The Chao Phraya River is stable now, the Royal Irrigation Department (RID) said on Thursday.
According to the department, the flow of the river in Nakhon Sawan province was measured at 1,582 cubic metres per second, while the water level was 4.31 metres lower than the embankment.
RID added that the upper part of the river was stable due to limited rain.
It also said that the Chao Phraya Dam has been releasing water at 1,500 cubic metres per second for three consecutive days and this has helped keep the river stable.
The department said the water will be pushed to the sea as soon as possible to prepare for runoffs from the North.
The Pasak Chonlasit Dam in Lopburi will also release water accordingly to ease the impact on lower areas.
RID said it will monitor the amount of water directed into the Chao Phraya Dam and will instruct related agencies to inform people living in risky areas.
The department will also offer help to people affected by floods to help ease their burden. It is urging people to closely monitor reports from government agencies until the rainy season ends.
The Hydro Informatics Institute has said that the rainy season will end in 68 days.
Thailand’s Board of Investment (BOI) published new regulations on Thursday allowing foreign companies granted investment privileges to buy land in the country.
The regulation signed by the prime minister on August 8, is effective retroactively since June 13 under the 1977 Investment Promotion Act. Now, foreign companies that have a registered capital of at least 50 million baht can own land in Thailand under the following criteria:
• Up to 5 rai can be bought to build an office • Up to 10 rai can be bought to build residences for executives or specialists • Up to 20 rai can be bought to build homes for employees • The office and employee residences do not have to be in the same compound as the place of business or factory.
The regulation requires the business to sell or transfer the land within a year once its BOI-approved status has expired.
Each land ownership will be considered on a case-by-case basis by the BOI.
Ministers Responsible for Forestry from Asia-Pacific Economy Cooperation (APEC) have successfully concluded their meeting in Thailand which called for the inclusion of Bio-Circular-Green Economy (BCG) model to support the region’s operative framework.
H.E. Varawut Silpa-archa, Minister of Natural Resources and Environment, said he has spearheaded the BCG concept at the Fifth Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Forestry from Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) to drive the goal of sustainable forest management through building relationships to strike a balance through by means of ‘Open. Connect. Balance,’ the theme adopted for 2022 APEC meetings being hosted by Thailand.
“I have stated unequivocally to my counterparts from 21 economies that the BCG is the way to go and asked them to adopt the Thai brainchild,” he said.
The Fifth APEC Meeting of Ministers Responsible for Forestry, known under the acronym of MMRF5, was held in Chiang Mai from August 23 to 25, hosted by Thailand’s Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE). The MMRF5 is about promoting cooperation in sustainable forest management especially in the fight against illegal logging, and most importantly, encouraging stakeholders from all sectors, particularly local communities, to contribute to sustainable forest management leading to the increase of green areas in order to response to climate change.
“The forest sector indeed plays a very crucial role in tackling problems of climate change and enhancing biological diversity to bring about the well-being of the APEC people in our generation and the next,” Varawut noted.
In his speech at the opening of MMRF5’s conference on August 24 at the Le Meridien Chiang Mai Hotel, the Thai minister congratulated the APEC members economies in achieving a collective effort that surpasses forestation target. That means boosting the region’s forest area to 174.38 million rai or 27.9 million hectares. He has thanked the APEC forestry ministers and representatives for working constructively together to ensure fruitful deliberations.
The MMRF5 is all about promoting, developing cooperation and enhancing the conservation, restoration and preservation of forest areas to raise green areas as well as promoting trade in wood products in accordance with relevant guidelines and criteria. Holding the MMRF5 meeting showed that forests play an important role in driving and promoting opportunities for the legal trade in timber and related products. Meanwhile, it helps to increase income for the economic zone and local people which will drive the balance among economy, environment and society under the theme of APEC 2022 meetings hosted by Thailand.
Varawut explained that the BCG Model will be instrumental to the sustainable forest management by leveraging on modern technology and innovation to create value and promoting a sustainable business model together with the endeavours to solve climate change problems. That envisions the absorption of greenhouse gases by the forest sector which will support the missions towards achieving carbon neutrality goals and net-zero emissions.
The MMRF5 conference in Chiang Mai meeting was also held under a greenhouse gas reduction format. After the morning session on August 24, delegations from all APEC economic zones were taken on a tour to the Queen Sirikit Botanical Garden at Mae Rim District, Chiang Mai Province. There, they observed the conservation of Thai plant resources, indigenous plants and rare floras.
The Queen Sirikit Botanical Garden is the first international botanical garden in Thailand named after the Queen Mother. It is a large garden under the supervision of the Botanic Garden Organisation with a world-class management. MMRF5 delegates also visited Thung Kwian Forest Plantation, Lampang province, which is a forest plantation under the supervision of the Forest Industry Organisation, which shows the potential of Thailand in sustainable forest management according to international yardsticks.
Nobody was injured when the ground floor of a building in the Hua Mark Police Station complex sank by about half a metre on Thursday.
Police station chief Pol Colonel Setthaphan Srisakhon said the almost 50-year-old building was used by both the police station and the adjacent Hua Mark fire station.
Initial investigation showed that the building’s floor area of about 50 square metres had cracked and sunk by about 20 to 50 centimetres.
The area in front and behind the building, where a 15-metre-high observation tower is located, also sank by about 20cm. The sinking of the floor does not appear to have affected other parts of the building.
The police station has alerted the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration’s civil engineering division to perform a detailed investigation.
Setthaphan added that the ground floor has been closed off and officials who worked there have been shifted to the second and third floors, which are still operational.
“A new police station building, a dormitory and a parking lot are being built near the old building, which may have caused the ground floor to sink,” he said.
Meanwhile, Sajjaporn Yuwatthana, chief of Hua Mark fire station, said there have been several reports of the ground near the police station and fire station sinking due to the construction of the MRT Orange Line on Ramkhamhaeng Road.
He called on related agencies to perform a detailed investigation of all buildings in the area to ensure public safety.
Three people sustained injuries when their pickup truck flipped over from the force of a bomb explosion in the southern province of Narathiwat on Thursday evening.
Police quoted the driver as saying that the explosion sent the pick-up truck flipping three to four times and eventually landing on its side on the road’s shoulder. The explosion took place on Highway No 4217, which runs through Ban Iso village in Narathiwat’s Chanae district.
The three passengers suffered non-critical injuries like tinnitus and have been sent to a hospital in Chanae for a check-up. The truck had also knocked over an electricity pole some 40 metres from where it landed.
Police learned that the explosive was strapped to a 25-kilogram LPG canister in a 2-metre-wide, 1-metre-deep hole in the road. Officers also said they believe the bomb had been detonated by a long fuse leading to a thick forest along the road, where the suspects may have been hiding.
They suspect there may have been more than one person involved and that the perpetrators mistook the pick-up truck for a security vehicle that had been regularly patrolling the area.
Police and military officers are hunting for evidence to find out who may have been behind the attack.
General Prayut Chan-o-cha told the Defence Council not to worry about him being suspended as prime minister and urged everyone to focus on their duties.
Despite growing pressure for him to also give up his post at the Defence Ministry, Prayut attended the Defence Council meeting on Thursday remotely via video teleconferencing.
“The issue of General Prayut being suspended as PM by the Constitutional Court was not brought up at the meeting,” Defence Ministry spokesman General Kongcheep Tantravanich said on Thursday evening.
“General Prayut appeared to be calm and collected at the meeting. He told the council not to worry and that he would continue fulfilling his duties [as defence minister], and asked everyone else to do the same.”
Kongcheep added that attending the meeting virtually was not out of the ordinary for Prayut because the practice had been adopted during the Covid-19 outbreak in the country.
The spokesman also insisted that Prayut is still the country’s prime minister, and it is only his duties as PM that have been suspended.
“He is also still the defence minister and can sign any order issued by the ministry. He can come in to work at the ministry headquarters any day, depending on how important the job is,” he said. “Also, it is not mandatory that all ministry orders have to be signed at the headquarters only.”
Kongcheep added that the Defence Ministry will support every government, no matter who takes on the PM’s job.
On Wednesday, Constitutional Court judges voted 5:4 to accept a petition to deliberate on Prayut’s tenure and suspended him as PM until a verdict is issued. The court’s order automatically put first Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan in charge as caretaker PM.
Opposition MPs invoked the Constitution’s Article 82 to launch a petition asking the court whether Prayut’s tenure should be deemed expired in line with the charter limiting a PM’s tenure to eight years.
They insist that his tenure should be calculated from August 24, 2014, when he took over as PM after leading a military putsch to oust the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra. This means his tenure should have ended on Tuesday (August 23, 2022).
The Public Health Ministry reported on Friday (August 26) that over the past 24 hours, 1,749 Covid-19 patients have been admitted to hospitals.
The death toll has risen by 28, while 1,601 patients have recovered and discharged from hospitals.
The number of cumulative cases in the country since January 1, 2022, stands at 2,419,577 with 10,468 deaths.
The country’s total caseload from Covid-19 stands at 4,643,012 – 4,592,664 of whom have recovered, 18,182 are still in hospitals and 32,166 have died.
Separately, another 4,496 people were given their first Covid-19 shot in the last 24 hours, 7,016 their second shot and 20,079 a booster, bringing the total number of Covid-19 vaccine doses administered nationwide to 142,577,801.
According to Worldometer, confirmed cases globally had risen to 604.36 million on Wednesday, 579.22 million of whom have recovered, 18.66 million are active cases (43,715 in severe condition) and 6.48 million have died (up by 1,791).
Thailand ranks 29th in the global list of most cases, which is topped by the US with 95.85 million, followed by India with 44.39 million, France with 34.43 million, Brazil with 34.35 million and Germany with 32.01 million.
The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) has promised to ensure fair rental fees for the use of underground cable pipelines.
Prof Pirongrong Ramasoota, an NBTC commissioner, said on Thursday that the regulator would make sure that the rental rate for underground cable pipes would be fair.
“The goal is to tidy up the telecom cables for the safety of people and the beauty of the country,” she said.
Pirongrong also said that the NBTC was well prepared to cooperate with relevant state agencies in moving untidy overhead electrical and telecom cables underground.
There were complaints that the rental rate for the use of underground cable pipelines was too high.
The NBTC plans to complete an ambitious project to bury untidy telecom cables across 2,800 kilometres this year – 800km in Bangkok and 2,000km in the provinces.
The project is aimed at getting rid of the eyesore of untidy overhead cables in Bangkok and other populated provinces.
Pirongrong said that in order to successfully complete the project, cooperation was required from all the relevant agencies, including the Metropolitan Electricity Administration, Provincial Electricity Authority, Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, Interior Ministry, as well as telecom operators.
The NBTC commissioner also said that the agency has tidied up and removed unused telecom cables across almost 80 kilometres in Bangkok since January.
The Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) is confident that the number of foreign tourists this year could reach 10 million, boosting the country’s tourism revenue to 1.2 trillion baht.
TAT Governor Yuthasak Supasorn said on Thursday that 2.12 million tourists came to Thailand in the first half of the year and another 7.5 million were expected in the second half.
As of early this month, more than 4 million tourists have arrived in Thailand.
In total, the TAT expected at least 9.62 million visitors this year although it was confident the number could reach 10 million, according to the governor.
Coupled with an estimated 160 million visits by Thai tourists, the total revenue from tourism could reach 1.2 trillion baht, he said.
The Thai tourism industry could recover to the pre-Covid normalcy in 2024, according to Yuthasak.
The TAT is working with private companies in boosting Thailand’s tourism and economy. It has launched a campaign called “The Great Collaboration for Thailand’s Tourism Ecosystem” with Central Pattana, the country’s leading retail property development and investment company.
Nattakit Tangpoonsinthana, Central Pattana’s executive vice president for marketing, said the company’s shopping malls in major tourist cities across the country have seen a return in “tourist traffic” of almost 100 per cent.
“We are confident that the total number of tourists this year will reach 10 million as has been projected by the TAT,” he said.
The Appeals Court on Thursday upheld the death sentence given to former deputy commerce minister Banyin Tangpakorn for the premeditated murder of billionaire building contractor Chuwong Sae Tang.
Banyin had also been handed down the death sentence by the Appeals Court in July for the murder of the brother of a judge who was hearing the high-profile case.
The verdict was read at the Phra Khanong Criminal Court.
The case against Banyin, a former Nakhon Sawan MP, was jointly filed by Sirirat Sae Tang, the wife of the murdered billionaire.
Chuwong had died in suspicious circumstances on June 26, 2015.
Initially, Banyin reported to police that Chuwong had died in a car accident when the vehicle driven by Banyin hit a tree by the side of Chalerm Phrakiart Rama IX Road between Soi 48 and Soi 50 in Dok Mai subdistrict of Prawet district in Bangkok. Banyin said Chuwong was in the front passenger seat.
The wife and Chuwong’s family suspected there was a foul play so they called on police to investigate the case, leading to a murder charge against Banyin.
The primary court convicted Banyin of premeditated murder in January 2021, but Banyin appealed against the ruling.
The Appeals Court’s verdict stated that it was a fact that Banyin was the last person to be with Chuwong after they left a golf course at 8.11pm on June 26, 2015.
The verdict noted that the car had reached the accident scene at 10.21pm, although the two spots were only 37 kilometres apart. The court said the over two hours time taken to cover a distance of 37km was suspiciously long.
Banyin had claimed that he was driving at 80km per hour and had swerved his car to avoid a vehicle from the opposite side that had cut into his lane, and ended up hitting a tree. But the Appeals Court quoted police as saying that security cameras did not show any vehicle on the opposite lane at that time. Instead, security cameras showed Banyin driving at the slow speed of 30kph.
The Appeals Court added that an autopsy showed Chuwong had not died from the accident but from injuries sustained after his head was hit with a hard object. The court quoted the autopsy results as proving that Chuwong also suffered bruises on his face and eyes, and the leftover food in his stomach pointed to his death before 10pm that day.
The verdict noted that the co-plaintiff and her relatives had found evidence of transfer of shares belonging to Chuwong to a broker, Uracha Wachirakulthon. The two transfers were worth 30 million baht and 228 million baht, although Uracha was not Chuwong’s relative.
Earlier, the South Bangkok Criminal Court had sentenced Banyin and Uracha to eight years and four years in jail, respectively, for fraud in the transfer of shares, the verdict of the Appeals Court stated.
The verdict said the court was convinced that Banyin had been involved in the falsifying of the share ownership. The Appeals Court said it believed that Banyin, who was a close friend of Chuwong, had lured the victim to play golf and offered to drive him back home but drove him to a spot where Banyin and his accomplices murdered the billionaire to prevent him from finding out about the share transfers.
After the murder, the verdict said, Banyin drove the car with his right hand and carried the body of Chuwong with the left hand to hit the tree in order to try and conceal the murder.
The court ruled that Banyin had committed premeditated murder and had staged the accident to conceal the crime.
The Appeals Court in July had handed down the death sentence to Banyin for the murder of a brother of a judge who was hearing the Chuwong case.
Banyin, 58, was found guilty of murdering Veerachai Sakuntaprasert, the elder brother of judge Panida Sakuntaprasert, on February 4, 2020.
The court of first instance in December 2020 had given Banyin life sentence after he confessed to the crime but the Appeals Court gave him the death sentence. Veerachai was abducted and later murdered to pressure the judge.
Banyin was not brought to the court to hear the ruling on Thursday. The verdict was read to him via video conference at Bang Kwang Central Prison.
Only seven relatives of Chuwong and their lawyer came to the court to hear the verdict.
Wanpen Thanathamsiri, elder sister of Chuwong, said she and other relatives had fought for seven years for justice for the deceased billionaire.
Wanpen said it was hard for her side to find evidence because Banyin was a former police officer and was well-versed in law.
“We would like to thank the Crime Suppression Division and the Forensic Science Evidence Division for working very hard to gather the evidence for us,” Wanpen said.
“This included scientific evidence used to prove the car’s speed. We also would like to thank experts from several sectors and doctors for their useful opinions. Although there were no witnesses, the injuries became forensic evidence that were accepted by the court.
“So, Banyin has been given death sentences by the Appeals Court in both cases,” Wanpen added.
“I’m pleased with the ruling. If he appeals in the Supreme Court, I believe the final verdict will be handed down in no time.”
The wife and Chuwong’s family suspected there was a foul play so they called on police to investigate the case, leading to a murder charge against Banyin.
Banyin had claimed that he was driving at 80km per hour and had swerved his car to avoid a vehicle from the opposite side that had cut into his lane, and ended up hitting a tree. But the Appeals Court quoted police as saying that security cameras did not show any vehicle on the opposite lane at that time. Instead, security cameras showed Banyin driving at the slow speed of 30kph.
Wanpen Thanathamsiri, elder sister of Chuwong, said she and other relatives had fought for seven years for justice for the deceased billionaire.
