Australia’s Jetstar denies exploiting Thai staff

SYDNEY, July 28, 2011 (AFP) – Budget Australian carrier Jetstar strongly denied claims Thursday that it was exploiting foreign cabin crew and overworking its staff following reports of 20-hour shifts.

The airline said it took fatigue “extremely seriously” and denied “it forces cabin crew to operate when fatigued” after former and current staff and pilots told ABC television flight attendants were overburdened.

Foreign crews based in Bangkok were especially vulnerable, according to the ABC report, with open-ended employment contracts stating the maximum 20-hour shift could be extended and punitive exit clauses.

Jetstar chief Bruce Buchanan said a lot of the claims were “completely false and we completely deny them.”

“The claims about slave labour and the claims that we pay these people a pittance — our salaries in Thailand for instance, we are paying these people Aus$20,000-$30,000 a year in Thailand. That ranks in the top few percent of salaries in that country,” Buchanan told ABC television.

Contracts obtained by the ABC for Jetstar’s Thai staff set a shift limit of 20 hours but stipulates that the “planned limit and operational extensions may be extended by the employer”.

They get paid just Aus$258 ($285) per month and $7 for every hour they fly, plus allowances, ABC said, with penalties of up to 4.5 months of their base wage if they quit early or are sacked.

Australia’s minimum wage is Aus$590 per week.

Buchanan said Jetstar was “competing in Asia” and in line with local conditions, with two-thirds of its 3,000 flights per week to 17 countries in and around Asia and one-third of its staff from the region.

ABC said there had been almost 40 fatigue complaints from staff on Jetstar’s long-haul domestic routes in Australia, with some expressing concern that they would be ill-equipped to handle an emergency after lengthy shifts.

One former Australian crewman told ABC he “felt like a slave” on the round trip from Sydney to the Indonesian island of Bali, with a 15-hour overnight shift, which could easily become 20 hours with delays.

Though Jetstar did not roster anyone for 15-hour stretches Buchanan said there “were situations where people do extend” and fatigue management was a joint responsibility of the company and the individual.

“Look at the hard facts — our cabin crew work an average of 24 hours a week and you can’t do too many 20 hour shifts (in a 24-hour week),” he said.

– ©Copyright AFP 2011-07-28 | AFP News Sponsor
Published with written approval from AFP.

Revamped Don Muang Terminal Ready for Service

The Don Muang Airport is moving its domestic flight operation to the revamped Terminal 1 starting August 1 as it is believed to be more efficient and can facilitate some 16 million passengers per year.

The Airports of Thailand’s Don Muang Airport Director Wing Commander Pratheep Wichittho said that the 13-million baht revamp of Don Muang’s Terminal 1 has been completed and domestic flight operation will be moved to the renovated terminal starting August 1.

The terminal’s efficiency has been increased by 40 percent.

It can now accommodate 16 million people per year as opposed to the 11 million passengers in the old terminal.

The third floor of Don Muang’s Terminal 1 will be used for departures while the first floor for arrivals. Both international and domestic flight passengers are able to access the arrival and departure lobby.

The Don Muang director is confident the revamp will increase passenger traffic to four million from the current 2.5 million.

For the domestic terminal, the AOT plans to use the free zones to hold various events and exhibitions to generate additional revenue since it is currently operating at a deficit of 50 million baht per year.

Nok Air will be the first flight taking off from the upgraded terminal at 6 A.M. en route to Nakhon Ratchasima Province while Orient Thai Airlines will depart at 7:40 A.M. to Trang Province.

– The Nation 2011-07-30

Hoax bomb threat forces evacuation of 300 Chiang Mai-Bangkok train passengers

LAMPANG, July 30 — More than 300 train passengers in Chiang Mai-to-Bangkok train were forced to evacuate from a train at Lampang after a bomb threat by an unidentified caller.

But after investigation, no explosive device was detected.

Police from the provincial police station in the northern province of Lampang and railway police at 9.45am helped evacuate more than 300 startled passengers on a Chiang Mai-to-Bangkok bound train after the Chiang Mai train station informed that an unidentified caller said that there was a bomb placed on the second to last railcar.

After inspecting the train, police found no explosive device but the police were double checking to make sure.

The train which left Chiang Mai at 6.40am has been released from Lampang and was heading to Bangkok.

Police believed the hoax bomb threat may have come from a member of a drug syndicate which smuggles drugs via train to their customers and were recently the target of police crackdowns. (MCOT online news)

– TNA 2011-07-30

‘I’ve been living a lie for too long’: The 53-year-old British father who faked his own death after wife’s breast op in Moscow found sleeping rough on Thai airport bench

Weaving his way along a Bangkok street, Stephen Kellaway looks like just another aging hippie enjoying the relaxed Thai lifestyle. In fact, he is a middle-class British psychologist who officially died almost two years ago. The 53-year-old father of two faked his death during a family trip to Moscow, where his wife had breast enlargement surgery, to avoid jail for swindling £50,000 benefits.

Penniless: Kellaway sleeping in the lounge of Bangkok Airport. He travelled the world
on a false passport which he secured using the birth certificate of a dead child – a ruse
inspired by the Frederick Forsyth thriller The Day Of The Jackal

Since then he has been living in Asia, mainly on the proceeds of the £1 million property empire the couple built up in London. The Daily Mail tracked him down to Bangkok, where he was sleeping rough after his payments from the UK had been temporarily halted. There, he admitted: ‘I’ve been lying about who I am for too long. It is a life of constant anxiety and uncertainty.’

The son of an engineer, Kellaway met his third wife, Nelli, in a pub during the mid-1990s when he was running a counselling service in West London. They have a daughter and son aged 11 and nine, who were sent to private school. Kellaway earned £100,000 a year from his practice. He and Nelli, now 42, bought six houses and flats in the South East. To help pay their multiple mortgages and school fees, they fraudulently claimed housing benefit on their property portfolio. Realising the police were closing in, they went on holiday with their children to Russia, where Nelli had her breast operation – and her husband faked his death by bribing a mortuary worker to place his passport on the body of a tramp.

Nelli returned to London with an urn which she said contained Kellaway’s ashes. Facing court for the fraud, she convinced a jury that her ‘abusive’ husband had forced her into it and escaped with a suspended sentence. Meanwhile Kellaway was travelling the world on a false passport which he secured using the birth certificate of a dead child – a ruse inspired by the Frederick Forsyth thriller The Day Of The Jackal.

Read more: http://www.dailymail…l#ixzz1TXfysynT

– dailymail.co.uk 2011-07-30

Iranian arrested at Suvarnabhumi Airport with 15 kilos of ‘ice’

BANGKOK: — An Iranian man was arrested Tuesday at Suvarnabhumi Airport for smuggling 15 kilos of crystal methamphetamine, or ‘ice,’ worth Bt 50 million (US$1.6 million) into the kingdom, a senior Thai customs officer said on Wednesday.

The contraband was found in two boxes containing artwork with a surprising twist.

One lot of ‘ice’ was sculpted into a modern art bas relief wall plaque for exhibition, while the other contained ‘ice’ appeared to be an elaborate picture frame.

Wisan Wuthisaksilp, Principle Advisor on Development of the Customs Control System, told a press briefing that 28-year-old Iranian Safi Zadeh Hossein was apprehended in the arrival terminal of Thailand’s main international airport Tuesday night.

Mr Hossein flew Qatar Airways from Damascus, Syria, and changed flights at Doha, Qatar before landing in Thailand at 7.10pm.

Matching the information received from the source, customs officials stopped the suspected drug courier and searched his baggage.

Customs officers found the artistically-crafted ice hidden in two boxes with a total weight of 15.3 kg with a possible street value of Bt50 million ($1.6 million).

The suspect was charged with possessing illicit drugs for resale and illegally bringing them into Thailand.

Mr Hossein will be handed over to the police for further legal procedures. (MCOT online news)

– TNA 2011-07-14

SPECIAL REPORT
Female bodyguards for Thailand’s next prime minister
By Budsarakham Sinlapalavan
Peeradej Tanruangporn
The Nation

When Yingluck Shinawatra takes up her post as leader of the new government, Thailand won’t just have a female prime minister. Her bodyguards, too, are likely to be drawn from the fairer sex.

“Female bodyguards are able to remain closer to female VIPs,” said Pol Lt-Colonel Korakarn Arunplod, who is among the first generation of female bodyguards in Thailand.

Korakarn started her career as a bodyguard in 1995. Among the VIPs she has taken care of are Hillary Rodham Clinton, Empress Michiko of Japan and members of the Thai Royal Family.

She suggested that PM-elect Yingluck should have both male and female bodyguards. Beyond issues of security, having bodyguards of both sexes would create the best image.

And there are more practical concerns: “It is not appropriate for male bodyguards to enter private spaces such as women’s bathrooms.” She added that women were better at coordinating than men, though men were generally stronger.

The Special Branch Police Division (SBPD), Metropolitan Police Bureau (MPB) and Armed Forces Security Centre (AFSC) are the three institutions that usually provide bodyguards for Thai prime ministers.

However, the female bodyguards Yingluck used during her election campaign were from the airborne division of the Border Patrol Police Bureau (BPPB).

Pol Lt-General Prayoon Amarit, chief of the BPPB, said the institution assigned four female bodyguards to take care of Yingluck during her campaign as requested. All MP candidates can request officers for protection during election-campaign periods.

The mission is considered complete if the candidate does not get elected; if the candidate is elected, then the bodyguards have to remain with the candidate until he or she officially becomes a member of Parliament. In the July 3 election, more than 400 candidates requested bodyguards and the police assigned more than 900 officers to the task.

“Once Yingluck officially becomes prime minister, if she does not request the same group of bodyguards, then other relevant security forces will assign bodyguards for her,” Prayoon said.

To become a bodyguard, the officers of the BPPB must be trained to protect very important persons (VIPs), he said. In addition to the usual police training, which includes guns, driving and parachuting, VIP protection training also teaches crowd-control tactics and techniques for remaining close and attending to the VIP.

Because the task is very physically demanding, requiring the person to be constantly vigilant and sometimes miss sleep, the team consists only of women aged 20 to 35, Prayoon said.

Normally the SBPD is in charge of providing security for VIPs and important events, he said. However, it may request officers from other police forces, including the BPPB. He added that female officers were also used for other security tasks involving women. For instance, they may guard the wives of VIPs or accompany VIPs when they meet female crowds.

Prayoon said bodyguards were also responsible for analysing and assessing situations. They are responsible for requesting more officers as needed to cope with different stress levels.

Bodyguards for Yingluck may also come from other police divisions such as the MPB’s recently created all-woman 1st Crowd Control Division, named “Noppamas”. The Royal Thai Police created the unit specifically to deal with the surge in protests over the past few years.

The front lines of both red-shirt and yellow-shirt protests are primarily composed of women, children and older people. This requires more tolerance and softer treatment from crowd-control police. The increasing awareness of rights, especially women’s rights, also requires police to be more careful and respectful in their handling of others.

An all-woman company was created with the insight that female officers can help reduce tension when interacting with protesters, whether through their demeanour or the image they present. They have been trained rigorously for the task.

Competition to get into Noppamas is tough. Applicants have to be aged 20-25, have a bachelor’s degree and be taller than 160 centimetres to apply. “Of more than 10,000 applicants, only 95 were accepted into the unit,” said Alisa Plaengwech, a Noppamas bodyguard.

Training is divided into three phases, taking more than six months: physical training, field combat and crowd control.

“During the second training phase, we had to carry a 12-kilogram sandbag, a 4kg rifle and other belongings all day. We lived in the forest and carried out mock battles,” said Wijittra Sangsri, another bodyguard. She said female guards could help ease tense situations because women were gentler than men.

Bodyguard Piyachat Kamsampha told The Nation about her VIP protection training. “We were taught how to prioritise the VIP’s safety and honour,” she said.

The toughest part of the training was being forced to endure tear gas. “We had to sit there and could not make a move. It was pure torture. But we passed the test,” she said.

But despite the toughness of the training, Wijittra said she was still concerned about her appearance. She woke up earlier than everyone else – so she had time to put her makeup on.

– The Nation 2011-07-16

Monks teach maleness to Thai ‘ladyboys’
Feature – by Janesara Fugal

CHIANG KHONG, July 16, 2011 (AFP) – The 15-year-old aspiring “ladyboy” delicately applied a puff of talcum powder to his nose — an act of rebellion at the Thai Buddhist temple where he is learning to “be a man”.

“They have rules here that novice monks cannot use powder, make-up, or perfume, cannot run around and be girlish,” said Pipop Thanajindawong, who was sent to Wat Kreung Tai Wittaya, in Chiang Khong on the Thai-Laos border, to tame his more feminine traits.

But the monks running the temple’s programme to teach masculinity to boys who are “katoeys”, the Thai term for transsexuals or ladyboys, have their controversial work cut out.

“Sometimes we give them money to buy snacks but he saved it up to buy mascara,” headteacher Phra Pitsanu Witcharato said of Pipop.

Novice monks’ days pass as in any other temple — waking before dawn, collecting alms and studying Buddhism — but every Friday attention turns to the katoeys at the attached school.

“Were you born as a man or a woman or can you not specify your gender – not man or woman?” asked Phra Pitsanu at a recent assembly. “You cannot be anything else but your true gender, which is a man. As a novice you can only be a man.”

The temple has a stricter interpretation than others of rules governing behaviour during Buddhist training that is a key childhood experience for many Thai boys.

Pupils are banned from using perfume and make-up and prohibited from singing, playing music and running.

“We cannot change all of them but what we can do is to control their behavior to make them understand that they were born as a man… and cannot act like a woman,” said Phra Pitsanu.

The Kreung Tai temple has run the course for boys aged between 11 and 18 since 2008, after former principle Phra Maha Vuthichai Vachiramethi devised the programme because he thought reports of katoeys in the monkhood had “affected the stability of Thai Buddhism”.

He told AFP that he hopes the teaching methods will be rolled out to other temple schools to “solve the deviant behavior in novices”.

It is an attitude that enrages gay rights and diversity campaigner Natee Teerarojanapong, who said trying to alter the boys’ sense of gender and sexuality was “extremely dangerous”.

“These kids will become self-hating because they have been taught by respected monks that being gay is bad. That is terrible for them. They will never live happily,” he told AFP.

Gay and katoey culture is visible and widely tolerated in Thailand, which has one of the largest transsexual populations in the world, and Natee said the temple’s programme is “very out of date”.

But Phra Atcha Apiwanno, 28, disputed the idea that society accepted ladyboys and said he joined the monkhood because of social stigma about his sexual identity.

“The reason I became a monk is to train my habits, to control my expression… I didn’t want to be like this,” he told AFP.

Monks have had limited success in their project — three of the six ladyboys to have graduated from the school are said to have embraced their masculinity, but the remaining three went on to have sex changes.
Pipop said he has struggled with his sexuality at the temple.

At home in Bangkok he dressed like a girl, putting on make-up and taking hormones until he developed breasts, but he has since stopped the treatment and wears only a surreptitious dab of powder at the temple.

He does not believe he will live up to his family’s hopes that he will become more manly.

“I can make them proud even I’m not a man,” the teenager said, adding he had given up his ambition to be an airhostess and now aspires to work in a bank.

He thinks he will have a sex change after graduation.

“Once I leave the monkhood the first thing I want to do is to shout, to scream out loud saying: ‘I can go back to being the same again!’”

– ©Copyright AFP 2011-07-16 | AFP News Sponsor
Published with written approval from AFP.

British convict arrested in Bangkok

A British man who has been convicted by a British court for soliciting Thai women for prostitution has been rearrested in Bangkok.

Thai police arrested Andrew Christopher Michael Wallace, 37, in Bangkok’s Klong Toey district on Tuesday.

Wallace has been sentenced to two years in jail for trading Thai women for prostitution in England. He has been released on bail while appealing against the ruling.

He has fled to Thailand and the Thai police were informed by the British embassy to locate and arrest

Wallace was handed over to the British embassy Wednesday.

– The Nation 2011-07-13

Shot in the head, Melbourne teacher lucky to be alive
Mark Hawthorne

A Melbourne schoolteacher is lucky to be alive after being shot in the back of the head while on a school trip to Thailand.

Teachers Lynda Cody and Jess Lambden of Ringwood Secondary College had just departed a night market in Khum Kan Tok, in the northern city of Chiang Mai, when the car they were travelling was attacked by armed bandits.

Two bullets hit the car. One pierced the rear window, passed through two headrests, and hit Ms Cody in the back of the head.

The bullet grazed the back of the Ms Cody’s skull. X-rays and a CT scan have since revealed no major damage, and she was released from hospital after receiving six stitches.

The second bullet hit the body of the car.

None of the eight Ringwood Seconday College students on the trip were involved in the incident.

The shooting took place at 10pm local time on Saturday, after a farewell dinner at sister school Montford College in Chiang Mai, which was being visited by the group from Ringwood Secondary College.

Ms Cody and Ms Lambden were visiting a night market to buy souvenirs before returning to Australia with their students.

A Montford teacher, known as Mr Suwan, drove off when the car was fired on.

Ringwood Secondary College principal Michael Phillips said: “Whilst the injury sustained by Lynda was serious, the incident was particularly stressful and both staff members will need counseling support as they realise how close they were to being shot. Some may also need some counseling. This has been arranged.”

Assistant principal Julie Hughes is currently with the group, having flown over on Sunday. According to a spokesman, Ms Hughes is “liaising with the group, parents, the Department of Education and DFAT”.

The incident was reported to local police, who are investigating.

Source: http://www.theage.co…0712-1hbo3.html

– theage.com.au 2011-07-12

New, Major Visa Requirements – Education “Ed” Visas Holders Must Attend Classes
By VISITH PINPAWONG

According to the Deputy Director, the Thailand Ministry of Education is warning all schools who offer Education Visas to foreigners to be legitimate and make sure students adhere to attendance and testing requirements.

At the Pattaya City Expats Club meeting on Sunday, Immigration Volunteer and former British Consul Barry Kenyan stated the problem with Education visas as he observed it first-hand in the local Immigration office on Jomtien Beach Road, Soi 5.

“A guy came in and wanted to renew his Education visa for a 7th straight year. He waited in the queue and when it was his turn he sat at the Immigration officer’s desk in charge of Education Visas. He had all of his documents from the school. His application was completed and he had the two photos now required for any visa. So the officer looked at him and said, ‘You have been learning Thai for six years already. Is that right?’ The answer was yes so the officer looked at a nearby fish tank and said in Thai, ‘The big fish eat the little fish.” The foreigner looked at him without a clue. The officer smiled and picked up a big red stamp and stamped “CANCELLED” on the remaining portion of the current visa and told the fellow he would not again receive an Education visa,” Barry reported.

The Deputy Director of the Thailand Ministry of Education recently summoned all language schools’ owners in Pattaya along with senior Chonburi Immigration Police Investigators to address this issue and notify the schools of the crackdown.

“Now any school found to be selling the Education visa simply to allow the foreigner to stay in Thailand and not attending the school will be closed down and lose their license. All of the school’s students, whether attending or not, will have their visas cancelled,” the representative of the Ministry of Education stated.

Going to school and learning Thai is one option for people to “long stay” in the Kingdom without having to constantly do “border runs.” It is especially popular with those who can self-fund themselves living here and do not need to work but are not yet 50 years of age thus not being able to qualify for a Retirement Visa. A Pattaya Times undercover investigation has discovered that some schools are selling discounted “courses” where the “student” pays a reduced fee that gets them a visa but they have no intention of ever attending a class.

Every school in Pattaya has a maximum allocated student base dependent on classroom availability. One school in particular was named and shamed. The school in question has a maximum capacity of 160 students based on if the classrooms were full every minute of every day. Most schools have 40% of students sign up for second and third years, thus reducing the capacity of the school of new students in the second year by 40%. In the case of the capacity of the school above reducing the intake of new students to 96.

The education department in very strong language asked the particular school if they thought the education department was foolish and if they do not keep records. In the last three months this school had new sign ups of 80 students and was asked where they sit their students and where are the three extra classrooms they would require to cope with this over capacity. Even if the school opened all night they still would not be able to facilitate all the students.

It has also come to the notice of the Education Department that a lot of schools are using teachers to teach Thai who are not educated to Degree standard and they have warned this must stop.
Pol. Capt. Samruai Sa-Mann from Chonburi Immigration police then told all the schools that five foreign nationals are now working undercover on behalf of immigration trying to buy the visa from schools without attending classes.

He added, the schools will be prosecuted if the undercover investigators gather evidence of such practices.

They are also to investigate visa shops who are offering the Ed Visa and law firms who offer the Ed Visa as it is only registered schools who can offer these visas, Deputy Inspector Samruai said.
The Police Captain also added that it had also come to his attention that some schools were using foreign nationals teaching without work permits. Recently two Pattaya schools have been raided by his officers.

“If we catch teachers working in schools without a work permit, we will recommend to the Education Department that these offending schools should be closed. We will also be calling all people who advertise language lessons with a visa. We will book some lessons and on arrival we will be asking for work permits of people who we believe are working without work permits,” said Pol. Capt. Samruai Sa-Mann from Chonburi Immigration.

– Pattaya Times 2011-07-07