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Young woman
pulled from wreckage
10-wheeler demolished her car
Rescue workers from the Sawang Boriboon Foundation
extricated a young woman from the wreckage of her Mazda last week after a
ten-wheel truck landed on top of it during a multiple vehicle accident.
After
an hour, rescue workers were able to remove the woman from the wreckage
and transport her to the hospital.
It took over an hour for rescue workers using cutting
equipment to pull the young woman from her completely demolished car.
“It’s a miracle she survived,” one person said.
“I don’t know how she did.”
The accident occurred in Pong Sub-District near
kilometer markers 15 and 16 at 10:00 a.m. on November 23rd. Witnesses told
police that before the accident, two others cars were involved in a minor
accident. The drivers of the cars in the first accident were unable to
come to an agreement, which caused a traffic jam. While they argued, a
10-wheel truck traveling at high speed crashed in to the backed up
vehicles. The truck sent cars careering in every direction. The small
Mazda was sent off to the side of the road and the 10-wheel truck rolled
over on top of it.
Ten others were also injured and were sent to the
hospital.
Police closed off the road and spent three hours
clearing the wreckage.
The driver of the 10-wheel truck was identified as Mr. Surachai, a
driver for the Jia Ha Huad Company in Rayong. Surachai fled the scene
before police were able to apprehend him.
Hotelier murdered
during hotel robber
Police launch manhunt for foreign gangsters
Australian Peter John Curtain, the 45-year-old owner of
the Orchid Inn on Soi Viking in South Pattaya, was murdered while
resisting a robbery attempt by at least 4 foreign gang members at 2:45
a.m. on November 24.
Curtain suffered numerous blows to the head from a
pistol and a medal rod. He was rushed to the hospital, but succumbed to
his injuries.
45-year-old
Peter John Curtain, the Australian owner of the Orchid Inn on Soi Viking
in South Pattaya, was murdered while resisting a robbery attempt by at
least 4 foreign gang members at 2:45 a.m. on November 24.
Police believe the gang who murdered him was the same
whose members were arrested and deported in 1996 for a similar robbery.
Police surmise they returned to Thailand using different names.
Three of the men were staying in the hotel. The three
names in the hotel register were unclear but were listed as Stefan Iris
Onnner, Alexander Korodoski and Sta Toch. Police believe they know of
Korodoski, a Belgian, whom they surmise is the gang leader.
Without
the keys, the robbers/murderers pried open all the hotel's safe deposit
boxes.
Mrs. Phornsini Klomli, the hotel cashier, told police
the men ordered room service, then later threatened her with a pistol,
demanding the keys to the hotel’s safe deposit boxes. She said they also
wanted to know where the money was kept.
She said she insisted she didn’t have the keys, so
they forced her at gunpoint to take them to Curtain’s room.
Two British tourists, Allan Freeman and Geoffrey Evans,
who were sitting in the hotel lobby when the robbery took place, were
bound and gagged, but were otherwise unharmed. The robbers also bound Mrs.
Phornsini.
After questioning the British tourists and hotel
cashier further it is still uncertain whether there were four or five men
involved in the robbery.
Police officers from the Foreign Mafia Suppression
Center and members from the Provincial Police were later called in to
continue the investigation. In Curtain’s room, they found his belongings
strewn about. Apparently Curtain had resisted, and police are assuming the
robbers must have pistol whipped him trying to force him to give up the
keys until the injuries caused him to pass out and eventually kill him.
Without the keys, the men pried open 15 of the hotel
safe deposit boxes and took all the contents, then fled the area. Police
believe they made off with over 1 million baht in cash and valuables.
In the hotel rooms where the robbers stayed, police
found a number of empty whiskey bottles and other information. All was
confiscated for further analysis.
Police later found the taxi driver hired in Naklua to
drive the men to Don Muang Airport. The driver told police that the men
were carrying a heavy, square shaped object. Police are assuming the
object was the safe belonging to Curtin. Apparently the thieves were still
unable to access the safe.
Once arriving at the Don Muang Airport the men hired
another taxi to take them to the Soi Suttisarn area in Bangkok where they
then disappeared.
Police have alerted all airports and exit points in
Thailand to prevent the gang from departing the country.
Police officials are imploring hotel personnel to thoroughly examine
identification belonging to guests registering in hotels and to ensure to
have the information clearly recorded, which will greatly assist police
investigations in the future and provide a more secure setting for hotel
guests.
Pattaya's City
Council dissolved
New election to be held within 90 days
Mayor Pairat Suthithamrongsawat announced on 29
November that Pattaya’s city council has now been dissolved in
accordance with the new constitution. New elections for mayor and the 24
city council seats will take place within 90 days.
The Ministry of the Interior issued instructions to the
Chonburi Governor and to the Pattaya city administration stipulating the
action to be implemented in accordance with the 1999 constitution item
number 116, part 120 a., dated 29 November 1999, requiring Pattaya city to
enact the following three clauses:
1. Pattaya City Manager Office Chief Sunthorn
Praseurtdee is to take over the duties of administrating the affairs of
office of the mayor of Pattaya City until elections have taken place.
2. Pattaya City is to prepare the election process for
mayor and 24 city council seats within 90 days.
3. Control procedures for the election process are to
be researched as stated in the 1999 constitution and implemented by
Pattaya City.
Chonburi Province and Pattaya city will announce the
election procedures informing the general public and government
administrative offices.
Bar worker falls
4 floors to her death
Police suspect suicide, although suspicious
23-year-old Riam Chimchat allegedly jumped to her death
from the 4th floor of the Porn Hotel on Soi Yamoto on November 28th. Police
initially surmise suicide.
Rescue
workers rush Miss Riam to the hospital where she was pronounced DOA.
Miss Riam was rushed to the hospital but doctors were
unable to save her due to serious head injuries she suffered from the fall.
Investigating police questioned Krydsada Mukhwao, age 20,
who identified himself as Miss Riam’s boyfriend. He told police Riam
worked at one of the bars along Pattaya Beach Road and the two of them
stayed in the same room at the Porn Hotel, along with one other man named
Chingchai Janbia.
Krydsada, in tears, explained to police that he returned
to the hotel to find Miss Riam drinking with a man named Pakalang. He said
he began reprimanding her because he didn’t like her to drink alcohol.
“Then all of a sudden,” Krydsada said, “she got up, ran from the room
and jumped from the 4th floor.”
Police are continuing the investigation.
New stray dog
policy starts in Jomtien
Signs posted for “dog restricted areas”
Pattaya City is instituting a new stray dog action
policy starting in the area of Jomtien Beach, with other areas to follow.
The action is being taken due to the number of complaints registered by
tourists involving stray dogs.
The plan, recently announced by Mayor Pairat
Suttithamrongsawat, will begin with public announcements asking residents,
vendors and tourists to refrain from feeding stray animals.
The next step will be the posting of signs announcing
“Dog Restricted Areas” along the beach. Pattaya City Security Officers
will be assigned to watch for visitors bringing dogs in to the restricted
areas. They will notify the owners of the restriction policy and give
warnings. If the warnings are ignored, fines of no more than 10,000 baht
will be levied.
The mayor said the city wants to work with the
residents and visiting tourists to make the beach areas free of wandering
dogs. The new policy will be effective starting in December 1999.
The city administration also plans to coordinate with
the Chonburi Provincial Animal Control Center in order to initiate a
neutering project to decrease the stray dog population.
Naklua house
gutted by fire
Sustains 200,000 baht in damages
A two-story, single family home in Naklua was gutted by
fire last week after faulty wiring or a faulty circuit may have ignited
the wooden structure.
Police were called to the fire at Moo 6, Naklua just
before noon on 28 November. Pattaya fire fighters were already at the site
and were able to bring the blaze under control within 30 minutes.
The owner of the home, Mrs. Phimon Priamcharoen, told
police she was outside talking with neighbors when the fire erupted. She
said that someone yelled out “fire”, and she ran back into the house
to try to save some of her belongings. But by that time, the flames were
already out of control and she was unable to collect many of their things.
Luckily there was no one else in the house at the time.
The cause of the fire is still unknown, but fire
officials suspect faulty wiring or a faulty circuit. The investigation is
continuing.
The initial assessment put the fire damage at about 200,000 baht.
Police continue
katoey arrest
Making streets safe for the festivals
On November 23rd, Pattaya’s tourist police, led by
Tourist Police Major Porarid Lilasiri, conducted their third sweep of
Pattaya Beach Road, arresting a group of transvestites accosting tourists.
Thirteen “girls of the second category” were fined 500 baht each and
released. Fourteen others were arrested, fined and released on November
22nd.
“Girls
of the second category” arrested after walking the streets accosting
tourists.
Tourist Police also took in a group of children selling
chewing gum and flowers on the streets from Soi 2 to Soi 9. The young
children, 11 in all, both girls and boys aged four to eight, were all from
Cambodia. The group will be turned over to the Pattaya police where they
will be further transferred to immigration authorities.
The Tourist Police also remanded to custody a group of men for
illegally selling fireworks. The merchandise was confiscated and all the
perpetrators were fined.
Global campaign
launched for right to education
Ten years after the UN Convention on the Rights of the
Child guaranteed education for all children, the promise is still a
distant dream. Over 125 million children, most of them young girls, never
even see the inside of a classroom. Another 150 million children receive
schooling of such low quality and such high cost that they drop out of
school soon after they start.
Not willing to let this injustice continue, a powerful
alliance of international organisations and national movements have joined
forces to launch a Global Campaign for Education. The campaign intends to
mobilise public pressure on governments to fulfil their promises to
provide free, quality education for all people. Article 28 of the
Convention on the Rights of the Child requires governments to make primary
education compulsory and available free to all, while Article 29 calls for
education that develops children’s full human potential and prepares
them for responsible life in a free society.
Bringing together organisations working in 180
countries, the campaign’s steering committee includes: Education
International (the world organisation of teacher unions), Oxfam
International, ActionAid, the Global March Against Child Labour, the South
African NGO Coalition, the Campaign for Popular Education (Bangladesh),
and the Brazilian National Campaign for the Right to Education. This
campaign marks the first time that leading social organisations have
joined together in a determined drive for universal education.
“It is time that governments and the international
financial institutions recognise that education is a fundamental human
right,” said Elie Jouen of Education International. “Governments must
provide the resources and implement the reforms needed to achieve
education for all.”
A mere 1% of what the world spends each year on
armaments would be enough to provide education to every single person on
earth. The children who have grown up during the 90s without any education
may wonder if we could have cared less about their rights.
The Convention broke new ground in getting governments
to agree that the right to education goes beyond the right to a seat in a
classroom. It calls for education which builds tolerance and equality, and
enables each child to develop to his or her fullest potential. But schools
serving poor and minority groups too often abuse children’s dignity,
stifle their abilities and promote intolerance and prejudice. In these
cases, fundamental reforms are urgently needed to engage children,
teachers and parents in creating a better system.
The Convention also legally obliges countries to
promote and encourage international cooperation in support of education.
Throughout most of this decade, Western governments have in fact done
quite the opposite, squeezing out interest payments and service charges on
third world debts at the cost of children’s health and education.
“Education denied is a future denied,” said Kailash
Satyarthi, Chairperson of the Global March Against Child Labour. “The
most important right for the survival and development of hundreds of
millions of children is the fundamental right to education.” Many of the
world’s 250 million child labourers began their life of grinding work
when affordable education was no longer an option for them.
The Global Campaign for Education will be demanding at
least eight years of education for all children, and a second chance for
adults who have missed out. The campaign is also calling for: better
provisions for early childhood education and care, a public commitment of
6% of GNP for education, the mobilisation of new resources through aid and
debt relief, reform of IMF and World Bank structural adjustment policies,
an end to the exploitation of children for their labour, democratic
participation of civil society in education, fair and regular salaries for
teachers, properly equipped classrooms and a supply of quality textbooks,
and non-discrimination in the provision of education.
For more information contact: Richard Langlois, Campaign Coordinator,
c/o Education International, 155 Bd Emile Jacqmain, 1210 Brussels,
Belgium. Tel: (32 2) 224 06 55, Fax: (32 2) 224 06 06, Mobile: (32 4) 77
544 636, E-mail: [email protected].
Another noisy 2
year old!
Last weekend, Delaney’s the Irish Pub on Second Road
turned two years old. The celebration was crowded with well wishers,
rendering manager Kim Fletcher lost for words (for once) at the turnout
for the birthday bash. This inability with words was seen to get worse as
the night went on.
A lovely couple from Edinburgh in Scotland were left
wondering if this was a normal night at Delaney’s. They were delighted
to hear that some other nights are even noisier! But after several jars of
foamy fermented liquid, they didn’t care either.
Most of the British Chamber of Commerce Bangkok people
ended up there after their own networking night was over, with Jill and
Gethin Thomas holding court on the dance floor. Ramil, Janette, Hans and
Elder thumped out the music and the place really rocked on till the wee
hours.
As functions came to an end all over Pattaya, the revellers all
gravitated towards the Delaney’s birthday bash, and it was very, very
late when the staff finally managed to push the last customer out the door
and close up. Contrary to popular rumour, this was not Bjorn Richardson -
he was the second last customer.
Copyright 1999 Pattaya Mail Publishing Co.Ltd.
370/7-8 Pattaya Second Road, Pattaya City, Chonburi 20260, Thailand
Tel.66-38 411 240-1, 413 240-1, Fax:66-38 427 596; e-mail: [email protected]
Updated by Boonsiri Suansuk |
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