LAMPANG – Pang Dummy (Miss Dummy), a 23-year-old popular elephant, has begun her new life at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre Lampang, in northern Thailand, after spending many years in the south.
She became famous after a photo of her sitting and admiring the sea in Phuket Province, and she also produces a talking sound. Her habit of making sounds like she is talking comes from the way she was raised by her mahout, Kanya Panthuwiset, or Brother Rae, who did not use chains or hooks but rather communication.
Miss Dummy’s fans have seen her as charming and adorable.
Pang Dummy arrived at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre in Lampang on February 7 after travelling over 1,400 kilometres in 38 hours from Hat Yai District, Songkhla Province.
They bought Pang Dummy from her previous owner and hired a truck to transport her from Hat Yai District, Songkhla Province, over 1,400 kilometres in 38 hours to the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre Lampang as the 125th elephant member.
Brother Rae also travelled with Pang Dummy and stayed to care for her at this location. To avoid epidemics, she must be confined for at least 14 days under procedures for adopting new elephants. The Thai Elephant Conservation Centre Lampang’s Facebook page now posts updated photos of Pang Dummy for admirers to appreciate.
On the night of February 7, “Phrakhru Aod,” or Phrakhru Sangkharak Wirawat Weerawatthano, a lecturer at Mahamakut Rajavidyalaya University Lanna Campus, Wat Chedi Luang, Chiang Mai Province, arrived at the Elephant Conservation Centre to greet the elephant. He was the leader of a group of elephant lovers who led a fundraising campaign to purchase Pang Dummy.
Phrakru Aod stated that he renamed Pang Dummy “Pang Saen Roo” in praise of her intelligence, and that she is the 16th elephant whose name begins with the word “Saen” for which he has launched a fundraising drive since 2021.
Phrakhru Aod welcomes Pang Dummy at the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre in Lampang on February 7, 2024.
This time, they raised 2.1 million baht, with one million coming from Ms. Kanchana Silpa-Archa, a politician who loves elephants. Ms. Kanchana also came to feed the elephant as the truck drove through Supanburi Province. Last year, she assisted in the return of the famed elephant Plai Sak Surin from Sri Lanka to Thailand.
“This conservation centre covers around 2,500 rai of forests. It is a suitable location for elephants. There’s no reason to let elephants wander. Pang Saen Roo will have a permanent home. Phrakhru Aod said, “There is a place to eat, food security, and health stability.”
Ms. Kanchana Silpa-Archa, an elephant lover, came to feed Pang Dummy as the truck drove through Supanburi Province on February 6, 2024.
However, Suratchai Inwiset, director of the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, is concerned about elephant care at this location because elephant food, particularly grass, reduces during the dry season. Normally, the institution purchases 60–70 tonnes of grass every day from local peasants and community entrepreneurs groups.
“Those who love elephants can help to care for and raise them. You can pay 500 baht per person per month and 6,000 baht per year, which is coordinated with the Thai Elephant Conservation Centre Lampang on workday,” Phrakhru Aod said, asking people to participate in the fundraising effort.
PATTAYA – Pattaya Police officials, working with the Chonburi Forensics Division police and the Pattaya Rescue Unit, examined a case in which a foreigner fell from a building and died at a condominium on Pattaya Sai 2 Road in Nong Prue Subdistrict, Bang Lamung District, Chonburi Province.
Officials spotted the body of a Chinese man, surnamed Lai, 35, in a garden close to a 31-story condominium, with his Chinese wife and children sitting and crying nearby.
Lai’s relatives told the police that he and his family had travelled from Guangdong to Pattaya during Chinese New Year vacation. They lived on the 18th floor of the condominium.
According to eyewitnesses, Lai and his wife argued before he leaped out of a window and died.
The police sent Lai’s body to the Institute of Forensic Medicine police hospital for a complete examination, and they coordinated with the Chinese embassy to return the body to his family.
FILE - Roses are displayed before being shipped to the U.S. ahead of Valentine's Day, in Chia, north of Bogota, Colombia, on Jan. 31, 2024. (AP Photo/Fernando Vergara, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Elise Plessis hasn’t been in a long-term relationship for 26 years. It’s by choice, yet she still suffers FOMO when Valentine’s Day rolls around.
Elise Plessis appears in Manitoba, Canada on Jan. 29, 2024. (Elise Plessis via AP)
“I’m the singleton of the family and the friend group,” said the 53-year-old Plessis, who lives in Manitoba, Canada. “Valentine’s Day makes me feel hopeless, like a loser who can’t find anyone who wants me.”
But she won’t be sitting at home cursing her fate, self-imposed after she tired of “toxic” hookup culture. Instead, Plessis plans to do what loneliness researchers and psychologists advise: She’ll be helping others as a way to get out of her own head.
In her case, she’ll be helping others find love. She became a certified matchmaker last year and has organized a speed-dating event ahead of Valentine’s Day.
“I figure if I can’t find love, it’s the least I can do,” Plessis said.
Valentine’s Day is one of those holidays that haters call “forced,” commercialized and downright expensive to pull off if expectations are to be met. This year, the day of romance that has grown into a celebration of all-around love and friendship is the first since the U.S. surgeon general issued a public health advisory last spring declaring loneliness and isolation an “epidemic” with dire consequences.
Dr. Vivek Murthy, the country’s top public health watchdog, warned that widespread loneliness poses health risks as deadly as smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day. It costs the health industry billions of dollars a year, he said.
About half of U.S. adults say they’ve experienced loneliness, he said. The problem has been stewing since well before the pandemic, worsening in recent years.
“It’s like hunger or thirst. It’s a feeling the body sends us when something we need for survival is missing,” Murthy told The Associated Press at the time. “Millions of people in America are struggling in the shadows, and that’s not right.”
Like Valentine’s Day, loneliness has become big business, complete with an outpouring of books offering up self help and data. The season is a windfall for dating apps and websites cashing in on users looking to make it over the hump emotionally intact.
FILE – A Mexican Mariachi band surrounded by heart-shaped balloons awaits the arrival of a couple’s wedding proposal ceremony at the Lake Hollywood Park in Los Angeles, on Feb. 14, 2022. (AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes, File)
TRY A SHIFT IN PERSPECTIVE
David Sbarra, a psychology professor at the University of Arizona in Tucson, studies loneliness and social isolation. He’s among data crunchers who consider the idea of loneliness as a deadly epidemic a tad overblown. But he’s confident about where Valentine’s Day can take the chronically lonely.
“You can make a very clear argument that it exacerbates the experience of psychological distress among people who are already lonely,” he said.
“So a simple way of saying it would be that people are looking at and monitoring themselves being socially isolated instead of shifting their perception toward opportunities to reengage, and then pursuing that. Who can I go out with? What can I do? How can I serve others? Who can I text, call? That’s very important,” Sbarra said.
Those are the things 27-year-old Tori Mattei in New York has discovered on her own over the last four years of singlehood. She’s been dating since two back-to-back, long-term relationships ended.
Tori Mattei appears in New York on Dec. 10, 2023. Mattei, 27, has been single for four years and says Valentine’s Day doesn’t have to be lonely with a little planning. (Tori Mattei via AP)
“Because I’ve been single for a while, I feel like I kind of set a goal for myself to go on a certain amount of dates just so I still feel like I can do it and don’t feel awkward or nervous,” she said. “I’ve gone on a lot of first dates in the past couple of years. Not a lot of second dates.”
Valentine’s Day was a big deal in her relationships. Sometimes it was a cozy night in. There were usually gifts of flowers, perfume or jewelry.
“I definitely felt appreciated,” Mattei said.
She lives alone in Manhattan, as opposed to lots of friends who have roommates. Many of her friends are in relationships.
“At certain times, I enjoy being alone and having my peace and quiet. But on days like Valentine’s Day or even things like the Super Bowl, I have to make a little bit extra effort to not feel lonely,” Mattei said. “I have to make sure I make plans for myself. It just takes one sad day that you feel lonely to make it seem like you’re always lonely.”
SEEK REAL-LIFE CONNECTION
Mattei doesn’t consider herself a Valentine’s Day hater.
“I just dislike the pressure of making it romantic when really, if somebody handed me a rose on the street, that would make my day. Like, that’s all it takes,” she said.
Her best advice for making it through Valentine’s Day is as sweet as those candy conversation hearts that circulate this time of year.
“Show love to somebody. I love giving other people a gift, putting a smile on their face. And if you can’t think of someone that you want to show love to, then show love to yourself. Buy yourself candy. I buy myself flowers very frequently. I love the way they look. I don’t care that I bought them for myself,” Mattei said.
“I think the science is quite clear that loneliness does increase risk of early mortality,” said Nobel, who teaches a course for medical students at the Harvard Chan School of Public Health to help them better recognize loneliness in patients.
A young couple visit a gift shop on Valentine’s Day in Hanoi, capital of Vietnam, on Feb. 14, 2023.
“Loneliness is subjective,” Nobel said — it’s the gap between the social connections you want to have and the ones you do have. “Valentine’s Day, it’s the time to celebrate love and connection, which is fantastic unless you don’t have that connection.”
Psychotherapist Kelli Miller in Los Angeles works with couples and individuals and wrote “Love Hacks: Simple Solutions to the Most Common Relationship Issues.” Valentine’s Day is a common trigger among her clients. If you don’t have the love you want, turn inward in search of joy, she urges.
“Take yourself to the theater. Take yourself to dinner. I know a lot of people don’t want to dine alone but sometimes just being around other human beings can help.”
Monarchy reform activist Tawan Tuatulanond speaks to reporters after she files a complaint at Pathum Wan Police Station over the clash with a group of ultra-royalists at BTS Siam Station earlier the day on Feb. 10, 2024.
Barely a week has passed since the Constitutional Court’s January-31 ruling that the Move Forward Party’s pledge to amend the controversial royal defamation law was unconstitutional when the issue of monarchy reform is back on the media front pages.
This time the debate was led by monarchy-reformist Tawan Tuatulanond of the Thalu Wang Group (Going Beyond the Palace Group). Tawan posted a video clip a few days after the ruling, showing her raging at a police officer while being inside her motionless car waiting for the royal motorcade of HRH Princess Sirindhorn to pass first.
In the video, Tawan was visibly in rage, and kept asking the police officer why she and other motorists had to stop when other people had urgent things to do as well. The video clip enraged ultra-royalists. Fast forward to yesterday’s afternoon, while Tawan and a few other activists gathered at BTS Siam Station, they were confronted by an ultra-royalist group and a brawl followed as the ultra-royalists shouted at the reformists.
While honking at a royal motorcade is not my cup of tea, the environment is such that the debate about monarchy reform through formal channels, particularly the parliament, has been shut. This leaves young activists like Tawan more enraged and desperate, and we are now dealing with the consequence of that. Shock tactics are now probably the only means to reopen the debate about the issue. Without that video clip of Tawan in rage, Thai society would probably not be debating about the issue today.
This is how unfortunate and desperate the situation has become. It is not just the anachronistic lese majete law that some Thais, particularly young Thais, want to debate in hope of amending it to be more in line with truly democratic countries, but issues like the royal motorcade as well.
Other questions include: should the blocking of traffic be done for senior royal members only when on duty, how long should it be done in advance, and how many lanes should it be shut? Another is whether the practice of crawling on the floor in the presence of senior royals should end, when in fact it was originally abolished by King Chulalongkorn (Rama V) over a century ago, only to be reintroduced during the previous reign of King Rama IX?
Yet another topic close to the hearts of some young Thais is the practice of having senior royals handing diplomas to new graduates of many universities.
As it is, even the opposition Move Forward Party is now distancing themselves from Tawan and her fellow activists with both former leader Pita Limjaroenrat and the party deputy spokesman saying yesterday they do not condone the act of honking at Princess Sirindhorn motorcade by Tawan.
Meanwhile, after the brawl, Tawan is now facing online threats. One social media user wrote that Tawan should be thrown off a skywalk and things will be over. The truth is, things will unlikely be over even if Tawan is gone or silenced as many young Thais have become fixated by the issue of monarchy reform.
Perhaps it is more like the beginning of a new chapter of conflicts where the parliament is no longer a viable venue for such debate and discussion and the specter of more violent clashes on the streets is real.
Team Qatar poses with the winning trophy at the end of the Asian Cup final soccer match between Qatar and Jordan at the Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
LUSAIL, Qatar (AP) — Akram Afif scored a hat trick of penalties to secure back-to-back Asian Cup titles for Qatar in a 3-1 win against Jordan on Saturday.
The forward struck in the first half of the final and then twice after the break at Lusail Stadium to finish as the tournament’s leading scorer with eight goals.
Yazan Al Naimat had leveled the game in the second half, but Qatar was awarded two penalties on video review and Afif showed no nerves to convert on both occasions.
Most Valuable Player Qatar’s Akram Afif, left, and Best Goalkeeper Qatar’s Meshaal Barsham stand with their awards after their team won the Asian Cup final soccer match between Qatar and Jordan at the Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Lionel Messi and Kylian Mbappe had lit up this spectacular stadium at the World Cup, and now it was Afif’s turn, with his goals in front of more than 86,000 fans crowning his outstanding tournament.
Qatar became the first back-to-back winner since Japan in 2000 and 2004. It is the fifth nation to successfully defend the title, though Iran won it three times in a row from 1968 to 1976.
But despite being defending champion, this represented an unexpected triumph for a nation that endured a miserable World Cup on home soil in 2022 when exiting the tournament after three straight defeats in the group stage.
Spanish coach Márquez López had only been hired in December and Qatar was beaten 2-1 by Jordan in a friendly in January.
Qatar’s Akram Afif, centre right, celebrates after scoring his side’s opening goal from a penalty during the Asian Cup final soccer match between Qatar and Jordan at the Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)
Preparations were hardly ideal, but it didn’t take long for Qatar to show its credentials as potential champions again after reeling off a 100% winning record in the group stages, with standout performances from Afif.
Afif won and converted a penalty in the 22nd minute Saturday, but Jordan — playing in its first Asian Cup final — was back on level terms when Al Naimat rifled home from inside the box in the 67th.
At that point, Jordan had been on top.
Qatar’s Meshaal Barsham fails to stop a goal by Jordan’s Yazan Alnaimat during the Asian Cup final soccer match between Qatar and Jordan at the Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
It was behind again, however, when Ismaeel Mohammad was brought down by Mahmoud Al Mardi.
It took a video review before referee Ma Ning pointed to the spot — but when he did, again Afif delivered by firing into the left hand corner.
In the fifth minute of stoppage time Afif completed his hat trick after he was fouled by Jordan goalkeeper Yazeed Abulaila.
Again it took a video review to award the spot kick. Again Afif converted.
Qatar’s Amir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, right, stands holding the hand of FIFA President Gianni Infantino the Asian Cup final soccer match between Qatar and Jordan at the Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)Qatar’s Akram Afif celebrates after scoring his side’s opening goal during the Asian Cup final soccer match between Qatar and Jordan at the Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)Qatar’s players throw Akram Afif in the air as they celebrate Afif’s three goals and their victory over Jordan in the Asian Cup final soccer match at the Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, Saturday, Feb. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Thanassis Stavrakis)
Immigration officials arrested of Mr. Mikhail, a 34-year-old Russian national who had been in Thailand for more than 10 years. He had been issued an Interpol Red Notice.
CHONBURI – Immigration officials arrested of Mr. Mikhail, a 34-year-old Russian national who had been in Thailand for more than 10 years and was wanted in Russia for drug possession.
Pol. Lt. Gen. Phanthana Nutchanart, deputy commissioner of the Immigration Department, said that in early October 2023, the Chonburi Immigration Department received information from a volunteer that a Russian foreigner was behaving suspiciously during his stay in Phuket and Chonburi provinces.
An investigation found that the man was wanted by the Russian authorities for drug offenses and had been issued an Interpol Red Notice.
Mr. Mikhail was arrested in front of a house in Nong Prue Subdistrict, Bang Lamung District, Chonburi Province on February 8, 2024.
Mr. Mikhail had been hiding in a house in Nong Prue Subdistrict, Bang Lamung District, Chonburi Province. Immigration officers tracked him down and arrested him before taking him to Muang Pattaya Police Station for further prosecution.
The police are preparing his extradition to Russia in order to prosecute him.
Two viral images teased Lopburi as the Planet of the Apes in the Thai version.
LOPBURI – A great deal of monkeys is one of the main reasons why many businesses have closed and relocated from Lopburi’s downtown area. The authorities have attempted to address this issue, but they have yet to find a compromise between preserving Lopburi as a monkey city and ensuring that the monkeys don’t pose a threat to humans.
At the end of the Lopburi visit on Friday, when Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin was about to return to Bangkok, a small group of local people presented the Prime Minister with a picture that went viral on the internet of a girl carrying an airsoft machine gun to avoid being attacked by monkeys and a comparison shot of a monkey holding a toy gun at the edge of the fence of Phra Prang Sam Yot Mueang Lopburi District.
The group’s leader asked that the Prime Minister address the issue of monkeys encroaching on Lopburi to avoid the image being shared globally. PM Srettha promised to resolve the problem, but he didn’t get this picture frame.
A local group brought the viral picture to ask the PM to solve the monkey’s problem in Lopburi.
Previously, a reporter asked the PM about the monkey problem in Lopburi Province two days before the Prime Minister’s visit, officials chased the monkeys and placed them in cages. Srettha said he had no idea about the capture, but there would be a discussion.
“In fact, monkeys are one of Lopburi’s unique features. But public safety is also important,” he remarked.
Monkey Management
On February 7, the Director-General of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation signed a memorandum of agreement with the Mayor of Lopburi for academic collaboration in management to eliminate the monkey problem in the old city region through sterilisation.
The Wildlife Preservation and Protection Act protects macaques as wild animals, and the National Park Department is responsible for managing them, according to Mr. Atthaphon Charoenchansa, Director-General of the Department of National Parks.
“If a monkey attacks a person, they are not responsible. However, if anyone hurts monkeys, they will face urgent charges of animal cruelty,” he said.
The signing ceremony between the Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation and Lopburi Municipality for a collaboration in management to address the monkey problems in the old city area took place on February 7, 2024.
Mr. Atthaphon stated that the Parks Department will work with Lopburi Municipality to tackle problems systematically using academic methods. In addition to sterilising monkeys, they also want to construct monkey shelter cages. This facility will be used to train monkeys before they are relocated to the Monkey Park in Pho Kao Ton Subdistrict, Mueang Lopburi District. Some of them can even be released back into nature.
Recommend just run away
In a survey of the monkey population in Lopburi province by the National Parks Department in 2015, it was found that there was a total monkey population of 9,324 monkeys. In 2023, the total monkey population was 5,709, including those in Lopburi Municipality, which was about 2,206.
From 2014 until the present, officials have sterilised a total of 5,135 monkeys in Lopburi province, including 2,757 monkeys in Lopburi Municipality and Lopburi District.
“I recommend that you avoid them. If a monkey approaches you, you must flee. Just escape. However, not all monkeys are aggressive; just a few pose a threat. If you have to go to that area, don’t try to grasp onto anything. Dress smartly. We are currently building a cage of 2–3 rai in size for these monkeys to reside in, allowing them to live naturally as they do. During this time, more monkeys will be sterilised. Let there be a balanced number,” Mr. Atthaphon stated.
An alternative method
Jessada Denduangboripant, Lecturer, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Chulalongkorn University, and science communicators have proposed a solution to the city’s monkey overpopulation problem: use the herb Pueraria mirifica for monkey birth control.
He demonstrated how to utilise the herb and place it in water sources where monkeys drink, noting that this method will assist lessen the difficulties of collecting and sterilising monkeys one by one, which is a challenging task at best.
The Shenzhen Stock Exchange in Shenzhen, south China's Guangdong Province. (Xinhua/Mao Siqian)
BEIJING – Three major stock exchanges in China released Thursday their first guidelines on corporate sustainability disclosure and started to seek public opinion.
According to the Shanghai Stock Exchange (SSE) and the Shenzhen Stock Exchange (SZSE), companies included in the SSE 180, STAR 50, SZSE 100 indexes and the ChiNext Index, as well as those listed both at home and abroad, are required to publish their 2025 sustainability reports before April 30, 2026.
The capitalization of the related companies in total accounted for 51 percent of the entire market.
Meanwhile, companies listed on the Beijing Stock Exchange, generally small and medium-sized innovative enterprises, can issue voluntary disclosures, according to the exchange.
The guidelines covering the environmental, social and governance fields are expected to improve corporate sustainability disclosure.
The China Securities Regulatory Commission vowed to build and improve the corporate sustainability disclosure in a three-year action plan on improving the quality of listed companies in November 2022. The bourses have since been working to compile the disclosure guidelines.
The exchanges said they will hear and study suggestions from market participants on the guidelines and make public release in a timely manner.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson prepare to an interview at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. (Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Russian President Vladimir Putin used an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson to push his narrative on the war in Ukraine, urge Washington to recognize Moscow’s interests and press Kyiv to sit down for talks.
For more than two hours, a largely unchallenged Putin showered Carlson with Russian history and Kremlin talking points.
Putin repeated his claim the full-scale invasion in February 2022 — which Kyiv and its allies describe as an unprovoked act of aggression — was to protect Russian interests and prevent Ukraine from posing a threat to Russia by joining NATO.
Russian President Vladimir Putin gestures while speaking during an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. (Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Released Thursday, it was Putin’s first interview with a Western media figure since the invasion.
Appearing confident and at ease, he made occasional friendly jabs at Carlson, who appeared baffled by the history lecture and tried to interject questions, but the 71-year-old Russian leader stayed on topic for over 20 minutes.
Carlson didn’t ask Putin about war crimes Russian troops have been accused of in Ukraine, or about his relentless crackdown on dissent.
Putin said it’s up to Washington to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine, which he called a U.S. “satellite,” and persuade Kyiv to negotiate, saying a deal was the way to end the war.
“We have never refused negotiations,” Putin said. “You should tell the current Ukrainian leadership to stop and come to a negotiating table.”
Putin said the West won’t succeed in inflicting a “strategic defeat” on Russia in Ukraine and rejected allegations that Moscow harbors plans to attack Poland or other NATO countries.
He said Russia is ready to negotiate a prisoner exchange for Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was jailed in March 2023 on espionage charges he denies. He suggested Moscow wants the release of a Russian imprisoned in Germany.
White House national security spokesman John Kirby tried to minimize the impact of Carlson’s interview ahead of its release, saying, “Remember, you’re listening to Vladimir Putin. And you shouldn’t take at face value anything he has to say.”
National Security Council spokesman John Kirby speaks during the daily briefing at the White House in Washington, Friday, Feb. 10, 2023. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Russian media on Friday gave the interview blanket coverage, with major broadcasters showing excerpts and one state news agency describing it as “a dagger blow through the curtain of propaganda of the dishonest media of the civilized world.”
Before leaving Fox, Carlson repeatedly questioned the validity of U.S. support for Ukraine following Russia’s invasion, asking why Americans are told to hate Putin so much. His commentaries were frequently circulated on Russian state-run media.
Asked why the Kremlin granted Carlson’s interview request out of many from Western media, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the former Fox host’s position is different from a “one-sided” stance by other outlets.
Putin has heavily limited his contact with international media since invading Ukraine in February 2022. Russian authorities have cracked down on independent media at home, forcing some outlets to close and blocking others, while also ordering a number of foreign reporters to leave. Besides the Journal’s Gershkovich, it also has jailed Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s Alsu Kurmasheva.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, listens to a question during an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. (Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Asked by Carlson if Russia would release Gershkovich, Putin said Moscow is open to talks but repeated he was charged with espionage, an accusation Gershkovich denies.
“He was caught red-handed when he was secretly getting classified information,” Putin said, adding that he doesn’t exclude the reporter could return home.
In a statement, the Journal reaffirmed that Gershkovich “is a journalist, and journalism is not a crime,” adding that “any portrayal to the contrary is total fiction.”
“We’re encouraged to see Russia’s desire for a deal that brings Evan home, and we hope this will lead to his rapid release and return to his family and our newsroom,” it said.
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson gestures during an interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2024. (Gavriil Grigorov, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP)
Putin said Russia is “ready to solve it but there are certain conditions that are being discussed between special services. I believe an agreement can be reached.”
He pointed to a man imprisoned in a “U.S.-allied country” for “liquidating a bandit” who had killed Russian soldiers during fighting in the Caucasus. Putin didn’t mention names but appeared to refer to Vadim Krasikov, a Russian serving a life sentence in Germany after being convicted of the 2019 killing of Zelimkhan “Tornike” Khangoshvili, a 40-year-old Georgian citizen of Chechen ethnicity.
German judges said Krasikov acted on the orders of Russian authorities, who gave him a false identity and passport and resources to carry out the killing.
Authorities in Pai inspect the accident site on Highway 1095 between the 82 and 83 km markers.
MAE HONG SON – A terrible crash occurred again between the Chiang Mai and Pai routes on Thursday night, injuring 13 Danish visitors and killing the Thai driver. Many individuals commented and criticised Thai authorities on social media for failing to improve road safety for citizens, including foreign visitors.
“As a side note, you’d think that given this keeps happening with the same company on the same highway, authorities would take an interest in its safety practices, but alas, this is Thailand,” one message stated at FacebookChiang Mai News in English.
This refers to the deadly accident on November 10, 2023, when a van going at 83 km/h crashed on the Chiang Mai-Pai highway in Pa Pae, Mae Taeng District, Chiang Mai, killing two foreign visitors. One is a French woman, while the other is a Dutch man.
The van of Prempracha Transport Company Limited, carrying 13 Danish tourists from Chiang Mai, lost control and overturned on a sharp bend in Mae Hi Sub-district, Pai District, Mae Hong Son Province on February 8, 2024.
According to Mae Hong Son Tourist Police, the latest incident occurred on February 8, 2024, at 9:45 p.m. when the van of Prempracha Transport Company Limited, carrying 13 foreign tourists from Chiang Mai, lost control and overturned on a sharp bend near Mae Ya-Mae Ping checkpoint in Mae Hi sub-district, Pai district, Mae Hong Son province.
The Thai driver, Mr. Barami Panjachaya, 50, succumbed to his injuries at Pai Hospital at 00:12 on February 9.
All 13 passengers aged 19-28, Danish nationals, suffered injuries. Four of them are in serious condition. Several rescue teams, including the emergency medical team from Pai Hospital, police officers, tourist police and Mae Hong Son Immigration Police, immediately rushed to the aid of the injured and transported them to various hospitals.
The road where the accident occurred has a curved slope. There is a notice indicating that overtaking is prohibited.
Nine people remained hospitalized, 4 in Chiang Mai and 5 in Pai. They were coordinated and assisted by interpreters from Mae Hong Son Provincial Police to facilitate communication and provide necessary amenities to tourists.
Pai District Administrative personnel, together with Pai Provincial Police and Border Patrol Police officers, inspect the accident site on Highway 1095 between the 82 and 83 km markers in Mae Hi, which is a downhill slope. There is a left-right alternating curve along with a downhill slope. As a result, it may cause an accident involving a vehicle travelling at high speeds.
On February 15, the Pai District Road Safety Operations Centre will hold a meeting with key agencies and public transport companies in the area to discuss various actions.
The number of accidents involving tourist vehicles is similar to the number of road accidents in Thailand as a whole. In 2023, there were 14,094 reported fatalities and 808,165 injuries. By 9 February 2024, there were 1,688 fatalities and 98,046 injuries.
