents during the sky lantern festival there later this month.
The airport vice president said safety measures will be stepped up to avoid collisions while a total of 148 flights will be affected Nov. 21 to 23, which is when the province holds the popular Yi Peng event to mark Loy Krathong.
Flight officer Thananrat Prasertsri said 44 domestic flights and 16 international flights will be canceled, while those rescheduled are 69 domestic and 19 international.
He added the airport will patrol the runways 10 times daily to clean up lanterns that fall into the area, and surveillance and security measures inside and around the airport will also be stepped up.
According to regulations, sky lanterns can only be released 7pm to 1am. Flights during the three-day festival are rescheduled to land before 6pm, Thananrat said.
He said the airport found 108 lanterns flew into the area last year, but said the campaign to raise safety awareness has proven effective, as the number fell significantly from the 1,425 found in 2013.
This image released by Warner Bros. Pictures shows Eddie Redmayne in a scene from "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald." (Jaap Buitendijk/Warner Bros. Pictures via AP)
Like the bottomless trunk totted by “magizoolologist” Newt Scamander, “Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald” is a mixed bag of wonders.
Newt (Eddie Redmayne) can reach into his suitcase and, like Mary Poppins before him, pull out just about anything. And it sometimes feels as though J.K. Rowling — a screenwriter here for the second time — is similarly infatuated by her unending powers of conjuring. In this overstuffed second film in the five-part Harry Potter prequel series, every solved mystery unlocks another, every story begets still more. Narratives multiply like randy Nifflers (one of the many species of creature in Newt’s bag).
The usual problem for spinoffs is their thinness or their unfulfilled justification — especially ones that stretch an already much-stretched tale. (There were eight Potter movies.) But neither are issues in the two “Fantastic Beasts” films, each directed by former “Potter” hand David Yates. Both movies are rooted in purpose. “The Crimes of Grindelwald,” especially, is an impressively dark and urgent parable of supremacist ideology aimed squarely at today’s demagogues of division. And neither film lacks in density of detail, character or story.
No, the only real crime of “Gindelwald” is its sheer abundance. In zipping from New York to London to Paris (with ministries of magic in each locale), this latest chapter in Rowling’s pre-Potter saga feels so eager to be outside the walls of Hogwarts (which also get a cameo) that it resists ever settling anywhere, or with any of its widely scattered characters — among them Newt, the conscientious dark magic investigator Tina (Katherine Waterston), the New Yorker no-maj Jacob (Dan Fogler), Tina’s sister and Jacob’s sweetheart Queenie (Alison Sudol) and the haunted former schoolmate of Newt’s, Leta Lestrange (Zoe Kravitz).
No one does the foreboding sense of a looming battle better than Rowling. Now, it’s the rise of Gellert Grindelwald (Johnny Depp), freshly escaped from prison, who casts a lengthening shadow over the land. With a blond shock of hair and a ghostly white face, Grindelwald is Rowling’s magical version of a white nationalist, only he believes in the elevation of wizards — “purebloods” — over those who lack magical powers, or “no-majes.”
It’s 1927 and the dark clouds of fascism are swirling; World War II feels right around the corner. In one the movie’s many tricks, Grindelwald drapes Paris in black fabric, like a wannabe Christo.
Despite the gathering storm, the pacifist Newt (Redmayne, cloyingly shy), resists drawing battle lines. When pushed by his brother Theseus (Callum Turner), who like Tina is an “Auror” who enforces magic law, Newt responds: “I don’t do sides.”
The events of “The Crimes of Grindelwald” will test Newt, just as they will anyone trying to follow its many strands. The hunt is on for at least three characters — the missing Queenie, the on-the-lam Grindelwald and Credence Barebone (Eza Miller), the powerful but volatile orphan who spends much of the film seeking answers to his identity. He’s the Anakin Skywalker of “Fantastic Beasts,” whose soul is fought for by both sides.
If all of this sounds like a lot, it most definitely is, and that’s not even mentioning Jude Law joining in as a young Albus Dumbledore, who turns out to be awfully roguishly handsome under that ZZ-top beard. But our time here with him is short, just as it is with so many characters who — to the film’s credit — we yearn for more of (Fogler’s Jacob, especially). There is a flicker of a flashback that hints at a long-ago, maybe-sexual relationship between Dumbledore and Grindelwald; it would be the film’s most intriguing revelation if it wasn’t merely baited for future installments.
Siblings are everywhere in “The Crimes of Grindelwald.” Just as in the houses of Hogwarts, Rowling delights in duality and the interplay of light and dark. Even within the Aurors there are competing methodologies of law enforcement to face the growing threat. Newt is carried along like an avatar of sympathy: he believes that every beast can be tamed, that every trauma can be healed.
Rowling’s only source material going into the “Fantastic Beasts” films was a slender 2001 book in the guise of a Hogwarts textbook. But she has, with her mighty wand, summoned an impressively vast if convoluted world, one that’s never timid in exploring the darkness beneath its enchanting exterior. And, with Yates again at the helm, “The Crimes of Grindelwald” is often dazzling, occasionally wondrous and always atmospheric. But is also a bit of a mess. Even magic bags can be overweight.
“Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald,” a Warner Bros. release, is rated PG-13 for some fantasy action violence. Running time: 134 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.
An undated photo of people dancing in Bueng Kan province.
BANGKOK — New DNA tests show that prehistoric Thais in the northeast came from southern China, while Mon and Khmer people inhabited that region prior to their arrival.
Confirming what had been understood for the first time through DNA testing, Thammasat University Professor Samerchai Poonsuwan presented the test results Monday. The professor of sociology and anthropology and his team analyzed prehistoric bones found in northeastern Thailand and compared them to Thai-speaking people in southern China.
Results showed that the ancient Thais shared DNA with people in southern China, contradicting early history texts that claimed they had traveled south from the Altai mountain range in Central Asia around the borders of Russia, China, Mongolia and Kazakhstan.
While the theory has long been discredited, the DNA results offered the first scientific proof of the theory of Chinese provenance.
“We took skeletons of prehistoric people in the northeast that are about 2,000 to 3,000 years old and extracted their DNA for the first time,” he said. “Twenty-six samples of 100 were taken from the Moon River basin area. The DNA links show they likely came from the south of China not long ago.”
He said they arrived to the area after it had been populated by other groups.
The earlier inhabitants, Samerchai said, were Austro-Asiatic speaking people such as Mon and Khmer who predated the migration from Southern China.
Myanmar's Foreign Minister Aung San Suu Kyi greets leaders of armed ethnic groups during their meeting at a hotel last year in Naypyitaw, Myanmar. Photo: Aung Shine Oo / Associated Press
NEW YORK — Amnesty International has withdrawn its highest honor from Myanmar’s leader Aung San Suu Kyi in light of what it said was the Nobel Peace Prize laureate’s “shameful betrayal of the values she once stood for.”
The human rights organization announced Monday that its secretary general, Kumi Naidoo, informed Suu Kyi that it was revoking her 2009 Ambassador of Conscience Award.
Amnesty has criticized the failure of Suu Kyi and her government to speak out about military atrocities against the Rohingya Muslim population.
Naidoo said Amnesty expected Suu Kyi to use her “moral authority to speak out against injustice wherever” she saw it, especially in Myanmar.
“Today, we are profoundly dismayed that you no longer represent a symbol of hope, courage, and the undying defense of human rights,” Naidoo told her.
BANGKOK — City Hall on Monday committed to taking extensive steps to reduce the population of stray dogs by rounding them up and placing them in shelters, saying complaints have reached a six-year high.
New shelters will be built across the capital and more educational outreach conducted in the plan announced by Deputy Gov. Thaweesak Lertprapan. The metropolitan administration said it has consulted with several experts and animal rights activists and will invite them to take part in the process.
Officials said City Hall received nearly 6,000 complaints about stray dogs during the previous fiscal year, which it said was the highest since 2012.
There are currently an estimated 140,000 stray dogs in Bangkok, plus another 104,000 that have been registered by their owners, according to Thaweesak.
As a temporary measure, he said the city will increase efforts to catch stray dogs. Following protocols already in place, they will be sent to a shelter in the capital’s Prawet district that can accommodate 500 dogs. If no one picks them up within seven days, the dogs will be vaccinated, sterilized and shipped off to a shelter in Uthai Thani province, which can take in about 5,000 dogs.
Thaweesak said the city had consulted with academics from several universities and animal rights groups including Watchdog Thailand.
In May, a rabies scare led to dogs being shipped to a government facility in northeastern Nakhon Phanom province. Thousands died due to inadequate care there, according to animal welfare groups. Despite the denials of local officials, a Khaosod reporter discovered a mass grave of dead animals just outside.
For longer-term solutions, Taweesak said the administration would build more animal control shelters in Bangkok and launch a campaign to raise awareness about the importance of registering dogs, including information about vaccination and sterilization.
Amy Baron, founder of PAWS Bangkok, said she was unfamiliar with the new push but considers it bad policy to put dogs into shelters.
“Putting them in shelters is a bad idea,” she said. “Shelters are not nice places. They’re better off on the streets.”
Many dogs are integrated into their communities and should instead be vaccinated, sterilized and then released back into the community “as long as they are peaceful.”
Watchdog agreed that such peaceful dogs should be left in their communities, while those that are too wild should be sent to shelters. They said the authorities should talk to people in the area beforehand and not just round up every dog they can find.
Last month, the cabinet greenlit a new animal rights law that will mandate registration and might compel owners to pay 450 baht to register pets, which it said would help create a sense of responsibility and stop people from getting pets only to abandon them later.
It prompted a major backlash and the government said it would review the fee.
City Hall has said that it already has a service for owners who wish to register their pets free of charge. This includes mobile vet teams that provide free vaccines, sterilization and microchip to pets in the capital.
In March, the administration said it allocated 231 million baht to expanding and improving the Prawet shelter. Thaweesak yesterday said the shelter will be made into a model for new ones to be constructed, with an in-house clinic and adoption and training services.
“City Hall is ready to work with a network of animal rights activists to solve the problem,” he said. “I’m sure that City Hall can fix this issue. Every sector has to work on this together. … I’d like to ask [owners] to raise their pets responsibly and not cause trouble to others.”
BANGKOK — See balls soar over goalposts and into nets this weekend when hundreds of people from throughout Asia meet in the capital for a two-day Gaelic football tournament.
Billed as the largest organized gathering of Irish expatriates, the annual Asian Gaelic Games is expected to attract 800 people to Bangkok to represent Ireland’s national sport throughout the continent at an event with 17 trophies up for grabs in both men’s and women’s categories.
The event will feature 17 teams from countries throughout Asia, some fielding more than one side from different cities. They will include Cambodia, Singapore, the Philippines, Vietnam (Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City), Malaysia (Johor and Kuala Lumpur), China (Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Suzhou), Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and, of course, Thailand. Also making an appearance will be South Africa.
There will be a full pitch-side catering facility all weekend at the main venue. Ireland’s minister of state for the diaspora and international development will attend the event and be accompanied by the Irish ambassador to Thailand.
Gaelic football has made itself at home worldwide, creating communities which encourage the ever-traveling Irish to establish themselves abroad.
“The cups and the medals are important but what is truly precious and invaluable are the memories and the friendships and the camaraderie and spirit generated by our involvement,” Sean O’Horain, president of the Gaelic Athletic Association, or GAA, said in a messageintroducing the games.
The 2018 Fexco Asian Gaelic Gameswill take place 8am to 6pm on Saturday and Sunday at the Bangkok Patana School. Some women’s events Saturday will also be held at St. Andrews International and Berkeley International schools. All are reachable via taxi from BTS Bang Na or BTS Bearing. Entry is free.
Bangkok-based graffiti artist Danaiphat ‘Mue Bon’ Lersputtitrakan shows his mural depicting bird characters on the right of two segments of the original Berlin Wall erected at the German Embassy in Bangkok.
BANGKOK — Nearly three decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall, two segments landed in Bangkok on Monday as a part of an upcoming street art festival.
Three muralists from three countries – Thailand, France and Germany – joined forces with embassies to paint two original segments of the Berlin Wall which were unveiled at the German Embassy on Sathorn Road.
With the talents of Bangkok’s Mue Bon, French artist Kashink and German Julia Benz, the two remnants have been transformed into pieces of art and symbolic reminders of peace.
But much as the fearsome concrete divider once split Berliner from Berliner, the segments themselves will be kept in the garden, which is inaccessible to the public. The embassy said Monday it is considering a way to allow access.
One side of each graffiti-festooned segment was painted by each artist while the fourth side was painted by all.
The two segments were donated to the embassy by Berlin entrepreneur Axel Brauer.
The Berlin Wall separated neighborhoods and families when it was erected in 1961 by the Soviet Union to physically and ideologically divide the capital city. It was used by people to scribble and paint murals as a form of artistic expression and resistance.
The fall of the Berlin Wall began in late 1989 following a peaceful uprising which presaged the collapse of the Soviet Union.
“This concept of no violence, it opened the door to peaceful change … It shows that we can disagree about anything as long as we agree to disagree peacefully,” said incoming German Ambassador Georg Schmidt.
Schmidt said the embassy decided to follow the “bring happiness to the Wall” practice, bringing artists of three nations – Germany, France and Thailand – to collaborate for the Street Urban Culture Highlight festival.
The event consists of graffiti, music, dance and food takes place at many venues such as MBK Center, Sathorn 11 Art Space, Alliance Francaise, Siam Discovery and EmQuartier until December 1.
Chorladda Tarawan’s family mourns Tuesday in Khon Kaen, where her body has been taken for funerary rites.
BANGKOK — The hospital that allegedly refused to treat a woman fatally burned in an acid attack now says she asked to leave the hospital voluntarily just before her death.
Wallapha Chaiyamanowong, the Praram 2 Hospital director, said in a statement that Chorladda Tarawan, who died after her 12-year-old daughter says she was denied treatment, actually asked to leave the hospital after receiving first aid so she could use her social security benefits at another hospital.
The statement added that Chorladda was only scalded with hot water, not acid, and that her vitals were fine.
“She ran into the emergency room and called for help and said she was in pain. Nurses there gave her emergency treatment and saw that her husband poured hot water on her,” read the statement signed by Wallapha.
The hospital’s shifting story contradicts that of the deceased woman’s daughter, Techinee Tarawan, who said she begged nurses to admit her mother after her stepfather splashed her face with acid. She said her mother had to be carried to a taxi after they were turned away and told to go to another hospital, where her mother was soon pronounced dead.
One day after another hospital admin said Chorladda was refused treatment because it wasn’t an emergency, Wallapha’s statement yesterday said the hospital tried admitting her, but Chorladda “refused treatment and said she would go get treatment at the hospital where she could use her social security benefits at Bangmod Hospital. She also wanted to travel there herself.”
The hospital said they tried to contact Bangmod hospital but were unsuccessful.
“Praram 2 Hospital is firm on the grounds that we did the best job we could in maintaining patient care, and would like to offer our condolences to the family,” the letter ended.
Praram 2 Hospital Director Wallapha Chaiyamanowong, at center, sits Monday for a news conference. At right is Peera Kananuwat, another hospital executive.
Sa-ngad Dutchuyawat, the 37-year-old taxi driver who drove Chorladda and her daughter, told police during hour-long questioning that hospital staff told him to go to Bangmod Hospital because Chorladda only had skin burns from hot water.
“She had bandages on her arms and was still conscious. The daughter kept calling her mother. I didn’t strike up a conversation because she seemed to be injured,” Sa-ngad said.
Sa-ngad said he dropped them off after a 10-minute drive to Bangmod, where hospital staff carried Chorladda out on a stretcher. Chorladda was briefly conscious, Sa-ngad said.
“They asked if she was alright. She said no,” Sa-ngad said.
Techinee said CPR was attempted on her mother before hospital staff informed her she had died.
Police Col. Apirat Poomkumarn of Ta Kham Police said that Atchariya Reungrattanapong, who runs a victim advocacy group and is representing the family, has led a team to examine Chorladda’s body. He said they found acid not only on her face, but also corroding her digestive system, suggesting she was forced to drink it as well.
Kamtan Singhanat, Chorladda’s husband, was arrested Sunday night after fleeing to Nakhon Sawan province. Police said he has confessed to attacking her in a jealous rage. He was taken this morning to the Thonburi Criminal Court where he is expected to be arraigned for murder.
Chorladda’s body has been taken by her family to Khon Kaen, where her family is in mourning.
Panupong Panchomphoo, 16, Chorladda’s nephew, rushed from Chaiyaphum as soon as he heard the news.
“We are all very worried about the daughter,” he said. “Today our family has lost our breadwinner. We have to keep fighting, but we are so sad and cannot accept what happened. Everyone’s cried until there are no tears left.”
Chorladda Tarawan’s family mourns Tuesday in Khon Kaen, where her body has been taken for funerary rites.
CHAI NAT — One lucky man spends his days bathing and napping with his buffalo friends, and through their toothy smiles, makes the internet a brighter place.
In every one of dozens of photos Surat Phaeoket posted online since the weekend, he shows a big smile while playing and bathing with his buffalos Kao Hom and Tongkum. While the trio have become a sensation from tens of thousands sharing their photos, the central region farmer said he’s just trying to make a healthy living.
Photo: Surat Phaeoket / Facebook
“I’ve always loved kwai, since I was a kid. My family told me that everyone used to have kwai, but when I was born, they weren’t around farms anymore,” said 34-year-old Surat. “But I’ve always wanted one.”
A couple of years ago, Surat was just a regular sugarcane farmer who used pesticides and chemicals.
“I felt that my health was bad since I was around chemicals every day. Also, the farming failed because the sugarcane price fell,” Surat said.
Surat began rotating his crops after attending state workshops on agriculture and livestock raising, where he fulfilled a childhood dream by borrowing two buffalos from the state Buffalo Bank.
Now, the five cattle Surat cares for graze and bathe among his cassava shrubs, fish ponds, orange trees and banana stalks.
Photo: Surat Phaeoket / Facebook
“I went to the Chai Nat farming seminars where they taught us how to do this. After, I prayed to [King Rama IX] and asked him to make my farm successful,” he said.
Surat’s gentle hand with his cattle earned him a reputation. Since he’s also a volunteer for the local Livestock Development Department, his grandpa’s friend lent him the handsome young buck Tongkum, 4, on Friday. It was those photos of him with Tongkum smiling and bathing under the sun that went viral.
“I chatted to him about things. Then we had a bath together in the pond. I made sure he didn’t go in the deep end and even rode him,” Surat said.
During one of their afternoon naps, Surat showed Tongkum a big smile – and Tongkum mimicked him.
“He showed me his teeth, and I laughed, so he kept smiling at me. I took a selfie with him as I taught him how to smile. It was so natural,” Surat said.
Photo: Surat Phaeoket / Facebook
Surat plans to mate Tongkum with Kao Hom, a 2-year-old female.
“Kao Hom is the playful one. Tongkum is the tame, tender one,” he says. “She likes to act like a dog, panting and licking people and letting me rub her belly while we take naps.”
He’s been flooded with encouraging messages since going viral. His album of him smiling with Tongkum has been liked more than 27,000 times and shared more than 29,000 in less than two days.
“People say things like they wanna have some kwai too, or that seeing my pictures makes them less stressed. If it makes people happy, I’ll keep showing them the farmer’s way of life,” Surat said.
To expats in the kingdom, he’d like to ask them to help keep his way of life alive.
“I want to ask farangs to help preserve our ancestors’ way of living, so future generations can see,” he said.
BANGKOK — A year after he opened for Ed Sheeran’s in Bangkok, fresh-faced singer-songwriter Lauv will be returning as the headliner in May.
Known best for his up-tempo track “I Like Me Better,” Ari Leff, or Lauv, will perform mid-2019, promoter Viji Corp announced Tuesday morning.
The 24-year-old American artist rose to fame after releasing his first EP “Lost in the Light” in 2015 with R&B, pop and indie influences. He joined English megastar Ed Sheeran’s Divide Tour last year before embarking on his first world tour earlier this year.
The concert will start at 9pm on May 18 at Moonstar Studio. The music venue is located in Soi Ladprao 80. Tickets are 2,200 baht and go on sale online Nov. 23.
