The crackdown began on last Tuesday when National police deputy chief Pol General Wirachai Songmetta led a raid on a waste management plant in Chachoengsao’s Plaeng Yao district, responding to an allegation that hazardous industrial waste had been smuggled from abroad to be burned at the facility, spreading toxins in the area.

Yesterday, Wirachai led a team from the Industry Ministry and Customs Department to inspect factories on Laem Chabang Estate after allegations they had falsely reported their imported cargoes. The search netted a consignment of electric wiring from Japan and Hong Kong which was stuffed into five containers. Wirachai said the police would charge the factory owner for illegal smuggling of electronic waste, and examine the permit of the facility.

The Ministry has ordered nationwide action and instructed local Provincial Industry Offices to inspect all electronic-waste recycling plants in their areas to ensure factory operations are in line with laws and regulations.

Prime Minister General Prayut Chan-o-cha has thrown his full support behind the nationwide inspection of the e-waste recycling business, stressing the urgency of strict law enforcement and improvement of business operations.

The scale of the problem first became apparent when the raid last week in Chachoengsao uncovered huge piles of keyboards, electrical wires and computers sitting ready for workers to recycle or discard by burning or other methods.

Burning electronic circuit boards to extract heavy metals risked contamination of the surrounding environment, while hard plastic parts were toxic when burnt or would take millions of years to disintegrate when buried, said Wirachai, who led the raid by police and officials against WMD (Wai Mei Dat) Thai Recycling Co Ltd’s 100-rai factory in Tambon Plaeng Yao Plaeng Yao. He added that this hazardous industrial waste required specific and proper disposal methods.

The unnamed Chinese owner of the facility has been accused of importing potentially dangerous electronic waste under false Customs declarations.

The government’s Fores Protecting Operation Centre over the weekend conducted inspections and made arrests at three locations near Khao Yai.

Despite facing encroachment charges, owners of the three plots were found to be still occupying their properties and even offering them for sale or demarcating the land to declare ownership.

Officials from the centre inspected a 40-rai plot located 9 kilometres from the park that was confiscated for encroachment in 2011 but found the owner had put it up for sale at a price of Bt10 million per rai.

The investigation team seized backhoes working on the site and charged the drivers for illegal deforestation.

Meanwhile an investigation at a nearby teak plantation seized by authorities in 2016 found that the encroachers had refused to leave and were asking more than Bt1 billion for the land.

The 184-rai plantation in Lam Takong began as a state-funded project conducted jointly by Kasersart University and local communities in 1964.

It was then included as part of the cooperative estate Lamtakong in 1972. Despite not being allotted to local residents, the plot somehow found its way into the hands of the encroachers, who resisted eviction, demarcated the land and put it up for sale.

The weekend’s third raid, on a four-rai plot, revealed that the owner was still using the land for recreation after prosecutors had failed to submit the encroachment case to court.

Cheewapap Cheewatham, head of the centre’s Phayak Prai forest crime suppression taskforce, said his officials would do their best to enforce the law to their utmost to reclaim the illegally occupied plots for the state, despite an uphill task complicated by legal procedures.

Health officials across the world are keeping a close eye on the third and latest Nipah virus outbreak in India, where at least 16 cases have been confirmed in Kerala and Karnataka states and 14 people have died.

Dr Thiravat Hemachudha, head of the Emerging Infectious Disease Health Science Centre at Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Medicine, said that there are no recorded cases of the infection yet in Thailand. However, he added that the risk of widespread infection remains as the country’s fruit bats are a natural host of the Nipah virus.

Thiravat said people should be alert but not panic about the virus as the disease is preventable.

“Nipah is a zoonotic virus that can spread from animals to humans through the contact of saliva or contaminated tissues.

“This virus has a natural host in fruit bats and can be transmitted to other domesticated animals such |as pigs and then to humans,” he |said.

“Those infected with the Nipah virus will suffer acute brain inflammation, and even if the patients survive, the encephalitis from the virus can resume within two years, while patients who have pneumonia can also spread the virus through droplets from sneezing, allowing human-to-human transmission.”

He said one infected patient can spread the disease quickly to more than 30 people.

The virus is also potentially lethal, as around 70 to 80 per cent of infected patients die from the disease, making it one of the most concerning pathogens in the world. Currently, there is no drug or vaccine for Nipah virus.

Thiravat said that Chulalongkorn University’s Emerging Infectious Disease Health Science Centre has studied the Nipah virus since 2000. In 2005 the centre worked with the National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department and found that fruit bats in Thailand also contain the virus and have the ability to transmit the virus to domesticated animals and humans.

“Around 7 to 9 per cent of the fruit bat population in Thailand was found to host the Nipah virus, though they only spread the virus during a specific time of the year – from April to June. The virus in Thai bats has 99 per cent genetic resemblance to the strain causing the current outbreak in India,” he said. He said that even though Thai bats hosted the virus, people should not be too concerned as the proportion of infected bats in Thailand was far lower than that in India and Bangladesh.

Stay away from fruit bats

He also suggested that people refrain from close contact with fruit bats and avoid eating fruits that have bite marks. If anyone has symptoms of encephalitis they should seek medical advice immediately.

Meanwhile, Department of Disease Control (DDC) director-general Dr Suwanchai Wattanaying-charoen said they were cooperating with all related agencies to closely monitor the virus outbreak in India and assured that there is no confirmed case of the infection in Thailand.

“The Public Health Ministry has listed the Nipah virus as a dangerous infectious diseases as per the Communicable Diseases Act, so if any infection is found, officers need to report it to DDC within three hours in order to start disease quarantine immediately,” Suwanchai said.

He also said that all communicable disease control offices nationwide were on high alert for the virus.

Although the World Health Organisation has not placed a travel ban to the states involved in the virus outbreak in India, Suwanchai suggested that Thai travellers should not visit the districts with confirmed cases, including Kozhikode, Malappuram, Wayanad and Kannur.

THOUSANDS OF students are expected to rally in front of the Office of Higher Education Commission (Ohec) tomorrow against what they say are serious flaws in the new university admission system.

An online petition on Change.org, which collected 9,000 signatures in just 17 hours, has encouraged supporters to gather at the Ohec headquarters in Bangkok’s Ratchathewi district at 10am tomorrow.

The rally is intended to pressure the Council of University Presidents of Thailand (CUPT) to help students who are having difficulties enrolling from the third round of the Thai University Central Admission System (TCAS).

After the recent announcement of the third round’s results, a large number of students have vented their frustration online. They believe they failed to secure a seat at their chosen higher-educational institute because TCAS has not yet excluded candidates who are planning to enrol at a medical school.

A recent review showed that 75 of 110 successful candidates at Chulalongkorn University’s (CU) Faculty of Economics are also on the list of successful candidates for medical schools.

One student lamented that she was unable to secure a seat at the CU Faculty of Psychology despite her scores of about 90 per cent.

CUPT secretary general Prasert Kanthamanon said students had |the right to rally and air their |opinion “but they also should study all relevant information”.

He said that every student would be able to take just one seat under TCAS. “If their scores allow a student to have many choices now, he or she will have only one choice between June 1 and 3,” he said, adding that he believed TCAS was a fair admission system.

Used for the first time this year, TCAS features five rounds.

Students can join any of the five rounds, but once they confirm their choice they cannot apply and block another seat at a higher-education institute.

The first round sees |applicants selected based on their portfolios and interviews.

The second round features a quota system where applicants are required to submit scores from the Ordinary National Education Test (Onet), the General Aptitude Test (Gat), the Professional Aptitude Test (Pat) and other tests that universities deem appropriate.

The third round is for joint admission schemes, such as that operated by the Consortium of Thai Medical Schools.

About 100,000 students were offered a seat at the institute of their choice in the third round.

Those who have not yet secured a seat by the end of the third round can join the fourth round. Applications for the fourth round can be submitted next month.

The list of successful applicants will be released on July 13. The fifth round will start after that.

Students who have signed the online petition and expressed their intention to rally, said they could not wait until the fourth round.

According to them, the one-month wait is painful for those who have not yet secured a seat at their favourite university. As well, they point out that the fourth round will have different criteria than the third round.

A source with knowledge of the situation said CUPT president Suchatvee Suwansawat would convene an urgent with his members, Ohec and student representatives today to discuss the problems.

He said each district office would select three sois in its jurisdiction where local communities were willing to cooperate with the BMA in the project.

Residents of the selected streets would be encouraged to grow trees and flowers in front of their homes and keep the areas tidy and clean, and they would be regarded as community parks.

The city administration would have to not spend any budget for the project as it would seek cooperation from the communities to maintain the parks, Aswin said.

The BMA would later select the best and most beautiful sois for awards, the governor added.

The appointment takes effect immediately as the post became vacant after Phra Phromdilok (Euan Hasadhammo) was defrocked last Thursday over embezzlement and money-laundering charges.

The former monk is being held at Bangkok Remand Prison.

Chana Songkram Temple’s assistant abbot Phra Thepsutee (Saichon Thanawutto), in his capacity as the chief of Monastic Region 1 (Bangkok, Nonthaburi, Pathum Thani and Samut Prakan), named Phra Dhammasutee as Bangkok’s monastic chief.

The Sangha Supreme Council (SSC) will be asked to acknowledge the appointment on May 30.

Bangkok has about 7,000 kilometres of communications cables hanging on power poles.

The BMA chief said the plan had been approved in principle by the National Digital Economy and Society Board, headed by Deputy Prime Minister Prajin Juntong.

Under the plan, the BMA would construct a comprehensive network of tunnels with facilities to house communications cables, while the operators of communications services, such as fibre-optic Internet connection firms, would be required to lease the tunnels from the BMA.

Aswin added that the BMA was now seeking a licence to operate the planned facilities from the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission, before it submitted the final plan to the infrastructure committee of the Digital Economy and Society Ministry for approval.

Additional troops and police were deployed at communities, residences of officials, government offices, and at the celebration of Yala city’s shrine and the annual Red Cross fair.

Intelligence agencies issued a warning that insurgents had stolen 13 motorcycles to make motorcycle bombs.

On Monday night, security forces checked all motorcyclists that entered the Yala downtown area.

Yala police chief Pol Maj Gen Krissada Kaewchandee said he instructed police stations to patrol their areas more frequently.