#Thailand - ‘Clear evidence’ against ‘Patt’ as second summons issued.

.

THE NARCOTICS Suppression Bureau (NSB) has issued a second summons for actress Napapa “Patt” Tantrakul to hear charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering.

The actress must turn herself in by Monday or investigators will seek an arrest warrant, a source at the NSB said on Thursday.

Investigators had evidence that the actress possessed money that her husband, motorbike racing star Akarakit “Benz Racing” Worarojcharoendet, received from a network led by alleged Lao drug kingpin Xaysana Keopimpa, the source said.

Akarakit allegedly received money from Natthapol Nakkham, a suspect connected to Xaysana’s alleged network who has already been arrested, and transferred about Bt1.9 million to Napapa.

Although most of the money was sent to the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB), the alleged crime had already been committed, prompting investigators to apply for an arrest warrant on Tuesday, the source said. However, a criminal court judge ruled that Napapa had a permanent address and was not a flight risk, so a summons for her to hear the charges was appropriate. The first summons called for her to surrender herself yesterday but she failed to do so, the source said, so investigators secured a second summons that would require her to show up by Monday or an arrest warrant would be issued.

Source - TheNation

#Myanmar (Burma) - No airport extension in Ngapali until trash is slashed

The tourism minister is very keen to “slash the trash” in Ngapali.

.

.

 Minister for Hotels and Tourism U Ohn Maung told a multi-stakeholder workshop on sustainable tourism in Ngapali that as soon as he landed and saw the garbage by the roads he wanted to turn round and go home. He noted that this situation was caused by lack of bins and collection and littering by locals and visitors due to a lack of knowledge and discipline. This was harming both Ngapali’s and the country’s image.
.
The workshop was co-hosted by Hanns Seidel Foundation (HSF), Myanmar Centre for Responsible Business (MCRB) and Myanmar Responsible Tourism Institute (MRTI) from May 8 to May 9. The event was attended by the minister, regional government ministers, parliamentarians, Myanmar Hoteliers Association chair U Aung Myo Min Din, and approximately 80 local stakeholders and tourism professionals, ranging from hotel owners/ managers to local villagers, fishermen and environmental experts.
.
“Your destiny is in your hands,” U Ohn Maung told the locals and hoteliers, adding that the Ngapali City Development Committee (NCDC) was working to clean up streams and waterways but greater effort was needed from businesses to arrange proper garbage disposal. Local people also needed to take part and that government departments should work together with them.
.
He said that if the new arrangements were working well by next year, he would then take the steps to arrange for the airport to be expanded in order to encourage more tourism.
.
Waste management has been identified by the minister as the key challenge to be addressed before Ngapali’s runway can be extended to bring in more visitors and revenue.

.

 FOR THE BEST GLOBAL HOTEL & FLIGHT BOOKINGS

,

 Workshop participants echoed the minister’s concern for environmental pollution and preservation. They voted on their top concerns for tourism in Ngapali, as they had done last year. Environment remained the top concern, and a growing one too, chosen by 35 percent of participants (up from 29pc in 2016). Lack of local participation in decision-making (16pc) took second place. Among environmental concerns, solid waste management remained the top, selected by 55pc of participants (up from 34.5pc last year), with sand mining in second place..
U Saw Lwin, NCDC chair, noted that last week the municipality had acquired a new 3-acre landfill site for all users as part of the measure to improve waste management..
U Ohn Maung noted that new landfill sites had been acquired, along with bins, and that Myanmar people needed to be taught not to litter, starting in schools..
Foreigners, he observed, put the trash in their pocket to dispose of it properly later. Locals throw it out of the window. He called on people who saw someone littering to challenge them to pick it up and dispose of it in a proper manner..
The minister expressed his hope to come back next year and find Ngapali trash-free..
Vicky Bowman, MCRB director, said that the Steering and Working Committees for Ngapali Beach Sustainability, which were set up by the Rakhine State regional government, will need to collaborate closely with local businesses and residents to achieve a trash-free Ngapali..
“The workshop participants made concrete personal commitments to reduce litter such as hotels cutting back on the use of plastic bags and water bottles, providing bins and education campaigns in schools, and the need for local bye-laws and enforcement,” she said..
“It was good to hear the minister clarify that the 10-metre height limit for buildings close to the beach remains in place, not only in Ngapali but in seven other beach destinations in Myanmar,” Achim Munz, resident representative of the HSF, said..
“We also were pleased to hear him reiterate that there would be a clampdown by the local authorities on sand mining on Ngapali’s beaches,” he added..
Combating sand mining, among other environment issues, was also discussed in the workshop, along with mangrove deforestation, guesthouse licensing, human resources development and destination management. The MRTI briefed stakeholders on their ongoing study of the risks of child sexual exploitation, which was conducted with support from UNICEF, and with the approval of the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism.

.

Source = MMTIMES

.

#Myanmar (Burma) - China to restore Thatbyinnyu Pagoda.

State Counsellor Daw Aung San Suu Kyi will sign an agreement for the restoration of quake-hit Thatbyinnyu Pagoda in Bagan during her visit to China.

.

Thatbyinnyu Pagoda which is internally damaged is going to be renovated by China. Maung Zaw / The Myanmar Times The Union Minister for Religious Affairs and Culture Thura U Aung Ko made this announcement on May 6 at a press conference on the Bagan cultural heritage conservation held at the Bagan Archaeological Museum.

“Currently the State Counsellor is on a visit to European countries. After coming back, she will visit China. Among the various issues to be discussed is the signing of a bilateral agreement on the Thatbyinnyu Pagoda restoration. After that, China will start renovation works,” said Thura U Aung Ko.

Severely-hit Thatbyinnyu Pagoda was one of the over 400 Bagan pagodas damaged by an earthquake with its epicenter in Chauk township in August last year.

“During a renovation meeting held last February, we made a request to the Chinese Ambassador. China is best at restoration,” Thura U Aung Ko said.

China agreed to Myanmar’s request and all the costs of restoration will be borne by China, it has been learnt.

Department of Archaeology, National Museum and Library (Bagan branch) director U Aung Kyaw Kyaw said that the damage was severe.

”Thatbyinnyu Pagoda is not externally but internally damaged. Even echoes can no longer be heard if you make a sound inside the pagoda,” said U Aung Kyaw Kyaw.

According to data from the Department of Archaeology, the pyramidal spire and base pillars of the Thatbyinnyu Pagoda were severely damaged by last year’s earthquake. At present, emergency maintenance works for the Thatbyinnyu Pagoda are being carried out by UNESCO experts and Myanmar engineers.

In addition to Thatbyinnyu, China also donated US$100,000 for restoration works on other quake-hit pagodas in Bagan; at present, offers to help in pagoda renovation have also been received from countries like France and Italy, according to Thura U Aung Ko.

“Conserving cultural heritage is important. If we cannot repair it ourselves, we should accept assistance from other countries. Not China alone. Where it is appropriate, we should get assistance from other countries,” U Soe Win, a Nyaung-U resident, said.

Thatbyinnyu Pagoda was built in AD 1144 by King Alaung Sithu. It is a four-storey cave pagoda with a spire and it is 210 feet high. It is reputed to be the tallest pagoda in Bagan.

 

#Thailand - Dozens injured in Pattani double bomb blasts.

.

Many children among casualties; ‘mass killing’ cited as motive
.
ABOUT 50 people were injured by a huge car bomb outside a department store in Pattani in the deep South yesterday afternoon that also caused widespread damage.
.
The bombers used a common tactic in the insurgency – triggering a small initial explosive inside the Big C department store, which sent shoppers running outside in panic, before the second bomb concealed in a pickup parked at an entrance door was detonated. The first bomb also seemed intended to distract authorities ahead of the second much bigger blast.
.
The attack took place at the store in Muang district at about 2.30pm, a time when the store was crowded with parents and children looking for school items including uniforms in preparation for the new semester.
.

Among the dozens of people injured in the blasts were store staff, at least one of whom was seriously hurt, as well as many children.
.
Colonel Pramote Prom-in, spokesman of the regional Internal Security Operations Command, said the bombers seemed intent on “mass killing”. 

.

 “The bombers parked the pickup in front of the entrance of the store, clearly showing their intention of mass killing. However, the suspicious vehicle was spotted and people were evacuated from the area in time before the second explosion,” Pramote said.

.

Source - TheNation + More Photos 

.

#Myanmar (Burma) Laying treks to boost tourism in Pyin Oo Lwin

Trekking routes are to be mapped out and constructed as well as regional guide training are to be provided in Pyin Oo Lwin township, Mandalay Region, where locals and foreigners frequent.

.

 

 Environmental conservation groups conduct a field inspection at Yay Pyan Mountain in Pyin Oo Lwin township, one of the initial trekking routes. Sithu Lwin / The Myanmar Times

The program – a joint effort between the Directorate of the Hotels and Tourism and entrepreneurs who run hotels in the Pyin Oo Lwin area – aims to improve the tourism industry there.

Ko Wai Lu, a hotel entrepreneur who runs Mya Nan Daw Hotel in Pyin Oo Lwin, said that the purpose of creating trekking routes in the Pyin Oo Lwin region is to open up job opportunities for locals.

“We have earmarked three routes but these have not been approved yet. We are still analysing what routes to be constructed. We will choose the routes that are for one-day trips.

“We aim for locals to get jobs as well as for the city to be developed. The routes are being chosen so that each will give travelers and trekkers a different experience and taste. One trekking route will include a waterfall scene, another would be through a jungle path, and yet another route will provide experience in the ethnic people’s lifestyle. It will be interesting because trekkers can enjoy the scenery along the trip and then they can also travel by car and rendezvous at a point where they can go trekking again,” Ko Wai Lu told The Myanmar Times.

The routes that have been chosen initially include the Yay Pyan Mountain route, which includes a seven-stepped waterfall and has become popular after The Myanmar Times ran a story about it.

.

 FOR THE BEST GLOBAL HOTEL & FLIGHT BOOKINGS

.

 Also included in the initial planning is trekking along the Pan Oo Taung village, where there are many Shan ethnic people.

On the Pyin Oo Lwin-Hsipaw trekking route are rendezvous points for both trekkers and tourists who go by car and by foot, according to Pyin Oo Lwin’s hotel zone entrepreneurs.

Local villagers will be given priority when choosing candidates for regional guide training but they have to have a basic level in the English language.

Also, those that contribute enthusiastically to the region’s development will be given preference.

Daw Nan Mon Kham, who owns the Royal Park View hotel in Pyin Oo Lwin, told The Myanmar Times “Although we are doing all this for the township’s development and opening up jobs for local residents, we don’t want the region’s tradition and spirit to be watered down by foreign tourists. That’s why we are educating the locals who live along earmarked routes to have a deep understanding of the local tradition and how to use local products effectively before these routes are constructed.”

Daw Nan Mon Kham said that trekking routes have to be mapped out to highlight tourists spots that will boost the tourism industry in Pyin Oo Lwin.

She said that more foreign travelers are going from Mandalay to Hsipaw directly but the number of tourists who visit Pyin Oo Lwin is decreasing although it has many beautiful places to visit.

 .

Exotic pet cafes in #Thailand cause delight and concern.

.

Visitors enjoy experience; critics fear trend will feed illegal wildlife trade

It is a Sunday afternoon and a sunlit cafe on Bangkok's outskirts is buzzing with patrons. The air smells of french fries and disinfectant. Kittens and corgis are darting around between the legs of customers, who are trying to poke at two parakeets shuffling warily along the edge of a wooden shelf.

Excited murmurs ripple through the crowd as a waitress announces that the playpen is ready for the next round of customers. One by one, the patrons squirt disinfectant on their palms and enter a glass-walled room to cuddle a squad of meerkats.

Asia may have seen its share of pet cafes, but none quite with the menagerie offered in Thailand. Aided by relaxed laws and a thriving wildlife market, at least four exotic pet cafes have sprung up recently around the capital.

Animal activists, however, fear this trend will feed demand for smuggling and breeding of exotic wildlife purely for entertainment.

.

.FOR THE BEST GLOBAL HOTEL & FLIGHT BOOKINGS

. 

Little Zoo Cafe, with one branch in Bangkok and another on its outskirts, touts raccoons, fennec foxes and silver foxes. The Animal Cafe, tucked in a quiet neighbourhood in Yannawa district, boasts a white-faced owl as well as caracals and a serval - both African wildcats. Zoota Bistro, housed in a shopping mall in northern Bangkok, advertises close encounters with a South American squirrel monkey, wallaby and furless sphynx cat.

Together with the existing mix of cafes nationwide featuring cats, dogs, bunnies, Siberian huskies, parrots and sheep, they are drawing steady interest from both Thais and tourists looking to touch creatures they can usually see only from afar.

"Kawaii (cute)! Kawaii!" Ms Kiyoko Nagashima, a 44-year-old sales executive from Japan, squealed upon entering the Animal Cafe last week, as she spied the exotic cats prancing around two soft-lit glass enclosures.

"I came here because I saw on Facebook that you could hug a raccoon," she told The Sunday Times. "In Japan, you can see them only in the zoo. You can't hug them."

Typically, customers must buy at least one food item and drink before they can interact with the animals. The prices are marked up - one meatball pasta dish at the Animal Cafe, for example, costs 320 baht (S$13).

Customers are made to clean their hands and take off footwear before entering the playpens. "Play" is supervised by staff, who sometimes scoop up the critters and place them on customers' laps.

Some of the more knowledgeable employees explain the animals' behaviour. At the Little Zoo cafe, for example, as meerkats clambered onto their human visitors and tried to search the contents of their pockets, one employee explained that this is how the creatures forage for food in the desert sand.

A Wildlife activist and founder of Wildlife Friends Foundation, is critical of the trend, saying the artificial environments of these mini petting zoos could stress the animals. Owls, for example, are nocturnal by nature, but "if you keep them awake the whole day, they will be so tired they will sleep at night".

According to a 2013 report on the illegal wildlife trade by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Thailand is "mainly a consumer and trans-shipper of pets and high- value luxury items", with the rising sales of illegal wildlife on the Internet posing a challenge to law enforcement. Raids and Customs seizures in the past have turned up everything from pangolins to otters.

While the pet cafes typically do not use endangered animals, activists warn that Thai law provides little protection for non-native species. Also, some wild-caught animals have been known to be passed off as captive-bred.

"It is a bit difficult to differentiate between which is traded legally and illegally," says Ms Nancy Gibson, founder of Thailand-based Love Wildlife Foundation.

Animal Cafe co-owner Athit Samatiyadekul, 36, says his operations are all above board, and he has the paperwork to prove it. One raccoon, he said, was bought from a fur factory in Europe for 35,000 baht.

"We give them food. We give them a job. And we give them love," he told The Sunday Times. He started his cafe last year to showcase some of his personal collection of wildlife, which includes about 300 iguanas, some 80 giant tortoises, arowanas and Alaskan malamutes. He breeds caracals and servals, which he sells for 250,000 baht each.

He said the cafe is not profitable but he keeps it afloat by infusing money that he earns from his job as the marketing director of Sirivatana Interprint, one of the region's largest printing companies. The same applies to his partner, a friend who runs a Thai boxing gym, apparel store and restaurant.

"In other restaurants, people will eat many things," he said. "Here, they come to play with the animals and to take selfies, so they buy the cheapest food."

Yet they keep it running because "we like people to come here to be happy". Unconvinced members of the public have complained about the cafe to the wildlife authorities, he reveals.

On the day he was interviewed by The Sunday Times, officials turned up to check his paperwork - the second time in a year.

UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

Kawaii (cute)! Kawaii! I came here because I saw on Facebook that you could hug a raccoon. In Japan, you can see them only in the zoo. You can't hug them. - MS KIYOKO NAGASHIMA, a 44-year-old sales executive from Japan, on the exotic cats at Animal Cafe.

CAN'T TELL THEM APART

It is a bit difficult to differentiate between which is traded legally and illegally. - MS NANCY GIBSON, founder of Thailand-based Love Wildlife Foundation, on wild-caught animals being passed off as captive-bred.

BENEFITS FOR ANIMALS

We give them food. We give them a job. And we give them love. - MR ATHIT SAMATIYADEKUL, Animal Cafe's co-owner, on the animals at his eatery.

.

Source - TheNation

.

#Myanmar (Burma) - Water taxi scheme details to be announced next week

The company Tint Tint Myanmar has been chosen to run a water taxi on the Hlaing River and Nga Moe Yeik Creek.

.

The firm will announce the details of its implementation, said a spokesperson from Tint Tint Myanmar.

In order to upgrade Yangon’s public transport system, the regional government has planned to upgrade the circular train and water taxi services alongside bus transport, according to Yangon chief minister U Phyo Min Thein on July 2016.

The Yangon Region Transport Authority (YRTA) started accepting tender applications on November 21 until December 26 last year. The month-long application period was intended to allow sufficient time for foreign and joint-venture companies to submit their applications. The invitation to tender was issued through a state-owned newspaper on November 16 and 17.

Tint Tint Myanmar won the tender in March and they are currently working on the specifics and details to implement a water transport scheme. 

“All operational details will be done with the company’s budget, including the cost of construction of a jetty.

“This will not be related to the government’s budget,” said project manager U Htun Naing Lin from Tint Tint Myanmar.
.
 FOR THE BEST GLOBAL HOTEL & FLIGHT BOOKINGS
.

According to U Maung Aung, secretary of the YRTA, the purpose of this water taxi system is for commuters to avoid the congested roads on their way to downtown Yangon. It is hoped that this scheme will save time and will start running in May. 

The company has already bought ships from Australia, Thailand and Jordan.

“We can say all are ready to run but we are still testing – we are focusing on safety.  We will announce plans within the next week on how many ships we will use, how many people the ships can carry, ticket pricing, whether we are charging cash or via a prepaid system, and other details.

“We are in discussions regarding the start date for our operations,” said U Htun Naing Lin.

The regional government has already set rules and regulations that the company must obey, he added.

Taking lessons from the YBS chaos and inconvenience, the government should be more cautious about the procedures and should test them before implementation. They should prioritise the safety of commuters, said MP U Kyaw Zay Ya from Dagon township.  

The idea of introducing water taxis to relieve Yangon city congestion was floated by a regional MP last May. Some, at that time, saw the scheme as a far-fetched proposal to solve the traffic issue.

Daw Thida Maung, who made the suggestion, said the Nga Moe Yeik River that flows though many townships could help alleviate the daily gridlock.

“If water taxis would be a service that runs on time and looks nicely decorated, people will be interested in taking them. Now, 21 percent of commuters in Yangon use buses. This number will then be reduced,” she said.

.

Source - mmtimes 

.