Artist Rook Floro's bifurcated persona takes form as the id-creature 'Blastard,' at left, and socially crippled 'Corvus,' at right. Images: Rook Floro / Courtesy
BANGKOK — One is a slumped anthropomorphic crow all in black. The other a frenetic flurry of color-stranded energy.
The vessels of an artist’s contradictory personas will be expressed next week in an array of multimedia works at A Creature Apart, a study of alter egos inside a gallery in the Yen Akat area.
Rook Floro as the ‘Blastard’
“I wake up each day with different, extreme personalities,” Filipino-Thai artist Rook Floro said in an interview. “One day I feel very extroverted. On the day I have to meet people, I may wake up being too introverted.”
Rook’s previous works have taken measure of his internal dimensions. Corvus was the black-beaked introvert crouching in opposition to Blastard, the vivid and carefree extrovert at the center of his upcoming show. There, 29-year-old Rook will give form to their balance – or imbalance – in hope of finding the space in between.
“I’m trying to find a balance between the two extremes that cause life conflicts,” Rook said.
Apart from his own internal dynamics, Rook said he’s also inspired by 1988 Japanese anime classic “Akira” for its iconic scene of a conflicted character’s transformation into a giant, fleshy mess. The artist believes his experiences track with changes in the society, leaders and the world.
More than 20 paintings and 10 sculptures, along with installations, photography and a video will be part of the exhibition that will display along with the gallery’s architecture.
Rook was selected by the U.K. Young Artists to participate in the World Event Young Artist 2012 in Nottingham and has exhibited his works in England, France and Thailand.
The exhibition opens at 4pm on May 20 and runs through June 24 at YenakART Villa on Soi Yen Akat. It’s a 10-minute taxi ride from MRT Lumpini or Khlong Toei.
BANGKOK — Another civilian arrested by soldiers nearly a week ago resurfaced at the Technology Crime Suppression Division on Thursday morning and will hear charges of defaming the monarchy and violating the Computer Crime Act later at the Criminal Court, according to a human rights lawyer.
Arnon Nampa said he received a phone call from the relatives of a man he identified only by his Facebook username, “Adisak Sakulngern.” They were seeking legal assistance after the man was allegedly held incommunicado at an undisclosed location by soldiers for six days before being turned over to police today.
It would be the seventh such case filed this month. In what is becoming a routine for Arnon, the rights lawyer posted a warning on Facebook before 9:30am this morning warning anyone who might have engaged in “risky exchanges” with Adisak to “deal with the matter urgently.”
“The man who soldiers claimed use Facebook under the name Adisak Sakulngern has been arrested under the lese majeste law. Anyone who had risky exchanges should deal with the matter urgently. Police are now investigating,” he wrote.
Arnon speculated that the man, who publicly declared online that he supported establishing a Thai Federation, might have been tracked down after he tagged in a post a lawyer recently arrested and charged with the same crimes.
That lawyer, Prawet Prapanukul, faces up to 150 years in prison for 10 counts of alleged lese majeste and 50 years for 10 counts of violating the Computer Crime Act.
The charges were filed May 3 against Prawet and five other people arrested the same day in late April.
In his messages, Adisak appeared upset about Prawet’s arrest. In late March, he had tagged Prawet and 25 others in a post that included images and words that could be construed as anti-monarchy. He had recently shared some content critical of the monarchy from two of the three critics of the monarchy abroad declared online personae non gratae by the military regime in April.
Redshirt Anurak Jeantawanich, aka Ford Red Path, said Thursday that he had been Facebook friends of Adisak but decided to unfriend him a month ago after he found Adisak’s postings to be critical of the monarchy.
Anurak said that Adisak had expressed conviction in his actions in a Facebook message.
“He told me that he did it willingly, that he had devoted himself, and that he’s not in Thailand,” Anurak said.
Sudchada Buripia talks on her mobile phone as she crosses a road Wednesday in Chonburi province moments before she was struck by a speeding car.
CHONBURI — A woman struck by a car as she crossed a road while talking on the phone in dramatic footage circulated online has died, police said Thursday.
Sudchada Buripia, 40, was seen talking on her mobile phone while crossing a four-lane road in the Si Racha district of Chonburi province on Wednesday when she was struck by a car and sent flying through the air.
Footage of the incident from another vehicle’s dash cam quickly found its way online. After passing the first three lanes safely, the school janitor did not look for oncoming cars in the fourth lane, which was clear at the moment. She was then hit by a bronze Honda and her body flew across the lane to land on the hood of another car.
Mungkorn Somsud, who drove the Honda that struck Sudchada, said he did not see her coming. She was taken to a local hospital with severe injuries, and the commander of Si Racha police confirmed Thursday morning that she later died.
Police Col. Phobpol Jakkaphak said no charges had yet been filed against the driver.
Rescue workers respond to the scene of a car bomb attack at Big C in Pattani province on May 9, 2017.
PATTANI — Police said Thursday they were still trying to find the owner of a pickup truck used in a bomb attack that wounded more than 60 people earlier this week.
Nuson Khachornkam, 44, was last seen by his family on Monday, a day before his vehicle, presumably hijacked by separatists, exploded at a Big C shopping center in Pattani. Tuesday’s attack has been condemned by authorities and human rights groups alike. Police suspect the perpetrators belonged to local separatist groups.
“We are still looking for him. He has not been found yet,” Piyawat Chalermsri, commander of Pattani police, said by telephone. “But his precise whereabouts are being narrowed now. We should have the exact location soon.”
Police previously said Nuson’s mobile phone remained on but no one had answered it. His family said Nuson’s work was erecting tents for festivities, and on Monday he had gone out on a job call.
The bomb wounded 61 people, three seriously, but no fatalities. Among the victims were women and children. Maj. Gen. Piyawat said a warrant has been issued for one of the alleged attackers, and police are applying for more warrants today.
Although no one has claimed responsibility for the attack, the colonel said evidence point to secessionist militants, without naming any group in particular.
“They belong to the same group that has been operating in the region,” Piyawat said.
The attack was condemned not only by the government, but also by UNICEF’s office in Bangkok, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International.
Speaking through BenarNews in Malaysia, a spokesman for an umbrella group of militant cells currently in negotiation with the Thai government said the bombing was unacceptable.
“Whoever they are, inflicting injuries on civilians in a public space is just unacceptable,” MARA Patani spokesman Abu Hafez Al-Hakim was quoted as saying.
The southern border provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat have been rocked by waves of secessionist violence since early 2004, a conflict that has claimed more than 6,800 people, many of them civilians.
Correction: An earlier version of this article identified Piyawat Chalermsri as a police colonel. In fact, he is a police major general.
Sri Lankan Buddhist monks and villagers face soldiers and shout slogans on Jan. 7, 2017, to protest a plan to take over private land for an industrial zone in which China will have a major stake outside the inauguration ceremony for the industrial zone in Mirijjawila village in Ambalantota, Sri Lanka. Photo: Eranga Jayawardena / Associated Press
BEIJING — In a mountain valley in Kashmir, plans are under way for Chinese engineers guarded by Pakistani forces to expand the lofty Karakoram Highway in a project that is stirring diplomatic friction with India.
The work is part of a sprawling Chinese initiative to build a “new Silk Road” of ports, railways and roads to expand trade in a vast arc of countries across Asia, Africa and Europe. The Asian Development Bank says the region, home to 60 percent of the world’s people, needs more than USD$26 trillion of such investment by 2030 to keep economies growing.
The initiative is in many ways natural for China, the world’s biggest trader. But governments from Washington to Moscow to New Delhi worry Beijing also is trying to build its own political influence and erode theirs.
Others worry China might undermine human rights, environmental and other standards or leave poor countries burdened with debt.
India is unhappy Chinese state-owned companies are working in the Pakistani-held part of Kashmir, the Himalayan region claimed by both sides. Indian leaders see that as an endorsement of Pakistani control.
“We have some serious reservations about it, because of sovereignty issues,” said India’s finance and defense minister, Arun Jaitley, at an Asian Development Bank meeting this month in Yokohama, Japan. China has previously said its highway work “targets no third country.”
China’s initiative is ramping up as President Donald Trump focuses on domestic issues, downplaying foreign affairs.
American officials say Washington wants to work with China on infrastructure. But some political analysts say Beijing is trying to create a political and economic network centered on China and push the United States out of the region.
Trump’s decision to pull out of the proposed 12-nation Trans-Pacific Partnership deprives China’s neighbors of a tool they hoped would counter its rising influence, said Max Baucus, the U.S. ambassador to Beijing until January.
“Southeast Asian countries would tell me ‘we want you, we want the TPP, then we can balance China with the United States,'” Baucus told The Associated Press.
Dubbed “One Belt, One Road” after ancient trade routes through the Indian Ocean and Central Asia, the initiative is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature project.
Details such as financing are vague. But since Xi announced it in 2013, Beijing has launched dozens of projects from railways in Tajikistan, Thailand and Kenya to power plants in Vietnam and Kyrgyzstan.
Countries including Pakistan and Afghanistan welcome it as a path out of poverty. India, Indonesia and others want investment but are wary of Chinese strategic ambitions.
Indonesia’s political elite have a “fear of regional hegemony” by China, said Christine Tjhin, senior researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Jakarta.
Moscow worries Beijing is diluting Russian influence in Central Asia by linking Uzbekistan and other countries more closely to China’s more dynamic economy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has responded by proposing a “Great Eurasia Project,” with Beijing leading on economics and Moscow on politics and security.
“This vision enables the Kremlin to maintain an appearance that it retains the political initiative in its neighborhood,” said a report by the Center for Eastern Studies, a Warsaw think tank.
In a possible effort to defuse unease, China has invited governments to a two-day forum starting Sunday and led by Xi. Leaders from 28 countries including Russian President Vladimir Putin are due to attend, but none from major Western countries.
Chinese officials reject suggestions the initiative is a power play by Beijing.
“The Chinese government has never wished to control any other country’s government,” a Cabinet official, Ou Xiaoli, told The Associated Press. “We feel in contacts between countries, we need to talk about studying benefits, studying mutual profit.”
The bulk of Chinese financing is to be loans, which Ou said will be mostly on commercial terms based on “market principles.” That might add to debt burdens in countries where dealing with Beijing can be politically sensitive.
The state-run China Development Bank announced in 2015 it had set aside $890 billion for more than 900 “One Belt, One Road” projects across 60 countries in gas, minerals and other sectors. The government’s Export-Import Bank of China said it would finance 1,000 projects in 49 countries.
In Pakistan, the proposed $1.3 billion effort to expand the Karakoram Highway is part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which involves dozens of projects including power plants, roads and railways.
Pakistani officials say much of the Chinese money for power projects is investment, not loans but have given few details, raising questions about whether other projects can pay for themselves.
“I feel that our several generations will have to repay these Chinese loans for decades,” said Azeem Khalid, a lecturer at the Commission on Science and Technology for Sustainable Development in the South, a non-government group in Islamabad.
Update: Organizer BEC-Tero Entertainment released the concert’s seating plan on Monday.
BANGKOK— Ed Sheeran fans had their hopes confirmed when a Bangkok tour date for the English pop star was announced Wednesday.
Best known for “Photograph,” “Thinking Out Loud” and “The A Team,” the Grammy Award-winning singer-songwriter will perform live for the first time ever in Bangkok, announced the promoter BEC-Tero Entertainment Wednesday afternoon.
The concert will take place Nov. 16 at Impact Arena Muang Thong Thani. Tickets start at 1,800 baht and will be available via ThaiTicketMajor on July 1.
People wear traditional costume as they offer food to monks at Wat Photharam in Bueng Kan province.
BANGKOK — Buddhists gathered Wednesday to make merit in several temples around Thailand on Visakha Bucha, a festivity marking the Buddha’s birth, enlightenment and death.
Many in largely Buddhist Thailand began observing Visakha Bucha starting Tuesday night.
1Chiang Rai
Locals gathered at Wat Ming Muang to listen to sermons and pay their respects to the image of Phra Upakut Tuesday night. At midnight, the image was mounted onto a decorated car which drove in front of 500 monks asking for alms.
Northern Thais believe that making merit to Phra Upakut can bring them fortune and prosperity. According to a Lanna belief, Phra Upakut observes Buddhist lent under the ocean and comes up to earth during Wednesday’s full moon to save humans from sin.
2Lamphun
Wat Phra That Hariphunchai is the center for more than 1,000 people from Lamphun and nearby provinces to make merit on Wednesday morning. At 7pm, there will be a lantern procession from the governor’s residence to the temple.
3Nakhon Phanom
In the northeastern province, Nakhon Phanom residents and tourists gathered to give alm to monks on Sunthorn Wichit Road along the Mekong River. More activities such as listening to sermons, merit-making and walking with lighted candles around a temple will be held at Wat Phra That Phanom, believed to contain a bone relic of Buddha.
4Uthai Thani
In Uthai Thani, buddhists gathered at Wat Manee Sathit Kapittharam to listen to sermons, make merit and give alms to monks.
5Bueng Kan
People wear traditional costume as they offer food to monks at Wat Photharam in Bueng Kan province.
More than 500 buddhists from Bueng Kan province and Laos make merit and listen to sermons at Wat Photharam.
6Ayutthaya
Wat Yai Chai Mongkhon is the main venue of the historic city of Ayutthaya, where more than 5,00 people visit the temple to make merit and drape a large saffron cloth over the chedi. It’s believed to bring luck, prosperity and victory.
Thailand’s oldest Buddhist university Mahachulalongkornrajavidyalaya University on Tuesday raised three flags: the national flag, Thai buddhist flag and universal buddhist flag. They say the flags are Thailand’s largest and that one of the poles is the world’s third-highest. They will fly until May 22.
7Bangkok
Apart from temples, various religious activities such as merit-making and offerings to monks are held at the Indoor Stadium Hua Mark, near Rajamangala Stadium.
The United Nation has also recognized Visakha Bucha since 1999 to acknowledge Buddhism’s contributions to human spirituality for more than 2,000 years.
Prawet Prapanukul, a 57-year-old human rights lawyer, is led May 3 from a Bangkok court room and returned to custody. Photo: Matichon
BANGKOK — A landscape architecture professor, fresh law grad, office worker and school teacher were among five people charged along with a human rights lawyer last week for allegedly defaming the royal family.
Details about those arrested along with rights lawyer Prawet Prapanukul, 57, have come from interviews with those close to the cases of the six, who were arrested April 29 in what is thought to be the largest single-day crackdown on lese majeste. It comes as three international rights organizations noted that lese majeste prosecution has surged from the time of the May 2014 coup – when only six people were behind bars for the offense – with more than 100 new cases since then.
The president of a group which assists lese majeste and political prisoners said its volunteers and staff have met and lent assistance to the six suspects. Piyarat Chongthep said the For Friends Association along with Thai Lawyers for Human Rights and the Internet Reform Dialogue agreed not to release names of the five people arrested with Prawet to protect their families and relatives from possible negative repercussions.
Here’s what’s known about those arrested.
The Landscape Architect
Saran Samantarat is an assistant professor of landscape architecture at Kasetsart University. He holds a doctorate in the built environment from Kasetsart and is listed by researchgate.net as holding interests including urban and rural sociology, philosophy, cultural studies, social and cultural anthropology and comparative religion.
Saran Samantarat / Facebook
The 54-year-old professor, as with the others except for Prawet, was charged with sharing a Facebook post late last month by an exiled academic about the missing 1932 revolution plaque. The military regime released a bizarre ban lacking any clear legal basis of any online interaction with the academic on April 12. Saran was captured by soldiers in his condominium car park on April 29 and taken to the 11th Military Circle. He was formally charged May 3.
Piyarat of For Friends said Saran is known among activists and rural land-rights advocates.
“He’s supposed to be presenting an academic paper in June at a Thai Studies Conference [at Chiang Mai University],” Piyarat said.
“I am his Facebook friend,” said Ekachai Hongkangwan, also of For Friends, who visited Saran at prison on Monday. Ekachai said that since he was charged, soldiers have twice visited him at the Bangkok Remand Prison for further interrogation of Saran and the others. “This is not a good sign. They’re trying to find connections. He may face additional charges. He didn’t say what answers he gave them. This is probably because the visit area is tape-recorded. The situation looks bad.”
The Chiang Mai Office Worker
Danai Tipsuya / Facebook
Known among political activists, 30-something Danai Tipsuya was active on social media until his April 29 arrest. The man who professed to a socialist ideology and had only 174 followers on Facebook is charged with lese majeste and violating the Computer Crime Act.
“He probably knew he might be charged as a result,” Piyarat said. “He shared it to challenge the state’s powers.”
Piyanart added that Danai is probably the poorest among the six defendants, and his parents asked the association to especially look after him. Like most others, his last Facebook posting was on April 28, before the arrests the following day.
“Many democracy advocates accept ‘fascist powers’ as if they are their ‘love mates,’” he wrote April 27.
The New Graduate
This 23-year-old man, whose identity remains unknown, just completed a law degree from Ramkhamhaeng University and has yet to walk for his diploma at graduation. Charged with the same crimes as the two above, Piyarat said the young man is committed to a democratic ideology. Since he studied law, Piyarat said the man might have been a convenient target by the authorities because he couldn’t claim to not know about the lese majeste law and the Computer Crime Act.
“This man has consistently been making sarcastic remarks about the junta and the monarchy,” Piyarat said. His parents from Nakhon Nayok province are farmers, they don’t understand the severity of the lese majeste law or why his bail application has been rejected, he added.
The School Teacher
Another 23-year-old man, whose name has been withheld, was a newly appointed Thai-language school teacher in Samut Prakan province, just south of Bangkok. Piyanart believes his parents are royalists and the man, accused of sharing the same post about the plaque, may have formerly been a staunch royalist as well. The family told Thai Human Rights Lawyers that they would appoint a separate lawyer for the defendant.
“When we visited him, he didn’t come out to meet us,” said Piyarat, adding that a 900,000 baht bond offered by his well-to-do family last week failed to convince the Criminal Court to release him on bail.
Unknown Dairy Product Firm Employee
Very little is know about the 40-year-old man, name also unknown, who works for a well-known firm except that he asked everyone not to name the company he works for, fearing it would affect its reputation.
“We have nothing more on him,” Piyarat said.
The Human Rights Lawyer
Prawet Prapanukul, 57, is a human rights lawyer who once represented lese majeste suspect Darunee Charnchoengsilpakul, or Da Torpedo, a well-known Redshirt who eventually was found guilty and served eight years in prison for insulting the monarchy. Prawet has also represented other Redshirts in legal cases, and they consider him as one of their own.
Prawet Prapanukul / Facebook
He is the only one of the six who did not appear to share the plaque post but stands accused of 10 counts of violating the lese majeste law and the Computer Crime Act through his own and other Facebook postings. On the royal defamation charges alone, he faces a prison term of up to 150 years.
According to Ekachai, Prawet was arrested by 10 soldiers at his home in metro Bangkok at about 6am on April 29 and detained incommunicado at the 11th Military Circle before being taken on May 3 to the Criminal Court to hear the charges. His phone and computer were confiscated as well. Thai Lawyers for Human Rights reported last Thursday that Prawet staged a hunger strike to protest against being held incommunicado by the military.
Flood of Royal Defamation Cases
Three groups on Monday issued a joint-statement noting that 105 lese majeste cases have been recorded since the May 2014 coup.
“In less than three years, the military junta has generated a surge in the number of political prisoners detained under the lese majeste by abusing a draconian law that is inconsistent with Thailand’s international obligations,” said Dimitris Christopoulos, president of the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights.
It was joined by the Union of Civil Liberty and the Internet Law Reform Dialog, or iLaw.
In the report, iLaw’s executive director suggested the prosecutions were more about suppressing critics rather than defending the monarchy.
“Many of those arrested are democracy activists and outspoken critics of the military regime,” Jon Ungpakorn said. “In some instances, they were kidnapped from their homes by military officers and interrogated in secret for several days in military camps before being formally charged. Lese-majeste defendants are rarely granted bail, and so spend months or even years fighting their cases while in detention. All of this makes a mockery of ‘justice’ in Thailand’s justice system.”
A worker makes pigs move at a slaughterhouse Friday in Hanoi, Vietnam. Photo: Tran Van Minh / Associated Press
XUAN SON, Vietnam — Pork may be hogging menus in Vietnam’s factories and army canteens for some time to come, as the country tries to keep pig farmers stricken by a glut in supply from going under.
Millions of farmers are struggling after China began blocking imports from Vietnam in November. The crisis has highlighted the risks of depending on a single foreign market, especially such a big one: half of all pork the world eats is consumed in China.
Pork prices fell to as low as USD $1 per kilogram in early May, less than half the price a year earlier. So far, a surplus of 300,000 tons to 400,000 tons has accumulated, according to state media.
To help farmers weather the crisis, the military, police and trade unions are boosting pork portions in meals served in their canteens.
At a recent Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc told officials to review planning of farm production and distribution to prevent future gluts in pork supplies.
The agriculture ministry, meanwhile, is lobbying to increase exports to China and other markets.
The rescue effort may have come too late for farmers like Do Huu Thuyen, who lost all his savings when pork prices recently crashed to record lows.
“The price of pork has never been cheaper,” said Thuyen after feeding his herd at his farm in Xuan Son, a village about 55 kilometers (34 miles) northwest of Hanoi.
Vietnam is the world’s sixth-largest pork producer with about 3 million households raising pigs, mostly in small, backyard farms. Such small scale farming usually earns them badly needed cash income, but it’s relatively inefficient and difficult to regulate.
“If farmers see a chance for profits they will do as they like, as they have done many times before despite cautions from the government,” said Nguyen Anh Dung, another pig farmer.
China’s crackdown on the border trade was a harsh blow: Vietnamese sold 600,000 tons of pork to Chinese buyers in 2016 through such channels.
It also came at an especially bad time, since many farmers had expanded their herds two years earlier when prices spiked. Pork output in 2016 was 3.9 million tons, triple the output of 15 years earlier, according to the Agriculture Ministry.
Thuyen, 42, says his farm was worth tens of billions of dong (hundreds of thousands of dollars), when he mortgaged his home to expand his herd to 170 breeding pigs and 400 pigs for slaughter. He hasn’t sold a single piglet in the last three months because with pork prices so low, nobody wants to raise them.
In six months he lost 2 billion dong (USD $88,000) or 10 years’ worth of savings, he says.
“I could go bankrupt, if the price stays the same,” he said.
Vietnam’s farm ministry is lobbying Beijing to resume imports, and Agriculture Minister Nguyen Xuan Cuong hopes to meet with his Chinese counterpart on the sidelines of a regional forum to be held in Vietnam in November, state-controlled media have reported.
Farmers complain that the winners in this pork crisis are traders who are paying rock bottom prices for pork in a buyers’ market, while markets still charge relatively high prices.
Thuyen said he is losing 1.5 million dong (USD $66) for every pig he sells, while traders make that much or more.
“I am waiting for the bank to come to seize my house,” he said. “I may have to work as a construction worker to make ends meet.”
At left, the original English-language poster for ‘Dunkirk.’ At right, the botched Thai translation.
BANGKOK — A mistranslated advertisement for World War II movie “Dunkirk” has made Thai netizens shake their red-cheeked faces in shame.
The official Thai Facebook page for the movie about the Dunkirk evacuation directed by Christopher Nolan posted a crucial mistranslation in a promotional ad for the film. The poster went online April 20 but has been gaining notoriety since Monday.
The Thai translation, which had not been corrected or removed as of Wednesday morning, read “400,000 men were stranded in Dunkirk. Only 700 returned by boat.”
The original English version, which dozens have sought to correct by posting it on the botched translation post, reads, “400,000 men were stranded in Dunkirk. 700 civilian boats came for them.”
“If you don’t know how to translate then use Google to research. I wanted to go watch the movie, but it looks like you’re not even taking the time to translate easy words and back it up with research. You didn’t even correct it, what sloppy work!” wrote Facebook user Supalak Ueasiyapan.
Thai subtitles for foreign films sometimes have glaring translation errors, which are picked apart by viewers who notice them.
“Please delete this and translate it again. What a blight on Nolan’s name,” wrote user Peraya Lorphensri.
