The agency’s asset auction will be held on Wednesday, with jewellery, including the white-coloured Louis Vuitton belt, being offered in the 10am morning session, said AMLO assistant secretary-general Pranee Kaoian on Monday.

File photo

In the afternoon session starting at 2pm, three properties in Bangkok’s Bang Kholaem district are to be up for bidding. They are: a house on a 240-square-metre plot of land in Soi Bang Uthit with a starting price of Bt500,000; a house on a 120-s.m. plot of land in Soi Wat Chan with a starting price of Bt500,000; and a house on a 120-s.m. plot of land in Soi Wat Chan with a starting price of Bt200,000.

Those interested in the houses could check the property’s condition on April 10 from 9.30am to 4pm or visit the agency’s website (www.amlo.go.th) for more information, Pranee said.

Popular TV series Love Destiny’s actors Tanawat “Pope” Wattanaputi (R) and Ranee “Bella” Campen (L)

Provincial mayors and parents were voted as numbers 4 and 5 respectively.

A survey of 3,075 people across the country found 69 per cent are planning to make merit during the Songkran festival, with 64 per cent participating in a water-pouring ceremony on a statue of the Buddha, while 58 per cent will to ask a blessing from respected elders.

File photo

Pouring water with friends was chosen by 45 per cent as their way to celebrate Songkran, while 41 per cent will return home and celebrate with their families.

Jointly conducted with the Culture Ministry, the survey focused on conservative cultural activities reflecting traditional Thai culture during the New Year festival. It found that 74 per cent will make merit and 64 per cent will seek a blessing through pouring water on a statue of the Buddha and make sand pagodas at a temple. Meanwhile, 61 per cent will participate in water-pouring blessing ceremonies in proper “Thai” ways, while 36 per cent will dress up in Thai costumes and 29 per cent will give new clothes to elders.

“According to the survey, most people require the Culture Ministry to educate them on the traditions of Songkran and promote them via social media, promote wearing Thai costumes and publish a book on the traditions as well as ‘do and don’t’ rules for both foreigners and the young generation to conserve this festival,” said Culture Minister Vira Rajpojchanarat in a press release today.

Boonsap, 55, and others are accused of conspiracy to traffic in humans by seeking profit from the prostitution of minors, and with conspiracy to procure 113 girls and women for the sex trade.

The charges apply to the period October 2016-January 2018.

All suspects on Monday denied the charges in front of the court judge, like they had maintained innocence to police investigators.

A team of officials from the Department of Special Investigation, Department of Provincial Administration and the military raided the premises on Rama IX Road in Huai Kwang district on January 12, rounding up 113 sex workers, including 92 from Myanmar and 14 from Laos.

They also found a list of police officers who had received free food, drinks and massage services there.

The list identified – usually by position rather than name – several police officers attached to Wang Thong Lang police station, which has jurisdiction over Victoria’s, and the Metropolitan Police and Immigration bureaux.

Preeyanan Lorsermvattana, a leading activist on consumer rights protection in the medical sector, noted that the first anniversary of the UCEP rights proclamation last week was an opportunity to take stock of progress. Many patients remain deprived of their right to access healthcare and are left with crippling debts from healthcare expenses.

The right to universal coverage in an emergency health situation was announced by the National Institute for Emergency Medicine (NIEM) on April 1, 2017. UCEP gives emergency patients suffering from six life-threatening diseases the right to receive free medical treatment for the first 72 hours after admission to the closest hospital before being transferred to the local hospital at which they are officially registered.

But it’s not working out that way, according to watchdogs.

“There are still many problems related to the implementing of UCEP,” said Preeyanan, “as even the authorities have imposed the law to punish any hospital that does not comply with this right and still unlawfully collects money for medical expenses during the first 72 hours”.

A full year after the right was recognised, she said two major problems remain for patients seeking to have it recognised at an individual hospital. First, some private hospitals have intentionally misled NIEM through falsely reporting that individual patient cases were not sufficiently critical for the patient to receive the free treatment. In other cases, despite NIEM having decided that the right applied to patients, the hospitals have refused to honour that requirement, she said.

Preeyanan cited the case of Tawanna Banyaem from early last month. Tawanna’s father was suffering from a serious illness, so she took him to receive emergency medical care at the nearest private hospital.

According to Tawanna, despite her father’s illness being included in the categories allowing him to claim the UCEP right, the hospital refused to offer free treatment as required under the regulation and instead insisted on charging the family around Bt150,000 and forced them to apply to NIEM for a reimbursement. That approach is contrary to normal procedures in UCEP-triggered cases.

Meanwhile, NIEM reported that as of the end of March, there were around 50,000 requests from patients to trigger their UCEP rights, but only around 10,000 cases fit with the categories. Another approximately 100 cases involved patients who found problems with claiming their right at hospitals and sent their complaints to NIEM.

The problems with UCEP are not the only barrier faced by sick Thais as they seek medical help.

Preeyanan also highlighted a problem regulating the cost of medical treatment. Currently, there remains no medical price control and the private hospitals are allowed full freedom to set their own healthcare prices.

“The authorities need to set up a committee to regulate medical treatment costs to ensure that the prices are appropriate,” said Preeyanan, who cites a recent case of a patient in the intensive-care unit (ICU) having the costs of dental surgery added to his bill.

“The regulating authorities in these matters must have the courage to enforce the law in order to protect the people’s interest,” she said.

Preeyanan noted that her current campaign on Change.org requesting that a regulation committee on medical expense control be set up had already garnered more than 50,000 signatures. She is planning to soon present the petition with these signatures to the prime minister.

Chananchida Tantaplin, the secretary of the Independent Consumer Protection Subcommittee on Food, Drugs, and Other Health Products, said the group had also been campaigning for a regulatory system for controlling medical expenses.

Last month, the group submitted a letter to the Internal Trade Department, which is the agency tasked with controlling the price of |all products and services in the country.

Chananchida said that the director of the Price and Quantity Administration Bureau, who accepted the letter, told her that the Public Health Ministry should be more directly responsible for this matter, but that the bureau would pass the letter over to the Commerce Ministry.

The military, after all, has already stepped in to serve as the mediator for the talks between the Court of Appeals Region 5 and opponents of the controversial buildings.

The mediation is scheduled to take place at a military base in Chiang Mai province today.

“We will listen to both sides directly, not via media or social media. We will gather their information and submit it to General Chalermchai, who now doubles as the secretary-general of the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO),” Third Army Area’s commander Lt-General Vijak Siribansop said yesterday. Chalermchai has, in fact, already recently responded to the controversy. But he has not yet issued a firm stand.

Initially, he ordered that the building – which is ongoing – be suspended.

Then, he allowed the resumption of construction, suggesting that they were legal and had progressed too far to be scrapped.

However, opponents of the project have refused to buy that argument.

Hundreds of people joined a morning rally against the construction yesterday.

Among the participants were some 300 cyclists riding alongside protestors in other vehicles. Their route took the rally from Chiang Mai International Exhibition and Convention Centre to the construction site.

The participants flew green ribbons to show their stance in favour of protecting forestland. They included activists who have long had differing political ideologies but have now come together for the common cause of protecting the mountain’s environment.

Some cyclists stopped at the building site to tie saffron robes at the under-construction homes for court officials.

Others participants travelled further to areas with a dense concentrations of trees, where they performed sacred rituals to consecrate Chiang Mai’s forests. Critics have claimed the construction encroaches on forestland, while authorities have maintained that |none of the buildings are located on land belonging to the nearby Doi Suthep-Pui National Park.

The illicit drug, which was hidden inside rubber pillows in the container, were worth more than Bt100 million.

“We detected irregularities before the container was shipped to Hong Kong,” Customs Department director-general Kulit Sombatsiri said at the weekend.

He said officials operating an X-ray machine noticed that there were something hidden inside the pillows.

According to him, there were two heroin bars in each stuffed pillow. Together, 80 bars or 28 kilos of illicit drugs were found.

“Y&S Solutions Trading Co Ltd had arranged for the transport of this container to Hong Kong,” Kulit said.

This firm was registered only on January 30. Last month, it sent two lots of rubber pillows to Hong Kong too but nothing suspicious was found.

The Customs Department has already blacklisted this firm. Three people suspected to be involved in its business have now been charged with drug possession and smuggling.

From last October until now, the Customs Department has already seized Bt144 million worth of illicit drugs while being smuggled into or out of the country.

Narcotics Suppression Bureau chief Pol Lt-General Sommai Kongwisaisuk said drug-trafficking networks had been upgrading their operations across the world.

“I am now in the process of asking for a budget to develop full-scale narcotics checkpoints,” he said, “These checkpoints will have greater efficiency.”

Sommai said as for now, officials had been instructed to be active in suppressing drugs, including during the Songkran holidays.

“We will not lower our guard. Some traffickers may think we will not have enough staff during Songkran, as officials may need to help with other work during the period,” he said.

Sommai added that his agency had now been working with authorities in neighbouring nations in a bid to fight the scourge of drugs.

A famous Facebook page has lately said there had been 11 drug factories along Thailand’s shared borders with neighbours, with the capacity to produce 20 million drug pills a day.

“I am inspired by BuppeSanNivas (the hugely popular TV series set in the Ayutthaya period),” said Malai Puangdej, 22.

She turned many heads at the unit due to her costume.

In Chon Buri province, four ladyboys also joined the conscription process at the provincial hall.

One of them, Jorakrit Kamalanont, said she was not drafted because she had already had breast implants.

“My physical conditions now do not match my gender at birth,” she said.

The illicit drug, which was hidden inside rubber pillows in the container, were worth more than Bt100 million.

“We detected irregularities before the container was shipped to Hong Kong,” Customs Department director-general Kulit Sombatsiri said at the weekend.

He said officials operating an X-ray machine noticed that there were something hidden inside the pillows.

According to him, there were two heroin bars in each stuffed pillow. Together, 80 bars or 28 kilos of illicit drugs were found.

“Y&S Solutions Trading Co Ltd had arranged for the transport of this container to Hong Kong,” Kulit said.

This firm was registered only on January 30. Last month, it sent two lots of rubber pillows to Hong Kong too but nothing suspicious was found.

The Customs Department has already blacklisted this firm. Three people suspected to be involved in its business have now been charged with drug possession and smuggling.

From last October until now, the Customs Department has already seized Bt144 million worth of illicit drugs while being smuggled into or out of the country.

The park’s senior official, Jampen Phompakdee said Sunday that Mandarin has joined Thai and English in announcements promoting tourist safety.

“We inform them of risks and of what they should not do,” he said.

According to Jampen, audio files prepared in Mandarin have been broadcast inside the park since April 6.

The park covers the famous Hong Island, which draws more than 1,000 tourists daily. It is estimated that Chinese tourists account for about 60 per cent of all visitors.

Some of these tourists have had accidents while swimming or relaxing on the beach.

“We have lifeguards ready. But we also hope tourists will know how to protect themselves,” Jampen said.

Tourists would continue to come to the popular tourist region but simply choose other destinations instead of Maya Bay, the report said.

Tourists would probably instead flock to nearby attractions such as Koh Poda, Sa Morakot, Talay Waek and Railay Beach to compensate for the closure of the world-famous beach.

The EIC supported limiting the number of tourists, saying it would have a good impact on the country’s image and also on revenue from tourism in the middle- to long-term.

“Imposing the measure at the popular attractions will help tourists get the most impressive experience of tranquillity and that would also help to lift the image of tourism,” the report argued.

The EIC also recommended that private sector and government officials join forces to develop a long-term plan for a sustainable solution.

For example, tour operators could offer lesser-known destinations among the many other islands and beaches for tourists to choose from, or entry fees could be adjusted to help attract more “quality” tourists, said the report.