The machine also requires users to key in details of their desired job, location and salary range to help find perfect matches.

It was unveiled during the opening ceremony of the “Month of Employment and Applying of the King’s Science in Real Use” project’s job market in Nakhon Phanom province on Friday.

The “Job Box” will be brought to various sites across the country as part of the ministry’s job market roadshows and career consulting sessions, ministry officials said.

Wasitwich Sukbeungbon, 43, wanted for the charges of public fraud, home intrusion at night-time and theft, had allegedly withdrawn cash 40 times from ATMs in Bangkok and Samut Prakan. He was arrested at his home in Bangkok’s Lat Phrao district along with Bt154,000 cash.

Natthapong Trairatanayong, 38, wanted for public fraud and allegedly aiding the withdrawal of stolen money, was nabbed at his rented room in Din Daeng district.

Taiwanese national Sun Shao Lung, 22, wanted on a public fraud charge, was arrested while allegedly testing an electronic card at an ATM in Muang Samut Prakan, Surachet said.

Police said the three suspects confessed to the crimes while Wasitwich also reportedly confessed to finding other Thais to open bank accounts for the gang, and paying those people Bt7,000 per account.

Surachet said the latest arrests were part of national police chief Pol General Chakthip Chaijinda’s initiative in establishing a “centre for prevention and suppression of public fraud via phone or electronic media” last month.

The centre has received 226 complaints from victims who claimed to have lost a total of Bt100 million. Its investigations so far have led to the issuing of 44 arrest warrants and arrest of 28 suspects.

The defendant’s lawyer, Sor Rattanamanee Polkla, said on Saturday that police would conclude their case against Jamon and submit it to the attorney to decide whether to pursue it in court – despite two other defendants in the same case being found innocent by the court.

Jamon allegedly trespassed into the old Thung Kham Company copper and gold open-pit mine in Loei’s Wang Saphung district alongside two other local activists, Surapun Rujichaiyavat and Pornthip Hongchai,  as part of their peaceful campaign urging the mine closure and environmental restoration.

A court acquitted the case against the other two activists on November 25, 2016. Jamon said that he had neither been contacted about the complaint against him nor received any police summons until he was arrested at the border crossing in Kanchanaburi on November 29, 2017.

Sor Rattanamanee said lawyers would submit a petition to the attorney noting the previous court judgement that Thung Kham has no rightful ownership on the mine area since its land-use allowance has expired.

She said she hoped that, after receiving this information, the attorneys would understand the true nature of the case and not take it to court.

The Fortify Rights and Community Resource Centre Foundation (CRC) groups have released a statement demanding the authorities drop the complaint against Jamon and urging the government to ensure freedom of expression and press freedom. The statement noted that, just eight days before Jamon was arrested, the government had announced human rights as part of its national agenda.

The statement also highlighted that the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are protected under Articles 19 and 21 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Thailand is a state party. Therefore, it noted, arrest and detention in this case were unlawful.

“Fortify Rights and CRC call on the Thai government to drop all unwarranted complaints and charges against journalists, human rights defenders and other critics,” the statement read.

Prominent water and climate change experts interviewed by The Nation agreed that Thailand will receive larger amount of precipitation than usual due to the influence of the La Nina phase of the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), which is expected during this year. They also agreed that this year’s water situation was expected to resemble that of 1995.

The year 1995 was one of the wettest years in recent Thai history. As a result of various storms during that year’s rainy season, Bangkok and other provinces in the Central Region suffered from heavy floods for more than two months. The severity of the 1995 flood was only eclipsed by the major flood of 2011.

Thailand Global Warming Academy president Thanawat Jarupongsakul, who is also a lecturer in the Department of Geology at Chulalongkorn University, said that this year would be overly wet due to La Nina. The rainy season is also expected to come sooner than usual and with more precipitation, he added.

“This year will be a La Nina year, which means our region will receive more rain. As of now, we still expect that this year’s La Nina will be a mild one, which is good news, because if the La Nina condition is strong, we may face a severe water situation similar to 1995 or even worse, like 2011,” Thanawat said.

According to the official long-term prediction of the Meteorological Department’s Climate Centre, the ENSO condition will be a mild La Nina during the first three months of this year but the condition is predicted to return to a neutral stage by the end of March.

He also expressed concern about storms that will approach Thailand during the course of this year, which may directly hit Bangkok and cause major floods.

“Bangkok is not safe from a major storm and it is possible for our capital to be hit with a big storm, so we should be prepared for such a worst-case scenario,” he said. “It was widely speculated that many major floods in Bangkok in the past were the result of storms that hit the area around Bangkok.”

He stressed that as a result of climate change, people around the world would face more extreme and unpredictable weather, with more severe droughts and floods both expected.

The Utokapat Foundation’s secretary-general, Royol Chitradon, also agreed that this year’s weather condition would resemble that of 1995 and warned that this year’s rainy season would come earlier and last longer than usual.

“The weather condition for this year will be wetter than last year due to La Nina, but I am confident of our improved water management system and believe that the new National Water Resources Management Office will be able to handle the water crisis effectively,” Royol said.

“We have more water management tools and better organised water management policy, so despite [expectations that] this year’s water situation may be serious, I am sure that everything will be under control.”

Paiboon Nuannin, a prominent seismologist from Prince of Songkhla University, weighed in regarding large earthquakes with a magnitude larger than 7 on the Richter scale. Judging by the experience of 2017, he said, more frequent large earthquakes are being predicted during 2018.

“From the records of big earthquakes last year, we can see that there were only seven big earthquakes occurring, which is only half of the average of 15 big earthquakes per year,” Paiboon said.

“From earthquake statistics, [we know that] the year with less frequent big earthquake will normally be followed by a year with more frequent big earthquakes, so it is possible that there will be more earthquakes this year.”

However, he urged Thai people not to get too concerned about this possibility, as Thailand is situated in relatively safe location from the perspective of experiencing big earthquakes, which normally occur in the subduction zone.

Nearly a million tourists visited national parks across the country during five days of the New Year holidays, causing concerns over possible environmental impacts.

But DNP director-general Thanya Netithammakun insisted that the department successfully dealt with the large number of tourists and was able to contain the effects of tourism on the pristine ecosystem.

Thanya said he would like to thank all visitors to national parks over the holidays for their cooperation with park officers to keep the areas clean and minimise the effects on nature. He said “up to 99 per cent” of tourists complied with the rules.

“Even though we did not greatly advertise ‘Garbage Return Home’ – our flagship campaign to mitigate the garbage problem in national parks – people still very actively cooperated with our officers in reducing the amount of trash in the parks,” he said.

No embarrassing photos

He said that increased tourist activity in national parks during the New Year generated around 500 tonnes of garbage, but the tourists took back up to 300 tonnes of their own waste, which significantly reduced the burden on the DNP.

“From this success, it can be seen that there were no pictures of garbage littering the national parks as in previous years,” Thanya added.

According to the National Park Office, there were 995,271 visitors to national parks from December 30 to January 3, which was higher than in previous years. Eight of the 10 most popular parks were in the mountains, which have cool and pleasant weather at this time of year.

The top three most visited national parks were: Khao Yai (96,592 visitors), Doi Inthanon (55,599) and Hat Noppharat Thara-Mu Ko Phi Phi (41,111).

Khao Yai National Park chief Kanchit Srinoppawan said thanks to the Garbage Return Home project, tourists took away much of their rubbish. The rest was collected and properly buried in a landfill area outside of the park.

“As people stayed in the camping grounds within the national park, their activities had a very low impact on the wildlife. Most tourists did not enter the preserved area for animals. We only found that some monkeys came to the camping ground to steal food from tourists,” he said.

Many land rights and human rights activists gathered in front of Phu Khiao Prison in Chaiyaphum on Saturday morning to welcome Supap to the outside world after she completed her term for encroaching on Phusam Phaknam National Preserved Forest.

Afterwards, they performed a Thai traditional blessing ceremony for people who have overcome difficulties.

Supap, her husband, Den, and 10 other people were arrested for forest encroachment in July 2011. The Supreme Court later judged the couple guilty and punished them with six-month jail terms. Supap was imprisoned in July last year.

Den disappeared in April 2016. There has been no confirmation about his whereabouts, or whether he is alive or dead, and he is officially considered a fugitive. Many activists believe he is a victim of enforced disappearance.

After Chaiyaphum Pasae, a 17-year-old ethnic Lahu rights defender, was shot dead by a military officer on March 17 last year, Sumitrchai Hattasan, the lawyer, representing him and his family, said the court had interrogated the witnesses once on September 4 but the CCTV footage – the most critical evidence in the case –had still not been presented to the court. He said he looked forward to this evidence being revealed to the court at the next hearing in March.

The court has scheduled the second round of witness interrogation on March 13, 14, 17 and 21.

“We are planning a petition to ask for the CCTV evidence to be presented to the court,” Sumitrchai said.

Chaiyaphum and his friend were stopped at a military checkpoint in Chiang Mai’s Chiang Dao district, as the officers tried to search their car for drugs. He was later shot dead by a military officer.

According to the military account, Chaiyaphum resisted the officers and tried to fight back with arms so the officers had to fire in self-defence. However, civilians contradicted their account and said Chaiyaphum and his friend had cooperated well with the officers, but he was beaten and then later killed.

Due to these conflicting accounts, the CCTV footage is seen as holding the key to reveal what occurred at the military checkpoint on that day. The military handed over the hard disk containing the footage to the police on May 15, but it has neither been revealed to the public nor to the court.

“They have come to ask for information about the services,” the hospital’s marketing manager Popol Tansakul told The Nation.

Popol said he had already assured the officials that laser treatments for male genitalia were safe because they focused more on crotches.

He admitted that health officials from the Nonthaburi Public Health Office had also asked about advertising the services.

“But we don’t advertise these services,” said Popol. “What has appeared on social media comes from a post by a hospital staffer. It’s not a post from our hospital.”

“New services. Reduce pigmentation. Make penis whiter. No pain. No recuperation needed. Let’s tag people who should do it,” read the post by Facebook user Atittayapa Photiya, who described herself as working for Lelux Hospital. On Thursday, the post was still on her Facebook page and received many shares and comments but it had been removed by press time yesterday.

Popol said that since the whitening service had received attention on social media his hospital had received many phone calls asking about the services.

“But in fact, we have already had a constant flow of customers. Word of mouth has done the job,” he said.

He said straight men, gays and trans people had all been among those to sign up for the procedure.

The so-called Spectre and Meltdown vulnerabilities affect the chips powering most modern PCs and many mobile devices. Researchers have published details of the flaw, which unlike many previously discovered vulnerabilities, stems from the chip itself and how it safeguards private data stored on computers and networks.

(FILE) – A composite close-up photo of views showing an Intel computer circuit board displayed during the COMPUTEX, the largest computer show in Asia, in Taipei. // EPA-EFE PHOTO

Researchers at Google have also demonstrated how a hacker could exploit the flaw to get passwords, encryption codes and more, even though there have been no reports of any attacks using the vulnerability at this stage.

The potential of the threat is huge, as it affects major operating systems including those of Windows, Linux, and Apple.

In Thailand, Kitti Kosavisutte, chairman of the Thailand Banking Sector CERT or (TB-CERT) Committee, said the country’s 14 commercial banks belonging to the Thai Banking Association will soon receive a set of recommendations about how to cope with the potential risks.

The Thailand Computer Emergency Response Team or ThaiCERT is then expected to issue recommendations for the general public since the new chip-based flaw could affect billions of computers, mobile phones and other devices worldwide.

(FILE) – A young man looks at Apple’s new iPhone 8 Plus at the Apple Store of Omotesando shopping district in Japan. //  EPA-EFE PHOTO

Thailand has more than 10 millions mobile banking customers. Internet and mobile banking users are among those who could be affected, although there have been no reported incidents so far.

Kitti said member banks have exchanged information on the new threat and are closely monitoring the latest developments as experts prepare industry-wide guidelines to handle the situation.

Most previous cyber threats involved malware and ransomware, but this threat is from the very computer chips manufactured by ARM and Intel and installed on devices.

Kitti said banks are in the process of updating patches to fix the problems but they need time to prepare the remedies as their computer systems’ performance could also be affected.

Servers, desktops, laptops and mobile devices are all said to be vulnerable to the Meltdown and Spectre loopholes. Thai banks will have to update patches on thousands of computer servers and tens of thousands of desktop computers, as well as a large number of laptop and mobile devices.

For servers, he said, the risks are relatively minor due to firewall protection. Desktop units have a higher risk so Internet access has to be more strictly controlled to prevent hacking.

There are also vulnerabilities for mobile phones and laptop computers which will be addressed.

“The full extent of this class of attack is still under investigation and we are working with security researchers and other browser vendors to fully understand the threat and fixes,” Mozilla researcher Luke Wagner wrote in a blog post.

The revelations “attack the foundational modern computer building block capability that enforces protection of the [operating system],” said Steve Grobman, chief technology officer at security firm McAfee.

“Businesses and consumers should update operating systems and apply patches as soon as they become available.”

Computer chipmaking giant Intel – the focus of the first reports on the flaw – said the company and its partners “have made significant progress in deploying updates” to mitigate any threats.

KEY FACTS

• Number of mobile bank users:

– Kasikorn Bank: about 7 million

– Siam Commercial Bank: about 6 million

• New threat is chip-based
• Previous threats were malware, ransomware 

The director of the Nakhon Ratchasima National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) Office, Mongkol Sarisut, said the central NACC authority held a meeting with related agencies in Bangkok yesterday to draw conclusions on the nationwide investigation into corruption related to futsal fields. He said the names of those involved, including high-ranking Education Ministry officials and national politicians, would become clear next week.

Pisit Chodkingon, director of the Nakhon Ratchasima Primary Education Service Area 1 Office, yesterday revealed that Obec had last month instructed him to file police complaints against the contractor and those allegedly involved in corruption. His office held a meeting with 16 schools executives on December 29 about the futsal field corruption. Pisit said he had assigned the 16 school directors to file police complaints against Yee Panichaya, manager of the contractor MAI Limited Partnership, and those involved in the alleged corruption. He said the office’s litigation officials were gathering evidence and witnesses and discussing with public prosecutors before lodging police complaints later this month.

Thai authorities had launched an investigation in 2014 into the Obec project worth more than Bt600 million to build futsal fields in 358 schools in 17 provinces since 2012 following the detection of alleged irregularities. They included substandard and damaged turf, while some of the budget was diverted for other projects.

More than half the budget – Bt335 million – have been spent to build futsal fields in 101 schools in nine northeastern provinces (Nakhon Ratchasima, Ubon Ratchathani, Chaiyaphum, Mukdahan, Surin, Amnat Charoen, Yasothon, Si Sa Ket, and Khon Kaen), and two northern provinces – Chiang Rai and Phayao.