Thai News

A tornado ripped through a school in Thailand's eastern coastal province of Trat on Tuesday. The incident was captured by the school's closed circuit television cameras.

Reports said nine female students were injured when the waterspout hit Satree Prasertsin School on Tuesday afternoon.

More than 30 houses, two school buildings and three cars in the area were damaged.

About 40 passengers injured in Sunday night's Thai Airways crash have complained of poor treatment by ground staff.

THAI flight TG679 from Guangzhou, China veered off the runway on landing at Suvarnabhumi after an apparent landing gear malfunction.

Fourteen injured passengers were sent to hospital and of them 12 have now been discharged. There were complaints by some 40 injured passengers and others that Thai Airways International responded slowly and poorly to the Sunday night incident.

The passengers gathered at Suvarnabhumi airport Monday evening to submit their complaints to THAI president Sorajak Kasemsuvan. They said no one from the airline had informed them of how the company would reimburse their medical fees. They also claimed a lack of communication immediately after the accident, saying they were left abandoned.

Buses ferrying the passengers from the stricken plane remained stationary with passengers locked inside unattended for 20 minutes. Passengers were then taken to immigration counters, but some of the passengers had fled the aircraft without their passports, causing confusion.

Passenger Panuwat Phanvichartkul said after leaving the plane, travellers were marshalled to shuttle buses.

The buses were packed with passengers, including those who were injured and in a state of extreme shock. They needed officials to take care of them and provide them with first aid, but there was no one.

At the terminal, no staff members were there to receive passengers. There was not even a glass of water to drink.

Perhaps the ground staff were otherwise engaged with more important tasks. Thai Airways workers erected a crane and blacked out the crashed plane's logo.

ITV quoted Thai Airways official Smud Poom-On as ludicrously claiming that the blurring was a recommendation from the Star Alliance, under which the airline operates, to protect its image. However Star Alliance soon denied such nonsense.

Thai groups iLaw and Movie Audience Network have organized a film competition to defy local film censorship.

Unlike other film contests, where prizes may be awarded for aesthetics, technical directing or acting, the film competition organized by three local organizations, Internet Dialogue on Law Reform (iLaw), Bioscope Magazine and the Movie Audience Network, will present awards to the director of the film most likely to be banned by the Thai authorities.

According to the organizers, the Film Likely to be Banned project aims to challenge the 2007 Film and Video Act, which grants to the Film and Video Board under the Ministry of Culture the authority to ban films which might undermine public order and morality , or affect national security and the honour of Thailand .

Last year, Shakespeare Must Die was banned under the Film and Video Act on the grounds that it would cause rifts among the people in the nation. The film is about a dictator who killed the king to become ruler, and was an adaptation of Shakespeare's Macbeth. In late 2010, the film Insects in the Backyard was barred because a scene featured students in school uniforms having sexual relationships.

The short film contest, under the slogan closer to the edge with artfulness, opened for entries in April, and will present the awards this Saturday.

The contest received 40 films submitted by amateur directors from all over the country. 15 have been shortlisted for the award. The films will be screened before the awards ceremony at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre this Saturday, September 7th.

The event will not however screen three films that were considered by the organizers as having legal implications that were too risky.

Alcohol taxes have been hiked in Thailand to boost state revenues. This was confirmed by Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Kittiratt Na-Ranong who said:

I want to assure you the tax restructuring for alcoholic beverages is not aimed at boosting state revenue, but is aimed at reducing the number of alcohol drinkers.

More importantly, we hope alcohol consumption will reduce during this Buddhist Lent period.

The tax increase has already taken effect. Also the way the tax is calculated has also been changed. The alcohol tax is now broken into two parts - a tax on product value and a tax on alcohol content.

The maximum tax for beer will be maintained at 60% of the product's value, but the effective tax rate per litre of 100% alcohol content rose from 100 baht to 300 baht. The tax hike will drive up beer prices by about 3-7 baht per bottle.

For wine, products worth less than 600 baht per bottle will be be exempt from the product value-based tax, while those priced above 600 baht will be taxed at 36% of the product's retail value. In terms of alcohol content, all wine will now be taxed at 1,000 baht per litre of pure alcohol, up from 100 baht.

A TV station in Thailand has agreed to allow government-approved 'Islamic experts' to censor the script for a TV serial after a small but vocal Muslim group whinged that the show 'misrepresents' their religion.

The soap opera Fah Jarod Sai (Desert Horizon) stars Thai actors in a romantic melodrama portraying an imaginary Arab-style royal officer who falls in love with a girl who is half-Thai, half-French, in a fantasy kingdom named Hinfara.

On August 22, a small, outspoken Bangkok-based group, Muslims for 'Peace', demanded Channel 7 cancel the series.

On August 24, in response, Channel 7's executives met Thailand's Muslim leader Aziz Phitakkumpon, who is the Chularatchamontri or State Counselor for Islamic Affairs, which is an advisory position approved by the prime minister and appointed by the king.

The Muslims for 'Peace' presented their complaint to Channel 7, the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Ministry, and the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC).  The Muslims for Peace's petition claimed:

We are afraid that the lakhorn [soap opera] could eventually have large-scale and unpredictable effects on Muslims if the ICT Ministry and the NBTC do not cancel Fah Jarod Sai.

Apparently the complainants felt that it was misleading to show the Muslim religion allowing its believers to be cruel to women and children.

The station had already broadcast four episodes and had eight remaining episodes. These last episodes will now be censored prior to broadcast.

Human Rights Watch has criticized a Dunkin' Donuts advertising campaign running in Thailand that features a model whose face is painted black to sell a chocolate doughnut.

Dunkin' Donuts Thailand recently started running ads for its Charcoal Donut, which features a model wearing blackface makeup and bright pink lipstick and holding up a bitten doughnut. The translated Thai slogan reads: Break every rule of deliciousness.

Phil Robertson, deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, spouted:

It's rather incredible that an international company like Dunkin' Donuts would run such an ad. He claimed the ad fits into a long history of racist advertisements in Southeast Asia.

The chief executive of Dunkin' Donuts in Thailand told the AP that the criticism is just paranoid American thinking. CEO Nadim Salhani said:

It's absolutely ridiculous. We're not allowed to use black to promote our doughnuts? I don't get it. What's the big fuss? What if the product was white and I painted someone white, would that be racist?

Thai people have never treated black African people badly, they have never mocked them via minstrel shows or whatever, and simply do not have the background to understand why the West finds it so politically incorrect to have blacked up media people. Thais do call black Africans, 'chocolate men' though.

Similarly Thais have little knowledge or background about Hitler and Nazis and so frequently get caught out being politically incorrect with Nazi imagery.

Perhaps Thais need a few history lessons about when westerners have been real shits, and how they now use over-exaggerated politeness to try and plaster over historic wrongs.

Four Bangkok policemen have been suspended for allegedly extorting Bt2 million from two Italian tourists after making a false allegation against the victims and holding them captive.

Arrest warrants have been issued for two of the officers, who were on the run at the time of going to press. An Uzbek national, who allegedly assisted in the crimes, was arrested late evening.

The five suspects have been charged with armed robbery, armed kidnapping and armed extortion.

While it may sound like another instance of police misconduct well familiar to Thais and foreigners alike, this case has resulted in immediate action by their superiors and abrupt suspension of the four police suspects, thanks to an Interpol inquiry conducted after the victims' families lodged a complaint.

The case therefore potentially brings shame upon the entire police force, due to its global exposure.

The two tourists - architect Danillo de Vito and engineer Antonio de Muro - were not harmed during their one-day captivity, which began on Monday night after the four officers approached them while they were withdrawing money from an ATM machine near the Racha Nana hotel, where they were staying.

A police source said there was also a police major present at Lumpini police station, who assisted in negotiations that the two tourists would be released if they gave Bt2 million to him and the five suspects, in return for them not being further charged with using a false ATM card. In their statement to Interpol, the two victims said the ATM card they were using was authentic, but the suspects had threatened them using the false allegation that it was a fake.

Thailand has fallen into recession after the economy contracted slightly during the April-to-June quarter.

Gross domestic product unexpectedly shrank 0.3% during the period, from the previous quarter. That followed a 1.7% contraction in the previous quarter.

After chalking up strong economic growth, surpassing 6%, last year, the South East Asian economy has turned in a dismal performance so far in 2013.

A university in Bangkok forced students to wear paper blinkers during exams to stop them cheating, but has said it did not intend to humiliate them.

The picture of Kasetsart University was posted on the institution's Facebook page, but has since been removed following numerous complaints, the Bangkok post reported.

The Facebook posting was picked up by the world press and surely has amused many.

Tanaboon demonstrates the hat when facing the world's press

Asst Prof Tanaboon Sajjaanantakul, the faculty's dean, said the paper blinker hats were used for a mid-term examination for a Textile Testing course. Wide-spread comments on the use of the hats on social media had drawn a mixed reaction from the public and caused a lot of stress to lecturers in the faculty, he said.

Natdanai Rungruangkitkrai, the Textile Test course lecturer, said he regretted that the issue had received such a strong negative response from the public, adding that he had tried to encourage creativity during his eight years in the job.

In this particular case, he wanted to teach students about ethics, so asked them how to prevent cheating in relation to an issue close to them. Students proposed that they discuss preventing cheating in examinations. Some of them proposed different sets of exam papers, and some suggested the use of exam booths, but it was finally agreed to use A-4 paper to make blinkers, as they had copied the idea from other countries.

Ludicrous TV censorship in Thailand has again come under fire after a blogger posted blurred out content in scenes from Japanese cartoons, or animes, broadcast by MCOT Channel 9.

The blogger wrote his posting in a Japanese news website on Aug 9, including in it a video clip and two images. The posting went viral and has been attracting attention from many online communities.

In the video clip, female characters from the Sailor Moon animation series have their swimsuits blurred out. The girl Shisuka in the popular Doraemon cartoon also has her swimwear edited in the same way, while another picture portrays a young Son Goku from the classic Dragon Ball Z anime with his chest censored as his clothes are ripped apart during a transformation.

The blogger pointed out that many viewers do not think about anything inappropriate when they watch cartoons. However, when censorship is applied it makes audiences assume that there is something unsuitable on screen and brings the content to their attention.