Bitcoin reached $11,280 at one point after powering through $10,000 for the first time since March last year, propelled by a huge boost from Facebook’s unveiling of its own digital unit Libra, analysts said.

“The strong resurgence in the bitcoin price is mainly due to the renewed mainstreaming interest in cryptocurrencies and the technology which underlines them,” Naeem Aslam, analyst at trading group ThinkMarkets, said. “Projects like Facebook’s Libra have provided much needed tailwind for this space.”

The social network plans to launch Libra next year, and plans to back it with a basket of real-world currencies and a consortium of companies including Visa, MasterCard, PayPal and Uber.

– ‘Blast from the past’ –

Calling bitcoin’s rise a “blast from the past”, OANDA analyst Craig Erlam said the Facebook cryptocurrency launch seemed to be “legitimising the industry” which had come under scrutiny after the coin fell 80 percent from its peaks.

“Bitcoin is very much back in the headlines, as the cryptocurrency surged through $10,000 for the first time in more than a year and reminded us all of the good old days of late-2017,” Erlam said.

Bitcoin has risen about 20 percent this month alone but is still well off record levels near $20,000 seen at the end of 2017.

Expectations that G7 countries will introduce stringent rules concerning investor identities did little to dampen the new-found enthusiasm for bitcoin, noted Gary McFarlane, a cryptocurrency analyst at interactive investor.

But the rally was almost entirely focused on bitcoin with other crypto coins “struggling today”, he said.

One factor for bitcoin’s success Monday, McFarlane suggested, could be its role as a conduit to effect capital flight by some Chinese investors prompted by the China-US trade war.

– $40,000? $100,000? –

There was now talk, he said, that bitcoin could hit $20,000 again, and even go much beyond, with some punters predicting $40,000 or even $100,000 by the end of the year.

“That might sound fanciful in the extreme but on past form it is a possibility – and so is a crash from wherever any potential new all-time high might form,” McFarlane said.

Stock markets were under modest pressure ahead of a crunch meeting between US President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping at the weekend summit of 20 major economies.

Markets are waiting to see if Trump and Xi can find a way to get past their trade war when they meet on the sidelines of the event in Japan.

– ‘Shift in rhetoric’ –

Global equities last week rallied after Trump hailed positive telephone talks between the pair, fuelling hopes of a possible end to their long-running tariffs battle.

“No one thinks the US and China will do a deal in Osaka, but there is some hope that we will have a positive development that marks a shift in the rhetoric and a re-energising of talks following the breakdown in the recent discussions,” said Neil Wilson, chief market analyst at Markets.com.

The dollar meanwhile dropped Monday, continuing to face pressure from expectations that the Federal Reserve could lower US interest rates as soon as July as the economy shows signs of softening amid the trade war with China.

“The dovish tilt in the US central bank’s outlook was expected but what sent the Dollar tumbling was the fact that most of the US policymakers indicated that one rate decrease would probably not be enough, suggesting the need for continued easing as the economy slows down, said Konstantinos Anthis, head of research at ADSS.

– Key figures around 1540 GMT –

Bitcoin – UP at $10,915.68 from $9,939.81 late on Friday.

Euro/dollar: UP at $1.1392 from $1.1322

Pound/dollar: UP at $1.2728 from $1.2696

Dollar/yen: DOWN at 107.35 yen from 107.60 yen

London – FTSE 100: UP 0.1 percent at 7,416.69 points (close)

Frankfurt – DAX 30: DOWN 0.5 percent at 12,274.57 (close)

Paris – CAC 40: DOWN 0.1 percent at 5,521.71 (close)

EURO STOXX 50: DOWN 0.3 percent at 3,455.57

New York – Dow: UP 0.2 percent to 26,762.22

Tokyo – Nikkei 225: UP 0.1 percent at 21,285.99 (close)

Hong Kong – Hang Seng: UP 0.1 percent at 28,513.00 (close)

Shanghai – Composite: UP 0.2 percent at 3,008.15 (close)

Brent North Sea oil: DOWN 98 cents to $63.47 per barrel

West Texas Intermediate (WTI): DOWN 57 cents to $56.86

Prayut made the remarks in a speech delivered in Bangkok at a seminar titled “CLMVT as the New Value Chain Hub of Asia”.

CLMVT is the acronym for the five mainland Southeast Asian countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Vietnam and Thailand.

“Government sectors will play a role as a facilitator and founder, while CLMVT’s private sectors will be capable of expanding their business and invent new technologies, and then apply them for commerce. The private sectors will encourage development in the CLMVT region,” he said.

However, CLMVT faces challenges in many aspects, such as the rapid development of new technologies and the change of the world’s geopolitics, the PM told the forum, adding that these factors would play an important role in setting out the ability to operate businesses in all countries in the world.

Also, the fourth industrial revolution will transform the ways of living and doing business in all economic sectors, including the industrial sector, agricultural industry, and services, he added.

New technologies bring new opportunities for business sectors, making many companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises, become a part of the worldwide production network.

Nevertheless, CLMVT has to experience uncertainty and the fluctuations of doing business, causing its five constituent countries to acclimate and cooperate together, the premier said, adding that service sectors of CLMVT are also affected by new technologies.

Prayut also urged the five nations’ private sectors to prepare plans for risk assessment, in order to minimise the negative effects on business sectors from the global market, which always fluctuates.

“CLMVT must develop the level of the value chain in Asia before we can continually be a manufacturer in the production sectors of the world, including agricultural sectors and industrial sectors, especially in the fields of agriculture, textiles, automobiles and electronics,” he stressed.

‘Stronger together’

Prayut also emphasised that the Thai government firmly held to the principle of “stronger together”, which in this context meant that all CLMVT members should be involved and none of them should be left behind.

“The forum this year is being held in order to stimulate this principle, because the states in CLMVT have got along well with each other for a long time. We respect the varieties and assist each other fairly. We should take the highest advantage from this meeting to build the future of CLMVT and develop all sectors in the CLMVT region together,” he said.

The minsters for economy, trade and industry of Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, the high commissioner of Vietnam, ambassadors, executives from the government and private sectors, representatives from academic sectors and chambers of commerce from CLMVT member states attended the forum.

Representative of foreign chambers of commerce such as those from the US, China, Japan, India and South Korea also joined the meeting.

Economic connectivity

CLMVT is outstanding as a centre of trade and investment in agriculture, industry and services, as it consists of fertile natural resources, basic needs, and adequate human resources.

These lead CLMVT to have firm economic connectivity in the Asian and Asean networks, and to become part of an unbreakable value chain of the world, the seminar was told.

The trade, investment and development abilities of CLMVT have grown dramatically in recent years.

CLMVT is also a source of production and a significant market that continues to expand rapidly.

In 2017, the combined gross domestic product of CLMVT increased sharply by 5.1 per cent.

During 2013 to 2017, each country of CLMVT grew its business with countries outside the region, leading to an average GDP expansion rate of 4.6 per cent per year.

Meanwhile, trade and investment among CLMVT states expanded 7.1 per cent and 15.7 per cent per year respectively during the period, showing how firmly these economic connectivities are, and also the connectivity of the value chain of areas that are linked to each other increasingly and expeditiously, the forum heard.

Filed by the families of the nine French victims along with one survivor, the civil suit says the crash was an “accident waiting to happen”.

It raises a string of allegations against the now-defunct airline, running from exhausted pilots to falsified flight logs.

The crash happened on the resort island of Phuket on September 16, 2007, when a One-Two-GO passenger jet carrying 123 passengers and seven crew skidded off the runway and burst into flames while trying to land in driving rain and heavy winds.

The victims’ families have accused the airline of trying to cover up a series of failings which led to the crash, with Monday’s case levelling a manslaughter charge against One-Two-GO president Udom Tantiprasongchai.

At the time, he admitted the airline had to accept partial responsibility for what was Thailand’s worst air disaster in a decade.

But despite an international warrant for his arrest, he has never been detained and has never responded to a judicial summons, meaning he will likely be tried in absentia.

Among the dead were 33 Thai nationals and 57 foreigners, mainly tourists from Britain, Israel and France.

“It’s not about money,” said Gerard Bembaron, one of the French plaintiffs who lost his brother in the crash.

– ‘Accident waiting to happen’ –

“We want to return to this forgotten accident so that the families can be recognised as victims. It was not inevitable, it was an accident waiting to happen given the way this company functioned.”

(FILES) In this file photo taken on September 17, 2007 workers and officials inspect the site of the One-Two-Go budget airline’s MD-82 passenger jet on the Thai resort island of Phuket, a day after the plane crashed as it tried to land in poor weather. – A trial opens on June 24, 2019 in Paris for ex-head of Thai low-cost airline One-Two-Go over deadly 2007 crash in Phuket. // AFP PHOTO

An investigation by the Civil Aviation Authority of Thailand concluded the plane crashed as a result of human error as the pilot and his co-pilot sought to land in bad weather.

But it also found the pilots had exceeded their weekly number of flight hours and were suffering from accumulated stress due to tiredness and lack of rest, which meant that their responses were impaired in a critical situation.

As the investigation got under way, the airline submitted documents falsifying the number of hours the pilots had flown, to make it look as if they were within the correct limits, a source close to the case said.

Twelve years on, the French inquiry has revealed numerous failings in the recruitment, training and working habits of the pilots as well as in the maintenance of the fleet.

The extended flying hours were commonplace, with pilots earning cash bonuses, a former pilot told investigators, alluding to a “criminal business culture” that included “serious breaches of the most basic security norms”.

One-Two-GO and its parent company Orient Thai have both ceased to operate.

Indonesia’s Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) reported that the quake in Maluku was of 7.4-magnitude.

No tsunami warning was issued following the quake, which was centered 289 kilometers northwest of Saumlaki city in Western Southeast Maluku regency. The USGS website recorded a 5.2 aftershock about 40 minutes later.

It further informed that the tremor, having a depth of 220 km, could be felt across far eastern Indonesia, including in Nabire, Puncak Jaya and Sorong in Papua province.

Meanwhile, the earthquake in Papua, the epicenter of which was on land, was followed by several aftershocks.

Workers clawed back the rubble overnight as a grim-faced Cambodian premier Hun Sen visited the scene of the collapse in Sihanoukville, a beach town undergoing a Chinese investment bonanza.

The night was punctuated by grim processions of bodies on stretchers being carried to waiting ambulances.

On Monday morning, an AFP reporter saw a partially buried body, covered by a mosquito net to keep off flies in the searing heat, as the debris began to yield after 48 hours of excavation by hand, pneumatic drills and diggers.

    “We don’t expect any more survivors,” a soldier who has manned the scene throughout told AFP, requesting anonymity.

Preah Sihanouk provincial officials put the death toll at 24, with a similar number injured.

Distraught relatives at a local hospital said around a dozen people were believed to be entombed in the concertinaed floors of the building, which collapsed before dawn on Saturday as dozens of workers slept.

“I lost my husband and my nephew,” Khim Pov, 47, crying and hugging her daughter, told AFP while her son — who was able to crawl out from the debris — received treatment.

“I don’t have any hope my husband has survived. The bodies being pulled out have been flattened.”

Other survivors said they woke to a loud bang and managed to escape as the building folded in, leaving dozens of workers stranded on upper floors.

– Billion dollar town –

The once quiet fishing village of Sihanoukville has seen a Chinese construction boom driven by tourists to its dozens of casinos in recent years, with questions raised about the speed of development in a nation notorious for lax safety standards.

Three Chinese nationals and a Cambodian landowner have been held for questioning over the building collapse, which Hun Sen blamed on “carelessness” by the construction company.

The Chinese embassy in Cambodia, a strategically important country with ports and borders to other Mekong countries, expressed their condolences and backed a “thorough investigation” of the role of the three Chinese nationals and the cause of the accident.

There are an estimated 200,000 construction workers in Cambodia, most unskilled, reliant on day wages and not protected by union rules, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO).

Beijing is pouring investment into Cambodia as part of its behemoth Belt and Road initiative, a sweeping trillion-dollar infrastructure programme across Asia, Africa and Europe.

Around $1 billion was invested in the Preah Sihanouk province between 2016 and 2018 alone, and there are around 50 Chinese-owned casinos and dozens of hotel complexes under construction in Sihanoukville.

The document’s goal is to address wildlife trafficking in the region.

Surapon Duangkhae of the Seub Nakhasathien Foundation said official efforts to combat wildlife crime remained disorganised and too weak, given the sophistication and scale of transnational trafficking networks

“Dealing with wildlife trafficking is difficult because the illegal trade is very big transnational crime that generates massive profits for these crime lords,” Surapon said.

“Most of the time, transnational wildlife crimes are closely connected to trafficking in illicit drugs and arms, but the responsible agencies in Thailand and other Asean countries still don’t have enough capacity or resources to deal with such a powerful crime network.”

He said most wildlife trafficking in Thailand is detected not through investigation but rather when officials stumble upon evidence at routine checkpoints or while inspecting shipments.

File photo

This demonstrates the authorities’ lack of capacity and readiness to suppress such crimes, he said.

“Rather than just a loose cooperative framework, we need a clear action plan to efficiently crack down on the networks, as well as intensive investigation and information gathering, to pin down the masterminds behind them,” Surapon said.

But Somkiat Soontornpitakkool, director of Wild Fauna and Flora Protection Division at the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, said the new regional framework under the Chiang Mai Statement will help. Asean member-states can better and more collaboratively engage the issue and improve the situation in the region, he said.

“Although the framework of the statement is very broad and there is no specific action plan to tackle wildlife crime as a whole, each member-state can now draft its own action plan to implement within national boundaries,” Somkiat said.

And those efforts will take place in “close collaboration with the regional framework”.

“The responsible agencies of each country will also meet, discuss and plan their work together at least once a year in order to ensure the systematic suppression of transnational wildlife crime as a whole,” he said.

Such regional collaboration is essential in combating transnational crime networks, for which Southeast Asia is a hotspot as a vital trafficking route for tusks and other body parts, Somkiat said.

Even if one country performs well in suppressing the trade, the traffickers can easily move their transportation routes elsewhere, he noted.

“Asean’s integrated tackling framework will also help boost cooperation to deter trafficking between this region and others that are involved in the networks,” he said.

THAILAND AND other countries can learn from Tanzania’s successful strategies in combating wildlife crime, experts say, noting how the East African nation has largely managed to reverse a worrisome trafficking trend and is protecting endangered animals.

Mbanjoko Peter Manyenga, commander of Tanzania’s Northern Zone Anti-poaching unit, told visiting reporters recently that years of struggle to suppress wildlife crime are now bearing fruit.

They focused on intensive investigations and strict enforcement of the law to bring the ringleaders of poaching and trafficking gangs to justice, closely collaborating with local communities.

Manyenga said his unit was duty-bound to keep wild animals safe from poachers and traffickers in the north of the country, which is home to two conservation areas deemed globally important.

In the Ngorongoro Conservation Area and Serengeti National Park, he said, wildlife crime had decreased dramatically in recent years.

“Since we began taking strict measures to suppress poaching and trafficking, our performance has greatly improved. During the first five months of this year there were only 35 cases reported in the region and the populations of endangered animals are slowly rebounding,” Manyenga said.

“Although the wild animals are still not entirely safe and illegal poaching still occurs, we’ve noticed that most of the recent poaching was done by local people, hunting bush meat, while commercial hunting aimed at collecting animal parts is now rarely detected.”

Officials still face challenges, some stemming from insufficient resources and manpower to properly patrol the vast territory, others from people encroaching on conservation areas and coming into conflict with wild animals.

At the 2013 CITES Conference of Parties, Tanzania was including in the “gang of eight” countries where the illegal wildlife trade was worst. Now, though, its success in curbing wildlife crime is being praised and it’s held up as a role model for the other nations.

The other seven countries in the “group” were Kenya, Uganda, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines, China and Thailand.

Tanzania and its neighbours Kenya and Uganda, with their rich biodiversity and large elephant, rhinoceros, lion and pangolin populations are regarded as ground zero for a transnational wildlife trafficking network.

Rhino horn and elephant ivory command high prices on the black market in countries like China and Vietnam where they are shipped, giving poachers strong incentive to hunt the animals down. Pangolin scales are also highly valued in traditional Eastern medicine, while lions are illegally hunted as trophy game.

Jafari Kideghesho of Tanzania’s Sokoine University of Agriculture wrote in a 2016 academic article about the damage being caused there.

The authorities’ ineffectiveness in protecting wildlife, inefficient law enforcement and corruption had dramatically decreased the country’s elephant population from 300,000 in 1987 to just 43,521 in 2013, he said.

Jennifer Talbot, Chief of Party for RTI International, which implements the USAID PROTECT project, is praising those same authorities for their impressive work in suppressing transnational wildlife criminals.

Talbot noted that the tactic of tracking down the masterminds behind the crime rings was working well.

Despite improvements in law enforcement still being needed, she said, all indicators show that Tanzania is now headed in the right direction, with pertinent agencies at every level working in unison to implement a national policy of tackling the illegal wildlife trade.

“The success story in Tanzania can be replicated elsewhere,” Talbot said. “Many African countries are already learning from Tanzania’s example and adapting these effective measures, so Thailand and Asean can also learn some lessons as well.”

Asean has made clear since last year that it wanted to have a more visible and enhanced role to support Myanmar, also a member of the group, in providing humanitarian assistance, facilitating the repatriation process and promoting sustainable development.

Of the 900,000 refugees currently sheltering on the Bangladesh border, 740,000 of them had fled from violence after the heavy-handed “clearance operation” by the Myanmar military in responding to militant attacks in August 2017.

The refugees, mostly Muslim Rohingya, suffered from atrocities including arson, torture, murder, gang rape and massacre while fleeing from home. Thousands of them reportedly died during the operation which the United Nations human rights agency considered ethnic cleansing and called to refer the case of genocide to the International Criminal Court. However, Asean has maintained a humanitarian role. The group dispatched Asean Secretary-General Lim Jock Hoi and the assessment team from the Asean Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management to coordinate with the Myanmar authority and visited Rakhine state in December last year and May this year.

The team has already circulated its report to member countries for consideration. Asean said in the chairman’s statement issued after the summit meeting yesterday that the leaders supported Secretary Lim to go further.

The report recommended that Myanmar authorities focus on capacity-building, dissemination of information and support for provision of basic services in Rakhine state, and recognised the need for adequate resources for these activities. Myanmar and Bangladesh agreed in late 2017 to repatriate the refugees to Rakhine but the plan to have the first batch of 2,000 people return has been stalemated since November last year following resistance from the Rohingya due to fears for their safety.

The Asean chairman’s statement said, “We stressed the importance of and expressed our continued support for Myanmar’s commitment to ensure safety and security for all communities in Rakhine state as effectively as possible and facilitate the voluntary return of displaced persons in a safe, secure and dignified manner.”

Restrictions on access imposed by Myanmar and disagreement with Bangladesh have led to a stalemate, but the key concern among the Rohingya community is the lack of recognition of their identity and citizenship.

Foreign Minister Don Pramudwinai said after a meeting of Asean foreign ministers on Saturday that Myanmar is considering issuing National Verification Cards (NVC) to Rohingya refugees who want to voluntarily return from Bangladesh. The document is a step forward to the recognition of their identity, Don said.

The Rohingya community in Thailand told The Nation that the ethnic group wants guarantee of safety and full recognition as citizens before returning to Rakhine.

In talks on Saturday with Southeast Asian counterparts, Malaysia’s Foreign Minister Saifuddin Bin Abdullah called for the “perpetrators of the Rohingya issue to be brought to justice”, his ministry said in a tweet, according to AFP. He also said repatriation of the minority from the fetid, overcrowded refugee camps of Bangladesh “must include the citizenship of the Rohingya”.

Asean leaders yesterday stressed the need to find a comprehensive and durable solution to address the root causes of the conflict and to create a conducive environment so that the affected communities can rebuild their lives.

The group encouraged Myanmar to continue to implement the remaining recommendations of the final report of the Advisory Commission on Rakhine state compiled by former UN chief Kofi Annan submitted to Nay Pyi Taw since August 2017, around the time the violence took place.

While Asean has refrained from embarrassing Myanmar, the regional group expects that the Independent Commission of Enquiry established by Suu Kyi’s government last year “would seek accountability by carrying out an independent and impartial investigation into alleged human rights violations and related issues”.

THAILAND IS confident that negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) will be completed by the end of the year following major progress made during the Asean Summit over the weekend, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, who chaired the summit, said.

Thailand aims to conclude two additional chapters to the trade agreement by early July. So far, seven of the 20 RCEP chapters have been negotiated. Thailand is looking to show progress by closing two chapters by next month after negligible progress in the first six months under its leadership.

The mega-trade deal, which brings together the 10 Asean nations along with China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand, has been stuck in negotiations for the past seven years. Once completed, it will be the largest multilateral trade deal in history.

“All Asean countries recognise the importance of completing the RCEP negotiations by the end of this year amid rising protectionism and trade tensions,” Prayut said yesterday at a press conference.

He said Thailand was confident of concluding the negotiations phase of the RCEP by the end of the year.

“The RCEP will enhance the centrality of the Asean region, connecting countries in the Indian subcontinent with those in the Asia-Pacific region, acting effectively as the centre of Asia,” he claimed.

“When the deal is successful, the 16 RCEP countries will form a multilateral trade bloc which represents a large portion of the global economy. This will increase Asean’s negotiating power with other countries in the future,” the prime minister said.

In 2018, trade between the RCEP countries represented up to a third of global trade. Thailand’s trade value with the RCEP countries was worth some US$70 billion in 2018. Thailand’s exports to the RCEP countries currently account for 58 per cent of its total exports, according to the Commerce Ministry.

Yesterday, trade officials headed to Melbourne, Australia, where the 16 RCEP countries will meet from June 25 to July 3 to resolve outstanding issues.

“Our target is that at least two chapters be closed out by the end of the senior economic officials’ meeting on RCEP in Melbourne,” Auramon Supthaweethum, director-general of the Commerce Ministry’s Department of Trade Negotiations (DTN), said on the sidelines of the weekend summit.

The meeting in Melbourne, she said, would address all the 13 outstanding chapters and two chapters will be in particular focus. These two chapters include one on rules of origin of goods and another on trade in financial, telecom and professional sectors.

Auramon expects negotiations on these two chapters to be settled at the end of their trip to Melbourne, adding that currently the Asean region has established a common position on nearly all the remaining 13 RCEP chapters.

The key challenges, she said, are the chapters on trade in goods, trade in services and intellectual property standards.

The matter of trade in goods and services presents a challenge, as there are countries like China and India, which do not have a bilateral free trade agreement. This means that details on trade in goods and services between these countries have to be discussed without a free trade agreement framework to build upon, according to the trade official.

Meanwhile, there are different standards between developed economies and less developed economies on intellectual property protection, which will need to be resolved, she explained. For example, developed economies such as Japan, Australia and South Korea have a high standard on intellectual property regulations, which other less-developed economies may struggle to meet.