Somchai Meesen, chief executive officer of Nation Multimedia Group Plc (NMG), said the decision by the management was aimed at halting The Nation’s financial losses, in addition to expanding its market.

“Over the past five years, The Nation has lost Bt30 million a year on average,” he said.

The CEO, citing a survey, pointed out that only 36 per cent of The Nation’s readers are based in Thailand while the remaining 64 per cent live overseas, including 25 per cent in the United States. He said that meant most of the newspaper’s readers did not buy its paper editions, and they read its reports and articles from the website and through different digital platforms.

Typical readers of The Nation are aged between 25 and 40, and mostly prefer to read news from smartphones rather than a printed newspaper, he told Nation TV.

Somchai said that as the market for new media was growing, old media businesses like newspapers were fast declining. This could be seen in the continuing decrease in the advertising budgets for publications – down 20 per cent a year on average, compared to an annual 20 per cent growth for new media.

“The new management has considered this matter carefully and decided that The Nation newspaper has to change its platform from print media to online, in order to better cater to the target group,” he said.

The CEO said that The Nation’s online edition would also provide an audible version. He also unveiled |plans for a Mandarin version from October “because at present more than 10 million Chinese visit and invest in Thailand”.

He assured there would be no retrenchments due to the change in platform. “The editorial staff and employees of The Nation will continue with their work. There will only be a shift in focus from print to online,” he said.

Somchai blamed NMG’s previous management for its cumulative debt of Bt1.57 billion, which he said “almost bankrupted the Nation Group”. The CEO said the previous management had made a serious blunder in bidding for the Channel 26 digital TV licence at a cost of Bt2.2 billion.

“In the fifth decade of operations, Nation Group will focus on our core business – providing news content,” he said.

ROAD ACCIDENTS kill more than 17,000 children and teenagers in Thailand every year, the latest statistics show. And most of these fatalities involve motorcycles, Road Safety Policy Foundation’s manager Thanapong Jinwong said yesterday.

Hence, Kongsak Chuenkrailas, who works for the Foundation for Consumers’ public-vehicle safety project, has cautioned parents against buying motorcycles for their teenagers.

“We need to educate parents about the risk of motorcycles. Children should be encouraged to use proper school buses instead,” he said.

Thanapong said statistics compiled by the police, the Public Health Ministry and the Road Accident Victims Protection Company show that 17,634 children on average had died annually from road accidents between 2013 and 2017.

“These statistics also reveal that the number of road-accident victims aged between 10 and 19 years has been rising,” he said, adding that most of the accidents usually took place during the summer break as well as long holidays such as the New Year or Songkran break.

A representative of Ramathibodi Hospital’s Child Safety Promotion and Injury Prevention Centre said many children died while riding pillion on motorcycles within their own communities.

Many motorcyclists often ignore the law and choose not to wear a helmet for short rides near their home.

School-bus project

In order to avoid such mishaps, Kongsak said parents should consider putting their children’s names down for safe school buses.

“We have now implemented the school-bus project in 32 provinces,” he noted, adding that many safe school buses now in service have not been registered with the Land Transport Ministry because they did not meet the standards.

“We need to raise parents’ awareness that the wrong choice of school bus is also a threat to their children’s safety,” he said.

Chissanuwat Maneesrikham, who heads a panel on road-|accident prevention in the Central region, said his team has already nudged child-care centres to |push for the use of crash helmets among children by having helmets ready.

“We are now expanding this initiative to primary schools too,” he said.

According to Chissanuwat, crash helmets will be lent to children if their parents forget to bring one along for their kids.

Dr Sophon Mekthon, chairman of the GPO board of directors, said 140 cannabis plants at the farm in Pathum Thani had begun to bud and would need around 10 to 12 weeks to mature for harvesting.

“After the cannabis buds are ready to harvest by the end of this July, we will begin the trial to extract three types of cannabinoid extracts and produce 2,500 bottles of medical cannabis oil,” Sophon said.

“However, the specialists still need to closely monitor the growth of the cannabis buds, because this is the first time for us to grow our own medical-grade cannabis, which requires very intensive care.”

The 5ml bottles of oil from the first crop will be distributed to patients in the cannabinoid drug’s clinical trial project of the Medical Services Department.

GPO managing director Dr Withoon Danwiboon explained that the female plants, which have the greatest “medical” properties, will be selected for extracting the oil by drying the buds, extracting the cannabinoid extracts with ethanol, and then diluting to get the standardised dose of cannabinoid extracts in each type of oil.

The permanent dismissal without pension of ex-school director Somchao Sitthichen took effect on May 3, provincial education chief Chumpol Srisang said earlier this week.

Somchao had already been temporarily dismissed from the civil service since June 17, 2018, pending the the result of a disciplinary investigation.

Chumpol said his office would next report the probe result and the permanent dismissal order to the Office of the Teacher Civil Service and Educational Personnel Commission (OTEPC).

Somchao has the right to appeal the decision within 30 days.

Noting that the disciplinary probe against Somchao took nearly a year to complete, a source among the pupils’ parents at Ban Tha Mai School said they were satisfied with the provincial education committee’s decision to fire Somchao.

The parents are now awaiting the result of a probe by the National Anti-Corruption Commission (NACC) against Somchao, which they hoped would set a good standard for other state officials.

A source said the serious disciplinary probe found him guilty of five serious breaches.

They included: the provision of poor quality lunch for school children; the procurement for electrical system maintenance at a school that wasn’t by  regulations; the alleged self-pocketing of revenue from the sale of oil palm seeds of the school; the permission to sell carbonated soft drinks in school which is prohibited by the Education Ministry; and the alleged double spending on road construction at school.

The scandal broke out in May 2018 when pictures of pupils eating only fermented rice noodles with fish sauce for lunch were circulated in Thai social media.

Pupils are now now receiving proper meals since the lunch programme scandal broke.

Other similar cases are being investigated.

The disease – known in Thai as “Hu Dap” (sudden hearing loss) following its most prominent symptom – is acquired through exposure to contaminated pigs or pig meat.

Doctors have warned locals to refrain from eating the region’s famous pork dishes such as spicy minced pork and spicy blood pork soup, which may be improperly or insufficiently cooked. The infection could lead to deafness or even death.

Hospital deputy director Dr Pongthep Wongwatcharapaiboon said most of the eight cases stemmed from the consumption of raw pork dishes.

He noted that more cases may arise later this year as the infection often occurs during the overlapping period between summer and rainy seasons.

He urged people to buy fresh pork meat from good standard sources and refrain from eating meat from a pig that was sick and had died.

According to the Department of Disease Control (DDC), more than 50 patients (12 of whom later died) were reported since January 1 until April 28.

Last year, there were 338 Streptococcus suis cases reported in Thailand, 12 of whom later died.

Streptococcus suis infection can be contracted in two ways. Firstly, a person can contact the disease if he/she has an open wound when exposed to the infected pork meat, organ or blood. Secondly, a person can contact it by consuming improperly cooked pork that has the bacteria.

Symptoms will show in three to five days in the form of high fever, severe headache, dizziness to the point of loosing body balance, vomiting, having a stiff neck, diarrhea, muscle pain, arthritis, cellulitis, and hearing loss.

People with such signs must seek a medical attention immediately to get timely treatment, reducing the chance of having a serious blood infection, permanent deafness or even death.

Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Department director-general Chayapol Thitisak said teachers should provide information about various safety precaution and set a good example so pupils are careful and have a safety-first awareness.

He said accident-prone areas include deteriorated or under-construction buildings, broken desks/chairs, unruly grass-filled space, and un-fenced wells or ponds. Students’ play fighting or climbing structures could lead to accidents, he said.

Classroom activities that could lead to accidents included conducting a chemical experiment, using lab equipment or playing sport, he said. Other threats included a broken electrical appliance and unsafe traffic conditions within a school compound.