The other provinces are Chon Buri, Chiang Mai, Prachuap Khiri Khan, Surat Thani, Phuket, Krabi and Songkhla.

After a meeting yesterday of the National Intellectual Property Policy Committee at Government House, Department of Intellectual Property (DIP) chief Nuntawan Sakuntanaga said the list of eight provinces’ 25 notorious market zones for counterfeit goods was based on information gathered since 2003.

The 25 zones include Bangkok’s Khlong Thom, Ban Mor, Patpong, Silom, MBK mall, a section between Soi Sukhumvit 3 and 19, Pantip Plaza (situation was reportedly improved) and Saphan Lek (demolished).

In Chon Buri, the zones were Pattaya Beach, Chatuchak Chon Buri Market and Computer Plaza mall.

Phuket’s Patong, Kata and Karon beaches were named, along with Songkhla’s Santisuk, Kimyong and Yongdee markets.

Asked why the problem persisted when the authorities could identify the areas, Nuntawan said crime-suppressing agencies should be asked if they had limitations in terms of manpower or budgets.

She clarified that her department’s suppression officials had no authority to make arrests, but they could bring patent owners to file complaints and would need police help to make arrests.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had ordered the implementation of crime suppression via the Army, police and the Special Investigation Department (DSI) and preventive measures including a promotion of intellectual-property awareness among the public and schoolchildren, she said.

They also discussed the international community’s concerns on four aspects: the suppression of fake goods; violations on the Internet; violations via cable/satellite TV channels and software; and the intellectual-property and patent laws.

Nuntawan said her office would have the Information and Communications Technology Ministry block online shops from selling fake goods if they receive complaints from patent owners.

Although the recent clash of DSI officials and Sa Kaew’s Rong Kleua Market vendors during a fake-goods inspection wasn’t directly tabled, the prime minister told government agencies that all border markets must be taken care of and the government would see to it that the trade in counterfeit-goods would be reduced.

The meeting also discussed the shortage of patent-registering officials. The DIP has only 20 such experts to handle nearly 10,000 applications a year, hence 60,000 applications were still pending. Nuntawan said the panel instructed the DIP to consider hiring more people for the job, or outsourcing the work, and would submit such a plan to the prime minister later.

Meanwhile, the DSI proceeded on working with the “Sa Kaew Model” operation to crack down on fake goods at Rong Kleua ahead of the US Trade Representative’s probe next month or in April, when that agency will consider removing Thailand from the Priority Watch List.

DSI chief Pol Colonel Paisit Wongmuang said the operation so far had not uncovered state officials’ involvement but found that the trade network was made up of both Thais and Cambodians.

Meanwhile, the Anti-Money Laundering Office board yesterday agreed to impound assets worth Bt110 million in an intellectual-property-law violation by Chanchai Suwannapisit and accomplices, who allegedly sold 20,273 pairs of counterfeit sunglasses, Amlo chief Sihanart Prayoonrat said.

Parts of the body washed up on the banks of the Chao Phraya River in different parts of Bangkok last month, but it was not until this month that the parts were linked to Bernat, who was reported missing.

While Segarra has emerged as the prime suspect, police have yet to find any incriminating evidence against him. The suspect, now in police detention, has to date denied any wrongdoing.

However, police are still hunting for a pale-green shoebox that contains four to five sharp knives that Segarra allegedly used to dismember the body.

Witnesses say Segarra allegedly dumped the box near a bridge across the Lod Canal between Ramkhamhaeng sois 156 and 158 on February 1.

Tawatchai said traces of blood were found on Segarra’s motorcycle, but they did not match Bernat’s DNA.

Separately, Institute of Forensic Medicine’s chief Pol Maj-General Dr Pornchai Suteerakune said his team was trying to determine if Bernat was poisoned.

“But we can’t give any specific timeframe given that the condition of the body has changed a great deal,” he said.

National Police chief General Chakthip Chaijinda, however, said he was confident that Segarra would be prosecuted for the alleged crime because Bernat was last seen with him.

“We also have recordings from a security camera at a construction-material shop, which can be used as evidence,” he said without elaborating.

“He is in stable condition but we will need to closely monitor his symptoms,” Dr Jiradej Panyasuttikij from the hospital said yesterday.

Jessadakorn Chaiyo went missing on February 3 prompting his mother Saowalak Chaiyo to make desperate pleas for help in locating her son.

After searches lasting a few days, Jessadakorn’s grandfather, the family dog and some rescue workers finally located him near a stream several kilometres from his home on Tuesday. The boy had many wounds on his limbs but they were not serious, when compared with the blood infection, the doctor said.

Deputy Education Minister Teerakiat Jareonsettasin yesterday disclosed he had already instructed the Office of the Education Council to invite internationally recognised experts, from respectable testing service organisations, to evaluate the NIETS tests.

“The evaluation is expected to pave the way for the development of standardised tests,” he said.

Teerakiat said problems related to the tests had dragged on for a long time and it was high time that all parties tackled them once and for all.

The deputy education minister said that given the current curriculum was so vast in scope, test |questions had become too varied.

“Curriculum writers will have to provide upstream solutions,” he said.

Teerakiat said other relevant parties would then work out midstream and downstream solutions.

He insisted that the NIETS should announce in advance its specifications for tests that students would have to sit.

“NIETS should show some examples of test questions too so that |students know what to expect,” he said. He added that NIETS should also check the difficulty levels of its tests before they are held.

In the latest tests for nine core subjects that Mathayom 6 students took for their university admission, average scores were lower than half in all subjects except the Thai language.

NIETS director Samphan Phanphrut, who showed up at the press conference alongside Teerakiat, said these tests were difficult because they were used as criteria for university admission.

He also dismissed reports that all test questions appearing on the Internet this week came from the latest Onet, which was held during the past weekend.

“Our preliminary checks show that just one question comes from the latest Onet,” Samphan said.

Thais continually registered their complaints on the university’s Facebook page in regard to the case of Dr Dolrudee Jumlongras, who violated the conditions of her scholarship and has refused to pay back the scholarship money owed to Mahidol University. Instead of working in Thailand, she instead opted to work as an instructor in Developmental Biology at the Harvard University School of Dental Medicine. Most of the comments expressed disappointment with Harvard’s failure to take action against Dolrudee.

When accessing the Facebook Page of Harvard University at https://www.facebook.com/ Harvard, it shows a message that says: “Sorry, this content isn’t available right now”.

Jetsada Sanudomchok, a Thai Facebook user who lives in Vientiane, said he could still access the page.

But many Facebook users in Thailand cannot. For example, Jib Marn Pin, writer and blogger, posted on his personal Facebook account that he could not access the page since Tuesday night. He pointed out that the page might have been blocked.

Generally, Facebook page admins can set “country restrictions” with two options: “Only show this page to viewers in these countries” and “Hide this page from viewers in these countries” with a blank box to fill in the name of the targeted country. Facebook can tell which country is trying to access a page by its IP address and this is a default feature on Facebook pages.

The Nation sought a comment from Facebook’s representative on the issue, however as of press time there was no response.

The denial of access to Harvard’s Facebook page is just one incident after a storm of comments from Thai users blanketed the page. Another incident is the review score of Harvard UniversityFacebook page has dropped from 5 stars to 2.3 stars.

IT blogger, Kongdej Keesukpan, pointed out that in this instance, a lot of complaints from Thai people regarding the Dr Dolrudee case, might be considered by Harvard as spam. It is not easy to delete them, as there were too many comments. Instead, simply blocking the page from the restricted country is easier.

“Complaints from Thais are really like spam. They can use other methods to convey their thoughts such as by creating a petition on http://www.change.org rather posting their comments on the university’s page,” said Kongdej.

Later on, the page became accessible again last night.

The meeting saw that the charges of embezzlement and land ownershipillegitimate land ownership had already ended at the court of first instance without any appeal.

The council and the National Buddhism Office had been called on by the Department of Special Investigation (DSI) to act against the abbot as suggested in a letter from the late supreme patriarch.

The DSI would summon the abbot and other monks for questioning starting early next month regarding the donations from embezzlement suspect Supachai Srisupa-aksorn, then chairman of the Khlong Chan Credit Union, to the bank accounts of the abbot, his temple and other monks.