Myanmar Group Dismisses Offensive ‘Coffee’ Annan Post

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2 September 2016, 12:54

Photo: Ma Ba Tha-Mandalay-Tine / Facebook

YANGON — A Buddhist nationalist group in Myanmar says a Facebook post in which it appeared to criticize former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan was fake.

Myanmar’s government announced last week that Annan will lead an advisory panel aimed at finding “lasting solutions” to the conflict in Rakhine state, where human rights groups have documented widespread abuses against minority Rohingya Muslims.

Rakhine Buddhist nationalists have denounced the commission. Annan was criticized Monday on a page that appeared to be from Ma Ba Tha, a national group led by Buddhist monks that has been accused of helping to incite violence in the region that left hundreds of Muslims dead in 2012.

On Thursday, however, Wirathu, a monk who is among Ma Ba Tha’s most prominent leaders, said on his Facebook page that the post was from a fake account. Many people in Myanmar social media pose as Buddhist nationalists and sometimes mock them. The owner of the account could not be reached.

The post called Annan “a funny-looking and disrespectful person cannot talk about our own issues in the country.” It also called Annan, who is from Ghana, a “kalar,” a slur used in Myanmar against Muslims and Indians.

The post, however, included a photo not of Annan but of Morgan Freeman, the Oscar-winning actor. Freeman was marked with a red “X” next to the words “We no need Coffee Annan he go away.”

Freeman has been confused previously elsewhere not only with Annan but also with late South African President Nelson Mandela.

Fans Rage at Ref After Thailand Loses World Cup Qualifier

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Sasiwan Mokkhasen, Staff Reporter

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2 September 2016, 12:50

BANGKOK — Team Thailand was put down by Saudi Arabia in a 2018 World Cup qualifying match Thursday night, and many people decided to blame the refs.

Kicking off their first match in the final stage Asian qualifying round in Riyadh on Thursday night, Thailand ended up going home with a goose egg, losing 1-0 to the home team from a point scored by late penalty with less than 10 minutes on the clock.

The game-changing penalty point came Saudi Arabia’s way by of Chinese referee Fu Ming in the 81st minute. Fu Ming called out Thailand’s Sarach Yooyen for fouling Fahad Al-Muwallad.

Many fans watching on their televisions back home second-guessed the official, saying they saw no foul on Sarach’s part.

When it cost Thailand the match, Thai football fans were united in anger along with some supportive viewers in other countries to rally to the Facebook page of the Asian Football Confederation and register their grievances.

The most-liked comment showed the quality of discourse:

“Thailand already show a good game and this is not our luck,” wrote user Muhammad Masor from Colombia. “Arab just win by a dirty penalty. Loser.”

A Brazilian fan offered a more principled critique.

“I am completely angry with this. This penalty never existed,” wrote another user Rafael Saltori from Brazil. “The foul in Teerasil in the 1st half was inside the area, not out.”

A number of commentators said they saw at least two plays in which Thailand should have been awarded penalty kicks.

Thailand will have its next chance Tuesday in Bangkok against Japan, the previous nation to infuriate Thai sports fans by winning.

SpaceX Rocket Explodes, Takes Out Facebook Satellite

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Associated Press

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2 September 2016, 12:03

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — A massive fireball and explosion erupted Thursday at SpaceX’s main launch pad, destroying a rocket as well as a satellite that Facebook was counting on to spread internet service in Africa.

There were no injuries. The pad had been cleared of workers before what was supposed to be a routine pre-launch rocket engine test.

SpaceX chief Elon Musk said the accident occurred while the rocket was being fueled and originated around the upper-stage oxygen tank.

“Cause still unknown,” Musk said via Twitter. “More soon.”

The explosion – heard and felt for miles around – dealt a severe blow to SpaceX, still scrambling to catch up with satellite deliveries following a launch accident last year. It’s also a setback for NASA, which has been relying on the private space company to keep the International Space Station stocked with supplies and, ultimately, astronauts.

SpaceX was preparing for the test firing of its unmanned Falcon rocket when the blast happened shortly after 9 a.m. at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The test was in advance of Saturday’s planned launch of an Israeli-made communications satellite to provide home internet for parts of sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

A video of the explosion shows a fireball enveloping the top of the rocket. Moments later, the nose cone containing the satellite plunged to the ground, followed by more explosions.

Buildings four miles away shook from the blast, and a series of explosions continued for several minutes. Dark smoke filled the overcast sky. A half-hour later, a black cloud hung low across the eastern horizon.

Video cameras showed smoke coming from the restricted site well into late afternoon. Most of the rocket was still standing, although the top third or so was clearly bent over.

The explosion occurred at Launch Complex 40 at the Air Force station, right next door to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, where emergency staff went on standby and monitored the air for any toxic fumes. The initial blast sent NASA employees rushing outside to see what happened. The Air Force stressed there was no threat to public safety in the surrounding communities.

While the pad was still burning, it was off-limits. “We want to make sure we isolate any potential problem,” said Shawn Walleck, a spokesman for the Air Force’s 45th Space Wing, “because at this point, we’ve had no casualties, we’ve had no injuries, and we want to keep it that way.”

By evening the fire was out, but the pad was going to remain off-limits until Friday morning as a precaution, the Air Force said.

Facebook spokesman Chris Norton said the social media company was “disappointed by the loss, but remain committed to our mission of connecting people to the internet around the world.” Founder Mark Zuckerberg was in Kenya on Thursday, discussing internet access with government officials.

The satellite’s Israeli-based operator, Spacecom, said the loss will have “a significant impact” on the company. Just last November, ground controllers lost contact with the previous satellite in this so-called Amos series. The new satellite was supposed to provide services to television and internet operators and a number of clients, including Facebook.

The Falcon rocket destroyed Thursday is the same kind used to launch space station supplies. The last such flight took place in July. SpaceX, one of two companies making deliveries, is also working on a crew capsule to ferry station U.S. astronauts.

Two NASA astronauts were doing a spacewalk 250 miles up, outside the space station, when the explosion occurred. Mission Control did not tell them about the accident, saying all communication was focused on the spacewalk.

NASA later put out a statement, saying the space agency remains confident in its commercial partners, SpaceX included. The space station is well stocked and able to weather any potential delays to upcoming SpaceXdeliveries, NASA said.

At the same time, NASA said it remains on track for next Thursday’s launch of an asteroid-chasing and sampling spacecraft, the first of its kind for the U.S. The spacecraft and the Atlas rocket were inside their hangar at the time of the explosion, barely a mile away; preliminary inspections show both to be in good shape.

The California-based SpaceX had been ramping up with frequent launches to make up for a backlog created by a launch accident in June 2015. In that mishap, a support strut evidently snapped in the upper stage; the problem was fixed.

Until Thursday, the company had successfully carried out eight launches this year, with nine more in the wings by year’s end, including the debut flight of the so-called Falcon Heavy. Now that lineup is in jeopardy.

SpaceX is leasing the Cape Canaveral pad from the Air Force for unmanned Falcon launches. The company is also redoing a former shuttle pad at Kennedy for future manned flights for NASA. The first crewed flight was supposed to take place by the end of next year. Boeing also is developing a crew capsule for NASA.

Even before Thursday’s accident, NASA’s inspector general office was skeptical there would be astronaut flights by SpaceX or Boeing before late 2018. Technical challenges are piling up and threaten to cause delays, according to a report issued Thursday.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., whose single space shuttle flight ended 10 days before the Challenger disaster in 1986, said in a statement that the SpaceX accident “reminds us all that space flight is an inherently risky business.”

Others also rallied behind SpaceX, including Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, chairman of the House Science, Space and Technology Committee. “Despite the difficulties, commercial spaceflight will carry on with American drive and ingenuity,” he said in a statement.

Story: Marcia Dunn

Czech Film Finds Nothing Fair in ‘Fair Play’

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Kaewta Ketbungkan, Staff Reporter

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2 September 2016, 12:02

BANGKOK — The Rio Games last month showed drugs in competitive sports remain a problem four decades after doping became a matter of international brinkmanship during the Cold War.

Czech director Andrea Sedlackova’s went back to 1983 and the run-up to the Los Angeles Olympics to tell the story of a talented young sprinter whose own dreams are tainted when she is unwittingly doped by her mother.

In “Fair Play,” which opens the Contemporary World Film Series in Bangkok next week, young athlete Anna is under pressure to burnish East Germany’s prestige, but also to satisfy her political dissident mother’s ambitions to find freedom abroad.

When Anna refuses to take steroids, her mother is ordered to administer them in the guise of vitamins. Apart from the issues of doping, the film also explores questions of morality, politics and immigration.

Hosted its first nine years by the Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand, the film festival celebrates its 10th year under the stewardship of TK Park at CentralWorld, with one Saturday show each month now through December.

Screening are free but there is a 20 baht entry fee for a TK Park day pass. Tickets can be reserved online.

“Fair Play” is suggested for audiences 15+ and will be screened in Czech with English and Thai subtitles at 4pm on Sept. 10 in the TK Park auditorium located on the eighth floor of CentralWorld.

For October, every mongrel and mutt dog will have its revenge on the human race in Hungarian film “White God,” which won the Cannes’ Un Certain Regard in 2014. It shows Oct. 22.

Correction: An earlier version of this story said the event was hosted by the FCCT. In fact this year it is hosted by TK Park.

Chula Freshman Says Classmates Threaten Him For Calling Out Hazing

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Pravit Rojanaphruk, Senior Staff Writer

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1 September 2016, 19:59

BANGKOK — A student activist in his first year at Chulalongkorn University said Thursday he was threatened with physical harm for calling attention to the hazing tactics used on freshmen in the university’s Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts.

Freshman Netiwit Chotiphatphaisal, 19, said he was threatened online by classmates after he posted an audio clip Saturday of seniors threatening to punish freshmen if they did not participate in the annual induction ceremony, which is famous for sometimes harsh or degrading hazing known as rub nong.

“They threatened to punch me if ever they see me around,” said Netiwit, a known pro-democracy studying in the university’s political science program. “When I heard [the audio] I couldn’t take it. That’s why I spread it.”

He said other freshmen who were unhappy about the situation gave him the recording.

In the audio, students are heard expressing concern about what will happen to them as what were said to be seniors issue orders to them.

As happens occasionally during similar hazing in the military, university students have died as a result of harsh hazing. Two years ago, the body of a 16-year-old student suffering from leukemia was dumped at a hospital by his classmates after an all night session in which students were kicked into the sea.

On Thursday, Netiwit said he was subjected to dirty looks from other students on campus.

Since raising the issue, he said the seniors in his faculty postponed the event, but he believes they will go ahead with it once attention shifts away.

Netiwit said his Political Science department is much less imperious about ritualistically forcing freshmen into submission to their elder classmates.

“It’s my last priority [to join],” he said.

Netiwit said didn’t file a complaint with the university, saying the public would be the ultimate judges.

Some students and sectors have over the years called for abolishing rub nong. As a result of his messages, Netiwit said he gained about 4,000 new followers on Facebook in a matter of days.

Kiwi’s Fatal Balcony Fall Near Khaosan Road Ruled Accidental

By

Teeranai Charuvastra, News Chief

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1 September 2016, 19:44

BANGKOK — Police said today that a foreign national who plunged to his death from a hotel near Khaosan Road on Monday fell trying to climb between balconies.

Ross Anthony Mobbs, 30 of New Zealand, fell from the fourth floor of the Chillax Resort on Soi Samsen 2 after a wooden railing he was holding broke away, according to Chanasongkram Police Station chief Pitak Sitthikul.

“We inspected the scene, and there was no sign of a struggle,” Col. Pitak said.

Pitak said Mobbs was sharing the room with a mate, whose girlfriend was staying in the adjacent room. Police said Mobbs left his friend drinking in their room and went to visit the girlfriend. It was from her room that Mobbs was attempting to return via balcony late Monday night, police said, to impress his friend.

It was raining, and Mobbs was intoxicated at the time, the officer added.

Hospital Contradicts DSI ‘Suicide’ Explanation For Suspect’s Death in Custody

By

Sasiwan Mokkhasen, Staff Reporter

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1 September 2016, 18:36

The detention room at DSI headquarters on Bangkok’s Chaeng Watthana Road where the agency claimed Thawatchai Anukul hanged himself early Tuesday.

BANGKOK — The DSI is trying to explain how an official accused of illegally issuing hundreds of land deeds in the south died in its custody after its explanation — suicide — was challenged by an autopsy.

The DSI initially said former Phang Nga land official Thawatchai Anukul died in his cell early Tuesday after he hanged himself from a door hinge using his socks. After a forensic examination suggested otherwise, the agency said he died of liver damage caused by improper CPR.

That revised explanation was dismissed as impossible by a health official today.

Thawatchai; who was arrested Monday on suspicion of giving 10 billion baht in deeds to wealthy people for prime seaside properties in Phuket, Surat Thani and Phang Nga provinces; was taken at 1am on Tuesday to a hospital where attempts were made to resuscitate him. The 66-year-old was pronounced dead at 4:45am.

A medical examination cast doubt on the explanation for his death after it revealed that he died of blunt force trauma and suffocation. Thwatchai also had abdominal bleeding and a ruptured liver.

DSI chief Paisit Wongmuang on Wednesday ordered the death investigated but said he believed the injuries resulted from doctors’ attempts to resuscitate Thawatchai by CPR.

The hospital’s director refuted that as impossible.

Rienthong Nanna of Mongkutwattana Hospital said today standard CPR was performed under medical guidelines. He also noted CPR is performed in the chest area while Thawatchai’s wounds were in the abdomen.

“The emergency team of Mongkutwattana Hospital was notified by DSI that someone had fainted,” Rienthong wrote on Facebook. “We were not told that he hanged himself.”

The police Institute of Forensic Medicine on Thursday afternoon said it would conduct further tests including on tissue found beneath Thawatchai’s fingernails to find further clues about his death. The results were expected to be available in one month.

Thawatchai’s family said they will not cremate his body until a full report is issued.

Bogus ‘ISIS’ Bomb Threat Fails to Stop Demolition of Encroaching Resorts

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Teeranai Charuvastra, News Chief

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1 September 2016, 17:59

Interior department officers watch over the site where an illegally built structure is being demolished Thursday in Phetchabun province.

PHETCHABUN — Two officials on a mission to demolish resorts built on public land in Phetchabun province said an anonymous caller Thursday threatened that they would be attacked by the Islamic State if they did not cease operations.

The threat, which failed to materialize, followed a Department of Forestry raid on a group of resorts on the scenic Phu Thap Boek mountain as part of the military government’s effort to restore public land from unauthorized hotel operators.

According to a statement released to the press Thursday morning, the two officials in charge of the operation received calls the night before from a man who said he was a militant from the terror group. He threatened to stage bomb attacks unless they withdrew from the mountain.

“But nothing happened today. Everything proceeded as normal,” one of the two officials, Boonlap Suksai, said by telephone today. He said he only received the phone call once.

Boonlap added that the military did send some reinforcement to accompany his team this morning when they started demolishing the last three resorts that sat on the public land. The officials encountered no violence, and the operation was a success, Boonlap said.

Nineteen resorts on the peak of Phu Thap Boek were earmarked for demolition after forest officials ruled they were built on public land without permission. The junta issued a special order on July 5 to destroy the offending properties, and officials soon warned all 19 operators to pull down their buildings.

Boonlap said only three resisted, but today they gave up and allowed the demolition to take place.

“The business operators voluntarily demolished their resorts, and we helped them. They did it on their own accord. There was no resistance,” Boonlap said. “As of this time, every owner has surrendered.”

Indonesia Screens For Zika as Singapore Infections Mount

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Associated Press

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1 September 2016, 17:43

Indonesian Health Ministry officials operate a thermal scanner used to monitor ferry passengers arriving from Singapore at the arrival hall of Batam Center International Port in Batam, Indonesia on Thursday. Photo: M. Urip / Associated Press

JAKARTA — Indonesia is screening travelers from neighboring Singapore for the mosquito-borne Zika virus as the city-state reports a growing number of infections and its first case of a pregnant woman testing positive.

Indonesian Health Ministry spokesman Oscar Primadi said Thursday that health officials are recommending that the Foreign Ministry issue an advisory against nonessential travel to Singapore, particularly for pregnant women.

Singapore on Wednesday said it had identified 22 new Zika cases in one particular area of the city and its first case involving a pregnant woman.

Zika has mild effects for most people but doctors believe infection during pregnancy can result in babies with small heads, which is known as microcephaly, and other serious developmental disorders. Singapore had 155 cases as of Wednesday.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is advising travelers to Singapore to take precautions such as protecting themselves against mosquito bites, and because the virus can also be sexually transmitted, to use condoms or not have sex.

Primadi said thermal imaging equipment to detect abnormal body temperatures was installed at eight Indonesian ports with routes serving Singapore, including the capital Jakarta’s airport.

He said travelers will also be given a health questionnaire so they will recognize symptoms and know to immediately report to health authorities.

On Thursday, Malaysia’s Health Ministry said a 58-year-old woman who traveled to Singapore had become that country’s first Zika case.

Health Minister S. Subramaniam said the woman and her husband visited Singapore for three days from Aug. 19. The woman developed a rash a week after her return and later tested positive for Zika in her urine, he said. Her daughter in Singapore tested positive for Zika on Tuesday.

“We can conclude that it is rather easy to get infected by the virus when visiting places that has outbreak, including Singapore,” he said. “Proactive action from the community can help stop the spread of Zika virus in Malaysia.”

Subramaniam said the virus was believed to be imported from Singapore because the woman started experiencing symptoms on the same day as her daughter.

The ministry has started control activities such as eliminating mosquito breeding sites and fog spraying in her residential area and other places that the patient had visited.

Indonesia has not yet reported any local Zika infections but an Indonesian woman in Singapore is among those infected there.

Story: Niniek Karmini, Stephen Wright

Trump Backs Off Threat to Deport Illegal Immigrants

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Associated Press

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1 September 2016, 15:13

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks in Youngstown, Ohio on Aug. 15. Photo: Gerald Herbert / Associated Press

PHOENIX, Arizona — Donald Trump is retreating from his vow to deport the nation’s entire population of people living in the country illegally, even as he sticks with an aggressive tone on illegal immigration and remains committed to building a physical wall along the U.S. border with Mexico.

The Republican nominee for president promised Wednesday to remove millions of people living in the country illegally if elected president, warning that failure to do so would jeopardize the “well-being of the American people.”

“Anyone who has entered the United States illegally is subject to deportation,” Trump said in a highly anticipated speech, which took place mere hours after his surprise meeting with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto in his first trip abroad as the GOP nominee.

But the billionaire New Yorker also said the effort of a proposed immigration task force in a Trump administration would focus on removing criminals, people who have overstayed their visas and other immediate security threats.

Left unanswered by Trump: What would happen to those who have not committed crimes beyond their immigration offenses?

Aimed at ending weeks of confusion over just where he stands on immigration, Trump’s fiery speech was filled with applause lines for his loyal supporters.

Mexico President Enrique Pena Nieto and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump shake hands on Wednesday after a joint statement at the presidential official residence in Mexico City. Photo: Marco Ugarte / Associated Press

Any person living in the country illegally who is arrested “for any crime whatsoever,” he said, will immediately be placed into deportation proceedings. “There will be no amnesty,” he added, saying immigrants in the country without permission who wish to seek legal status or citizenship must return to their home countries in order to do so.

But there was no direct mention of a core promise of his primary campaign – to create a “deportation force” that would remove all of the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the country illegally.

Trump instead repeated the standard Republican talking point that only after securing the border can a discussion begin to take place about all such immigrants, ducking the major question that has frustrated past congressional attempts at remaking the nation’s immigration laws.

That omission didn’t bother Dan Stein, who leads the Federation for American Immigration Reform, a group that pushes for stricter immigration policies. He called Trump’s speech the outline of “a coherent and workable strategy.”

“But even more important than the details of the plan itself,” Stein said, “Trump laid out the most fundamental principle for true immigration reform: The policy exists to protect and serve ‘the well-being of the American people,’ and ‘protect all aspects of American life.'”

Critics, meanwhile, said Trump’s glossing over the fate of people who are peacefully living in the U.S. without permission doesn’t make up for his overall approach.

“It is still the most extreme position of any modern presidential candidate,” said Frank Sharry, a leading immigration advocate. “It is deeply unpopular with voters, and profoundly un-American.”

Even as he beat a retreat from his earlier pledge to deport all illegal immigrants from the country, Trump’s aggressive tone in Phoenix marked a shift from earlier in the day. A much more measured Trump described Mexicans as “amazing people” as he appeared alongside Pena Nieto in Mexico’s capital city.

The good feelings from his first meeting with a head of state as his party’s presidential nominee lasted only a short time, as a dispute arose in the hours after he left Mexico City over the most contentious part of the billionaire’s plans to fight illegal immigration – his insistence that Mexico must pay to build a physical wall along the roughly 3,200-kilometer U.S. southern border.

Trump told reporters during his afternoon appearance with Pena Nieto that the two men didn’t discuss who would pay for a cost of construction pegged in the billions. Silent at that moment, Pena Nieto later tweeted, “I made it clear that Mexico will not pay for the wall.”

With the meeting held behind closed doors, it was impossible to know who was telling the truth.

Trump told the rowdy Arizona crowd that he respects the Mexican president. “We agreed on the importance of ending the illegal flow of drugs, cash, guns and people across our border and to put the cartels out of business,” he said.

Yet, standing on American soil, he addressed directly a question he sidestepped when asked in Mexico.

“Mexico will pay for the wall, 100 percent,” the New York businessman said. “They don’t know it yet, but they’re going to pay for the wall.”

The Mexican president, however, said on Twitter that the subject was among the first things the men discussed. “From there, the conversation addressed other issues, and developed in a respectful manner,” Pena Nieto wrote.

Trump was cheered in Arizona, but his appearance in Mexico sparked anger and protests. The candidate is deeply unpopular in Mexico due in large part to his deriding the country as a source of rapists and criminals as he kicked off his campaign. He piled on in the months to come, attacked the country over free trade, illegal immigration and border security.

Campaigning in Ohio, Democrat Hillary Clinton jabbed at Trump’s Mexican appearance as she promoted her own experience working with foreign leaders as the nation’s chief diplomat.

“People have to get to know that they can count on you, that you won’t say one thing one day and something totally different the next,” she told the American Legion in Cincinnati.

Story: Jill Colvin, Steve Peoples

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