NONG KHAI, 25th October 2018 (NNT) – Over 400 fireballs were witnessed shooting up from the Mekong River in Nong Khai province’s Rattanawapi district during the Bung Fai Phaya Nakfestival, yesterday marking the end of Buddhist Lent (October 24).

The phenomenon, believed by locals to be the mythical Naga paying tribute to the Lord Buddha, began with three fireballs appearing at approximately 6.17PM. Over the course of the evening up to 408 of the orbs were counted, 260 in Rattanawapi and 148 in nearby Pon Pisai district.

–>Click here to visit our Main UdonInfo Forum Site.

Teams from several agencies searched Koh Lipe and the surrounding sea on Thursday for an American tourist who went missing early on Tuesday.
Satun police, tourist police, immigration police, troops and harbour officials continued the search after two friends reported that Charles Alexander Kosydar, 39, disappeared early on Tuesday.

They told police they were drinking with Kosydar on Monday night until the early hours of Tuesday and the American left to swim at Pattaya Bay and did not return.

Officials also checked an area about six nautical miles from Koh Lipe after fishermen reported they saw something that looked like a human body but they found nothing.

Kosydar entered Thailand via the Suvarnabhumi Airport immigration checkpoint on October 18 with three friends.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/breakingnews/30357148

–>Click here to visit our Main UdonInfo Forum Site.

Foundation chief bares grim statistics in call to promote more safety on roads

A MEDICAL student and a 10-year-old girl are among the latest victims of Thailand’s notorious roads after their cars crashed head-on in Si Sa Ket province yesterday morning.

The accident killed five people and seriously injured another on a misty day, bringing the spotlight once again on Thailand’s need to promote road safety.

At least 10,794 lives have already been claimed this year, highlighted Dr Taejing Siripanich, secretary-general of the Don’t Drive Drunk Foundation.

That figure is not a full count of the dead, Taejing said yesterday. It is based on statistics compiled between January 1 and October 21, and takes into account only deaths recorded at the actual accident scene.

“This means road fatalities are actually higher because some victims succumb to injuries later in hospital.”

He felt compelled to speak out after several major road accidents over the past weekend. On Sunday, a van skidded off a road, crashed into a roadside tree and caught fire in Kamphaeng Phet province, killing nine Myanmar workers and injuring six others including a Thai driver.

Also on Sunday, a car banged into the railing of a bridge in Ayutthaya province, killing six. Another car, meanwhile, plunged into a creek in Nong Khai province, killing four.

In Khon Kaen province, a bus carrying 32 people overturned on a road. Though all victims were quickly rushed to hospitals, one died during hospitalisation. The lone fatality, Narin Wangcharoen, 20, was a law student at Mahasarakham University.

“Her family will receive Bt650,000 compensation,” Khon Kaen Governor Somsak Changtragul said.

As of press time, eight victims remained hospitalised due to serious injuries. “Two of them are in critical condition,” he said after visiting the victims. According to Somsak, the bus was covered by insurance and carried the legally required safety equipment. The bus driver also passed a blood-alcohol test.

“So, the accident might have occurred because of the slippery road,” he said.

Land Transport Department director-general Peerapol Thavornsupa-charoen said the van at the centre of the fatal road accident in Kamphaeng Phet, however, had apparently violated laws. “Laws prohibit a van from carrying more than 14 passengers. But at the time of the accident, this van had 15 persons,” he noted.

According to Peerapol, 55-year-old van driver and owner Promwat sae Phu will be fined Bt55,000, and slapped with 180-day suspension of his driving licence plus a six-month suspension of his operating licence.

Peerapol said if Promwat was also found to have deliberately jammed the van’s GPS system, he would face an additional fine of Bt55,000. Authorities use data from GPS devices to check the speed of public-transport vehicles. However, the van’s GPS system had not delivered consistent data, raising suspicions that Promwat may have been speeding at the time of the Sunday morning accident.

Source: The Nation http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30356972

Written By Nigel Roberts

Thailand is not hiding its use of racial profiling to identify which foreigners its immigration enforcement agents are targeting for expulsion.

Authorities arrested more than 1,000 suspected visa violators in recent weeks under an operation called “X-Ray Outlaw Foreigners” that was originally launched in 2017 but has intensified, the Independent Online reported on Sunday.

“The suspicious targets are the dark-skinned people. First, we search their bodies, then we search their passports,” an official stated at a meeting before sending out about 75 officers on an evening round-up of more suspects.

This all sounds a lot like President Donald Trump’s immigration agenda, which views immigrants from countries across Africa, Haiti and Latin America (places he referred to as sh**hole countries) as less desirable than those from Norway.

Full story: https://newsone.com/3832864/thailand-immigration-crackdown-dark-skinned-people/

File Photo

Two Chinese men were caught “red-handed” while apparently stealing from a donation box at a much-respected temple in Bangkok’s Prawet district on Monday.

The suspects were arrested by police immediately after they had allegedly taken Bt890 from a donation box inside the Chao Pho Sua Shrine of Wat Krathoom Sua Pla at 10am.

The two were identified as Mu Yoping, 37, and Chen Xaojung, 39.

Officers from Prawet police station staked out at the spot after an official of the temple filed a complaint that donations from boxes inside the shrine appeared to have been stolen, as there was less money than normal in them even though a large number of Chinese tourists had visited the temple.

Police saw the two suspects arrive and one of them lowered a short flat piece of metal, which was wrapped with adhesive tape and tied to a rope, into a donation box and pulled it out with banknotes and coins attached to it.

The officers then came out of hiding and arrested them.

The two said they had travelled from Shanghai and were staying in the Yaowaraj area, from where they had taken a taxi to visit the temple.

They said their friends had told them that the temple was sacred and that by visiting it their wishes would come true.

They refused to say whether they had stolen from a donation box of a “sacred temple”, police said.

Source: The Nation