‘Soi Diver’ is Flooding Our Hearts With Joy Today (Video)

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30 May 2017, 16:21

Facebook user Ui Ratchasit Ketkeaw dives into a flooded Bangkok street Tuesday.

BANGKOK — We award a full 10 to the man who made those most of Bangkok’s flooded streets Tuesday by just diving right in fully dressed in professional attire.

Don’t have an Olympic-size pool to practice your aquatic chops? Then just follow the example of Facebook user Ui Ratchasit Ketkeaw, who posted a video of himself this afternoon diving fluidly into a flooded street. It’s already been shared over 8,000 times and viewed over 300,000 times.

“This year’s gold medal is mine,” he wrote in the caption of the 22-second clip.

We have nothing but praise for his expert flutter kicks, perfectly executed flip-turn and celebratory fist pump accompanying his feat.

Thailand’s Music Lovers Declare for Spotify

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Chayanit Itthipongmaetee, Staff Reporter

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30 May 2017, 15:25

BANGKOK — Music enthusiasts were prematurely vowing Tuesday to cut the VPN cord at the mere suggestion streaming music service Spotify might be coming to Thailand.

Responding to speculation the company’s hiring of a music editor for Thailand signaled its imminent arrival in the kingdom, fans of the service said they were ready to drop competitors such as Deezer, Joox, KKBox, Line Music or Apple Music.

“[I’ll] definitely quit using Apple Music!” Ekkapol Suwansaeng wrote on Facebook.

“Yeah! No more Joox,” user Phupatch Fourth Mekapongpand wrote.

Others said they have had enough of using VPNs to access location-locked services such as Spotify in Thailand.

“No more VPN. It’s fucking annoying every time I have to login,” Chok Saravut wrote.

The excitement kicked off after the Swedish company posted a hiring notice for someone familiar with music in Thailand. According to the job notice, qualified candidates must be familiar with the Thai musical landscape and fluent in English and Thai. The job is in Singapore, where Spotify has regional offices.

Launched in 2008, Spotify claims more than 100 million active users, half of whom are are paid subscribers. Although its available in more than 60 countries, Spotify in Southeast Asia is limited to Singapore and the Philippines. The company is expected to go public later this year.

@SpotifyCares HEARD THE RUMOR THAT SPOTIFY IS GOING TO BE AVAILABLE IN THAILAND SOON. PLEASE DONT BE JUST A RUMOR. CONFIRM IT PLEASE

— pat (@doithaz) May 29, 2017

Tiger Woods Arrested for Suspected DUI

By

Associated Press

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30 May 2017, 13:38

Tiger Woods in a mug shot taken Monday. Photo: Palm Beach County Sheriff

Players arriving for a tournament this week at Muirfield Village might notice a framed picture of Tiger Woods with a resplendent smile and bright red shirt. He’s posed there with the trophy, an image that embodies the excitement he once brought to golf.

A far different photo emerged Monday, this one from the Palm Beach County jail in Florida after Woods was arrested on a DUI charge.

Sullen, lifeless eyes.

Thinning hair mussed at the top. Scraggly facial hair. A white T-shirt.

In another stunning development for a player who became one of the dominant figures in sports, Woods was arrested on suspicion of DUI and spent nearly four hours in jail before he was released on his own recognizance.

Woods said an “unexpected reaction” to prescription medicine — not alcohol — was the reason for his arrest. He said he understands the severity of the incident and takes full responsibility.

“I want the public to know that alcohol was not involved,” he said. “What happened was an unexpected reaction to prescribed medications. I didn’t realize the mix of medications had affected me so strongly.”

Woods said he wanted to apologize to his family, friends and fans, adding that “I expect more from myself, too.”

“I will do everything in my power to ensure this never happens again,” he said.

Jupiter Police spokeswoman Kristin Rightler said an arrest report may be available Tuesday.

Woods, a 14-time major champion who ranks No. 2 in PGA Tour history with 79 victories, has not played golf for four months. He had a fourth back surgery on April 20, and just five days ago reported on his website that the fusion surgery brought instant relief from pain and that he “hasn’t felt better in years.”

Rightler said Woods was arrested about 3 a.m. Monday on Military Trail, a six-lane road south of Indian Creek Parkway. He was about 20 minutes from his home on Jupiter Island. His statement did not indicate where he was going at that hour or where he had been.

Woods’ agent at Excel Sports, Mark Steinberg, did not respond to a voicemail from The Associated Press seeking comment. PGA Tour spokesman Ty Votaw said the tour would have no comment.

Players arriving at Muirfield Village in Dublin, Ohio, for the Memorial did not want to comment, either.

Within an hour of the news, they all had seen the photo.

Notah Begay, a close friend and roommate of Woods when they played at Stanford, was empathetic. Begay was arrested for aggravated drunken driving in 2000 when he ran into a car outside a bar in New Mexico. He was sentenced to 364 days in jail, with all but seven days suspended.

“It’s embarrassing for Tiger, something that you can’t go back and change,” Begay said on Golf Channel from the NCAA men’s golf championship in Sugar Grove, Illinois, where he was working for the network. “I’ve been there myself. … But it was a turning point in my life. Hopefully, it’s something he’ll learn from, grow from, take responsibility for and use it to make some changes.”

Begay later said on Golf Channel he had exchanged text messages with Woods after the arrest.

“He seemed like he was in a better place,” Begay said.

Woods has not been seen at a golf tournament since he opened with a 77 at the Omega Dubai Desert Classic in February, withdrawing the next day because of back spasms. He was in Los Angeles for the Genesis Open, run by his Tiger Woods Foundation, but he did not come to the course at Riviera because of his back.

He was at the Masters, but only to attend the dinner for past champions.

Woods, who had been No. 1 longer than any other golfer, has not been a factor since his last victory in August 2013 as he battled through back surgeries from a week before the 2014 Masters until his most recent fusion surgery on his lower back a month ago.

This was the first time Woods has run into trouble off the golf course since he plowed his SUV into a tree and a fire hydrant outside his Windermere, Florida, home in the early morning after Thanksgiving in 2009, which led to revelations that he had multiple extramarital affairs.

A police report then showed that a Florida trooper who suspected Woods was driving under the influence sought a subpoena for the golfer’s blood test results from the hospital, but prosecutors rejected the petition for insufficient information.

A witness, who wasn’t identified in the report, told the trooper he had been drinking alcohol earlier. The same witness also said Woods had been prescribed two drugs, the sleep aid Ambien and the painkiller Vicodin. The report did not say who the witness was but said it was the same person who pulled Woods from the vehicle after the accident. Woods’ wife has told police that she used a golf club to smash the back windows of the Cadillac Escalade to help her husband out.

He eventually was cited for careless driving and fined USD$164.

Woods and wife Elin Nordegren divorced in 2010. He later had a relationship with Olympic ski champion Lindsey Vonn that lasted two years.

Story: Doug Ferguson

Review: ‘Wonder Woman’ Film and Star Live Up to the Name

By

Associated Press

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30 May 2017, 13:35

Film Review Wonder Woman — This image released by Warner Bros. Entertainment shows Gal Gadot in a scene from "Wonder Woman," in theaters on June 2. (Clay Enos/Warner Bros. Entertainment via AP)

“Wonder Woman” has been the subject of so much superfluous fuss, it’d be easy to forget that behind all of the hand-wringing and both symbolic and real pressure to succeed there’s actually a movie meant to entertain.

Yet, like the heroine at its center, “Wonder Woman” the movie rises with powerful grace above the noise. It’s not perfect, but it’s often good, sometimes great and exceptionally re-watchable.

Director Patty Jenkins’ film is so threaded with sincerity and goodness it’s a wonder how it got past the pugnacious minds responsible for what’s come before. “Wonder Woman” evokes not only the spirit of Richard Donner’s “Superman,” but also Joe Johnston’s “Captain America: The First Avenger,” while still being its own thing. Just look to the image of Gal Gadot confidently striding out alone onto an unwinnable battlefield with only a shield, a sword and a mission — and prevailing. It’s enough to give you goosebumps.

“Wonder Woman” is structured as a coming-of-age story about how Diana, the Amazonian princess, becomes Wonder Woman. It’s framed, clumsily, as an over two hour flashback provoked by a note from Bruce Wayne. Of all the stupid interconnected universe things!

Thankfully, Jenkins transitions quickly into the actual story about a naive idealist who comes to accept the complexities of mankind. From a tender age, Diana, living on the achingly idyllic island of Themyscira, dreams of being a warrior. Her mother, Queen Hippolyta (Connie Nielsen) disapproves, although she inexplicably withholds the real reason.

It’s no wonder Diana aspires to fight. She’s been told that their sole purpose is to keep the peace and destroy Ares, the god of war. Also, and not insignificantly, the warriors led by General Antiope (Robin Wright), are some of the fiercest babes ever to grace the screen. They fly around with swords and shields, bedecked in armored mini dresses and wedged gladiator sandals that allow them to leap 50 feet in the air.

Young Diana trains in secret, and then with reluctant permission, until an American spy, Steve Trevor (Chris Pine), crash lands on the island and tells the Amazons about the “war to end all wars.” Diana concludes World War I must be Ares’ doing and decides, impetuously and like so many arrogant superheroes before her, that she’s ready for battle.

In London and at the battlefront, Diana gets a crash course in humanity, from the ills (sexism, alcoholism, colonialism, racism, apathy) to the good (babies, snow, ice cream). It’s all very simplistic, but Gadot’s serious and unapologetic curiosity sells the dubious premise that a woman so versed in so many things from Socrates to the “pleasures of the flesh” could be this unaware of human flaws. Perhaps they only teach the good stuff in Themyscira. But that’s what Trevor is there for — to help this otherworldly crusader acclimate.

Pine plays Trevor as a spiritual cousin to Indiana Jones (he even gets to goof around with an accent that immediately evokes the “tapestries” bit from “The Last Crusade”). He’s on his own mission, to stop the comically evil Germans General Ludendorff (Danny Huston) and Doctor Poison (Elena Anaya) from prolonging the war, but it’s never a question that this is Diana’s show.

Jenkins keeps the look and feel of the film classical, as it breezes through a strong second act. But, being a DC film, “Wonder Woman” can’t help but devolve into a blurry, concrete-busting third act that feels dispiritingly like all the rest, not to mention a baffling reveal that negates most of Diana’s growth. It’s not enough to negate the good, though, and much of that is Gadot’s doing.

She is the perfect Wonder Woman — a true blue hero who’s as believable in her bafflement of women’s fashions and social mores as she is dead-lifting a tank and swatting away machine gun fire with only her arm cuff.

I never cared about Wonder Woman before. Now I do.

“Wonder Woman,” a Warner Bros. release, is rated PG-13 by the Motion Picture Association of America for “sequences of violence and action, and some suggestive content.” Running time: 141 minutes. Three stars out of four.

Story: Lindsey Bahr

Chit Lom Flasher Apologizes After Woman Exposes Him to Internet

By

Sasiwan Mokkhasen, Staff Reporter

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30 May 2017, 13:22

Thanyaphat Srinoppanan, 29, was caught exposing himself in a Facebook live broadcast Thursday morning by Maythawarin Narkngam.

BANGKOK — A flasher and compulsive public masturbator caught in the act said Monday he did not have money to seek treatment for mental illness.

Thursday morning wasn’t the first time Thanyaphat Srinoppanan exposed himself to Maythawarin Narkngam, but it was the first time she livestreamed the harassment she experienced at the foot of a bridge over the Khlong Saen Saep, across from the Chidlom Pier.

The 29-year-old man brought flowers and candles to the 24-year-old woman Monday when the two met at Lumpini Police Station.

“For things that I have done, with or without meaning to, I really mean to apologize to you,” he said. “I would like to ask you to forgive me, and I promise not to commit this behavior again.”

flasher2 — Thanyaphat Srinoppanan gave flowers and candles to Maythawarin Narkngam to apologize Monday at Lumpini Police Station in Bangkok.

He was charged with public indecency, a crime punishable by up to a 500 baht fine.

Thanyaphat turned himself in under pressure after his face was clearly visible in Maythawarin’s video.

Maythawarin said she decided to stream the incident because it was the second time he’d done it. She said she could only cry Monday when he first exposed himself to her.

Thanyaphat said he has been unable to control himself when he sees an attractive woman. He said he already tried to find information to treat his mental illness but cannot afford to do so.

Thai National Parks Begin Seasonal Closures

By

Kaewta Ketbungkan, Staff Reporter

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30 May 2017, 12:56

Erawan National park located in Kanchanaburi Province, Thailand. Photo: Thrillseekr / Flickr.

BANGKOK — It’s the time of the year when nature calls for Thailand’s national parks to temporarily close, so best check ahead before paying a visit.

Due to whimsical weather that may create unsafe conditions and to allow for some ecological recovery time, several national parks close every year for certain periods between March and December.

Not sure? Contact the national park prior to planning a visit. Phone numbers for all national parks are available online in English.

In the north, closures stretching through October include the campsite at Doi Suthep-Pui in Chiang Mai province, and in Kamphaeng Phet province, the Mokochu Peak trail and three waterfalls in the Mae Wong National Park. The Kew Mae Pan nature trail to the highest peak of Chiang Mai’s Doi Inthanon will close July 1 through October.

Read: Andaman Marine Parks Close For 5 Months

In the northeast, Khao Yai’s Pha Diao Dai, Phu Kradueng peak in Loei Province and Phayanakarat Cave of Phu Pha Man in Khon Kaen will be closed June to September.

In the east, Ko Kudi and Ko Thalu of Rayong’s Khao Laem Ya – Mu Ko Samet will close until September while Ko Thonglang, Ko Kra and Ko Thian of Trad’s Mu Ko Chang are closed indefinitely.

In the west, Mae Saliang Waterfall, Khao Phanoen Thung and Baan Krang Camp of Kaeng Krachan in Phetchaburi will be closed August to October. In Kanchanaburi, Klity waterfall and three caves in Lam Khlong Ngu are closed indefinitely.

In the south, several Andaman marine parks are closed through Oct. 14 including certain islands of Mu Ko Lanta, Phang-nga’s Ko Similan, Ko Ta Chai and Mu Ko Surin.

Andaman Marine Parks Close For 5 Months

Manuel Noriega, Former Panamanian Dictator, 83

By

Associated Press

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30 May 2017, 12:39

Panamanian military strongman Gen. Manuel Noriega raises his fists to acknowledge the crowd cheers during a Dignity Battalion rally in1988 in Panama City. Photo: John Hopper / Associated Press

PANAMA CITY — A source close to the family of Manuel Noriega says the former Panamanian dictator has died at age 83.

The source was not authorized to be quoted by name.

Panamanian President Juan Carlos Varela wrote in his Twitter account that “the death of Manuel A. Noriega closes a chapter in our history.”

The onetime U.S. ally was ousted as Panama’s dictator by an American invasion in 1989.

Noriega later served a 17-year drug sentence in the United States.

Story: Juan Zamorano

Australia Plans to Ban Pedophiles From Traveling Overseas

By

Associated Press

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30 May 2017, 11:56

Australian independent Sen. Derryn Hinch holds a press conference in Parliament House on Tuesday in Canberra, Australia. Photo: Rod McGuirk / Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia plans to ban convicted pedophiles from traveling overseas in what the government said Tuesday is a world-first move to protect vulnerable children in Southeast Asia from exploitation.

Australian pedophiles are notorious for taking inexpensive vacations to nearby Southeast Asian and Pacific island countries to abuse children there.

Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said she would cancel the passports of around 20,000 pedophiles on the national child sex offender register under legislation that will be introduced to Parliament soon.

“There has been increasing community concern about sexual exploitation of vulnerable children and community concern is justified,” she told reporters.

Almost 800 registered child sex offenders travelled overseas from Australia last year and about half went to Southeast Asian destinations, she said.

“There will be new legislation which will make Australia a world leader in protecting vulnerable children in our region from child sex tourism,” Bishop said.

Justice Minister Michael Keenan said no country has such a travel ban. He said 2,500 new convicted pedophiles would be added to the sex offender register each year and would also lose their passports.

The register contains 3,200 serious offenders who will be banned from travel for life. Less serious offenders drop off the register after several years of complying with reporting conditions and would become eligible to have their passports renewed.

Independent Senator Derry Hinch, who was molested as a child and was jailed twice as a radio broadcaster for naming pedophiles in contravention of court orders, took credit for the government initiative.

Hinch said he had not known that convicted pedophiles were allowed to travel before he received a letter from Australian actress and children’s rights campaigner Rachel Griffiths soon after he was elected to the Senate last year.

“If we can take a passport from a bankrupt, why can’t we stop our pedophiles from traveling to Myanmar?” Griffiths wrote. Under Australian law, a bankrupt person cannot travel overseas without a trustee’s permission.

Hinch, who was involved in drafting the legislation, said temporary passports could be provided to pedophiles who need to travel for legitimate business or family reasons, and for pedophiles living overseas who need to return to Australia as their visas expire.

“This will not apply to a teenager who has been caught sexting to his 15-year-old girlfriend,” said Hinch, referring to sexual phone communications.

“I know sometimes, I think unfairly, they go on registers, but we’re trying to work it out so they don’t,” he added.

Bishop said governments in the Asia-Pacific region wanted Australia to do more to stem child sex tourists.

“There’s most certainly deep concern among countries in our region about the number of registered child sex offenders in Australia engaging in the child sex tourism industry,” she said.

Australia has attempted to crack down on Australian child sex tourists by adding a new criminal offense punishable by up to 25 years in prison for Australian citizens or residents who molest children overseas.

Story: Rod McGuirk

Purple Line ‘Missing Link’ to Open in August

By

Asaree Thaitrakulpanich, Staff Reporter

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30 May 2017, 11:53

Commuters queue for the MRT Purple Line in December 2016.

BANGKOK — Getting from MRT Bang Sue to the Purple Line will no longer involve transferring by shuttle come August.

That’s when transportation officials said commuters can expect a rail link connecting the northern end of the Blue Line to MRT Tao Poon for onward travel into Nonthaburi province along the Purple Line.

Construction of the so-called “missing link” between the two subway lines has been finished for some time. Transport Ministry spokesman Chirut Visarnchit on Monday said testing of the rail link will begin in June, and it should be operational by August.

The absence of a link between the two has been blamed for the Purple Line’s low ridership since it opened in August.

The delay in completing the link was due to a contract dispute over the concession to operate it. It was announced in December that the operator of the original MRT Blue Line, Bangkok Expressway and Metro Co. Ltd., was to be paid about 800 million baht to installing signaling and operate the link for two years.

With a Stroke of His Pen, Prayuth Solves MRT’s ‘Missing Link’ Problem

New MRT Purple Line Will Connect to Blue Line, But Not Anytime Soon

Frustrated Mess When Thousands Queue for Free Purple

‘Bangkok Psycho’ Brings Erotic Art to Maggie Choo’s

By

Chayanit Itthipongmaetee, Staff Reporter

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30 May 2017, 11:38

BANGKOK — Lust and sexual conquest are the subjects of a series of erotic photos to show at a trendy basement nightclub.

The conceptual photo exhibition, which seeks to fuse a little Lynch and German metal, poses women as unapologetic objects of the male id. In the black and white images, the models wear the Ghostface mask from the Scream movies, which has something to do with the artist’s conceit that the sexually charged images are about challenging men to consider the consequences.

All 15 images were taken by Dop Ameen, a French photographer who has lived in Bangkok since 2011.

“The Bride lets [the women] anonymously explore their own fantasies while using their bodies to stage the images,” Ameen wrote of the exhibition. “But it also lets them be aware of the feeling of being in possession of, and therefore divested of, themselves.”

Bangkok Psycho will open at 7pm on June 8 and run through June 15 at Maggie Choo’s. The 1920s Shanghai-themed basement bar is located in the Novotel Fenix Silom Hotel and can be reached by taxi from BTS Surasak, BTS Chong Nonsi or MRT Silom.

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