SAMUT PRAKAN — A standoff lasting seven hours at a hotel in southeast metro Bangkok ended Wednesday night with a man arrested on suspicion of livestreaming a woman as she slept and then raping her.
Thanapol Nilpat opened fire on police as they tried to capture him at a hotel in Samut Prakan’s Bang Phli district, leading to the long confrontation. No officers were injured.
He eventually surrendered to police, who said he later confessed to the assault two weeks ago in Bangkok’s Suan Luang neighborhood. Thanapol, they said, saw a sleeping woman through an open door of an apartment. He entered the room and began streaming video of her over Bigo Live, a Singapore-based social media service that has many users in Thailand.
Thanapol said the woman woke up and at that point he sexually assaulted her before escaping. A security camera near the apartment caught him leaving the scene.
The 29-year-old man was charged with rape, attempted murder of police officers and gun possession, according to Col. Thongchai Wilaiprom of Prawet police.
For two years, the University of Phayao has partnered with Guangzhou University and Guangxi University on a program in Traditional Chinese Medicine, according to Dr. Udom Chantraraksri, the college’s associate dean for Academic Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Now the course has become so popular that the university is launching a Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic at its University Hospital, that covers three branches of health treatment: Western Medicine, Traditional Thai Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine together. This way our students will have the opportunity to learn and share experiences in three branches of science and integrate the knowledge easily.
“In the future, if Traditional Chinese Medicine develops plans with Western and Traditional Thai Medicine in the subjects of Thai herb and health care, we will gradually develop into a model for other areas to provide public access to more alternative ways of medicine. Especially in University of Phayao Hospital, we have many people who come for Traditional Chinese Medicine treatments. However, Traditional Chinese Medicine, people recognize, is for taking care of yourself while those with acute diseases need to get Western Medicine treatment, which is faster than Traditional Chinese Medicine.”
Dr. Udom summarized that the course of Traditional Chinese Medicine in University of Phayao has followed with national development strategies plan issue No. 11 (2011-2016). Aimed to reducing risk factor in health treatment such as promoting complete physical and mental health in Thais, developing knowledge and skill in health caring for themselves, family and community, participating in public policies for good health and developing health services system for good quality, promoting an alternative medicine, developing health data system of country and managing Public Health Personnel in appropriate production and distribution. So it is very important to produce doctors of Traditional Chinese Medicine to meet the needs of society.
The University of Phayao opened in 1999 and also offers extension courses across the country at nine education centers, including Bangkok.
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U.S. President Barack Obama, right, walks out with Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi at her home before the start of their joint news conference in 2016 in Yangon, Myanmar. Photo: Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Pockets within the Myanmar military may still be cooperating with North Korea although the new civilian government and the military leadership oppose such ties, a senior U.S. official said Wednesday.
During Myanmar’s years of international isolation, its then-ruling junta bought defense equipment from North Korea. The U.S. has been pressing the country also known as Burma to cease those ties as a condition of normalized relations with Washington.
Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Russel said President Barack Obama underscored to Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi, during a visit to Washington this month, the importance of rooting out any vestiges of cooperation that may have remained.
“We think there are potentially a few residual pockets within the Burmese military, people who might still have some ongoing interactions (with North Korea) that are in effect leftovers from five-plus years ago in the era of the military dictatorship,” Russel told a Senate hearing.
“But we think as far as the government is concerned and the military leadership is concerned that they are fully on board and this is something they are working to prevent and eradicate,” he said.
U.N. Security Council resolutions forbid arms trading with North Korea – part of the international effort to restrict sources of revenue for the isolated nation’s nuclear and missile programs. During junta rule, Myanmar’s military was a key North Korean customer.
Obama, alongside Suu Kyi during the Sept. 14 White House visit, announced that he plans to lift the remaining U.S. economic sanctions and restore trade benefits to the former pariah state, following its transition to democratically elected civilian government after decades of military rule.
Republican Sen. Cory Gardner of Colorado complained at Wednesday’s hearing that Congress had not been consulted adequately before the decision was announced to lift the so-called “national emergency” with regard to Myanmar – the executive order used to authorize the current sanctions.
He said Suu Kyi, who met with lawmakers during her visit, said she still supports sanctions on the military-controlled companies Myanmar Corporation and Myanmar Economic Holdings Ltd., two of the largest businesses in the country.
Russel responded that Suu Kyi had said that it was time to lift all the sanctions – a position she articulated in public.
Some human rights activists and congressional aides argue there are alternative legislative authorities the U.S. could use to restrict dealings with those corporations, even after Obama lifts the emergency.
Commuters wait for a train Thursday morning at BTS Siam. Photo: Js100Radio / Twitter
BANGKOK — Another bad morning for Bangkok skytrain commuters Thursday when the Silom Line stopped for 30 minutes during rush hour.
The Skytrain operator announced just before 8am that the trains between BTS Krung Thonburi and Saphan Taksin would be delayed 10 minutes. Twenty minutes later it said the same trains would be halted for repairs.
The entire Silom Line from BTS National Stadium to Bang Wa was impacted.
It took nearly 30 minutes to get the passengers in the trains out safely. Normal service resumed at about 9:10am.
Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte gestures while addressing the Philippine Army Scout Rangers at their headquarters at Camp Tecson in San Miguel township, north of Manila. Photo: Bullit Marquez / Associated Press
Manila — Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte says he is giving notice to the United States, his country’s long-standing ally, that joint exercises of Filipino and American troops next week will be the last such drills.
He told the Filipino community in Hanoi late Wednesday night that he will maintain the military alliance with the U.S. because of the countries’ 1951 defense treaty. He says next week’s exercises will proceed only because he did not want to embarrass his defense secretary.
Duterte says he wants establish new trade and commercial alliances with China and Russia, and the war games are something Beijing does not want.
Describing himself as a socialist, Duterte has had an uneasy relationship with the U.S. He says he is charting a foreign policy not dependent on the U.S.
Journalists photograph part of the reconstructed forward section of the fuselage of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 on Oct. 13, 2015, in the Netherlands. Photo: Peter Dejong / Associated Press
NIEUWEGEIN, Netherlands — Dutch-led criminal investigators said Wednesday they have solid evidence that a Malaysian jet was shot down in 2014 by a Buk missile that was moved into eastern Ukraine from Russia.
Wilbert Paulissen, head of the Central Crime Investigation department of the Dutch National Police, said communications intercepts showed that pro-Moscow rebels had called for deployment of the mobile surface-to-air weapon and reported its arrival on July 17, 2014, in rebel-controlled areas of eastern Ukraine.
The deadly surface-to-air weapon that blasted Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 out of the sky at 33,000 feet, killing all 298 people aboard, was launched that day from farmland in the rebel-held area of Pervomaiskiy, 5 kilometers from the eastern Ukrainian town of Snizhne, the investigation found.
Witnesses there reported an explosion and a whistling sound and a patch of field was set on fire.
From that and other evidence collected by the Joint Investigation Team, “it may be concluded MH17 was shot down by a 9M38 missile launched by a Buk, brought in from the territory of the Russian Federation, and that after launch was subsequently returned to the Russian Federation,” Paulissen told a news conference Wednesday in the Dutch town of Nieuwegein.
The conclusions of the investigative unit – which includes police and prosecutors from the Netherlands, Ukraine, Belgium, Australia and Malaysia – were consistent with previous reporting by The Associated Press, which established soon after MH17’s destruction that a tracked Buk M-1 launcher with four SA-11 surface-to-air missiles had been sighted the same day in the rebel-controlled town of Snizhne near Pervomaiskiy.
A separate investigation by Dutch safety officials last year concluded that the Amsterdam-to-Kuala Lumpur flight was downed by a Buk missile fired from territory in Ukraine held by pro-Russian rebels.
Dutch police spokesman Thomas Aling said the joint investigation findings differ in that they are designed to be solid enough to be used as evidence in a criminal trial. Where and when a trial might take place is still to be determined, Aling said.
Russia has consistently denied allegations that pro-Moscow rebels in eastern Ukraine were responsible for downing the passenger plane.
On Monday, the Russian military said it has new radio-location data that showed the missile that downed the Boeing 777 did not originate from rebel-controlled territory, and said it would turn that data over to investigators.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated that assertion on Wednesday ahead of the Dutch report.
People walk among debris of a passenger plane July 17, 2014, near the village of Grabovo, Ukraine. Photo: Dmitry Lovetsky / Associated Press
“If there was a rocket, it could only have been launched from a different area,” he told reporters, referring to Russian radar data. “You can’t argue with it, it can’t be discussed.”
Ukrainian officials countered that the Dutch-led team’s findings prove Russia’s complicity in the tragedy.
“A new and very important element in today’s report is the information about the route by which the weapon came from Russia to Ukraine and was removed in the opposite direction through part of the Ukrainian-Russian border that was controlled only by Russia and their militants,” Ukraine’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “This again points to the direct involvement of the aggressor state in the downing of the aircraft.”
In the Joint Investigation Team, police and judicial officials have been working together to gather the best possible evidence for use in prosecution of the perpetrators.
They have faced extraordinary challenges. The crime scene in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk oblast region where the plane was brought down on July 17, 2014, killing all aboard, was located in an active war zone. During the days following the downing, pro-Kremlin militants limited access to the crash site.
Eleven containers crammed with debris from the jetliner were ultimately brought to the Netherlands. A research team took soil samples in eastern Ukraine and established the location of cellphone towers and the layout of the local telephone network to verify intercepted phone calls from the militants.
Forensic samples were taken from passengers’ and crew members’ bodies and luggage, and satellite data and communications intercepts were scrutinized. The team also appealed for information from witnesses who may have seen the missile launch.
About two-thirds of the passengers aboard MH17 were Dutch nationals; the crew members were Malaysians. Malaysia proposed setting up an international tribunal to try those responsible for the plane’s destruction, but Russia vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution in favor of a tribunal.
Volcanic material from the eruption of Mount Barujari is seen Tuesday from Bayan, Lombok Island, Indonesia. Photo: Denda Wiyana Putri / Associated Press
JAKARTA, Indonesia — Indonesian authorities say they have evacuated most tourists from Mount Barujari on Lombok island after it spewed a massive column of ash into the atmosphere.
The volcano, a popular attraction that is known as the Child of Rinjani because it sits within the Mount Rinjani caldera, erupted without warning on Tuesday afternoon, delaying flights from the international airport on nearby Bali. The ash column reached 2,000 meters (6,560 feet).
Heronimus Guru, deputy operations chief at Indonesia’s Search and Rescue Agency, said Wednesday that the remaining tourists, about 50 people who are mostly foreigners, were heading down the mountain.
Disaster Mitigation Agency spokesman Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said more than 1,100 tourists left the Mount Rinjani area on Tuesday. A similar number left Wednesday.
There have been no reports of injuries from the eruption.
Nugroho said government scientists have declared a danger zone of 3 kilometers (1.6 miles) around the crater and raised the volcano’s alert to the third highest level, but some tourists did not immediately heed warnings to leave because they wanted to take photos or videos of the eruption.
The eruption interrupted flights for several hours at Ngurah Rai International Airport in Bali, airport officials said.
Farms and trees around the 3,726-meter (12,224-foot) -high volcano were coated in a thin layer of gray ash, but nearby towns and villages were not in danger, Nugroho said.
Rinjani is among about 130 active volcanoes in Indonesia. The archipelago is prone to volcanic eruptions and earthquakes because of its location on the Pacific “Ring of Fire.”
SUPHAN BURI— Pikachu and Captain America assumed their places among the divine on the walls of a temple in Suphan Buri city.
Wat Wang Yai Hoon invited university art students to break from tradition for a recent renovation project. The students from Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi updated the Buddha’s biography with with what’s going on these days by painting in references to Pokemon on the the comic book superhero.
The temple showed off its new art Wednesday and will reopen with its more youth-friendly art in November.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — On a personal quest to settle Mars, SpaceX founder Elon Musk envisions 1,000 passenger ships flying en masse to the red planet well within the next century, “Battlestar Galactica” style.
Musk outlined his zealous plan Tuesday to establish a self-sustaining city on Mars, complete with iron foundries and even pizzerias. He wants to make humans a multiplanetary species, and says the best way to do that is to colonize the red planet.
“I think Earth will be a good place for a long time, but the probable lifespan of human civilization will be much greater if we’re a multiplanetary species,” he said.
SpaceX founder Elon Musk speaks Tuesday during the 67th International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. Photo: Refugio Ruiz / Associated Press
Musk, who also runs electric car maker Tesla Motors, received a wildly warm reception at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. Many in the crowd were avid space buffs.
For now, the aerospace company he founded in 2002 is focusing on satellite deliveries, as well as space station cargo runs for NASA and a future crew capsule for U.S. astronauts. Its Falcon rocket, though, is grounded for the second time in a year because of devastating accidents.
During his address, Musk did not mention the Sept. 1 launch pad explosion that destroyed a Falcon rocket and its satellite.
Instead, he noted that SpaceX already has begun work on the Mars Colonial fleet, recently test-firing a powerful new rocket engine named Raptor. The system ultimately could take people to the moons of Jupiter and beyond, he said.
Musk said it would be a “super-exciting” adventure to Mars but also dangerous, at least for the first few trips. His goal is to get the price down so anyone could afford to go, with a ticket costing no more than a house on Earth. He’s shooting for 1 million Martians.
Would he go, someone asked? Perhaps ultimately, but it would depend on whether he had a good succession plan in place. As for being the first Martian, the risk of fatalities will be high – “there’s just no way around it” – and he wants to see his five young sons grow up.
“It would be basically, are you prepared to die? If that’s OK, then you’re a candidate for going,” he told the audience.
In April, Musk announced plans to send an unmanned Dragon capsule to land on Mars as early as 2018. NASA is offering technical support, but no money. The space agency has its own program to get astronauts to Mars in the 2030s, using its own hardware.
Musk invited industry to join the Mars effort, which will represent a USD$10 billion investment. SpaceX currently is spending a few tens of millions of dollars on the enterprise, and the amount will soon grow, he said.
Musk described in detail his plans to launch a monster-size rocket – larger than even NASA’s Saturn V moon rocket – from the same launch pad at Kennedy Space Center from which the Apollo astronauts departed for the lunar surface in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The first-stage boosters would return to land vertically – just like his Falcon rocket boosters do now. Reusability, in fact, is essential to any plan for getting humans to Mars, as is refilling fuel tanks in Earth orbit and creating rocket fuel at Mars for return trips, he said.
The rocket would hoist a spaceship big enough to carry 100 to 200 people to Mars, a trip lasting several months, quicker with nuclear propulsion. Musk promised no one would be stuck there; spaceships would return regularly, and “you get a free return trip if you want.”
“Ultimately what I’m trying to achieve here is to make Mars seem possible, make it seem as though it’s something that we can do in our lifetimes,” he said.
A ravenous python with an appetite for poultry suffers a humiliating moment after his capture Wednesday morning in the Chai Prakan district of Chiang Mai province.
CHIANG MAI — A Chiang Mai community turned its loss into a gain Wednesday morning when it captured a python with a voracious appetite for their chickens.
When Nongkran Supha, 35, opened her chicken coop early this morning she was expecting a mess, as they had made a racket during the night. She thought someone had broken in to steal all her chickens.
Instead, she found a five-meter python weighing 12 kilograms whose belly was swollen with five of her former fowl and too fat to escape the way it came.
Hoping to make the most of Nongkran’s misfortune, her neighbors used a kind of superstitious science based on her Chai Prakan district street address (6/1), the number of chickens consumed (5) and the serpent’s own ample measurements (5 & 12) to deduce winning numbers for Saturday’s lottery.
As for the snake, its fortunes soon improved when rescue workers released it back into the forest.
Now the course has become so popular that the university is launching a Traditional Chinese Medicine Clinic at its University Hospital, that covers three branches of health treatment: Western Medicine, Traditional Thai Medicine and Traditional Chinese Medicine together. This way our students will have the opportunity to learn and share experiences in three branches of science and integrate the knowledge easily.
Dr. Udom summarized that the course of Traditional Chinese Medicine in University of Phayao has followed with national development strategies plan issue No. 11 (2011-2016). Aimed to reducing risk factor in health treatment such as promoting complete physical and mental health in Thais, developing knowledge and skill in health caring for themselves, family and community, participating in public policies for good health and developing health services system for good quality, promoting an alternative medicine, developing health data system of country and managing Public Health Personnel in appropriate production and distribution. So it is very important to produce doctors of Traditional Chinese Medicine to meet the needs of society.
