Vendors and a customer wade among the floods Friday night in Soi Phahon Yothin 82, Pathum Thani. Read: Fearing Further Floods, City Hall Floats Heavy Littering Fines
BANGKOK — City Hall warned Tuesday it may impose heavy fines on litterers as trash-clogged city drains have contributed to flooding this rainy season.
In a meeting with city workers Tuesday, Gov. Aswin Kwanmuang said he was considering fining those who litter waterways and drains up to 5,000 baht. He also floated cash bounties for those who turn in litterers, saying the exact fines and rewards would be announced in two weeks.
It’s not the first time City Hall has threatened action on littering, and it remains to be seen if Aswin follows through. In 2015, Bangkok’s uniformed tessakit officers were instructed to fine people up to 10,000 baht for dumping trash into waterways.
This year’s rainy season so far has left parts of Bangkok heavily flooded due in part to trash-clogged waterways.
Aswin also said at Tuesday’s meeting that rain and flood updates can be received in Thai by friending City Hall’s official flood prevention account on Line, state media reported.
Soldiers clear muck and waste Monday from a khlong in Din Daeng district, Bangkok.
Police officers seal off the access to Notre Dame cathedral, seen in the background, after a man attacked officers with a hammer outside the famous landmark Tuesday, in Paris, France. Photo: Christophe Ena / Associated Press
PARIS — An assailant wielding a hammer attacked Paris police guarding Notre Dame Cathedral on Tuesday, crying “This is for Syria!” before being shot and wounded by officers outside one of France’s most popular tourist sites.
At least 600 people were blocked inside the iconic 12th century church while police first secured the streets around it, then combed the pews while visitors sat with their hands raised for the check. Others fled in panic from the sprawling esplanade outside the cathedral.
The assault was the latest act of violence targeting security forces at high-profile sites in France, which remains under a state of emergency after a string of Islamic extremist attacks.
No group immediately claimed responsibility, but police searching a residence linked to the attacker in the Paris suburb of Cergy-Pontoise found a declaration of allegiance to the Islamic State group, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told reporters that a police officer in a three-person patrol was lightly wounded in the attack, and the assailant was shot and wounded by a fellow officer. The attacker’s condition was being evaluated.
“A person came up behind the police officers, armed with a hammer, and started to hit the police officer,” he said.
The man yelled “This is for Syria,” Collomb said, adding that the attacker appeared to have acted alone.
A hammer and kitchen knives were found on the assailant, as well as a student identity card indicating he was from Algeria, Collomb said. He said authorities were working to verify the card’s authenticity.
“We have passed from a very sophisticated terrorism to a terrorism where any instrument can be used for attacks,” the interior minister said.
The head of the Municipal Police Defense Union, Cedric Michel, said the attacker was about 40 years old. A police official from another union confirmed the age of 40. The second official asked to remain anonymous to discuss the investigation.
The incident happened around 4:20 p.m. A large number of police cars descended on the Ile de Cite island in the Seine River, where the celebrated cathedral is located.
Authorities told people to stay away from the area and some took refuge inside the cathedral. People inside Notre Dame, the nearby Sainte-Chapelle chapel noted for its stained glass, and area bars and cafes were told to stay inside while the police operation was underway.
Among the several hundred people ordered to remain inside the cathedral was a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nancy Soderberg. She was admiring the church’s stained glass windows when a French announcement came on urging those inside to stay calm as police dealt with an incident outside.
The visitors got nervous when they were told soon after that the doors were closing and everyone had to stay inside, Soderberg told The Associated Press from inside Notre Dame.
“It was really scary. We had no idea if there were any accomplices inside,” she said.
They were being released Tuesday evening one by one after careful police searches.
Witnesses described a dramatic police operation in the tourist-filled area.
Lawrence Langner, a 73-year-old American visiting the neighborhood just across the Seine from the cathedral, told The Associated Press that he suddenly heard a commotion and two detonations like gunshots.
Journalist David Metreau, who said his office overlooks the square that fronts Notre Dame, tweeted that there were two blasts that sounded like shots. Looking down from his office, he saw a man inert on the square.
“The police didn’t seem interested in him at the beginning,” Metreau said. “I thought he was dead.”
Officers then checked the man’s pulse, while medics eventually came and took him away on a stretcher.
Soderberg said those inside the cathedral remained calm and orderly throughout despite not knowing what was happening. But “everyone was very quiet and very scared” when police came in to check the cathedral’s pews row by row, she said.
She tweeted a photo from inside the cathedral showing those locked inside putting their arms in the air as instructed by police.
“We will remember this for the rest of our lives,” she said. “Now everyone just wants to go home.”
The attack came the day before new President Emmanuel Macron unveils his first efforts against terrorism, which Collomb called the president’s top priority.
Paris remains under high security after a string of Islamic extremist attacks in recent years, including several targeting police officers and security personnel.
In April, an attacker opened fire on a police van on Paris’ Champs Elysees, killing one and gravely wounding two others. The attacker was shot dead by police.
The incident recalled two other attacks on soldiers providing security at prominent locations around Paris, one at the Louvre museum in February and one at Orly airport in March.
The National Security Agency campus in Fort Meade, Maryland in a 2013 file photo. Photo: Patrick Semansky / Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Russian hackers attacked at least one U.S. voting software supplier days before last year’s presidential election, according to a government intelligence report leaked Monday that suggests election-related hacking penetrated further into U.S. voting systems than previously known.
The classified National Security Agency report, which was published online by The Intercept, does not say whether the hacking had any effect on election results. But it says Russian military intelligence attacked a U.S. voting software company and sent spear-phishing emails to more than 100 local election officials at the end of October or beginning of November.
U.S. intelligence agencies declined to comment.
However, the Justice Department announced Monday it had charged a government contractor in Georgia with leaking a classified report containing “Top Secret level” information to an online news organization. The report the contractor allegedly leaked is dated May 5, the same date as the document The Intercept posted online.
Shortly after the release of the report by The Intercept on Monday, the Justice Department announced it had charged government contractor, Reality Leigh Winner, in Georgia with leaking a classified report containing “Top Secret level” information to an online news organization. The report the contractor allegedly leaked is dated May 5, the same date as the document The Intercept posted online.
The document said Russian military intelligence “executed cyber espionage operations against a named U.S. company in August 2016 evidently to obtain information on elections-related software and hardware solutions, according to information that became available in April 2017.”
The hackers are believed to have then used data from that operation to create a new email account to launch a spear-phishing campaign targeting U.S. local government organizations, the document said. “Lastly, the actors send test emails to two non-existent accounts ostensibly associated with absentee balloting, presumably with the purpose of creating those accounts to mimic legitimate services.”
The document did not name any state.
The information in the leaked document seems to go further than the U.S. intelligence agencies’ January assessment of the hacking that occurred.
“Russian intelligence obtained and maintained access to elements of multiple U.S. state or local electoral boards,” the assessment said. The Department of Homeland Security “assesses that the types of systems Russian actors targeted or compromised were not involved in vote tallying.”
The Intercept contacted NSA and the national intelligence director’s office about the document and both agencies asked that it not be published. U.S. intelligence officials then asked The Intercept to redact certain sections. The Intercept said some material was withheld at U.S. intelligence agencies’ request because it wasn’t “clearly in the public interest.”
The Associated Press could not confirm the authenticity of the May 5 NSA document, which The Intercept said it obtained anonymously.
Also on Monday, Reality Leigh Winner, 25, of Augusta, Georgia, was charged in U.S. District Court with copying classified documents and mailing them to a reporter with an unnamed news organization. Prosecutors did not say which federal agency Winner worked for, but FBI agent Justin Garrick said in an affidavit filed with the court that she had previously served in the Air Force and held a top-secret security clearance.
Winner’s attorney, Titus Thomas Nichols, declined to confirm whether she is accused of leaking the NSA report received by The Intercept. He also declined to name the federal agency for which Winner worked.
“My client has no (criminal) history, so it’s not as if she has a pattern of having done anything like this before,” Nichols said in a phone interview Monday. “She is a very good person. All this craziness has happened all of a sudden.”
In affidavits filed with the court, Garrick of the FBI said the government was notified of the leaked report by the news outlet that received it. He said the agency that housed the report determined only six employees had made physical copies. Winner was one of them. Garrick said investigators found Winner had exchanged email with the news outlet using her work computer.
Garrick’s affidavit said he interviewed Winner at her home Saturday and she “admitted intentionally identifying and printing the classified intelligence reporting at issue” and mailing it to the news outlet.
Asked if Winner had confessed, Nichols said, “If there is a confession, the government has not shown it to me.”
Activists protest proposed amendment to the national health care law on Tuesday. Photo: Courtesy
BANGKOK — Those looking to protect Thailand’s universal health care benefits defied the junta’s assembly ban on Tuesday to protest proposed amendments to the law which would remake the much-praised system that has been in place since 2002.
If passed by the interim legislature, the amendments would gut the agency established to strictly regulate the industry and revert its oversight to ministry technocrats to make policy decisions without public input.
“It’s like going back to before 2002,” Supaporn Thinwattanakul, who coordinated today’s protest.
Junta chairman Prayuth Chan-ocha said Monday the changes were not aiming at abolishing the existing system, but that didn’t reassure activists who believe the outcome will be similar.
“Even though the system won’t be abolished [in name], it will be like it’s abolished,” Nimitr Tianudom, an activist who campaigns for affordable medicine for HIV patients and universal coverage, said by telephone.
About 100 members of a network called the People’s Health System Movement gathered for several hours in front of the United Nations headquarters before submitting their complaint to officials at the nearby Government House.
The group initially planned to gather at the Public Health Ministry, but police forced them to move, citing a newly enacted law that bans protesting near government offices, Supaporn said.
Supaporn, who called the gathering a “show of strength” rather than protest, said some leaders were reprimanded by police and soldiers for “stirring up trouble.”
“But if the people do not stand up, what will happen to our country?” she said.
The bill facing amendment is the 2002 National Health Security Act, passed under the newly elected government of Thaksin Shinawatra, who won a landslide victory on promises including medical care for all.
Thanks to the law, Thailand has a universal health care system paid for by every taxpayer. It cost 106.4 billion baht in 2015. There were 2,564 participating medical facilities nationwide in 2016.
The service, colloquially referred to as the “30 baht” system for the uniform fee, is applied to all Thais.
The legislature has also proposed radically restructuring the way health care services are managed.
Under the current system, the national health safety net is overseen by a board whose members are drawn from public health agencies, hospitals, patient advocacy groups, local administrators and medical experts. The board is regulated by a separate committee on quality control.
The lawmakers want to increase the number of officials appointed by the Ministry of Public Health, arguing centralization of power would increase efficiency. Little else in the way of clear benefits have been publicly articulated, beyond a health ministry statement it would make the system sustainable.
But Nimitr, the patients rights advocate, fears the new ratio would mean the public would lose its say in how much they’re charged and what illnesses are covered – matters strictly regulated since 2002.
“It destroys the balance of power,” Nimitr said. “The people who provide the service will sit in the board with the power to decide everything.”
Supaporn, the activist from healthcare network, said she’s worried by a plan to reduce the role of the National Health Security Office, or NHSO, such as its authority to select which medicines are purchased and how much each hospital needs to keep in stock.
Because the agency operates independently from the market, it does not only mandate the most sought medicines, but also requires hospitals to keep supplies of less common remedies, such as snakebite serum and rare antidotes.
“If the NHSO isn’t allowed to choose what to buy anymore, and the decision goes back to individual hospitals or the Ministry of Public Health, medicine will be more expensive,” Supaporn said. “And the hospitals will select their own medication, such as medication needed only by the majority of patients.”
NHSO sec-gen Sakchai Kanjanawatana declined to comment on the amendments being discussed as the matter is not yet finalized.
“Speculation is still just speculation right now,” he said.
Sakchai said the final product was unknown, but that the goal was improvement.
“The minister has reassured us that any changes will have to keep the quality the same or better. But how reality will turn out, we don’t know yet,” Sakchai said, followed by a laugh.
By giving everyone health care, the entitlement program has proven so popular that no government and no political faction has dared cancel it, despite whatever antipathy they held for Thaksin or his policies.
Still, the universal health care system is not without its opponents. A number of doctors and health professionals have long criticized the program for severely straining overwhelmed hospital staff and the cost of the program.
The NHSO has been faulted for excessive regulation. The agency has been accused of refusing to reimburse hospitals that do not treat patients in accordance with its rules.
The interim parliament said last week it’s willing to collect public opinion before it makes any decisions. Public hearings are set to take place in four provinces during the next two weeks.
Anna Manuel teaches children about storytelling at February’s Wonderfruit Festival in Chonburi province. Photo: BICT Fest / Courtesy
BANGKOK — A children’s theater company will teach youngsters to tell stories, move their bodies and bring puppets to life with four inspiring workshops mid-June through August.
A year after the fest debuted with performances and workshops, four theatrical artists will gather again to inspire children of all abilities and backgrounds to learn through theater crafts.
The workshop will kick off with two days of learning to tell stories with Anna Manuel, the creative program director of a traveling storytelling program. It’s suitable for children 6 to 10 and will be held in the afternoon on June 17 and 18.
Love the shadowy arts? Two-day puppet workshop by Sirikarn Bunjongtad for children 4 to 6 and their families will be offered on the afternoons of July 1 and 2.
Jarunun Phantachat of B-Floor, an experimental physical theatre company, will teach movement to children in one-day workshops on July 15 and July 16.
The festival is put on by the Bangkok International Children’s Theatre.
Learn to make melody and music at a four-day voice and music workshop with Suchawadee Phetpanomporn, an alumna of the University of London Central School of Speech and Drama. It will be held Aug. 19, 20, 26 and 27.
Entry ranges from 900 baht to 1,600 baht. More information is available on Facebook or upon request by email. Reservations can be made online.
Each workshop will take place in room 401 on the fourth floor of the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre, which can be accessed via skywalk from BTS National Stadium.
Prumsodun Ok, founder and artistic director of the Prumsodun Ok and Natyarasa dance company, performs Friday at Thonglor Art Space. Photo: Porntep Petchsumrit / Courtesy
BANGKOK — Wearing a glittering golden crown, a male dancer in a purple sarong sways gracefully in an ancient Khmer routine. A necklace hangs from his neck, and bangles adorn his wrists, arms and ankles like the ancient temple dancers whose movements he evokes.
Especially stunning are the bare-chested men personifying female characters in a performance that signifies a leap forward for Cambodia’s once-invisible LGBT performing arts community.
At a Friday performance of the Prumsodun Ok and Natyarasa dance company, it wasn’t the dancers’ sexual identities that made for a captivating performance, but their command of traditional Khmer dance, which communicates beauty through every curved back and synchronized movement.
Apart from their expressiveness, the audience at Thonglor Art Space could clearly sense the dancers’ dedication, accompanied by the dignity of representing their sexuality, being accepted and supporting themselves by doing what they love.
Go onstage with the Prumsodun Ok and Natyarasa dance company in this 360-degree video.
The Journey of ‘Beloved’
It’s been two years since US-born dancer and choreographer Prumsodun Ok, who heads the troupe, received a grant to develop “Beloved,” a project on the traditional dance heritage of his ancestral home. He went into it not expecting any long-term commitment, but after only six weeks, Cambodia’s first gay dance company came together in his Phnom Penh living room. He said it was fate that brought his dreams and vision into sharper focus and reach.
Last week, the troupe flew from Phnom Penh to perform as part of Bangkok Theatre Festival Asia Focus. They staged a preview of “Beloved” before it officially opens in Cambodia.
Ok studied dance and choreography since he was 16 before training in traditional Khmer dance under Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, a legendary choreographer who helped rekindle Khmer traditional arts after they were all but snuffed out under the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s.
Prumsodun Ok, founder and artistic director of Prumsodun Ok and Natyarasa dance company. Photo: Porntep Petchsumrit / Courtesy
For “Beloved,” he used his knowledge of experimental filmmaking to weave an original score and storytelling to present an epic drawn from folklore about a king who mates with a naga, or serpentine deity, to ensure the land’s fertility.
The performers communicated all aspects of the divine courtship through dance, representing love unbounded by orientation.
Making Friday night’s show even more special, it was the first time male dancers dressed as female characters. Those representing female characters wore female costumes, ornaments and long hair decorated with flowers. Their bare chests recalled Apsara, the dancing female spirits of Hindu mythology.
And when “Beloved” launches in Cambodia next month, it will be the first time male performers play female roles there in an official performance.
Artists and academics were all but exterminated in the Khmer Rouge genocide four decades ago. Efforts were made to revive traditional Khmer dance afterward, but it remains in a vulnerable state today.
Ok said the ancient dance is seen as a mirror of heaven, reflecting society’s highest expressions of beauty, identity and order. If one looks at that reflection and doesn’t see LGBT people, it means that they don’t exist. That lack of representation, Ok said, contributes to them being stigmatized and misunderstood.
Apsaras seen in a column at the Preah Khan temple, part of the Angkor temple complex near Siem Reap, Cambodia, in May 2015.
“Giving these gay men a place in this artform is really stretching and re-choreographing the image of heaven and the order it represents,” said Ok, the troupe’s founder and artistic director. “What we’re giving to the tradition is new voices, new ideas, new approaches of where to grow and expand into the future and also allowing young gay men to be heard, seen and to be valued.”
Before the troupe was formed, Ok received threats from those afraid and angry that he’d destroy or distort the traditional artform. He compared the situation to a story in which the Hindu Lord Shiva held poison in his neck to save the world.
“I really learned how to transform poison into nectar,” he said. “Beyond them, there were young Khmer people who wrote to me saying that they love what I’m doing. Also, I learned to see the love all around me from teachers, friends, strangers who came talk to me.”
Eventually, negative criticism faded as his works proved their quality and began transforming traditional dance into a contemporary context.
‘I Had to Dance in Hiding’
Ok said LGBT rights are improving in Cambodia, but a lot of work remains, such as ending workplace discrimination, harmful media portrayals and family acceptance.
When Ok polled his five dancers to ask if they were living openly as gay, the 17- to 25-year-old men admitted they were not due to their family obligations. So, apart from helping them develop mastery of cultural tradition and knowledge, Ok also pays them a livable wage, so that they can earn a living being who they are.
Prumsodun Ok and Natyarasa’s ‘Beloved’ performed Friday at Thonglor Art Space. Photo: Porntep Petchsumrit/ Courtesy.
“I’ve always loved dancing, but there was no path for me into dance as a man or a gay man. So, I had to dance in hiding,” 24-year-old Tes Sokhon said in Khmer, with Ok translating. “Joining the company allows me to learn new techniques and be a better performer. … I have come to accept myself more and become happy with my life and the work I’m doing.”
Chan Sory, 21, said he’s found pride on multiple levels.
“I was living day-to-day, but now I have a job that allows me to sustain myself,” he said. “I’m very proud of what I’m doing, as I’ve grown a lot as a dancer, and it’s very meaningful to be a part of Cambodia’s first gay dance company.”
Ok believes the image of gay men on stage can build a new narrative of what it’s like being gay today and also be a source of inspiration, power and transformation.
“Through the dance, we’re really making the gay community visible in a dignified way,” he said.
Reaching for ‘Global Significance’
Apart from bi-weekly shows at their home studio, the troupe has also been invited to perform at Phnom Penh’s Department of Performing Arts and the US Embassy. Ok was among speakers at an April TED Talk in Vancouver, Canada. Last month, the troupe stepped out for a warm reception in the annual Cambodia Gay Pride.
Accolades are one thing – paying the bills is another.
As in other Southeast Asian countries, there is no financial support coming from the state.
Ok’s looking to generate income through performances, instruction and other activities that can help them stand on their own feet. Apart from that, he aims to scale up from his living room to a performance space where they can welcome larger audiences, dancers and students of all genders and identities in the future.
“We want to give the local and unique expression of what it means to be gay and Khmer, but with global significance,” he said.
Prumsodun Ok, founder and artistic director of the Prumsodun Ok and Natyarasa dance company, performs Friday at Thonglor Art Space. Photo: Porntep Petchsumrit / CourtesyDancers of Prumsodun Ok and Natyarasa Dance company with their artistic director, right, Prumsodun Ok, posed for photo Wednesday at Thonglor Art Space
Lightning over Bangkok. Photo: hitachiota / Flickr
BANGKOK — Remember when there was rain a week ago and everything flooded? After almost a full week being able to navigate the capital without a boating license, a fresh onslaught of wet is storming in.
Almost all of Bangkok will be hit with medium to heavy rains starting Tuesday evening continuing through Friday.
Rains will lessen over the weekend before a rainy week to come. The capital will see highs of 35C and lows of 25C.
The same weather patterns are expected across the country. Residents living in the plains and mountains, especially in the north and Isaan, are advised to be on the lookout for flash floods.
The past couple of weeks has lashed Bangkok and much of Thailand with ankle- to knee-level flooding, paralyzing traffic and inspiring a fresh round of apologies from municipal authorities.
A taxi trundles through floodwaters Monday near Wongsakorn Market on Sai Mai Road, Bangkok.
A foreign security guard, center, and Afghan forces patrol near the site of a massive explosion Wednesday in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo: Rahmat Gul / Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan — Afghanistan’s president says the death toll from last week’s massive suicide truck bombing in Kabul has surpassed 150, making it the deadliest single attack in the 16 years since the U.S. invaded to topple the Taliban.
Ashraf Ghani provided the updated toll on Tuesday in remarks to the Kabul Process, an international gathering focused on security and political issues. He said more than 300 other people were wounded in the bombing.
Afghan authorities have said Pakistan was involved in the attack, charges denied by Islamabad. The two countries have often accused each other of turning a blind eye to militants operating along their porous border.
No one has claimed the attack. The Taliban have steadily expanded their reach since the U.S. and international forces formally concluded their combat mission at the end of 2014. An Islamic State affiliate has meanwhile emerged and carried out several large attacks.
In this April 2012 file photo with the new high-rise buildings of downtown Doha in the background, Qatari women and a man enjoy walking by the sea in Doha, Qatar. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili, File)
BANGKOK — Thailand’s foreign affairs minister said a high-level meeting between Southeast Asian nations and Qatar later this year may not take place due to a political row in the Gulf States.
Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates all cut diplomatic ties with Qatar on Monday and closed their borders and airspace to the peninsular country, sparking the most serious gulf state diplomatic crisis since the Gulf War in 1991. Minister Don Pramudwinai said he hoped the quarrel would be resolved before the planned meeting, which Thailand will host in late 2017.
The summit is between ASEAN member states and the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Qatar.
“If the situation in the Middle East does not improve, the summit may not be able to take place as originally scheduled,” Don told reporters before entering a Cabinet meeting Tuesday. “Therefore, Thailand and ASEAN hope that the situation will be resolved.”
The four nations accused Qatar of supporting extremist groups and sabotaging stability in the region through unspecified actions.
Although Don maintained the row will not affect Thailand’s ties with Qatar, he said the blockade will pose difficulties in finding necessary goods and travel for Thais living in the Middle Eastern nation.
Switzerland's Stan Wawrinka celebrates winning his fourth round match of the French Open tennis tournament against France's Gael Monfils in three sets 7-5, 7-6 (9-7), 6-2, Monday at the Roland Garros stadium, in Paris, France. Photo: Petr David Josek / Associated Press
A quick look at the French Open:
Men’s Results Monday
Fourth round: No. 1 Andy Murray beat Karen Khachanov 6-3, 6-4, 6-4; No. 3 Stan Wawrinka beat No. 15 Gael Monfils 7-5, 7-6 (7), 6-2; No. 7 Marin Cilic beat Kevin Anderson 6-3, 3-0, retired (left hamstring); No. 8 Kei Nishikori beat Fernando Verdasco 0-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-0.
Twenty of 24 — That was the run of points won by Svitolina to end her comeback victory after trailing 5-2 in the third set and serving at love-30.
Quote of the Day
“Actually, I’m very bad with the memories. I don’t even know if I (won) or lost. I won?” — Nishikori, when asked what he remembers from his match against upcoming opponent Murray in the U.S. Open quarterfinals in September. (For the record, Nishikori won in five sets.)
Lookahead to Tuesday
Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic can set up a semifinal showdown with victories. In his quarterfinal, nine-time French Open champion Nadal faces No. 20 Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain at Court Philippe Chatrier. Nadal is 3-0 against Carreno Busta. Djokovic, the defending champion, takes on No. 6 Dominic Thiem of Austria at Court Suzanne Lenglen in a rematch of a 2016 semifinal at Roland Garros that Djokovic won in straight sets. “I’m sure he’s going to be as motivated as ever, so I expect him to come out and really play his best,” said Djokovic, who has won all five matches, and 11 of 12 sets, he’s played against Thiem. “I’m going to be ready for that.” There are some milestones at stake, too: Nadal can become the first man in the professional era to reach 10 semifinals at Roland Garros; Djokovic can reach a seventh consecutive French Open semifinal and break a tie with Jimmy Connors for second place with a 234th Grand Slam match win (Roger Federer’s record is 314). In the women’s quarterfinals, former No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki meets 19-year-old Jelena Ostapenko, and No. 13 Kristina Mladenovic faces No. 30 Timea Bacsinszky. Only Bacsinszky has been to the French Open semifinals in the past, losing to Serena Williams at that stage in 2015.
