Public Health Ministry reported on Sunday (June 5) morning that in the past 24 hours there are 3,236 new patients who tested positive for Covid-19, two of whom have arrived in Thailand from abroad.
Death toll increased by 28, while 5,011 patients were cured and allowed to leave hospitals.
Cumulative cases in the country since January 1, 2022 are at 2,243,358.
Cat owners are usually eager to hug their feline friends for no reason, but they had a reason on Saturday because June 4 is the official “Hug Your Cat Day”.
After American author Marisa D’Vari’s beloved white Persian cat Mimi drew her last breath on June 4, 1995, D’Vari called on all cat lovers to celebrate their fluff balls on this date every year. She also hoped that “Hug Your Cat Day” would help raise awareness and help for animal shelters and rescue groups.
This celebration also serves as a reminder of the emotional satisfaction that comes from bonding with and cuddling your cat. Most cat owners will say that cuddling their favourite feline helps reduce stress and “recharge their battery”.
Bangkok resident Kai Sanyalak says she inherited her love for cats from her mother, who had adopted several strays while Kai was growing up. She added that her partner Toey Kritsanapong began loving cats when he adopted a stray trapped in the gate of his house.
The couple is now proud owners of award-winning “celebrity cats” Big Ben and Barbie, who have featured in many adverts. The famous felines hail from Russia.
Another cat lover, Cream Laddawan, was seen cuddling the Scottish Fold she had received from her mother-in-law. She says she got her first cat when she was in university, explaining that her family discouraged her because she suffered from allergies. But her love for cats helped her overcome these allergies, she said.
Thai Airways International (THAI) released a statement on Saturday apologising for the excessively long queues at its check-in counters in Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport.
The national carrier blamed the situation on an unusually large number of outbound passengers and the time it takes to check documents and online registration required by destination countries as part of their Covid-19 screening measures.
“The company has taken steps to rectify the problem and ensure no passengers miss their flights,” THAI said.
The apology came after a video posted by Facebook user Fah Walaiphan went viral on Friday.
The clip showed more than 1,000 passengers queuing to check in at THAI counters. The post included a message saying passengers will need to arrive at least five hours before departure to ensure they do not miss their flight.
She put the problem down to the shortage of staff, claiming that an airline employee grumbled that this issue was being ignored by the management “in the ivory tower”.
Fah followed up her initial post by saying she finally made it to the flight in time, but “the stress gave me a migraine that continued for many hours”.
She also said passengers whose flights were about to take off in half an hour were allowed to jump the queue so they could board in time.
“But you had to run like crazy because the time was so short,” the passenger said.
Is petrol too costly? No problem, ride your buffalo. And this is exactly what a Nakhon Ratchasima resident did recently.
He rode his water buffalo to the shops and posted photographs on Facebook with the message: “In this time of expensive petrol, I have to make use [of the buffalo].”
Surawut Chaisanrit’s post was shared more than 600 times and won scores of “likes” and “laughs” from Thai netizens. Some even asked if they could borrow his buffalo to run errands.
People who were thrown behind bars over charges related to marijuana will be released once the herb is removed from the Category 5 Narcotics list on June 9, the Court of Justice announced on Saturday.
“Marijuana-related cases waiting for a trial date or court verdict will also be dismissed,” said court spokesman Sorawis Limparangsi. “This means people who are in holding cells waiting for legal procedures related to marijuana will also be released.”
Sorawis said he does not believe many people are behind bars for the possession of marijuana, because this offence does not usually carry a heavy sentence. However, inmates who have been charged for other offences in addition to marijuana possession will not be released.
The Public Health Ministry’s proposal to remove marijuana and hemp from the list of narcotics and promote them as cash crops was approved by the Cabinet in February and will go into effect next Thursday – 120 days after it was announced in the Royal Gazette.
Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul announced last month that people in Thailand can grow “as many cannabis plants” as they want in their own homes.
However, the marijuana grown must be of medical grade and used for medicinal purposes only. Registration is not required for home-growers but large businesses will require permission from the Food and Drug Administration, he added.
Bangkok’s new governor Chadchart Sitthiphan marked Pride Month 2022 by planting rainbow flags in central Bangkok on Saturday to symbolise support for gender diversity and the LGBTQIA+ community.
Planting flags alongside Chadchart were his deputy Sanon Wangsangboon, chief adviser Torsak Chotimongkol and secretary Pimuk Simaroj. The activity was held at the Bangkok Art and Culture Centre in Bangkok’s Pathumwan district.
“Pride Month is a celebration of gender diversity to support the culture and rights of LGBTQIA+ group, as well as to remember people in this community who have lost their lives to HIV/Aids,” said Chadchart.
The term LGBTQIA+ stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transexual, queer/questioning, intersexual, asexual and others like non-binary and pansexual.
“The celebration is held in June every year to commemorate the Stonewall incident in 1969 in New York City,” he said.
He was referring to the June 28, 1969, police raid of the Stonewall Inn in New York’s Greenwich Village that sparked a series of rallies by members of the gay community. It is believed that this uprising served as a catalyst for the gay rights movement.
Since then, the month of June is devoted to celebrations of love, acceptance, diversity and self-pride across the globe.
“The Pride Month celebration should not just be limited to people from the LGBTQIA+ community,” he said. “Rather, we should use it to promote social agenda in which all members can live together in harmony despite their diversity, with full understanding and acceptance of each other. Everyone should have the right to express their identity under the limits and protection of the law, as well as the right to equal benefits.
“Pride Month does not just represent diversity in gender, but also diversity in ideology, political beliefs and opinion,” the governor said. “We can be different, but we will not fight or hate each other because of said differences. Bangkok will take care of every citizen under the principles of democracy and equality. There will be no discrimination against people of a certain group.”
Chadchart added that he has given policy guidelines to Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) officials to ensure they have a full understanding of gender diversity and provide equal treatment to everybody, regardless of age, race and gender. The guidelines specify that:
• BMA agencies must unconditionally accept and promote equality in society.
• BMA officials must undergo training on acceptable behaviour towards everybody, especially those of diverse gender, with a focus on acceptance and understanding.
• Platforms must be set up for people to file complaints about inequality.
• Officials will not be forced to wear uniforms based on their birth gender.
• BMA agencies must set up rules to prevent sexual harassment at workplaces.
“The BMA is also planning to open more gender health clinics at hospitals under its jurisdiction that provide medical advice, medication, hormone and other treatment for gender diverse persons. These clinics are only available at Chulalongkorn and Ramathibodi hospitals,” he said.
A Thai woman has been arrested in connection with a “romance scam”, in which another woman was lured into transferring 6.2 billion baht of her employer’s money to accounts in several countries.
The 31-year-old suspect identified only as “Som” was tracked down to a construction workers’ camp in Chiang Rai’s Mae Chan district. Her case was in the hands of the Crime Suppression Division and Central Investigation Bureau.
The suspect claimed she had been hired by a Nigerian gang of scammers to open bank accounts at 10,000 each, police said.
In 2019, a woman identified only as “Chamanan” was lured into believing she was in love with an American doctor based in Afghanistan.
Police said the Nigeria-based scammer told her that he had got a huge inheritance and wanted to transfer the money to Thailand. He asked for Chamanan’s help while deceiving her into making several money transfers from her company’s bank accounts. As a chief financial officer of a Thai company, Chamanan had access to funds and ended up transferring more than 6.2 billion baht to different bank accounts in 17 countries.
Som is among 30 or so people wanted for high-profile scams. Arrest warrants have been issued for all of them on charges of transnational crime, money laundering, criminal rackets, embezzling, violating the Computer Crime Act, etc.
The Royal Thai Army’s 1st Field Artillery Regiment or the King’s Guard fired a 21-gun salute at noon on Friday to mark Her Majesty Queen Suthida Bajrasudhabimalalakshana’s birthday. The salute was held at the north end of Sanam Luang in Bangkok.
New governor Chadchart Sittipunt has designated June as “Pride month” in Bangkok, reflecting the city’s diverse sexuality and respect for human rights.
LGBT Pride month is being celebrated around the globe to commemorate the landmark Stonewall uprising, when the gay community of New York rose up against police oppression in June 1969.
Former US president Bill Clinton enshrined June as “Gay & Lesbian Pride Month” in 1999 while his successor Barack Obama declared June as LGBT Pride Month in 2009.
The abbreviation LGBT was coined in the 1980s by gay rights activists. Over the past 40 years, it has expanded to incorporate more sexual orientations, and LGBTQIA+ is now recognised across the globe.
Each sexuality in LGBTQIA+
Used by human rights activists since 1988, the four letters LGBT stand for:
L (Lesbian) – a woman who is attracted to other women
G (Gay) – those who are attracted to people of the same gender (most commonly associated with men)
B (Bisexual) – a person who is attracted to two or more genders
T (Transgender) – people with a gender identity or gender expression that differs from the sex that they were assigned at birth.
The original letter order was GLBT but this was changed in the 1990s when lesbians stepped up in solidarity with the male gay community who were facing the HIV crisis, donating blood and showing solidarity through activism. The L was duly moved up to reflect lesbians’ significant role in the fight for gay rights and recognition.
In 2016, the American NGO GLAAD added the letter Q to reflect another recognised sexual orientation.
Q stands for Queer – people who are neither heterosexual nor cisgender (a person who gender-identifies with their birth sex)
Q can also be defined as “questioning”, to describe people who are questioning and undecided about their sexuality.
Then came the letters I and A.
I (Intersex) – individuals born with sex characteristics – including chromosome patterns, gonads, or genitals – that do not fit binary notions of male and female bodies.
A (Asexual) – a person who lacks sexual attraction to others, or has a low or absent interest in or desire for sexual activity.
A (Agender) – those who identify as having no gender or being without a gender identity.
However, the number of sexual orientations is increasing, so the plus symbol has been added.
Genders not represented by the letters in LGBTQIA include:
Non-binary describes gender identities that are not solely male or female — identities that are outside the gender binary.
Two-spirit is a term for people who identify as having both a masculine and feminine spirit as per Indigenous North American tradition.
Pansexual denotes people who have an attraction toward other people regardless of their sex or gender identity.
Demisexual is a term used to describe those who do not experience sexual attraction to others unless they form a strong emotional bond with someone first.
The terms mentioned above represent the variety of human sexuality as we know it now. It is up to each person to define their sexuality for themselves, so they feel happy and comfortable in themselves. Each of us is different, as reflected in the variety of terms to define sexuality, but all of us have value and human dignity.
Chiang Mai is facing a critical shortage of traditional massage practitioners following two years of Covid-19 shutdowns, according to the Thai Lanna Massage Operators Association.
Association president Nantawan Chutipongvivate said on Friday that the number of massage employees in Chiang Mai has plummeted by almost two-thirds – from 9,000 pre-Covid to 3,600 now.
She explained that many massage practitioners switched jobs or returned to their hometowns during the Covid lockdowns, adding it may now be difficult to get them back.
Meanwhile, many massage workers feel the profession does not offer job security as foreign tourists have yet to return in large numbers and they are afraid that a flare-up of Covid-19 could force massage shops to close again.
She added that it was hard to find replacements as massage practitioners must be trained before offering services to customers.
Nantawan said that only a few of her own employees returned to work after the Covid-19 lockdowns. As a result, she has been forced to seek replacements through job adverts.
However, 200 of the 492 Thai massage shops under the association have reopened and she expects business to improve gradually once the Covid-19 situation eases further.
After reopening in April, revenue from her own shop is at 40 per cent of pre-Covid levels.
She expects takings to improve at the end of the year if Chinese tourists return to Thailand. Chinese customers accounted for 80 per cent of her total revenue before the pandemic.
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