Tag Archives: Thailand

Powerful Earthquake strikes Myanmar, at least 3 dead

Two men look at a collapsed entrance of a pagoda after an earthquake in Bagan

By Shwe Yee Saw Myint and Aung Hla Tun

YANGON (Reuters) – A powerful 6.8 magnitude earthquake shook central Myanmar on Wednesday, killing at least three people including two children, local officials said, and damaging some of the famous pagodas in the Southeast Asian nation’s ancient capital of Bagan.

The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said the quake hit near the town of Chauk, southwest of Mandalay. Tremors were felt as far away as Thailand, where witnesses reported high rise buildings swaying in Bangkok, and the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka.

A fire department official from regional capital Magwe said two young girls were killed when a riverbank gave way in Yenanchaung township, south of Chauk.

One person was killed and another injured when a tobacco processing factory collapsed in the town of Pakkoku, to the north, the duty officer at the local fire department said.

There were no other confirmed casualties, and early reports suggested limited damage overall.

“My house shook during the quake. Many people were scared and they ran out of the buildings,” said Maung Maung Kyaw, a local official of the ruling National League for Democracy (NLD) party.

“Some of the old buildings have cracks. The biggest damage is to the bank building in the town. The damage to other buildings isn’t that significant.”

The quake struck at a relatively deep 84 km (52 miles), the USGS said.

Chauk is about 35 km (20 miles) from Bagan, known as the “City of 4 Million Pagodas” and a major draw for Myanmar’s nascent tourism industry.

Yangon-based travel agent Amy Saw, who had been in touch with her firm’s Bagan office, said some of the pagodas there had been damaged, and the Ministry of Religious Affairs put the number sustaining some kind of damage at 65.

According to the 2014 census, Chauk has a population of about 45,000, with around 185,000 living in the surrounding area. It was a thriving oilfield during the British colonial era.

“So far as we heard from our local staff, a three-storey building collapsed in Chauk and a pagoda was badly damaged in a Yenanchaung,” a fire department official in Magwe told Reuters.

Ko Tin Ko Lwin, a resident of Yenanchaung township, told Reuters that a pagoda that had been cracked before the quake had collapsed, while electricity poles and some trees were felled.

The quake shook buildings in Myanmar’s biggest city of Yangon and in other towns and cities, witnesses said.

Office buildings in the Thai capital Bangkok, to the east of Myanmar, shook for a few seconds, residents there said.

The quake was also felt in Bangladesh, to the west of Myanmar, where some people ran out into the street as buildings shook, residents said.

Myanmar is in a seismically active part of the world where the Indo-Australian Plate runs up against the Eurasian Plate.

In March, 2011, at least 74 people were killed in an earthquake in Myanmar near its borders with Thailand and Laos.

(This version of the story has been refiled to fix typo in headline)

(Reporting by Yangon and Bangkok bureaus; Writing by Robert Birsel and Antoni Slodkowski; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Thailand avoids linking bloody insurgency to tourist site blasts

Police Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) official inspects the site of a bomb blast in Hua Hin, south of Bangkok, Thailand,

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Andrew R.C. Marshall

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Within hours of last week’s deadly bomb and arson attacks in Thailand, police and senior officials publicly ruled out any link to foreign militants and insisted the perpetrators, as yet unidentified, were homegrown.

But they also doubted the involvement of Thailand’s most violent homegrown militants: the Malay-Muslim insurgents fighting a bloody separatist war in the country’s three southernmost provinces, where similar bombings are grimly routine.

The official denial was unsurprising, said security experts. Admitting that southern insurgents could be involved in last week’s attacks would have serious economic and security implications for Thailand.

No group has yet claimed responsibility for the wave of bombings on Thursday and Friday that killed four people and wounded dozens, including foreign tourists.

But some security experts have noted that southern insurgent groups have a track record for carrying out coordinated bombing attacks.

Since 2004, a low-intensity but brutal war between government troops and insurgents has killed more than 6,500 people in the southern provinces of Yala, Pattani and Narathiwat that border Malaysia.

Most people there are ethnic Malay Muslims, who for decades have chafed under the rule of Buddhist-dominated governments in faraway Bangkok.

Last week’s attacks had “nothing to do with the southern insurgency,” Colonel Yuthanam Phetmuang, a spokesman for the military’s Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) told Reuters.

Yuthanam denied the police were too quick to reach this conclusion, insisting it was based on “evidence collected and experience”. He declined to elaborate further.

POLITICAL MOTIVATIONS

Deputy Prime Minister Prawit Wongsuwan, also Thailand’s defense minister, told reporters on Monday the attacks were “definitely not an extension” of the southern insurgency, but said the perpetrators “could have been hired from there”.

Security experts told Reuters that southern insurgents should remain the chief suspects, and questioned the government’s political motivations for so hastily ruling them out.

Admitting the possible involvement of insurgents would mean that violence, once largely contained in the south, was “spreading to other parts of the country,” said Rungrawee Chalermsripinyorat, an independent analyst who has written two books on the conflict.

“This could have a potentially huge economic impact,” she said.

If perpetrated by the insurgents, the attacks constituted the biggest and deadliest campaign yet outside their traditional area of operations, she said.

It could also indicate that security operations in the south had “seriously failed,” despite the military taking complete control after seizing power in a 2014 coup, she added.

Rungrawee stressed that the involvement of southern militants in the recent attacks “remains a hypothesis”.

NEW CONSTITUTION

The attacks came days after Thailand voted to accept a new constitution that paves the way for an election in 2017 and, say critics, enshrines the military’s already considerable power.

Thailand’s deputy national police chief on Sunday said the attacks were carried out simultaneously by one group on the orders of one person, but gave no further details.

Police on Monday said they had arrested one man for arson.

Suspicion over the attacks has also fallen on forces loyal to former populist Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra who was toppled in a 2006 coup. His sister, Yingluck, who took power after a winning a general election in 2011, was ousted in a 2014 coup.

His “red shirt” supporters denied they were behind the attacks. Security experts have said the involvement of the group, which is intensely monitored by the military, is highly unlikely.

Most Thais voters accepted the military’s constitution, but those in the three southern provinces overwhelmingly rejected it.

Analyst Rungrawee said this reflected deep local resentment of the Thai military and government.

TOURISTS TARGETED BEFORE

Violent incidents, including roadside bombings and shootings, take place almost daily in the southern border provinces

But they have spiked considerably so far this month, with 88 incidents of violence just in the first 10 days of August in the three southern provinces and neighboring Songkhla province, according to Deep South Watch (DSW), a Pattani-based group which monitors the conflict.

This compared with 32 incidents in all of August 2015, the lowest level of violence for 12 years.

Southern insurgents have targeted tourist sites before. Thirteen people were killed and more than 300 wounded in March 2012 when multiple bombs went off in Yala and Hat Yai, a bustling commercial center north of the three southern provinces popular with Malaysian visitors.

Peace talks between the Thai government and a handful of insurgent groups began in 2013 under the civilian government of Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, but have stalled since the military overthrew her.

Hardliners from the Barisan Revolusi Nasional (National Revolutionary Front, or BRN) have largely rejected the negotiations.

The BRN is the region’s most powerful insurgent group and says it fighting to establish an independent state.

(Additional reporting by Panarat Thepgumpnata Patpicha Tanakasempipat and Pracha Hariraksapitak.; Editing by Bill Tarrant.)

Series of blasts hit resort towns in southern Thailand

Line of police looking for bombs

By Prapan Chankaew

HUA HIN, Thailand (Reuters) – A series of blasts hit three of the most popular tourist resorts as well as towns in southern Thailand on Thursday and Friday, killing four people and wounding dozens, days after the country voted to accept a military-backed charter in a referendum.

Four bombs exploded in the upscale resort of Hua Hin, about 200 km (125 miles) south of Bangkok on Thursday evening and Friday morning, killing two people and wounding at least 24.

Other blasts hit the tourist island of Phuket, a resort town in Phang Nga province, and Surat Thani, a city that is the gateway to islands such as Koh Samui in Thailand’s Gulf.

Hua Hin is home to the Klai Kangwon royal palace, which translates as “Far from Worries Palace”, where King Bhumibol Adulayadej, the world’s longest reigning monarch, and his wife, Queen Sirikit, have often stayed in recent years, until both were hospitalized.

Friday was a public holiday in Thailand to mark the queen’s birthday, which is celebrated as Mother’s Day.

No group has claimed responsibility, though suspicion could fall on groups fighting an insurgency in Muslim-majority provinces in southern Thailand.

SEVEN ATTACKS

Police had intelligence an attack was imminent, but had no precise information on location or timing, national police chief Chakthip Chaijinda told reporters in Bangkok on Friday.

“We just didn’t know which day something would happen,” he said.

Since Sunday’s referendum on the constitution, there have been attacks in seven provinces using improvised explosive devices and firebombs, Chakthip said.

The devices were similar to those used by separatist insurgents in southern Thailand, but that did not conclusively show they were the perpetrators, he said.

Police ruled out any links to international terrorism, as did Thailand’s Foreign Ministry, which said in a statement on Friday: “The incident is not linked to terrorism but is an act of stirring up public disturbance.”

Thai authorities beefed up security at tourism spots, airports and on public transport in Bangkok, while Thai junta chief and Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha expressed frustration about the motives for the attacks.

“Why now when the country is getting better, the economy is getting better, and tourism is getting better? We have to ask why and who did it,” he told reporters.

TRAVEL ADVISORY

The attacks are bad news for Thailand’s tourist sector, which has been one of the few bright spots in a sluggish economy.

Tourism accounts for about 10 percent of gross domestic product and Thailand was expecting a record 32 million visitors this year.

Australia issued a travel advisory saying Australians should “exercise a high degree of caution” and warned: “Further explosions in any part of Thailand are possible.”

Two blasts on Friday morning in Hua Hin came after twin explosions on Thursday. One of those was near a bar in a narrow alley in the town late on Thursday, killing one Thai woman and wounding 21 people, Krisana said.

Ten of those injured in the Hua Hin blasts were foreigners, Krisana said, and eight of them were women.

The two explosions in Hua Hin late on Thursday were detonated by a mobile device, police said. The first took place 20 minutes earlier and about 50 meters from the second, but injured nobody.

Such twin blasts are common in the three Muslim-majority southernmost provinces of Thailand, where a long-running insurgency intensified in 2004, with more than 6,500 people killed since then.

The three provinces near the border with Muslim-majority Malaysia soundly rejected the referendum on the new military-backed constitution, which passed convincingly in most of the rest of the country in Sunday’s vote.

Violence has occasionally spilled over to areas outside the three provinces, which were part of a Malay sultanate until it was annexed by Buddhist-majority Thailand a century ago.

Hua Hin, Phuket and Phang Nga are far from the usual conflict zone, where attacks are typically aimed at the security forces and government representatives, not tourists.

In a separate incident on Friday, media reported two bombs had exploded in the southern province of Surat Thani, killing one person and wounding five. That came after a blast in Trang, also in the south, on Thursday, in which one person died and six were wounded.

No one was killed or seriously wounded on Friday in two blasts in the beach town of Patong on Phuket island or the two explosions in the beach province of Phang Nga. Authorities also defused two explosive devices in Phuket on Wednesday, police said.

The head of Interpol in Thailand, Police Major General Apichat Suriboonya, told Reuters it appears the bombs were meant more to send a message rather than cause death and destruction. “But the thing is, if you observe the bombs, they are not targeted to kill people but to send a message to some groups. It could be a domestic issue.”

Small bombs have been used frequently for attacks during periods of unrest over the past decade of political turmoil but have been rare since the military seized power in a 2014 coup in Thailand.

The latest bombings came almost a year after an attack on a Hindu shrine, crowded with tourists in central Bangkok, killed 20 people and wounded more than 120. Police have accused two ethnic Uighur Muslims from China for the Aug. 17, 2015, attack.

(Additional reporting by Orathai Sriring, Amy Sawitta Lefevre, Panarat Thepgumpanat, Surapan Boonthanom and Kitiphong Thaichareon; Writing by Simon Webb; Editing by Paul Tait and Bill Tarrant.)

As vote looms, Thailand’s powerful army aims to preserve role

Thai soldiers attend a morning training at military barracks in Prachin Buri outside Bangkok, Thailand

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Andrew R.C. Marshall

BANGKOK, Thailand (Reuters) – Thailand votes on Sunday for a new constitution that aims to subdue political parties and give the generals a permanent role in overseeing the country’s economic development, senior military officers say.

The kingdom of Thailand has a long history of coups. But interviews with officers, including two generals, show the military’s ambition is to make such interventions unnecessary by weakening political parties and maintaining permanent influence over elected governments.

Future governments, they said, would be legally obliged to follow a 20-year national development plan set by the army.

Under the proposed charter, which would replace one torn up following the May 2014 coup, a junta-appointed Senate with seats reserved for military commanders would check the powers of elected lawmakers.

“They will be sitting there to make sure all the reforms will be carried out and at the same time make sure the newly elected government does exactly what they’re supposed to do,” General Thawip Netniyom, chief of Thailand’s National Security Council (NSC), told Reuters.

The generals, he said, would be baby-sitting, “somewhat”.

One clause in the draft constitution would allow an unelected prime minister to take power in the event of a political crisis – that’s what happened in 2014 when army chief Prayuth Chan-ocha led a coup against the elected government of Yingluck Shinawatra and  afterward became prime minister.

PREEMINENT INSTITUTION

Thailand’s military has always been powerful, but the 2014 coup established it as the nation’s preeminent institution – arguably more powerful than even the monarchy, which faces uncertain times as the health of revered King Bhumibol Adulyadej, 88, fades.

It has long been assumed the military is keeping a tight grip on power to oversee the royal succession. But interviews with the generals disclosed the new constitution is part of a fundamental political restructuring guaranteeing the military a permanent role in how Thailand is run.

The draft constitution allows the military and its allies to “legally compel” future governments to execute a 20-year plan rather than their own short-sighted populist policies, said Major General Weerachon Sukondhapatipak, the deputy government spokesman.

No Thai government has ever adopted a 20-year national strategy, never mind implemented it.

The plan itself is still a work in progress, said Weerachon. Executed by both the public and private sector, it will be divided into five-year periods and provide a blueprint for reforms on social, economic and political issues.

Since helping to overthrow an absolute monarchy in what was then the Kingdom of Siam in 1932, the military has staged 19 coups, 12 of them successful, and has provided 12 of its 29 prime ministers in that time.

ROADMAP TO ELECTIONS

The junta has appeared particularly sensitive to criticism in the lead-up to the vote. Dozens of activists and politicians have been arrested in recent weeks for campaigning against the constitution.

No such restrictions apply to the “yes” vote, with the junta   broadcasting songs and television programs to drum up support for the constitutional referendum.[L4N1A72VE]

It is unclear what will happen if the draft is rejected, which would raise questions about the junta’s roadmap to a promised general election next year.. Polls show a large majority of Thailand’s 50 million voters are undecided.

Interviews with Thai officers show that while the military has lost  faith in civilian rule, it recognizes that democracy – or the military’s version of it – is integral to Thailand’s development and international image.

Elected politicians, said the officers, could never be trusted to act in the national interest because voters only chose parties that promise wasteful populist policies.

“Every government policy was based on its own political interest, and that leads to many problems – corruption, inequality, dispute,” said Weerachon, the deputy spokesman.

If recent governments had followed the long-term plans of  technocrats, rather than pursuing their own policies, “Thailand would be a developed country by now,” he said.

The draft constitution would preclude the need for any future coups because the military, which historically has operated independently of civilian rule, would have indirect but decisive power over future governments.

“The idea is to never have another coup,” said Thawip. “We wish that this won’t need to happen.”

CONTROLLING GOVERNMENT

It is a radical vision, and one that signals the rise of a politically ambitious class of officers not seen for a generation. They were forged by the previous coup in 2006, which overthrew populist Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra.

That coup’s failure to bring stability to Thailand ultimately convinced the military to get more involved in politics, not less, and to rewrite the rules of the game.

Key personnel in the 2006 coup belong to a military faction nicknamed the “Eastern Tigers,” formally known as the 2nd Infantry Division of the First Army Region. Coup leader Prayuth  and his powerful deputy, Ge.l Prawit Wongsuwan, are both from “Eastern Tigers” regiments.

Thawip said it didn’t matter which political party won the next election, “as long as we make sure they will follow the new constitution.” The aim of the constitution was “to keep watching or controlling the government’s actions (to) make sure they aren’t doing anything that undemocratic.”

The Jakkapong army camp in Thailand’s eastern Prachin Buri province, where the Eastern Tigers hail from, is the cradle of this ambitious new generation of officers.

At the camp soldiers carry out morning drills amid signs saying ‘Strong Army, Stable Country’.

Obedience, said Major Pongpon Wijitkarn, a drill instructor at the camp, is the first quality demanded of new recruits and one the military demands of civilian politicians.

“If we soldiers are ordered to do something, we do it,” Pongpon said as his men marched up and down beneath a tropical sun. “If politicians don’t follow through with something, we can stand over them and ensure that they follow through with their promises.”

(Additional reporting by Panarat Thepgumpanat; Editing by Bill Tarrant)

Thai activists mother charged under insult law over facebook post

Patnaree Chankij, the mother of an anti-junta activist, is escorted by police as she arrives at a military court in Bangkok, Thailand

BANGKOK (Reuters) – The mother of a leading activist against the military junta in Thailand was charged on Monday with insulting the country’s monarchy in a one-word Facebook post.

Patnaree Chankij was brought to a military court in Bangkok after the country’s attorney general decided to press charges despite police saying earlier that they would not pursue a case against the 40-year-old woman.

According to her lawyer, Patnaree was charged with violating Thailand’s royal insult laws for writing the word “ja” – which means “yeah” in Thai – in response to a private Facebook message critical of the royals.

She was released on bail.

“The court accepted the case from the attorney general and freed Patnaree on bail,” said Anon Numpa, her lawyer.

Under Article 112 of the criminal code, anyone who “defames, insults or threatens the king, queen, heir-apparent or regent” faces up to 15 years in prison.

The case has drawn international criticism since May, when police first issued an arrest warrant for Patnaree and charged her with defaming the monarchy. The police subsequently said they would drop the charges.

The United States and several rights organizations, including the New York-based Human Rights Watch, condemned Patnaree’s arrest and the charges brought against her. The State Department in May said it created a “climate of intimidation”.

The junta has clamped down on dissent ahead of a referendum next week on whether to accept a military-backed constitution that critics say is designed to enshrine military power.

Patnaree’s son, Sirawith Seritwat, is a student activist with the New Democracy Movement and Resistant Citizen, groups that the authorities have regularly targeted because of their activities, including handing out leaflets urging people to reject the draft constitution.

During its two-year rule, the military government has taken a hardline stance against perceived royal insults and has handed down record sentences.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha, who also heads of the junta, has said he would show zero-tolerance to insults of the monarchy.

For more than a decade, Thailand has been bitterly divided between rival camps, one led by former populist premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was toppled in a 2006 coup, the other dominated by the royalist and military establishment who accuse Thaksin of corruption and nepotism, charges he denies.

National anxiety over the frail health of 88-year-old King Bhumibol Adulyadej has compounded the political tensions. Thais mostly see the king as a unifying force and celebrated the 70th year of his reign in June.

(Reporting by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Aukkarapon Niyomyat; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)

Soaring prison population prompts Thailand to re-think ‘lost’ drug war

Inmates sit on the floor during an inspection visit in the long term sentence zone inside Klong Prem high-security prison in Bangkok,

By Amy Sawitta Lefevre

BANGKOK (Reuters) – Somsak Sreesomsong was 18 when he was jailed for selling illegal drugs. Now, turning 30, he is not yet half way through his 33-year sentence at Bangkok’s high-security Klong Prem prison.

Somsak was “just a kid, not a big-time dealer”, his older brother Panit told Reuters after a visit to the jail. “We’re also serving time, waiting for him to get out so he can help the family.”

More than a decade after Thailand declared a “war on drugs”, the country is admitting defeat. As the prison population soars, Justice Minister Paiboon Koomchaya told Reuters he was looking at changes to the country’s draconian drug laws.

“I want to de-classify methamphetamine but Thailand is not ready yet,” said Paiboon, meaning downgrading the drug, popularly known as “meth”, from a Category 1 substance, which would reduce jail time for possession or dealing.

Use of methamphetamine is spiraling across Southeast Asia, and authorities are struggling to respond.

In the Philippines, which has some of the highest rates of “meth” use, police killings of drug suspects have spiked since the swearing-in of President Rodrigo Duterte, elected on a platform of harsh measures to wipe out drug crime.

Myanmar, the source of much of the drugs flooding through the region, is bracing for an explosion in domestic use.

Overall, drugs supply in Southeast Asia, especially of methamphetamine, is at a record level, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

HARSH PUNISHMENTS

In common with much of the region, Thailand’s criminal justice system treats drug offenders harshly.

Producing and trading in Category 1 drugs, which also include heroin, MDMA – the main chemical for ecstasy pills – and LSD, is punishable by death or life imprisonment.

Klong Prem is home to 6,267 inmates serving sentences that range from 15 years to life, with 64 percent convicted of drug-related crimes.

A typical cell measures 1.5 x 3 meters (5 x 10 feet) and sleeps five inmates, side-by-side on dark blue mattress on the floor.

“Some of the men, especially the foreign prisoners, are pretty big, so it’s a squeeze for them,” said one prison guard.

Lengthy sentences for drug offences are part of the reason why Thai jails struggle with chronic overcrowding, according to both Justice Minister Paiboon and U.N. experts.

Thailand has approximately 40 percent of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ prison population, despite having only 10 percent of the bloc’s total population, the UNODC says.

Paiboon, an army general and senior member of the junta that seized power in a 2014 coup, said in an interview that Thailand would build more prisons, including 17 temporary jails for prisoners who have served at least a third of their sentence.

He added that his priority was to tackle drug trafficking and addiction – an ambitious plan in a country where a record number of people use methamphetamines, known in Thai as “ya ba” or “crazy medicine”, according to a 2015 U.N. report.

A crackdown launched by former Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2003 aimed at suppressing drug trafficking killed more than 2,800 people, according to an independent inquiry chaired by a former attorney general.

But the country’s growing number of drug users and bulging jails have forced policymakers to think again.

“The world has lost the war on drugs, not only Thailand,” said Paiboon. “We have clear numbers that drug use has increased over the past three years. Another indicator is there are more prisoners.”

CRISIS POINT

A 2015 report by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research shows Thailand has the fourth highest number of women imprisoned in the world, after the United States, China and Russia.

“We know from meeting and interviewing prisoners, including female prisoners, in Thailand, that the impact is profoundly negative for families,” said Jeremy Douglas, the UNODC’s Asia-Pacific chief.

One former female inmate, who declined to be named because of the social stigma attached to drug offenders in Thailand, said she was jailed for three years after being caught with 20 methamphetamine pills.

“My boyfriend was the dealer. I was carrying the pills for him. My son doesn’t want anything to do with me now,” she said.

The number of inmates jailed for drug convictions has almost doubled over the past decade, Thai Department of Corrections figures showed, a result of unsparing sentencing that puts even petty users behind bars.

“We need to change sentencing and make a distinction between small and big time dealers,” said Klong Prem prison commander Thawatchai Chaiywat. “Thailand thinks prisons are a panacea for all crimes, including drug crimes.”

In the meantime, Thailand’s jails grow ever more crowded. Corrections department figures for July showed a prison population of 321,347, with around 70 percent jailed for drugs offences.

Institute for Criminal Policy Research data showed Thailand has the eighth highest incarceration rate in the world.

“The situation has approached a noticeable crisis point,” said UNODC chief Douglas. “The reality is that talk has not yet moved to action and the prison population is still growing.” ($1 = 35.1100 baht)

(Additional reporting Juarawee Kittisilpa, Panarat Thepgumpanat and Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Editing by Alex Richardson)

10 year old blaze victim ‘called for mum and dad’

Yupin Saw-wa, (L) cries as she holds a picture of her daughter, who died after a fire swept through the Christian Pitakiatwittaya School in the northern province of Chiang Rai

y Athit Perawongmetha

WIANG PA PAO, Thailand (Reuters) – A 10-year-old Thai girl called out for her mother and father as a blaze swept through her school dormitory “until her voice was gone”, her mother said on Tuesday.

The fire broke out late on Sunday as the girls, aged between five and 12, slept at a Christian school for children of hill-tribe families in the northern province of Chiang Rai. Seventeen girls died.

Investigators are looking at the possibility of faulty lighting on the ground floor below the dormitory.

Malawian Saw-wa’s daughter, May, died in hospital. Her elder daughter survived by jumping from a second-floor window, she said.

“My eldest daughter said she heard May calling for mum and dad to help until her voice was gone,” Malawian said.

“Never in my lifetime will I let my daughter out of my sight. The school must be held responsible for this. My daughter was my heart and soul.”

Five of the victims have been identified and police were seeking to identify the others through DNA tests.

Police questioned witnesses on Tuesday, and said they had not yet reached a conclusion on the cause of the fire.

“We still need to gather evidence from the scene first on what caused this and whether this was due to negligence,” said district police chief Prayad Singsin.

A forensics officer told Reuters evidence pointed to a loose light bulb melting on the ground floor of the two-storey building, causing the fire that killed the girls in the dormitory above.

Around 10 of the 19 girls that survived slept on the school grounds on Monday night as their parents had yet to arrive from far-flung areas to pick them up, said Tuenjai Tanachaikant a local who volunteered to help at the school after the fire.

Some of the parents also slept at the school where they lit incense sticks and prayed.

Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha sent his condolences to the families of the victims and the school.

“The prime minister wanted to sent a message to all the teachers and students that the fire may burn down the school buildings but don’t let it burn away their hopes,” government spokesman Sansern Kaewkamnerd told reporters.

Prayuth said he had ordered government agencies to work to reduce the number of deadly accidents in Thailand. In Bangkok on Tuesday, a blaze at a restaurant and bar killed two people, police said.

(This refiled version of the story adds death toll).

(Additional reporting by Pairat Temphairojana, Panarat Thepgumpanat and Pracha Hariraksapitak BANGKOK; Writing by Simon Webb; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Fisherman tells Thai court~ beer tab led to years of slavery

By Alisa Tang

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – A fisherman from Myanmar described meeting a job broker while having a beer with a friend in the fishing port town of Kantang in southern Thailand.

While chatting with the broker, he passed out drunk, without paying for his beer. Four days later, the broker told him he owed her 2,000 baht ($50) for his unpaid beer and his four-day stay in her home, and would have to work to pay off his debt.

He ended up enslaved on a fishing boat, working five years without pay, he told a court in Thailand’s southern Trang province as the proceedings began last week in a human trafficking case against nine defendants.

The defendants include the broker, as well as the owner of Boonlarp Fishing Co. Ltd., whom prosecutors say is the chief of the trafficking ring.

“This case is important because before the police could only catch the small fish, but this is the first time they got the big fish,” said Papop Siamhan, a lawyer for the trafficking victims and project coordinator for the Human Rights and Development Foundation (HRDF) rights group.

The defendants have denied all charges, Papop said.

Thailand has come under fire after numerous reports uncovered slavery and human trafficking in its multibillion-dollar seafood industry.

The government recently amended its laws in an effort to combat human trafficking and slavery, ratcheting up penalties to life imprisonment and the death penalty in cases where their victims had died.

The Issara Institute, a Bangkok-based anti-trafficking organization, has been a key point of contact for these trafficked fishermen and said reports of abuses on fishing boats operating out of Kantang began as early as 2008.

Fishermen from Myanmar on boats run by Boonlarp began calling Issara Institute’s 24-hour hotline to complain of being exploited and physically abused in May 2015.

Threats against the fishermen escalated, until on Oct. 14, 2015, one fishermen phoned the hotline and said a captain had threatened to behead him and throw his body overboard. He pleaded with the hotline operator: “I do not want to die young. Please help us!”, according to the Issara Institute.

Last October, Thai authorities from several agencies, working with the Issara Institute, went out to sea and rescued men from the Boonlarp boats.

Last Friday, the Kantang case kicked off the first of 42 court hearings scheduled over five months, but the plaintiffs’ lawyers filed a motion at the second hearing on Thursday to move the case to a court in Bangkok.

“We wanted to move the case because we are worried about the safety of the victims,” said Preeda Tongchumnum, another lawyer on the case, who works with the Solidarity Center, a U.S.-based worker rights organization.

“They have faced abuse by the broker and her husband, so they are scared, Even though they’re under the care of state authorities, if they come to Bangkok, they would feel safer,” she said.

Proceedings have been adjourned until July 26, when the Supreme Court’s decision on the motion to move the case will be read.

The defense lawyers on the case could not be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Alisa Tang, editing by Ros Russell. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, corruption and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories)

Leaked Document Claims ISIS Present, Planning Attacks in Thailand

Multiple published reports indicate police in Thailand have information claiming that a group of 10 people linked to the Islamic State allegedly entered the country to carry out terrorist attacks.

Reuters reported a leaked memo cites intelligence from Russia’s Federal Security Service that indicated 10 ISIS-linked Syrians traveled to Thailand in October to attack targets tied to Russia.

The BBC reported the document, which was marked “urgent,” said the Syrians did not travel together and at least six have gone to areas that are popular with Russian tourists.

A police spokesman confirmed to the Associated Press that the document was authentic, but he could not verify if the intelligence within it was accurate. Reuters quoted the commissioner of Thailand’s immigration bureau, Nathathorn Prausoontorn, as saying there isn’t any information that ties the 21 Syrians who entered Thailand in October and were still there to the Islamic State.

Russia has been carrying out airstrikes in Syria since late September, which intensified after ISIS bombed a commercial Russian plane in October and killed 224 people.

Fireball Roars Through Bangkok Sky

Social media in Thailand was burning this morning with footage of a giant fireball that streaked through the Bangkok skies before exploding in a flash.

The object was captured during the city’s morning rush hour by dash and security cameras with the footage quickly uploaded to the internet.

Astrophysicists and other astronomic researchers said the item was mostly likely an asteroid.

“There is a high possibility that the object spotted this morning… on social media, is an object from outer space,” Saran Poshyachinda, Deputy Director of National Astronomical Research Institute of Thailand, told CNN.

“It looks like an asteroid traveling to Earth and grazing through the air and it turned into a fireball.”

“It was almost certainly a good-sized rock burning up in our atmosphere,” Phil Plait, a former member of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope Team, told the Bangkok Post. “It only took two seconds or so for it to go from being visible to it flaring as it disintegrated. It may have had a steep angle of entry.”

However, others are speculating that it was a satellite that was falling to Earth.  The website satview.org, which tracks “space junk”, had listed a satellite to fall into the atmosphere and burn up in that area during the window of time where the object was recorded.