Officials inspect the front of Birds Cafe Restaurant, which had its windows shot at by one perpetrator and then smashed by another, in the early hours of September 29, 2024.
PHUKET — A restaurant in Phuket was attacked by a group of foreigners who shot at and smashed its windows late at night. A nearby nail salon was vandalized in the same manner. Police are rushing to apprehend the perpetrators.
On the morning of September 29, officers from Cherng Talay Police Station, along with forensic experts from Phuket Province, inspected and gathered evidence at the crime scenes: Birds Cafe Restaurant and T&A Nails Studio.
Forensic officers collected evidence at the crime scenes, while investigators reviewed CCTV footage to track down and prosecute the group responsible for the incident.
At 2:18 AM on September 29, the investigating officer at Cherng Talay Police Station, Phuket, received a report from Mr. Gor Chem, a 68-year-old security guard at Birds Cafe Restaurant located in Soi OrBorTor, Cherng Talay. He reported that foreign men had shattered the restaurant’s windows by shooting into the shop.
Officials examine the front of T&A Nails Studio shop, which had its windows smashed by the perpetrator, on the morning of September 29, 2024.
Mr. Gor Chem stated that four foreign men were responsible. The first arrived on a motorcycle and parked in front of the restaurant just after 2 AM. He heard a sound similar to a gunshot and saw broken glass. Before he could react, the perpetrator fled on the motorcycle.
About 10 minutes later, another foreign man came and smashed the windows of the same restaurant again, then walked to a nearby beauty salon and nail studio to break their windows as well. Subsequently, two more men arrived and committed similar acts, smashing the front windows of the shops.
Mr. Gor Chem said he was too shocked to act and called his son to come watch the shop while he went to report the incident to the Cherng Talay Police Station. He mentioned that in his nearly 20 years as a security guard, he had never encountered such an incident.
He also informed the officers that another security guard who works the day shift had told him about foreigners having a violent argument on Saturday afternoon before dispersing. It is suspected that the perpetrators might be from the same group.
82-year-old Mrs. Suthawai received 10,000 baht from the government and went shopping for the first time at a market. She visited the Khlong Chao Market, Moo 7, Khlong Luang Phaeng Subdistrict, Mueang Chachoengsao District, on September 27, 2024.
S
ome of the 14.5 million poor people who hold state welfare cardholders and the physically handicapped were elated this week as they withdrewtheir 10,000 baht cash handout from a nearby ATM, thanks to the government’s cash handout scheme, formerly known as the 10,000 digital wallet handout scheme. Some cried, at least one reportedly fainted, others beamed with joy as they smiled and gave thumbs up in front of news photographers. One elderly woman told the press she wishes that Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra will continue to be PM for life.
The first phase of cash handouts, in an attempt to stimulate the flagging economy, covers 14.5 million Thais. Some are using the amount received to repay loan sharks while Interior Minister Anutin Charnveerakul said earlier this week that police can arrest any loanshark coercing debtors to hand over all the 10,000 baht cash handout withdrawn on spot from an ATM booth.
Ten thousand baht is roughly 300 US dollars. It’s definitely no small sum for poor people in Thailand. It’s roughly equivalent to what a minimum wage earner can make in a month. One admitted to the local press she had never held this much amount of cash in her life until this week.
In Bangkok, earlier this week, a five star hotel organized a culinary celebration where Michelin stars chefs from around the world were invited to cook for wealthy Thais and expats in Bangkok and a dinner for one prepared by a three-star Michelin chef goes for 14,900++ baht per person, including wine pairing.
Meanwhile, it’s not uncommon for some prominent Thai politicians to be found in public wearing luxury wristwatches costing in excess of a million baht or more, an amount most of these 14.5 million Thais will unlikely not be able to obtain in their entire life. Meanwhile, some opponents of the government made fun of how quickly these poor people spend their effortless cash that they received.
Soon enough, the sum will be used, (and hopefully the economy stimulated by 145 billion baht injected, and more in phases 2 and 3) and the poor will return to being poor, and mostly in debt again. I am happy for them, however. At least some had a few good meals and a real smile and fleeting joy as a result. Some may have to pay up some or all of their debt owing to a loan shark. Even if some used the money to buy booze, gamble, or smoke weed, I am okay with it as long as they didn’t use it to buy drugs.
All this is a reminder that economic and social inequality are real and a pressing issue in this society. When income disparity among members of the same society is so wide, it’s hard to convince all to share a common dream and concerns for the society.
Some poor people can’t comprehend the obsession of the educated middle-class on the lese majeste law and freedom of expression, while well-to-do Thais wonder why the poor are so prone to vote buying, directly and indirectly. It’s as if they inhabit two different socities that they both called Thailand. Truth be told, the poor and marginalised have little, if nothing to lose. This is something the cash handout won’t be able to solve.
What I am concerns about is what comes next? Will this be just a one-off attempt to reboot public spending or will it lead to various political parties competing to promise to the electorate they will get even a bigger sum in the future if they vote for the party.
Also, could anyone earnestly try to explain how it differs from vote buying – albeit using tax payers’ money?
I understand why many praised PM Paetongtarn Shinawatra, and also understand if millions more will vote for the ruling Pheu Thai Party comes the next general election.
Many people seem to not understand that such scheme must be handled most carefully otherwise poor people will come to expect more cash handouts in the future and consider it the most important political policy any major political party can make.
As it is, some Thais don’t see the difference between cash handout scheme and having proper social safety net for the poor and vulnerable in Thailand. That is very worrying, indeed.
In this aerial image of the Kathmandu valley, Bagmati River is seen in flood due to heavy rains in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gopen Rai)
KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — The death toll from flooding and landslides in Nepal has reached at least 100, with dozens of people still missing.
Police on Sunday morning warned the death toll was expected to rise further as reports come in from villages across the mountainous country.
The weather in Nepal was improved on Sunday and rescue, recovery and clean-up efforts were underway.
Rescuer workers recovered 14 bodies overnight from two buses headed to Kathmandu that were buried in a landslide on a highway near the capital city.
At least one other bus and other vehicles were still buried at the same spot, and rescuer workers were digging through rocks and mud trying to find people.
People gather at the edge of the Bagmati River in spate after heavy rains in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gopen Rai)A woman cries after she lost her home due to floods caused by heavy rains in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gopen Rai)
Kathmandu remained cut off Sunday as the main highways out of the city were blocked by landslides. Three highways, including the key Prithvi highway that connects Kathmandu to the rest of the country, have been blocked by landslides.
Residents in the southern part of Kathmandu, which was inundated by water, were cleaning up their houses as water levels began to recede.
At least 34 people were killed in Kathmandu, which was the hardest hit by Saturday’s flooding.
Police officers and soldiers were assisting with rescue efforts, while heavy equipment was used to clear the landslides from the roads.
A bridge over Bagmati River lies damaged due to floods caused by heavy rains in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gopen Rai)
The government announced it was closing schools and colleges across Nepal for the next three days.
The heavy rains, which started on Friday, slowed on Saturday night, but were expected to continue through the weekend.
Last week, the government issued flood warnings across the Himalayan nation warning of massive rainfall. Buses were banned from traveling at night on highways and people were discouraged from driving cars.
The monsoon season began in June and usually ends by mid-September.
A tin shed lies partially submerged at the edge of the Bagmati River in spate after heavy rains in Kathmandu, Nepal, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Gopen Rai)
The Facebook page of Nattapak Khumkad, the owner of the crocodile farm, posts images of a crocodile pond showing eroded walls that risk collapsing.
LAMPHUN — The images of numerous crocodile carcasses being moved at a crocodile farm in Lamphun Province became viral during the flood situation in Thailand’s northern region. The farm’s latest post, on September 27, reveals why the owner had to eliminate many crocodiles on his own farm.
The Facebook page of Nattapak Khumkad, 37, the owner of the crocodile farm, posted images of a crocodile pond showing eroded walls, along with an explanation: “This was the primary reason that forced me to make an urgent decision. On that day, it rained heavily non-stop. The underwater wall collapsed, which was very close to reaching the outer wall.”
He explained that his staff tried to cordon off the area to repair the pond as quickly as possible, but the rain continued to pour relentlessly, making it seem unsafe.
The Facebook page of Nattapak Khumkad, 37, the owner of the crocodile farm, posted images of a crocodile pond showing eroded walls.
Later, the team considered temporarily relocating the crocodiles, but there was no place that could safely accommodate them.
“It was a crisis that required an extremely urgent decision. I had to use the last resort, which was to remove the crocodiles from the farm by slaughtering them. If it wasn’t absolutely necessary, we wouldn’t have used this method. It was the best, fastest, and safest method in that situation, with the rain still pouring incessantly. Thank you for all the encouragement and understanding.”
Nattapak told Khaosod Online that he has been running the crocodile farm for 17 years. The slaughtered crocodiles were breeding ones that had been together from the beginning, about 17 years. Every year during the rainy season, there had never been such an emergency, but this year in Lamphun, the rain was extremely heavy, and he couldn’t withstand the natural disaster. This year was considered very severe.
“The weather this year seems to be excessively severe. I had to make the most urgent decision. Prevention is better than solving problems later,” he said.
The final image before Nattapak Khumkad, the owner of the crocodile farm, said he decided to choose the last resort.Nattapak Khumkad says that it was a very difficult decision to kill crocodiles he had raised for 17 years.
He recounted that the first day of rain wasn’t a problem, but on the second day, the underwater wall collapsed, making him start to panic. He thought he had to find a way to stop it and planned three strategies: 1. Cordon off the area inside the pond, separate the crocodiles to another side, and repair the wall urgently. But the heavy rain made it impossible, and importantly, some crocodiles could crawl over to the damaged side. This plan failed.
Plan 2 was to relocate the crocodiles to other ponds temporarily, but it was such an emergency that no nearby ponds were available, and the crocodiles could cross over to the collapsing wall area. The distance wasn’t much anymore, so they had to resort to Plan 3: relocating the crocodiles after death by electrocuting and then slaughtering them. This was to save the entire farm and others as well.
He said that after consulting with his family, everyone agreed that this had to be done, prioritizing people’s safety. Usually, he doesn’t listen to others much, but this time it was a real crisis. It was a very difficult decision to kill crocodiles he had raised for 17 years. He had gotten offspring and eggs from them every year. He had to accept it; there was no choice left. He has to start all over again.
A total of 125 crocodiles had to be killed, of which 90 were breeding ones, on September 24, 2024. These were the large ones that he couldn’t control if they escaped.
Looking at the empty crocodile pond now, Nattapak Khumkad feels a bit hollow.
Looking at the empty crocodile pond now, he feels a bit hollow. Just a few days ago, he could still see the crocodiles. He was already attached to these crocodiles because he had gone down to take pictures and create content with them. In the future, the offspring of these crocodiles will take their place.
Regarding the killed crocodiles, he said they didn’t let them go to waste. They utilized them by selling the skins separately, and the meat was sold as roasted crocodile, which was already an original business of his farm. From selling roasted cow and pig, they expanded to roasted crocodile.
“This menu has only recently gained popularity. During the first 10 years, it wasn’t very popular because there was resistance to eating crocodile. But now, eating crocodile meat is more accepted. So the farm makes roasted crocodile, which my farm was the first to do in Thailand,” he said.
Smoke rises from Israeli airstrikes in Beirut's southern suburbs, Lebanon, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
BEIRUT (AP) — Lebanon’s Hezbollah group confirmed on Saturday that its leader and one of its founders, Hassan Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut the previous day.
A statement said Nasrallah “has joined his fellow martyrs.” Hezbollah vowed to “continue the holy war against the enemy and in support of Palestine.”
Nasrallah, who led Hezbollah for more than three decades, is by far the most powerful target to be killed by Israel in weeks of intensified fighting with Hezbollah. The Israeli military said it carried out a precise airstrike on Friday while Hezbollah leadership were meeting at their headquarters in Dahiyeh, south of Beirut.
The Lebanese Health Ministry said six people were killed and 91 injured in the strikes, which leveled six apartment buildings. Ali Karki, the commander of Hezbollah’s Southern Front and other commanders were also killed, the Israeli military said.
FILE – In this Oct. 24, 2015 file photo, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah addresses a crowd during the holy day of Ashoura, in a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
Iran announced Saturday that a prominent general in its paramilitary Revolutionary Guard sanctioned by the U.S. died in the same airstrike. Abbas Nilforushan, 58, who the U.S. identified as the deputy commander for operations in the Guard, was killed Friday, Iran’s state-run IRNA news agency reported.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an army spokesperson, said the airstrike was based on years of tracking Nasrallah along with “real time information” that made it viable. He declined to say what munitions were used in the strike or provide an estimate on civilian deaths, only saying that Israel takes measures to avoid civilians whenever possible and clears strikes ahead of time with intelligence and legal experts.
The Palestinian militant group Hamas in a statement issued condolences to its ally, Hezbollah. Nasrallah frequently described launching rockets against northern Israel as a “support front” for Hamas and Palestinians in Gaza.
“History has proven that the resistance … whenever its leaders die as martyrs, will be succeeded on the same path by a generation of leaders who are more valiant, stronger and more determined to continue the confrontation,” the Hamas statement said.
It added that “assassinations will only increase the resistance in Lebanon and Palestine in determination and resolve.”
Immediately after the official confirmation from Hezbollah, people starting firing in the air in Beirut and other areas of the country, to mourn Nasrallah’s death. Some were protesting that he was killed because of his support for the war in Gaza. “Wish it was our kids, not you, Sayyid!” said one woman, using an honorific title for Nasrallah, as she clutched her baby in the western city of Baabda.
Israel vows to keep up attacks on Hezbollah
Israel’s Chief of Staff, Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, said Saturday that the elimination of Nasrallah was “not the end of our toolbox,” indicating that more strikes were planned. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant called it “the most important targeted strike since the founding of the State of Israel.”
Israel has vowed to step up pressure on Hezbollah until it halts its attacks that have displaced tens of thousands of Israelis from communities near the Lebanese border. The recent fighting has also displaced more than 200,000 Lebanese in the past week, according to the United Nations.
Flames rise after an Israeli airstrike in the southern suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
The military said Saturday it was mobilizing additional reserve soldiers as tensions escalate with Lebanon, activating three battalions of reserve soldiers to serve across the country. It sent two brigades to northern Israel earlier in the week to train for a possible ground invasion.
Shoshani, the army spokesperson, said that Israel has inflicted heavy damage on Hezbollah’s capabilities over the past week by targeting a combination of immediate threats and strategic weapons, such as larger, guided missiles. But he said much of Hezbollah’s arsenal still remains intact and that Israel would continue to target the group. The Israeli military updated guidelines for Israeli citizens, canceling gatherings of more than 1,000 people due to the ongoing threat.
Approximately 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from their homes along the Lebanese border for almost a year. Earlier this month, Israel’s government said halting Hezbollah’s attacks in the country’s north to allow residents to return to their homes is an official war goal.
People check a damaged building at the site of an Israeli airstrike in Choueifat, south east of Beirut, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Iran, Iraq call for support for Hezbollah
Iranian state television read the announcement from Hezbollah confirming Nasrallah’s death live, but there was no other immediate comment. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei in a Saturday message said “the resistance movement, heading by Hezbollah, will decide the fate of the region,” in a statement read on state TV.
Iran is the main supporter of Lebanese Hezbollah and other militant groups in the region.
Also on Saturday, Iran’s influential parliamentary committee of national security demanded “strong” response to Israel following a meeting of the committee. State TV also said people staged anti-Israeli rallies in support of Hezbollah in major cities and town across the country.
Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani of declared a three-day period of mourning in his country. Sudani came to power with the backing of a coalition of Iran-backed political factions, many of which have armed wings that are allied with Hezbollah.
A year of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah
Hezbollah started firing rockets on Israel in support of Gaza on Oct. 8, a day after Hamas militants launched an unprecedented attack on Israel, killing some 1,200 people and abducting another 250. Since then, the two sides have been engaged in cross-border strikes that have gradually escalated and displaced tens of thousands of civilians on both sides of the border.
Children with their families lie on the ground in Beirut’s Martyrs’ square after fleeing the Israeli airstrikes in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)
Hostilities escalated dramatically last week when thousands of explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah detonated, killing dozens of people and leaving thousands, including many civilians, with severe injuries to the eyes, face and limbs. Israel is widely believed to be behind the attack. Israel has also killed several top Hezbollah commanders in Beirut, especially in the past two weeks, in addition to the attack that killed Nasrallah.
A window of opportunity for Israel, Lebanon
Orna Mizrahi, a senior researcher at the Tel Aviv-based think tank Institute for National Security Studies and former intelligence analyst for the Israeli military and prime minister’s office, noted that Nasrallah was sometimes a “voice of reason,” interested in engaging Israel in a war of attrition and holding the militant group back from using the full force of their formidable arsenal against Israel.
Nasrallah’s death could prompt some less senior members of Hezbollah to unleash much stronger weapons than have been used in the nearly yearlong exchange of hostilities between Hezbollah and Lebanon, she said. The biggest question mark right now, though, is how Iran will respond, said Mizrahi.
She added that Nasrallah’s death could provide a window of opportunity, while the organization is significantly weakened, for Lebanon to dilute Hezbollah’s far-reaching influence, especially in the south, that threatens to drag Lebanon into a full-scale war with Israel.
Continuing strikes on both sides of the border
On Saturday morning, the Israeli military carried out more than 140 airstrikes in southern Beirut and eastern Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, including targeting a storage facility for anti-ship missiles in Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh. Israel said the missiles were stored underground beneath civilian apartment buildings. Hezbollah launched dozens of projectiles across northern and central Israel and deep into the Israel-occupied West Bank, damaging some buildings in the northern town of Safed.
In Beirut’s southern suburbs, smoke rose and the streets were empty after the area was pummeled overnight by heavy Israeli airstrikes. Shelters set up in the city center for displaced people were overflowing. Many families slept in public squares and beaches or in their cars. On the roads leading to the mountains above the capital, hundreds of people could be seen making an exodus on foot, holding infants and whatever belongings they could carry.
A total of 1,030 people — including 156 women and 87 children — have been killed in Israeli strikes in Lebanon in less than two weeks, the country’s health minister said Saturday.
Visitors watch the giant panda Shin Shin at Ueno Zoo, a day before giant panda couple Ri Ri and Shin Shin's return to China, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
TOKYO (AP) — Thousands of Japanese fans bid tearful farewell to their beloved panda couple that made their final public appearance at Tokyo’s Ueno Zoo on Saturday before returning to China for medical treatment.
More than 2,000 visitors, many wearing T-shirts and carrying items decorated by panda motifs, queued outside the zoo hours before the opening. Some said they camped out overnight to secure their chance.
The pandas, both 19 years old, arrived at the Ueno Zoo in 2011. Although their lease is good through 2026, Japan and China agreed to their return home as the aging couple need treatment for high blood pressure, according to the zoo.
Visitors react after seeing the giant pandas Ri Ri and Shin Shin at Ueno Zoo, a day before their return to China, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
Hirono Sasaki, who waited to enter the zoo since 5 a.m., was crying. “They were always my source of comfort, so I’m feel extremely sad,” she said. “I loved seeing Ri Ri climbing trees in her old enclosure. I hope she can climb trees again when she is back in China.”
After their hours long wait, visitors were given only a few minutes inside their hut to view the black-and-white animals. Lucky ones could get a glimpse of them nibbling on bamboo branches, but others could only catch them during their naps.
China sends pandas abroad as a sign of goodwill but maintains ownership over the animals and any cubs they produce. The animals are native to southwestern China and are an unofficial national mascot.
Pandas, which reproduce rarely in the wild and rely on a diet of bamboo, remain among the world’s most threatened species. An estimated 1,800 pandas live in the wild, while another 500 are in zoos or reserves, mostly in Sichuan.
Visitors wait to see the giant pandas Ri Ri and Shin Shin at Ueno Zoo, a day before their return to China, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)Visitors watch the giant panda Shin Shin at Ueno Zoo, a day before giant panda couple Ri Ri and Shin Shin’s return to China, Saturday, Sept. 28, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
A 38-year-old Chinese suspect who livestreamed bedding products, is arrested by Police Patrol 191 officers inside a warehouse in Moo 4, Nong Rong Subdistrict, Nong Khae District, Saraburi Province on September 26, 2024.
SARABURI — Police 191 arrested Chinese man livestreaming bedding sales, find large quantity of intellectual property infringing goods worth 40 million baht ($1.24 million).
Mr. Nong, a 38-year-old Chinese national who sold livestream bedding products, was arrested by Police Patrol 191 officers inside a warehouse in Moo 4, Nong Rong Subdistrict, Nong Khae District, Saraburi Province on September 26.
Evidence seized included a computer set with two monitors used for livestreaming, one Logitech camera with tripod for livestreaming, one bell, and 32 sets of LOTUS and Dunlopillo branded duvets and bed sheets used for livestreaming.
Police 191 arrested Chinese man livestreaming bedding sales, find large quantity of intellectual property infringing goods worth 40 million baht.
Additionally, authorities seized three categories of goods infringing on intellectual property:
767 sacks containing LOTUS and Dunlopillo branded duvet sets with bed sheets, pillowcases, and bolster pillows
11,447 pieces of LOTUS and Dunlopillo branded bed sheet sets packed in cardboard boxes
The total number of intellectual property infringing goods exceeded 20,000 pieces, with an estimated value of over 40 million baht.
Mr. Nong faces multiple charges, including counterfeiting trademarks, service marks, certification marks, or collective marks of others that are already registered; imitating registered trademarks of others; copyright infringement for profit; and possessing counterfeit trademarked goods registered in the kingdom for sale without permission.
Police 191 inspect the location where a Chinese national livestreamed sales of counterfeit branded bedding, situated in the Nang Loeng area of Bangkok, on September 26, 2024.
The investigation began after a representative from Lotus Mattress Company Limited filed a complaint on September 12, reporting that they had seen a TikTok user named “wants shop” livestreaming their company’s bedding products and using their logo.
Patrol Unit 1 investigators then traced the TikTok user “wants shop,” leading to the arrest warrant for the individual livestreaming and selling the intellectual property infringing goods.
Mr. Nong confessed to buying raw fabric to produce and sell the goods himself, using famous brand logos. He also stored infringing goods in an unnumbered warehouse in Moo 4, Nong Rong Subdistrict, Nong Khae District, Saraburi Province, adjacent to the warehouse where he conducted his livestreams.
He then led the investigation team and the Lotus Mattress Company Limited representative to search the warehouse, where they found hundreds more sacks of intellectual property infringing goods worth over 40 million baht. Officers then took him to Nang Loeng Police Station in Bangkok for further legal proceedings.
A video clip shows a foreign man inside a convenience store as he begins ransacking it, frightening the staff.
PHUKET — Police officers from Phuket’s Thalang Police Station are investigating a case involving a video of a foreigner in Phuket who went on a rampage at a pizza restaurant, damaging property and injuring the owner.
The incident occurred near Phuket Airport in Sakhu Subdistrict, Thalang District, around 2 a.m. on September 27. The video has been widely criticized online, especially regarding the issue of troublemakers visiting Phuket and affecting residents and other tourists.
Upon identifying the location, police officers visited the pizza restaurant owner in the afternoon to advise on filing a complaint. The incident took place at Daruka Pizza and Pasta in Moo 1, Sakhu Subdistrict, Thalang District.
The incident took place at Daruka Pizza and Pasta in Moo 1, Sakhu Subdistrict, Thalang District.
A Khaosod reporter then spoke with Ms. Nga, the restaurant owner, and her foreign husband. They recounted that a German man came to the restaurant, saying he would order pizza and come back later. The husband suggested he return first, and they would prepare fresh, hot pizza for him.
About half an hour later, the man returned wearing a dress and carrying a bag. He ordered one pizza, one beer, one shot of liquor, and soda water. He stayed in the restaurant for a long time, refusing to leave even when told it was time for the owners to put their child to bed. He claimed he had no hotel accommodation, so the husband offered to drive him to the airport.
Police officers visit the pizza restaurant owner in the afternoon to advise on filing a complaint on September 27, 2024.
Ms. Nga continued that around 2 a.m., while putting her child to bed, she heard a car starting, followed by crashing sounds and shouting. She came down with her child and her husband told her to call the police as he had been assaulted and their car damaged. She tried calling 191 but failed, then called 1669 for help, but the call was cut short. Unable to reconnect, she called an employee for assistance.
Ms. Nga’s husband described the assault, saying he was about to help load items into the car when the German man threw 2-3 glasses, shattering them in the middle of the restaurant. The man then walked around to the side of the car, twisted off both side mirrors, opened the driver’s door, took the keys, and threw them away.
Ms. Nga’s husband, afraid to fight back, walked behind the van, but the German man approached, put him in a headlock, and pushed him down. As Ms. Nga came down, her husband broke free and asked her to call the police.
At this point, Ms. Nga dragged the man’s suitcase inside, telling him to wait for the police and take responsibility. He then ran to a nearby convenience store and began ransacking it, frightening the staff.
Later in the evening, police arrested the man in front of the convenience store. He was still behaving erratically but apologized. The police took him to calm down before questioning and proceeding with legal action.
FILE - British actress Dame Maggie Smith poses in London on Dec. 16, 2015. Smith, who won an Oscar for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey,” has died at 89. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, File)
LONDON (AP) — Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey” and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89.
Smith’s sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital.
“She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs.
Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies.
FILE – Actress Maggie Smith holds her Oscar for best supporting actress in the film “California Suite” in Los Angeles, April 9, 1979. Smith, who won an Oscar for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969 and won new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey,” has died at 89. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon, File)
She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that “when you get into the granny era, you’re lucky to get anything.”
Smith drily summarized her later roles as “a gallery of grotesques,” including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: “Harry Potter is my pension.”
Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of “Suddenly Last Summer,” said she was “intellectually the smartest actress I’ve ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith.”
“Jean Brodie,” in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969.
Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978, Golden Globes for “California Suite” and “Room with a View,” and BAFTAs for lead actress in “A Private Function” in 1984, “A Room with a View” in 1986, and “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” in 1988.
She also received Academy Award nominations as a supporting actress in “Othello,” “Travels with My Aunt,” “Room with a View” and “Gosford Park,” and a BAFTA award for supporting actress in “Tea with Mussolini.” On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for “Lettice and Lovage.”
Her work in 2012 netted three Golden Globe nominations for the globally successful “Downton Abbey” TV series and the films “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and “Quartet.”
Smith had a reputation for being difficult, and sometimes upstaging others.
Richard Burton remarked that Smith didn’t just take over a scene in “The VIPs” with him: “She commits grand larceny.” However, the director Peter Hall found that Smith wasn’t “remotely difficult unless she’s among idiots. She’s very hard on herself, and I don’t think she sees any reason why she shouldn’t be hard on other people, too.”
Smith conceded that she could be impatient at times.
Maggie Smith as Professor Minerva McGonagall
“It’s true I don’t tolerate fools, but then they don’t tolerate me, so I am spiky,” Smith said. “Maybe that’s why I’m quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.”
Critic Frank Rich, in a New York Times review of “Lettice and Lovage,” praised Smith as “the stylized classicist who can italicize a line as prosaic as ‘Have you no marmalade?’ until it sounds like a freshly minted epigram by Coward or Wilde.”
Smith famously drew laughs from a prosaic line — “This haddock is disgusting” — in a 1964 revival of Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever.”
“But unfortunately the critics mentioned it, and after that it never got a laugh,” she recalled. “The moment you say something is funny it’s gossamer. It’s gone, really.”
Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, on the eastern edge of London, on Dec. 28, 1934. She summed up her life briefly: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, one’s still acting.”
Her father was assigned in 1939 to wartime duty in Oxford, where her theater studies at the Oxford Playhouse School led to a busy apprenticeship.
“I did so many things, you know, round the universities there. … If you were kind of clever enough and I suppose quick enough, you could almost do weekly rep because all the colleges were doing different productions at different times,” she said in a BBC interview.
She took Maggie as her stage name because another Margaret Smith was active in the theater.
Downton Abbey
Laurence Olivier spotted her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theatre company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of “Othello.”
Smith said two directors, Ingmar Bergman and William Gaskill, both in National Theatre productions, were important influences.
Alan Bennett, preparing to film the monologue “A Bed Among the Lentils,” said he was wary of Smith’s reputation for becoming bored. As the actor Jeremy Brett put it, “she starts divinely and then goes off, rather like a cheese.”
“So the fact that we only just had enough time to do it was an absolute blessing really because she was so fresh and just so into it,” said Bennett, who also wrote a starring role for Smith in “The Lady in the Van.”
However extravagant she may have been on stage or before the cameras, Smith was known to be intensely private.
Simon Callow, who acted with her in “A Room with a View,” said he ruined their first meeting by spouting compliments.
“I blurted out various kinds of rubbish about her and she kind of withdrew. She doesn’t like that sort of thing very much at all,” Callow said in a film portrait of the actress. “She never wanted to talk about acting. Acting was something she was terrified to talk about because if she did, it would disappear.”
Smith was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, the equivalent of a knight, in 1990.
She married fellow actor Robert Stephens in 1967. They had two sons, Christopher and Toby, and divorced in 1975. The same year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998.
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Associated Press writer Robert Barr contributed biographical material to this obituary before his death in 2018.
Shigeru Ishiba, right, with Japan's Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, left, and other candidates, celebrates after Ishiba was elected as new head of Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party during its leadership election Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae, Pool)
TOKYO (AP) — Japan’s ruling party on Friday picked former defense minister Shigeru Ishiba as leader, setting him up to become prime minister next week.
The party leadership win is a ticket to the top job because the Liberal Democratic Party’s ruling coalition currently controls the parliament.
Considered a defense policy expert, Ishiba has proposed an Asian version of the NATO military alliance and a more equal Japan-U.S. security alliance. Ishiba is a supporter of Taiwan’ s democracy. He calls for an establishment of a disaster management agency in one of the world’s most disaster-prone countries.
Shigeru Ishiba, center, waves as he is elected as leader of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party after the party’s leadership election, in Tokyo Friday, Sept. 27, 2024. (Kyodo News via AP)
Ishiba beat out Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi, a staunch conservative who was running to become the country’s first female prime minister.
A record nine lawmakers, including two women, ran in a vote decided by LDP members of parliament and about 1 million dues-paying party members. That’s only 1% of the country’s eligible voters.
The moment his victory was called, Ishiba stood up, waved and bowed many times in a gesture of appreciation for the support for him.
He pledged he will have the party once again become one that is humble and fair and open to active discussion. “I will devote all my body and soul to make Japan a safe and secure country where everyone can live smiling.”
Outgoing Prime Minister Fumio Kishida has been dogged by party corruption scandals, and the LDP wanted a fresh leader in hopes of regaining public trust before a likely general election.
Officials show the result of the first voting to Election Commission during the Liberal Democratic Party’s (LDP) leadership election at the party headquarters Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae, Pool)
Some experts believe that party turmoil could mean that Japan will return to an era similar to the early 2000s, which saw “revolving door” leadership changes and political instability.
A succession of short-lived governments hurts Japanese prime ministers’ ability to set up long-term policy goals or develop trusted relations with other leaders.
On Tuesday, Kishida and his Cabinet ministers will resign. Ishiba, after being formally elected in a parliamentary vote, will then form a new Cabinet later in the day.
Kishida congratulated Ishiba’s victory and said Friday marks the first step for a new LDP.
“LDP will reborn, and will live up to the people’s expectations and achieve results,” he said. As Japan faces security tension in the region and elsewhere, Japan must step up its own defense power and ties with the United States, “and help the world become a place of cooperation instead of divisions,” he said. “I will support the new administration with all my strength as ,” he said.
Shigeru Ishiba, center, celebrates after he was elected as new head of Japan’s ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party’s leadership election Friday, Sept. 27, 2024, in Tokyo. (AP Photo/Hiro Komae, Pool)
Some experts believe that party turmoil could mean that Japan will return to an era similar to the early 2000s, which saw “revolving door” leadership changes and political instability.
A succession of short-lived governments hurts Japanese prime ministers’ ability to set up long-term policy goals or develop trusted relations with other leaders.
The main opposition — the liberal-leaning Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan — has struggled to build momentum, despite the LDP scandals. But experts say its newly elected leader, centrist former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda, is pushing a conservative shift for the left-leaning party and could trigger political regroupings and attract swing voters.
