Sombat Boonngamanong and his team at Friday event.
BANGKOK — Officials on Friday kicked out a group of pro-democracy politicians and election hopefuls from an elections conference, citing their inappropriate outfits.
Sombat Boonngamanong and his team, who showed up wearing in pirate hats and repairman costumes, had to spend the rest of the meeting outside the ballroom where 84 registered parties and 59 political groups were briefed on voting process by the Election Commission. Sombat protested his expulsion.
“I wasn’t causing any unrest,” Sombat told reporters at Centara Convention Center in northern Bangkok. “If I’m impolite, how is it impolite? Can someone explain to me in practical way?”
Explaining his choice of costumes, Sombat said his team want to “repair” the country after four years of military rule. The commission said today’s event was suits or dress shirts.
He added, “From now on, when I meet the EC, I may dress up in a tuxedo.”
Known for eye-catching publicity stunts and flash mobs, Sombat is one of the activists opposed to military rule seeking to contest in the next election, now slated for February.
But while others, like the Commoners and Future Forward parties, were registered without any problem, election registrars refused to approve Sombat’s party name – the Grean Party, which roughly translates to Trolling Party – citing inappropriate language.
Sombat, who was arrested in June 2014 for organizing anti-junta resistance, said he has submitted a new name he hopes election officials will endorse.
At the conference, Pheu Thai Party sec-gen Phumtham Wechayachai told reporters he hopes the junta will lift its ban on campaigning soon.
Rescue personnel on June 28 walk out of the entrance to a cave complex where it's believed that 12 soccer team members and their coach went missing. Photo: Sakchai Lalit / Associated Press
Update Nov. 15: The cave complex opens to the public starting November 15. An earlier version of the story stated that the complex would open to the public December 1.
CHIANG RAI — The complex of the northern cave where an epic 17-day rescue enraptured the world will re-open to the public later this year.
The parks department announced Thursday that the Luang Khun Nam Nang Non Cave complex will officially re-open to tourists starting in Nov. 15.
The public can enter the complex from 8:30am through 5pm every day.
Visitors will be able to access the Khun Nam Nang Non Goddess Shrine and ascend to the Doi Pha Mhee viewpoint as well as visit an emerald-colored water pool located near the cave’s entrance.
The cave’s interior, where 12 boys and their football coach became trapped by flooding, will remain off limits as officials and expert teams take a year to an exploration mission, according to Chongklai Worapongsathorn, deputy director of the national parks department.
It is not known yet when the public will be allowed inside the cave.
Tesla CEO and founder of the Boring Company Elon Musk speaks at a news conference in June in Chicago. Photo: Kiichiro Sato / Associated Press
DETROIT — U.S. securities regulators are asking a federal court to oust Tesla Inc.’s Elon Musk as chairman and CEO, alleging in a complaint that he committed securities fraud with false statements about plans to take the company private.
The Securities and Exchange Commission says in the complaint filed Thursday that Musk falsely claimed in an Aug. 7 statement on Twitter that funding was secured to go private at $420 per share, a substantial premium over the price at the time.
The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan says that Musk had not discussed or confirmed key deal terms including price with any funding source. It also asks for an order enjoining Musk from making false and misleading statements along with repayment of any gains as well as civil penalties.
“Corporate officers hold positions of trust in our markets and have important responsibilities to shareholders,” Steven Peikin, co-director of the SEC’s Enforcement Division, said in a statement. “An officer’s celebrity status or reputation as a technological innovator does not give license to take those responsibilities lightly.”
An SEC press release says the agency asked the court for a “bar prohibiting Musk from serving as an officer or director of a public company.”
Musk, in a statement issued by Tesla, called the SEC action unjustified. “I have always taken action in the best interests of truth, transparency and investors. Integrity is the most important value in my life and the facts will show I never compromised this in any way,” the statement said.
The complaint alleges that Musk’s tweet harmed investors who bought Tesla stock after the tweet but before accurate information about the funding was made public.
Ousting Musk, who has a huge celebrity status with more than 22 million Twitter followers, would be difficult and could damage the company. He’s viewed by many shareholders as the leader and brains behind Tesla’s electric car and solar panel operations.
Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University and a former SEC lawyer, said it’s the first fraud case involving use of social media by the CEO of a public company. Musk and Tesla didn’t fully disclose details of the plan in the Aug. 7 tweet or in later communications that day as required, he said.
“You can’t make full disclosure in 280 characters,” he said, referring to the length limit of a tweet.
Musk, he said, is among the highest-profile CEOs in recent memory that the commission has gone after with this stiff of a penalty threat.
Joseph Grundfest, a professor at Stanford Law School and former SEC commissioner, said Musk will likely want to settle before trial so that he could conceivably stay on as CEO, with some constraints such as prohibiting him from making public statements without supervision. But Musk also could agree to step down as CEO and instead take another title, such as chief production officer.
The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with the matter, reported that Musk had been close to settling with the SEC but that he and his lawyers decided at the last minute to fight the case. Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the report.
“One possibility could be to appoint someone as a monitor over all of his communications. He wouldn’t be able to tweet or post anything directly without the approval of a chaperone,” Grundfest said. “He is not going to be able to remain as CEO with no conditions. That is not on the table.”
Grundfest also said that the challenge for the SEC is to “appropriately discipline Musk while not harming Telsa’s shareholders.”
According to the complaint, Musk met with representatives of a sovereign investment fund for 30 to 45 minutes on July 31 at Tesla’s Fremont, California, factory. Tesla has identified the fund as Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which owns almost 5 percent of the company.
Fund representatives expressed interest in taking Tesla private and asked about building a factory in the Middle East, Musk told the SEC. But at the meeting, there was no discussion of a dollar amount or ownership stake for the fund, nor was there discussion of a premium to be paid to Tesla shareholders, the complaint said. Musk told the SEC that the lead representative of the fund told him he would be fine with reasonable terms for a go-private deal.
“Musk acknowledged that no specific deal terms had been established at the meeting and there was no discussion of what would or would not be considered reasonable. Nothing was exchanged in writing,” the complaint stated.
The SEC alleged in the 23-page complaint that Musk made the statements using his mobile phone in the middle of a trading day. That day, Tesla shares closed up 11 percent from the previous day. Musk has said that he posted the go-private tweet while driving to the airport and that no one reviewed it.
The statements, the complaint said “were premised on a long series of baseless assumptions and were contrary to facts that Musk knew.” Later in the month, Tesla announced that the go-private plan had been scrapped.
Shares of Tesla plunged nearly 12 percent to $270.90 in after-hours trading after falling just under 1 percent during regular trading hours Thursday.
In its complaint, the SEC said that Musk’s statements hurt short sellers, investors who borrow a company’s stock betting that it will fall. Then they buy the shares back at a lower price and return them to the lenders, pocketing the profit.
In August, more than $13 billion worth of Tesla shares were being “shorted” by investors, the complaint said, as the stock was under pressure due to questions about Tesla’s finances and Musk’s erratic behavior.
Mark Spiegel, a short-seller and constant Musk critic, applauded the SEC for pursuing what he predicted would be easy for the government to prove.
“Musk has a long history of easily proven lies,” Spiegel said. “This is just the first one that he is being held accountable for.”
Spiegel also echoed the concerns of corporate governance experts who have lambasted Tesla’s board for being too beholden to a CEO that they are supposed to oversee.
“They should have fired him a long time ago. Will they now? I don’t know,” Spiegel said.
There was no indication of that in a joint statement issued late Thursday by Tesla and its board.
“Tesla and the board of directors are fully confident in Elon, his integrity, and his leadership of the company,” the statement said.
Musk also failed to notify the Nasdaq stock exchange, on which Tesla shares are traded, before releasing the go-private tweet. Nasdaq rules require notification of plans to release “material information” at least 10 minutes before the release, according to the SEC complaint. The tweet forced Nasdaq to suspend trading of Tesla shares oon Aug. 7 for about 90 minutes.
BANGKOK — Although they’ve yet to materialize as promised, Mangmoom cards will definitely work on buses after yet another delay of five months, a Bangkok transport official said Friday.
The wait for what’s hoped to be a universal public transport card is dragging on once again due to compatibility issues that Prayoon Choygeo of the Bangkok Mass Transit Authority said could be solved by March. The cards were first announced eight years ago.
He said software for E-ticket machines, now installed on 800 buses, must be upgraded to support the card, the specifications of which the department has requested from the Mass Rapid Transit Authority for testing.
Mangmoom cards were launched on the MRT Blue and Purple lines in June, with promises they would also work on Airport Rail Link and buses by October, according to Transport Minister Arkhom Termpittayapaisith. It has since been continually postponed.
Two weeks ago, the airport train’s chief Suthep Panpeng said its card readers’ software also needs an upgrade. He expects Mangmoom to work on the Airport Rail Link by the end of this year.
The BTS in August teased the possibility of accepting the cards but said negotiations would take time.
Getting all the new machines to be compatible with both Mangmoom and government-issued welfare cards has been problematic.
According to Prayoon, 300 buses with the E-tickets machines now support the welfare cards while the other 500 will be ready by Oct. 15. He added that 1,800 more buses will be equipped with the machines and ready to go by November.
Maj. Gen. Surachet Hakpan, second from right, inspects a room during the 13th "Black Eagle" raid in Bangkok on Nov. 21, 2017.
BANGKOK — Over at Thailand’s Immigration Bureau, the word is out: Bad guys out, Big Joke in.
A police commander whose favorite pastime involves rounding up foreigners on expired visas was appointed Thursday to lead the bureau, which processes more than 35 million people through Thailand’s borders and ports of entry annually.
Maj. Gen. Surachet “Big Joke” Hakpan, will replace Sutthipong Wongpin in the annual reshuffle announced by the police force, which will also see more than 200 others moved into new posts. His predecessor, Sutthipong, will head the metro police.
The appointments are effective Monday.
Despite his relatively junior rank as deputy tourism police commander, Surachet was one of the most visible faces of the police, having taken charge of many high-profile cases such as a crackdown on transnational boiler room scams and prosecution of netizens accused of insulting junta chairman Prayuth Chan-ocha online.
Surachet, 45, could not be reached for comment Friday.
The police major general also stirred controversy recently when he rejected an allegation from a British tourist that she was raped on Koh Tao. Surachet suggested to the media she made up the story to file a fraudulent insurance claim.
BANGKOK — The father of two teenage girls killed in a house fire in eastern Bangkok succumbed to his injuries and died this morning.
The three, part of a four-member family living in the capital district of Nong Chok, died after the fire broke out at about 5:30am on Thursday.
It took firemen roughly 30 minutes to put out the blaze, after which the bodies of teenage sisters Tharawee Phokanit and and Nitharawee Phokanit, 16 and 13 respectively, were found on the second floor. Their father, Chatchai Phokanit, and mother, Kanyawee Sujipong, suffered burns and were taken to a hospital.
Chatchai died this morning at the hospital.
Police haven’t determined the cause of the fire; however, they suspect a short circuit on the first floor might have sparked it before flames ascended to the second floor.
Christine Blasey Ford arrives to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday. Photo: Andrew Harnik / Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Christine Blasey Ford told the Senate Judiciary Committee and a riveted nation Thursday that Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her in a locked room at a 1980s high school party, as the panel began an extraordinary and historic hearing at which Kavanaugh hoped to salvage his Supreme Court nomination.
“I believed he was going to rape me,” the 51-year-old California psychology professor said, her voice breaking as she read her opening statement.
Kavanaugh has denied Ford’s and other women’s allegations of sexual misconduct. The conservative jurist, whose Senate confirmation had seemed an easy waltz until Ford and the other women emerged, awaited his own chance to testify later in the day.
“I am here today not because I want to be. I am terrified,” Ford said as she described the alleged assault. “I am here because I believe it is my civic duty to tell you what happened.”
In a clash along a polarized nation’s political and cultural fault lines, Kavanaugh and Ford were the only witnesses invited to testify before the panel of 11 Republicans — all men — and 10 Democrats. But the conservative jurist is facing allegations of sexual misconduct from other women as well, forcing Republican leaders to struggle to keep support for him from eroding.
Before she began, committee chairman Chuck Grassley of Iowa defended the Republicans’ handling of the confirmation proceedings so far. He also apologized for the harsh treatment — which has included death threats — that both Ford and Kavanaugh have endured.
The committee’s top Democrat, Dianne Feinstein of California, told Ford, “I am very grateful to you for your strength and your bravery for coming forward. I know it’s hard.” She criticized Republicans who have rejected Democratic demands to slow Kavanaugh’s confirmation process and let the FBI investigate all the allegations, saying, “What I don’t understand is the rush to judgment.”
Kavanaugh and Ford were the only witnesses invited to testify before the panel of 11 Republicans — all men — and 10 Democrats. But the conservative jurist is facing allegations of sexual misconduct from other women as well, forcing Republican leaders to struggle to keep support for him from eroding.
Grassley complained that lawyers for other accusers have not provided information to his panel and said, “The committee can’t do an investigation if attorneys are stonewalling.”
The committee’s top Democrat, Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, expressed empathy for what Ford says she’s suffered, telling her, “I know this wasn’t easy for you.” She also aimed a barb at Republicans who have ignored Democrats demands to slow Kavanaugh’s confirmation process and let the FBI investigate all the allegations, saying, “What I don’t understand is the rush to judgment.”
The committee was to hear first from Ford, a California psychology professor who accuses him of attempting to rape her when they were teens.
Republicans have derided Ford’s allegation as part of a smear campaign and a Democratic plot to sink Kavanaugh’s nomination. But after more allegations have emerged, some GOP senators have allowed that much is riding on his performance. Even President Donald Trump, who nominated Kavanaugh and fiercely defends him, said he was “open to changing my mind.”
“I want to watch, I want to see,” he said at a news conference Wednesday in New York.
Kavanaugh, a federal appeals court judge who has long been eyed for the Supreme Court, has repeatedly denied all the allegations, saying he’d never heard of the latest accuser and calling her accusations “ridiculous and from the Twilight Zone.”
His teetering grasp on winning confirmation was evident when Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, expressed concern, in a private meeting with senators Wednesday, about the third accuser, according to a person with knowledge of the gathering. Republicans control the Senate 51-49 and can lose only one vote for Kavanaugh to prevail if all Democrats vote “no.” Collins is among the few senators who’ve not made clear how they’ll vote.
Collins walked into that meeting carrying a copy of Julie Swetnick’s signed declaration, which included new accusations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh and his high school friend Mark Judge.
Collins said senators should hear from Judge. After being told Judge has said he doesn’t want to appear before the committee, Collins reminded her colleagues that the Senate has subpoena power, according to a person who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
The hearing was the first time the country saw the 51-year-old Ford beyond the grainy photo that has been flashed on television in the 10 days since she came forward with her contention.
“It is not my responsibility to determine whether Mr. Kavanaugh deserves to sit on the Supreme Court,” she was to tell the senators. “My responsibility is to tell the truth.”
Republicans are pushing to seat Kavanaugh before the November midterms, when Senate control could fall to the Democrats and a replacement Trump nominee could have even greater difficulty. Kavanaugh’s ascendance to the high court could help lock in a conservative majority for a generation, shaping dozens of rulings on abortion, regulation, the environment and more.
Republicans also risk rejection by female voters in November if they are seen as not fully respecting women and their allegations.
In a sworn statement, Swetnick said she witnessed Kavanaugh “consistently engage in excessive drinking and inappropriate contact of a sexual nature with women in the early 1980s.” Her attorney, Michael Avenatti, who also represents a porn actress who is suing Trump, provided her sworn declaration to the Judiciary panel.
Meanwhile, the lawyer for Deborah Ramirez, who says Kavanaugh exposed himself to her at a party when they attended Yale University, raised her profile in a round of television interviews.
Moments before committee chairman Grassley gaveled his panel into session, Ramirez tweeted her support for Ford: “They want us to feel alone and isolated but I’m there wrapping my arms around you and I hope you feel the people of this nation wrapping their arms around all of us.”
Republicans largely expressed confidence in Kavanaugh, emerging from a closed-door lunch with Vice President Mike Pence Wednesday to say the nominee remained on track for confirmation.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., has said all week that Republicans will turn to a committee vote on Kavanaugh after the hearing. They hope for a roll call by the full Senate early next week with the aim of getting him on the court as its new term begins.
Yet Collins’ unease was not the only suggestions of creeping doubt among Republicans. Asked whether there were signs of Republicans wavering in their support of Kavanaugh in their lunch, Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking Republican, paused briefly before saying “no.”
In the hearing, Democrats planned to ask Kavanaugh if he’d be willing to undergo FBI questioning about the various claims — a request Republicans oppose — and press him about his drinking and behavior as a teenager.
Republicans have hired an outside attorney, Phoenix prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, to handle much of their questioning. Thus, they will avoid having their all-male contingent interrogating Ford about the details of what she describes as a harrowing assault.
Democratic questioners included two senators widely seen as potential presidential candidates in 2020: Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey, who aggressively challenged Kavanaugh during the judge’s earlier confirmation hearing.
Ford told the committee that, one night in the summer of 1982, a drunken Kavanaugh forced her down on a bed, “groped me and tried to take off my clothes,” then clamped his hand over her mouth when she tried to scream before she was able to escape.
“I believed he was going to rape me,” she will say, according to her prepared testimony.
Kavanaugh is being challenged on multiple fronts by his accusers, former classmates and college friends. They say the good-guy image he projects in public bears little relation to the hard-partying behavior they witnessed when he was young.
In his prepared testimony, the 53-year-old appellate judge acknowledges drinking in high school with his friends, but says he’s never done anything “remotely resembling” what Ford describes. He said he has never had a “sexual or physical encounter of any kind” with her.
He also provided the committee with detailed calendar pages listing in green-and-white squares the activities that filled his summer of 1982 when he was 17 years old — exams, movies, sports and plenty of parties. That’s the year when Ford says she believes the assault occurred.
Nothing on the calendar appears to refer to her.
Ford released sworn statements from people who said she had told them about the assault in later years.
Late Wednesday, the committee released a flurry of other documents of unclear significance.
Transcripts of private interviews with committee investigators show they asked Kavanaugh about two previously undisclosed accusations received by Senate offices. One came in an anonymous letter sent to the office of Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colo., describing an incident in a bar in 1998, when Kavanaugh was working for the independent counsel investigating President Bill Clinton. The other accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in college. Kavanaugh denied them both.
People dressed in Zangbeto masquerade costume prepare to parade during a regatta to mark the Badagry festival Saturday in Badagry, Nigeria. Photo: Sunday Alamba / Associated Press
AJIDO, Nigeria — Excitement grew in the crowd as the Zangbeto Voodoo festival reached a climax, with scores of colorful palm-frond figures representing the traditional guardian of the night.
As men and women in white ceremonial clothing sang and danced to the sound of heavy drums, adherents doused a cone-shaped Zangbeto with kerosene. A ball of fire rose as it went up in flames.
The performance in coastal Nigeria over the weekend helped to create “fear and reverence,” the chairman of its organizing committee, Sehude Adeyinka Amosu, told The Associated Press. Every religion has some hold on the people, he said. “The people needed to see that the Zangbeto is not just a toy.”
Some Nigerians frustrated by crime and corruption have suggested that reviving such traditions could be a deterrent. The festival of about 2,000 people in the Ajido Kingdom in Lagos State, held every three years, is one of the most important events in the local religious calendar.
The leader of the Ajido Kingdom, Aholu Saheed Adamson, described the Zangbeto as a symbol of authority of the ethnic Ogu people and a “means of security of entire communities.”
The Ogu inhabit coastal areas of Nigeria, Benin and Togo. The West African region once was known as the Slave Coast because of the large number of slaves taken from there over centuries.
Beyond the slave trade, Ogu land is also noted for the voodoo widely practiced there. The use of the Zangbeto is said to date back to the 17th century.
“As the traditional police and court of the people the Zangbeto handles such cases as theft,” Seton Idowu, who believes strongly in its spiritual powers, told the AP. “Everyone fears the Zangbeto and you can get into trouble if you go against the rules.”
The beliefs hold that Zangbeto’s punishment could range from fines to the banishment of an individual.
Outside influences have steadily eroded such traditional institutions, which Amosu said are being “bastardized or criminalized as being fetish.”
Meanwhile, he said, modern institutions like the police have failed to perform as effectively as the traditional ones they replace. Many people would rather take their case to the Zangbeto than to the police post, he said.
Nigerian authorities are increasingly tolerant of such festivals and their underlying beliefs as long as they are not criminal in nature. The Zangbeto Voodoo festival had the support of the government, with senior officials in attendance.
While turning to Zangbeto and other traditional figures reduces the burden on authorities, the resort to mob justice against suspected criminals, with some beaten to death, is widely seen in Nigeria as an indication of the loss of faith in the police and justice system.
As crime rises, some people say traditional institutions like the Zangbeto should be revived. Even though the majority of Nigerians are Christian or Muslim, traditional beliefs remain strong.
Some have even suggested that in the face of widespread corruption, authorities should take their oath of office by swearing to traditional gods rather than with the Bible or Quran.
Certain gods are seen as capable of dispensing instant justice by striking offenders with thunder and lightning.
“They will surely think twice before stealing public funds,” Idowu said.
A B-52 Stratofortress from Barksdale Air Force Base, Louisiana, touches down in April 2016 in Qatar. Photo: Tech. Sgt. Nathan Lipscomb / US Air Force
BEIJING — China has labeled a recent mission by nuclear-capable U.S. B-52 bombers over the disputed South China Sea as “provocative.”
Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said at a monthly briefing Thursday that China would respond with all measures considered necessary to safeguard its rights and interests.
Two B-52s flew over the strategic waterway claimed by China earlier this week in what the Pentagon called a routine mission.
Asked Wednesday about the flights, U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis responded that, “there’s nothing out of the ordinary about it.”
China has sought to strengthen its claim to the South China Sea by building seven islands on reefs and equipping them with military facilities such as airstrips, radar domes and missile systems. Five other governments claim territory in the area.
CHIANG MAI — Last week, it was a Chonburi cop showing compassion to a suicidal teen. Today, a police officer in the north is winning praise for pulling a young life back from the brink.
It was last night that Capt. Suriya Noiwanna of Mae Ping police talked a high school girl down from jumping off a highway bridge.
“Calm down, daughter,” Suriya said, pleading to the girl with a deep wai. “I’m a police officer. I can help you. From this moment on, I can help you.”
Suriya then offered the girl his hand. When she reached out to him, he grabbed hold of her and pulled her to safety with the help of other rescuers.
At around 8pm the girl parked her motorbike at the bridge and climbed to the edge, intending to jump to the ground. Police and rescue workers soon responded to the scene.
The girl was reportedly depressed because of her parents’ fighting and being bullied for her poor academic performance.
