Mong Thongdee, the 12-year-old stateless boy who won first prize in a paper airplane team competition, has been honoured as a science ambassador and promised a scholarship for a doctorate degree.
Science and Technology Minister Kalaya Sophonpanich yesterday led officials to greet Mong at Suvarnabhumi airport and said the boy had been rewarded for encouraging other children to study the sciences.
The Science and Technology Ministry will sponsor his study, Khunying Kalaya said.
"All Thais are proud of him and the ministry will offer him a scholarship to study for a doctorate," she said.
Mong's father, Yun, said that without the scholarship he could send the boy only to Prathom 6(Grade 6) because he and his wife earn just 190 baht each a day and they had a two-year-old daughter to take care of.
The boy now studies at Prathom 4 in Chiang Mai. He has no nationality because he was born to the ethnic Burmese construction workers in Thailand.
Mong yesterday returned to Thailand with the third prize in the individual contest for children and the first prize in the team contest in the Origami Airplane Contest in Chiba at the weekend.
Prasert Chalermkannon and Surin Intarachot won the second and third places in the men's individual category and Fongfon Sriswat came first in the wom-en's individual contest. Mong's paper airplane stayed in the air for 10.53 seconds, which was enough to win him third place in the individual category.
"I am so delighted, and this award will be given to His Majesty the King,"said the boy after alighting from the real aircraft at Suvarnabhumi airport.
"My technique to make the plane stay aloft longer was to fold its wings in equal parts. When I grow up I would like to be a pilot."
Mong nearly lost his chance to participate in the contest after the Interior Ministry refused to issue him a document to apply for travel papers because of his statelessness.
The ministry's decision was overturned.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Flooded homes get relief
Foundations under royal patronage have been handing out emergency relief bags to victims of floods in downtown Chaiyaphum.
The bags were given to 2,000 families most affected by the floods in the northeastern province.
The bags were donated by the Rajaprajanugroh Foundation under His Majesty the King's patronage and the Princess Pa Foundation under Her Royal Highness Princess Bajrakitiyabha.
The floods were caused by run-off from the Lam Pathao reservoir in Kaeng Khro district, and are now receding after inundating downtown areas for the past few days.
Chaiyaphum's city mayor, Banyong Kiatkongchoochai, yesterday handed out the bags on behalf of the foundations.
The council worked pumps around the clock to drain water from the city centre. Council staff are on the lookout for crocodiles which escaped from flooded farms.
In the eastern province of Rayong,persistent heavy rain at the weekend has triggered a mudslide which damaged communities around Wat Nong Wa in tambon Makhamkoo of Nikhom Phatthana district. Residents said the mudslide appeared to have weakened the foundations of the temple wall, which they feared could collapse on to nearby homes.
The bags were given to 2,000 families most affected by the floods in the northeastern province.
The bags were donated by the Rajaprajanugroh Foundation under His Majesty the King's patronage and the Princess Pa Foundation under Her Royal Highness Princess Bajrakitiyabha.
The floods were caused by run-off from the Lam Pathao reservoir in Kaeng Khro district, and are now receding after inundating downtown areas for the past few days.
Chaiyaphum's city mayor, Banyong Kiatkongchoochai, yesterday handed out the bags on behalf of the foundations.
The council worked pumps around the clock to drain water from the city centre. Council staff are on the lookout for crocodiles which escaped from flooded farms.
In the eastern province of Rayong,persistent heavy rain at the weekend has triggered a mudslide which damaged communities around Wat Nong Wa in tambon Makhamkoo of Nikhom Phatthana district. Residents said the mudslide appeared to have weakened the foundations of the temple wall, which they feared could collapse on to nearby homes.
IN PURSUIT OF HAPPY ECONOMICS
What is your idea of economics? What good is this branch of social science for the ordinary, non-business people?For many, economics evokes the notion of opportunity, employment and financial security. For others, it's a discipline that suggests Darwinian competition, greed,and simply the egotistical pursuit of self-interests at all costs.
But to Helena Norberg-Hodge, director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (Isec), economics can bring happiness, and without having to produce a huge sum of monetary profit, or the stresses and strains that are typical of a large-scale economy.
Norberg-Hodge received the 1986 Right Livelihood Award,aka the alternative Nobel Prize, for her dedication in promoting more peaceful, just and sustainable communities worldwide.
It all started from a small project the Swedish woman runs in Ladakh, initially a backwater region in northern India. Norberg-Hodge launched the Ladakh Project in 1978 in a bid to reverse the damaging trends of mass tourism and consumerism through promoting development based on Ladakhi cultural values. The innovative programme soon grew into Isec, where Norberg-Hodge and her colleagues had been initiating campaigns around the world to encourage ways of living that are more de-centralised and land-based.
A globetrotting and extremely busy Norberg-Hodge recently visited Thailand and delivered lectures in Bangkok and Khon Kaen on the theme of "Economics of Happiness".Norberg-Hodge took some time off from her hectic schedule to talk with 'Outlook'.
Could you please tell us what exactly this 'Economics of Happiness' is? It now seems the economics has been a tool for making money and a tool for making disasters,considering the recession we are now facing ...
Well, the 'Economics of Happiness' is essentially an economics of strengthening the local economy. It's a systemic shift away from the current direction of economy,which is going more and more global. At the fundamental level, what I'm arguing is that as economic policies support the globalising path, they support a bigger and bigger distance between production and consumption. And with this distance, structurally, it means pushing business to become bigger and bigger and bigger.with nature. And those therapies are successful. Even prisoners, juvenile delinquents or violent men can be changed if you help them to connect to people with similar situations and to really share and help them to [re]connect with nature.
With the scale of business and the distance, we are getting enormous problems both environmentally, socially and psychologically.
Again, structurally, this globalising path is leading to monoculture. These large businesses inevitably have to impose monoculture; it's not possible to adapt to diversity.It's directly linked to using media and advertisement to foster a human monoculture where children worldwide are made to feel inferior to the standards that are fundamentally Western. But it's also anti-Western, in the sense that there is this image of perfection that the young children feel they cannot live up to. By establishing an unrealistic role model - a global consumer identity this is responsible for massive increases in self-rejection,and even self-hatred.
By subsiding global trade and global businesses, a government is simultaneously subsidising a path that's encouraging businesses to use more fossil fuel and technology and fewer people. So the next result is job insecurity, and very, very intense competitions for scarce jobs. This combination of creating an unrealistic role model, the role model of consumer identity, and at the same time, the job scarcity, the unemployment and the competition is increasing worldwide friction and unhappiness.
What I'm suggesting is that we must shift away from these bigger and more global business activities, and toward supporting local businesses worldwide that spend less fossil, and adapted to the natural-biological-cultural diversity and identities. We need to bring the economy closer to home worldwide. Localising as an economics of happiness at the fundamental level is about reducing the competition for jobs, by establishing cultural and community role models that are realistic. This might sound utopian, or unrealistic, but the fact is that the unrealistic is to go further and further as we have done up until now.
Related to the economics of happiness is an economics of survival. Because subsidising more and more global trade, it literally leads to the import and export of the same products - water, milk, chicken, pigs, live animals. The US imports just as much as it exports. The UK exports as much butter and milk as it imports. This is utter madness on a planet dying from global warming. Oil is scarce and polluting. We want to minimise the use of oil, obviously.So ending a trade in identical products is the most logical and commonsensical way, which is not depriving anybody.But the profits of the giants would decrease, whereas the profits of millions of local businesses would increase. And this is the way of reducing the gap between the rich and the poor while reducing global warming.
The alternative, localisation movement seems to look good, but having witnessed the past economic recession,after the crisis is over, we tend to go back through the same process again and again. Humankind seems to hardly change, why?
I'd argue that it isn't humankind that is deciding what kind of economy that they need. It's a very small number of increasingly powerful people. If you look at who is actively promoting the deregulation of trade and finance,it's maybe point zero one of the human population ...maybe even less than that. I'd estimate that about 10,000 people worldwide. Most people wouldn't even understand the mechanisms. They think it's free trade that allows freedom. I think the main reason that this is happening is ignorance from the top and ignorance from the bottom.
But shall we be able to counter the trend in time,considering the urgency of the situation?
I think we do have enough time right now. I feel too many people in the environmental movement would say,'Oh it's all going to break down,[so] we don't need to worry about the system'. I believe if more people would focus on education for action, awareness, what I call 'economic literacy'. Spread the awareness. If we can't write for the newspaper, then we can write for newsletters.If we can't speak on television, then let's speak on radio programmes. Let's encourage everybody with the idea that there is a solution.
I believe that in theory, in two or three years, there could be enough of a movement to change policies. But I think this economic literacy needs to be understood from a global point of view. We need to have a lot more information shared between the North and the South. I believe in the localisation in the small states.
It seems, though, that the level of the 'immune system'of people in the South has already been drastically eroded ...
I believe in the so-called 'less developed countries' that the structures are much stronger for localisation. The structure of this crucial identity with one another, with the land, with animals, with the sense of belonging to a place,a language, a history and a group - that identity is still here. The sense of identity is what localisation can rebuild.
More importantly, or just as importantly, you have skills, both social and practical skills that we have lost.More people here know how to grow foods, know how to build houses out of natural, local materials. In the West,these skills and the communities are much more destroyed.However, in the West, there is more awareness of the problems with the global consumer culture. Here, people are still not experiencing it as much. Even when they see Bangkok - it's polluted, crowded, they believe if they just get more education, more Western schooling, learn English,get more development, then they will be like this paradise - the paradise of America or Europe. So lack of awareness here is the big problem of this dominant model of progress/development. So this is where I believe a deep dialogue between the North and the South is needed.
How have you seen yourself change over the years since you first set foot in Ladakh in the mid-'70s?
My views of everything [have] changed. I have studied psychology and I thought that cultural differences were not so significant. I thought it had more to do with hereditary [factors]. But what I experienced in Ladakh, a pre-industrial,pre-developed culture, I realised there were huge differences between that and all the industrialised countries that were very similar.
With industrial development, the most important thing that developed was the breakdown of identity through[out]communities, to realise the differences between old and young, male and female, and this role model for the children and sense of belonging.
I believe that community is essential for mental health.It's essential for learning how to be loving and tolerant.And breaking that down is like breaking down the sense of interdependence, which is the teaching of all spiritual traditions. I'd say it is a spiritual and psychological need that is just as important as breathing air is for your lungs.To feel spiritually and psychologically connected, it's something that modernity has destroyed, and that creates self-hatred, self-rejection, which leads to intolerance,violence, unhappiness. That may be the most important thing I have learned from Ladakh.
Having understood that, I also see in the West therapies that are fundamentally about rebuilding communities and the sense of interdependence and spiritual connection with nature. And those therapies are successful. Even prisoners, juvenile delinquents or violent men can be changed if you help them to connect to people with similar situations and to really share and help them to [re]connect with nature.
But how do you feel when you go back to Ladakh and see that it, too,changes year after year to be ... er,just like any other place on Earth?
There have been times when it becomes very depressing and upsetting.The worst was in 1989 when Buddhists and Muslims were killing each other.And year after year, the change has been quite difficult. But each year, with the breakdown of communities and ecological conditions, there were more and more Ladakhis who became interested in looking for alternatives,in assisting our work, particularly in the last 10 or so years. This interest has been going on at the same time as the destruction. So that has given me the strength and the hope to continue.
It seems young children nowadays have been groomed to think that they have to be No.1, and the interdependence has been thus cut off ...
Yes, absolutely. Even explicitly. In Ladakh they have now been taught:'You've got to be more ambitious; you've got to literally be more greedy; you've got to look up to [be] number one'.These are the terrible values that are being taught in the schools. In many journals, they'll talk about community identity as tribalism, and they identify tribalism with friction, with warfare.And the picture is painted that in the past, all of these diverse war-like tribes were fighting each other, and that modernity and homogenising has created peace. Well, let's look at how peaceful America is - look at the teenagers who go to school and kill each other, look at the violent crimes.You don't have group violence in the same way, but you have a complete breakdown. A lot of violence.
When you centralise power and you push people into the big cities, and they have to have a job for survival,then the people in power will give jobs to people of their own kind. If they're Buddhists, then they give the jobs to Buddhists. And if they're Muslims, then to Muslims. And this leads to ethnic friction and violence.
Centralisation is part of globalisation.Decentralisation is what can allow more people to have jobs, and to have interdependence with different groups.
I think another very major point is that by destroying communities and then creating job scarcity, these are crimes against humanity. However many people we are, there is more work to be done. Unemployment is a modern product of this economy. It never existed for thousands of years in any society.The artificial constriction of job opportunities is a crime against humanity that must be written about,explaining how and why it could happen.With more people, we need more care,because we have more work. First of all, every plant, every fish, every thing that lives right now is threatened, so we need more people caring for everything that's living. With global warming, we have drought and floods.
We need to protect everything against floods, fire and drought. So that means more people caring for every bit of water,and every little tree, so there's more work than ever. However many people we are, we need proportionate teachers,nurses, doctors ... there is no limit of work. But through this globalising path we are artificially constricting, and we're partly doing it through taxes and subsidies. So we must expose them.
And there's also this artificial scarcity of time ...
The scarcity of time is directly linked to the scarcity of jobs. Because we support businesses when they use technology and fossil fuel, they benefit from scientific research, subsidies and tax breaks. And the more fossil fuel they use, the less they pay. It's more the small businesses that use very little that will be punished because they pay more. This is crazy.
At the same time, if you employ a person, you pay heavy taxes. This should be shifted toward reducing the taxes on employment and increasing the taxes on technology and fossil fuel. The technology is part of speeding everything up. So the few people who have the jobs now in computers, you have to answer with more posts. Whereas when it was by post, in a day, you might have to answer how many letters. And now with emails, you have to answer much more.
It's because we've chosen subsidising technology and subsidising speed, which is linked to unemployment.
What project is your organisation working on right now?
We are working on a film called,"Economics of Happiness", which should be ready in about two months.I've worked on it for more than four years, and I've tried to get people from every continent -Africa, South America, North America, Europe, China,India, Thailand - to basically spell out that the globalisation of consumer culture is creating too much unhappiness in the world, and that localising would solve most of these problems. Localising needs to be pursued with an international and collaborative mindset. It's not about isolation. It's not about no travel, no trade. We actually need more deep,deep dialogue between the North and the South. And we need it now more than ever before.
But to Helena Norberg-Hodge, director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (Isec), economics can bring happiness, and without having to produce a huge sum of monetary profit, or the stresses and strains that are typical of a large-scale economy.
Norberg-Hodge received the 1986 Right Livelihood Award,aka the alternative Nobel Prize, for her dedication in promoting more peaceful, just and sustainable communities worldwide.
It all started from a small project the Swedish woman runs in Ladakh, initially a backwater region in northern India. Norberg-Hodge launched the Ladakh Project in 1978 in a bid to reverse the damaging trends of mass tourism and consumerism through promoting development based on Ladakhi cultural values. The innovative programme soon grew into Isec, where Norberg-Hodge and her colleagues had been initiating campaigns around the world to encourage ways of living that are more de-centralised and land-based.
A globetrotting and extremely busy Norberg-Hodge recently visited Thailand and delivered lectures in Bangkok and Khon Kaen on the theme of "Economics of Happiness".Norberg-Hodge took some time off from her hectic schedule to talk with 'Outlook'.
Could you please tell us what exactly this 'Economics of Happiness' is? It now seems the economics has been a tool for making money and a tool for making disasters,considering the recession we are now facing ...
Well, the 'Economics of Happiness' is essentially an economics of strengthening the local economy. It's a systemic shift away from the current direction of economy,which is going more and more global. At the fundamental level, what I'm arguing is that as economic policies support the globalising path, they support a bigger and bigger distance between production and consumption. And with this distance, structurally, it means pushing business to become bigger and bigger and bigger.with nature. And those therapies are successful. Even prisoners, juvenile delinquents or violent men can be changed if you help them to connect to people with similar situations and to really share and help them to [re]connect with nature.
With the scale of business and the distance, we are getting enormous problems both environmentally, socially and psychologically.
Again, structurally, this globalising path is leading to monoculture. These large businesses inevitably have to impose monoculture; it's not possible to adapt to diversity.It's directly linked to using media and advertisement to foster a human monoculture where children worldwide are made to feel inferior to the standards that are fundamentally Western. But it's also anti-Western, in the sense that there is this image of perfection that the young children feel they cannot live up to. By establishing an unrealistic role model - a global consumer identity this is responsible for massive increases in self-rejection,and even self-hatred.
By subsiding global trade and global businesses, a government is simultaneously subsidising a path that's encouraging businesses to use more fossil fuel and technology and fewer people. So the next result is job insecurity, and very, very intense competitions for scarce jobs. This combination of creating an unrealistic role model, the role model of consumer identity, and at the same time, the job scarcity, the unemployment and the competition is increasing worldwide friction and unhappiness.
What I'm suggesting is that we must shift away from these bigger and more global business activities, and toward supporting local businesses worldwide that spend less fossil, and adapted to the natural-biological-cultural diversity and identities. We need to bring the economy closer to home worldwide. Localising as an economics of happiness at the fundamental level is about reducing the competition for jobs, by establishing cultural and community role models that are realistic. This might sound utopian, or unrealistic, but the fact is that the unrealistic is to go further and further as we have done up until now.
Related to the economics of happiness is an economics of survival. Because subsidising more and more global trade, it literally leads to the import and export of the same products - water, milk, chicken, pigs, live animals. The US imports just as much as it exports. The UK exports as much butter and milk as it imports. This is utter madness on a planet dying from global warming. Oil is scarce and polluting. We want to minimise the use of oil, obviously.So ending a trade in identical products is the most logical and commonsensical way, which is not depriving anybody.But the profits of the giants would decrease, whereas the profits of millions of local businesses would increase. And this is the way of reducing the gap between the rich and the poor while reducing global warming.
The alternative, localisation movement seems to look good, but having witnessed the past economic recession,after the crisis is over, we tend to go back through the same process again and again. Humankind seems to hardly change, why?
I'd argue that it isn't humankind that is deciding what kind of economy that they need. It's a very small number of increasingly powerful people. If you look at who is actively promoting the deregulation of trade and finance,it's maybe point zero one of the human population ...maybe even less than that. I'd estimate that about 10,000 people worldwide. Most people wouldn't even understand the mechanisms. They think it's free trade that allows freedom. I think the main reason that this is happening is ignorance from the top and ignorance from the bottom.
But shall we be able to counter the trend in time,considering the urgency of the situation?
I think we do have enough time right now. I feel too many people in the environmental movement would say,'Oh it's all going to break down,[so] we don't need to worry about the system'. I believe if more people would focus on education for action, awareness, what I call 'economic literacy'. Spread the awareness. If we can't write for the newspaper, then we can write for newsletters.If we can't speak on television, then let's speak on radio programmes. Let's encourage everybody with the idea that there is a solution.
I believe that in theory, in two or three years, there could be enough of a movement to change policies. But I think this economic literacy needs to be understood from a global point of view. We need to have a lot more information shared between the North and the South. I believe in the localisation in the small states.
It seems, though, that the level of the 'immune system'of people in the South has already been drastically eroded ...
I believe in the so-called 'less developed countries' that the structures are much stronger for localisation. The structure of this crucial identity with one another, with the land, with animals, with the sense of belonging to a place,a language, a history and a group - that identity is still here. The sense of identity is what localisation can rebuild.
More importantly, or just as importantly, you have skills, both social and practical skills that we have lost.More people here know how to grow foods, know how to build houses out of natural, local materials. In the West,these skills and the communities are much more destroyed.However, in the West, there is more awareness of the problems with the global consumer culture. Here, people are still not experiencing it as much. Even when they see Bangkok - it's polluted, crowded, they believe if they just get more education, more Western schooling, learn English,get more development, then they will be like this paradise - the paradise of America or Europe. So lack of awareness here is the big problem of this dominant model of progress/development. So this is where I believe a deep dialogue between the North and the South is needed.
How have you seen yourself change over the years since you first set foot in Ladakh in the mid-'70s?
My views of everything [have] changed. I have studied psychology and I thought that cultural differences were not so significant. I thought it had more to do with hereditary [factors]. But what I experienced in Ladakh, a pre-industrial,pre-developed culture, I realised there were huge differences between that and all the industrialised countries that were very similar.
With industrial development, the most important thing that developed was the breakdown of identity through[out]communities, to realise the differences between old and young, male and female, and this role model for the children and sense of belonging.
I believe that community is essential for mental health.It's essential for learning how to be loving and tolerant.And breaking that down is like breaking down the sense of interdependence, which is the teaching of all spiritual traditions. I'd say it is a spiritual and psychological need that is just as important as breathing air is for your lungs.To feel spiritually and psychologically connected, it's something that modernity has destroyed, and that creates self-hatred, self-rejection, which leads to intolerance,violence, unhappiness. That may be the most important thing I have learned from Ladakh.
Having understood that, I also see in the West therapies that are fundamentally about rebuilding communities and the sense of interdependence and spiritual connection with nature. And those therapies are successful. Even prisoners, juvenile delinquents or violent men can be changed if you help them to connect to people with similar situations and to really share and help them to [re]connect with nature.
But how do you feel when you go back to Ladakh and see that it, too,changes year after year to be ... er,just like any other place on Earth?
There have been times when it becomes very depressing and upsetting.The worst was in 1989 when Buddhists and Muslims were killing each other.And year after year, the change has been quite difficult. But each year, with the breakdown of communities and ecological conditions, there were more and more Ladakhis who became interested in looking for alternatives,in assisting our work, particularly in the last 10 or so years. This interest has been going on at the same time as the destruction. So that has given me the strength and the hope to continue.
It seems young children nowadays have been groomed to think that they have to be No.1, and the interdependence has been thus cut off ...
Yes, absolutely. Even explicitly. In Ladakh they have now been taught:'You've got to be more ambitious; you've got to literally be more greedy; you've got to look up to [be] number one'.These are the terrible values that are being taught in the schools. In many journals, they'll talk about community identity as tribalism, and they identify tribalism with friction, with warfare.And the picture is painted that in the past, all of these diverse war-like tribes were fighting each other, and that modernity and homogenising has created peace. Well, let's look at how peaceful America is - look at the teenagers who go to school and kill each other, look at the violent crimes.You don't have group violence in the same way, but you have a complete breakdown. A lot of violence.
When you centralise power and you push people into the big cities, and they have to have a job for survival,then the people in power will give jobs to people of their own kind. If they're Buddhists, then they give the jobs to Buddhists. And if they're Muslims, then to Muslims. And this leads to ethnic friction and violence.
Centralisation is part of globalisation.Decentralisation is what can allow more people to have jobs, and to have interdependence with different groups.
I think another very major point is that by destroying communities and then creating job scarcity, these are crimes against humanity. However many people we are, there is more work to be done. Unemployment is a modern product of this economy. It never existed for thousands of years in any society.The artificial constriction of job opportunities is a crime against humanity that must be written about,explaining how and why it could happen.With more people, we need more care,because we have more work. First of all, every plant, every fish, every thing that lives right now is threatened, so we need more people caring for everything that's living. With global warming, we have drought and floods.
We need to protect everything against floods, fire and drought. So that means more people caring for every bit of water,and every little tree, so there's more work than ever. However many people we are, we need proportionate teachers,nurses, doctors ... there is no limit of work. But through this globalising path we are artificially constricting, and we're partly doing it through taxes and subsidies. So we must expose them.
And there's also this artificial scarcity of time ...
The scarcity of time is directly linked to the scarcity of jobs. Because we support businesses when they use technology and fossil fuel, they benefit from scientific research, subsidies and tax breaks. And the more fossil fuel they use, the less they pay. It's more the small businesses that use very little that will be punished because they pay more. This is crazy.
At the same time, if you employ a person, you pay heavy taxes. This should be shifted toward reducing the taxes on employment and increasing the taxes on technology and fossil fuel. The technology is part of speeding everything up. So the few people who have the jobs now in computers, you have to answer with more posts. Whereas when it was by post, in a day, you might have to answer how many letters. And now with emails, you have to answer much more.
It's because we've chosen subsidising technology and subsidising speed, which is linked to unemployment.
What project is your organisation working on right now?
We are working on a film called,"Economics of Happiness", which should be ready in about two months.I've worked on it for more than four years, and I've tried to get people from every continent -Africa, South America, North America, Europe, China,India, Thailand - to basically spell out that the globalisation of consumer culture is creating too much unhappiness in the world, and that localising would solve most of these problems. Localising needs to be pursued with an international and collaborative mindset. It's not about isolation. It's not about no travel, no trade. We actually need more deep,deep dialogue between the North and the South. And we need it now more than ever before.
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Mong gets third place in new event
Mong Thongdee, the stateless boy representing Thailand at the Japanese paper airplane contest, has captured third place in the individual event.
It was the second achievement in two days for the boy. On Saturday, Mong,12, and his three-member Thai team won the group competition.
Contestants quickly fold their planes,then throw them into the air.
Mong won a national paper airplane championship in Thailand in August 2008 after he threw a plane that flew for 12 seconds, and was later chosen to attend the Japanese contest in Chiba,near Tokyo.
But Mong, who lives in Chiang Mai,is the son of Burmese migrants who are stateless and so have no legal right to travel abroad.
His first application to leave Thailand was denied, but after media coverage of his plight the government granted him a temporary passport.
Mong yesterday appeared in a white T-shirt decorated with the Thai flag, whipping his carefully folded airplanes high into the air during the competition in front of hundreds of spectators.
He placed third in the division for elementary school students with a time of 10.53 seconds.
After the event he said he wanted his family back home to know he won third place, and that he was grateful to the people who supported him.
It was the second achievement in two days for the boy. On Saturday, Mong,12, and his three-member Thai team won the group competition.
Contestants quickly fold their planes,then throw them into the air.
Mong won a national paper airplane championship in Thailand in August 2008 after he threw a plane that flew for 12 seconds, and was later chosen to attend the Japanese contest in Chiba,near Tokyo.
But Mong, who lives in Chiang Mai,is the son of Burmese migrants who are stateless and so have no legal right to travel abroad.
His first application to leave Thailand was denied, but after media coverage of his plight the government granted him a temporary passport.
Mong yesterday appeared in a white T-shirt decorated with the Thai flag, whipping his carefully folded airplanes high into the air during the competition in front of hundreds of spectators.
He placed third in the division for elementary school students with a time of 10.53 seconds.
After the event he said he wanted his family back home to know he won third place, and that he was grateful to the people who supported him.
Monday, September 21, 2009
Efforts to regulate jet skis to be stepped up
Authorities are stepping up efforts to regulate jet ski operators following alleged scams involving extortion of foreigners over damage to jet skis on Phuket and other incidents.
Phuket officials, jet ski operators and representatives of insurance companies yesterday met to discuss measures to promote tourism in the resort island and to bring jet ski operations into the insurance system to prevent possible extortion of foreigners.
The move came after the recent distribution of video recordings featuring foreign tourists allegedly being ripped off over damage to jet skis on Phuket and other incidents.
Phuket deputy governor Samith Palwatwichai said a committee will be set up to look at the possibility of having all jet skis in the province insured.
Mr Samith said local authorities, insurers and jet ski operators will meet again on Wednesday to thrash out the details of insurance premiums for jet skis.
A total of 219 jet skis are available for rent on Surin, Bangtao, Kamala, Patong and Kata-Karon beaches.
Mr Samith said the provincial marine office had been asked to survey and register jet ski operators in the province.
The deputy governor said operators will be asked to stop overcharging and extorting tourists or demanding exorbitant compensation for minor damage to jet skis.
Suvimol sae Lim, director of the Phuket insurance commission office, said Phuket should serve as a trail-blazer in jet ski insurance as so far no insurers had ever provided coverage for jet ski operators in the country.
She said if jet ski insurance was introduced in the province, this would help sort out problems involving the extortion of foreigners over damage.
Tourists who rented jet skis would feel confident they would not be taken advantage of, Ms Suvimol said.
"If Phuket is successful, it will serve as an example for other provinces which has jet ski operators," she said.
Ms Suvimol said initially proposed insurance packages would cover damage to jet skis, insure against loss of income due to the damage to jet skis and provide coverage to tourists renting them.
So far only the Bangkok Insurance company has offered to provide cover for jet skis in Phuket, Ms Suvimol said.
Anusorn Sa-re, head of the Phuket association of jet ski operators, said he agreed with the proposal and said the insurance premium must be acceptable to operators. He said operators can only earn income between December and May. They could not make money during the remainder of the year as it is the monsoon season.
Recently, video clips have been distributed showing a female British tourist being arrested for marijuana possession at a full moon party on Koh Phangan and a British marine and a US marine being threatened to pay exorbitant compensation for damage to rented jet skis on Phuket in separate incidents.
Phuket officials, jet ski operators and representatives of insurance companies yesterday met to discuss measures to promote tourism in the resort island and to bring jet ski operations into the insurance system to prevent possible extortion of foreigners.
The move came after the recent distribution of video recordings featuring foreign tourists allegedly being ripped off over damage to jet skis on Phuket and other incidents.
Phuket deputy governor Samith Palwatwichai said a committee will be set up to look at the possibility of having all jet skis in the province insured.
Mr Samith said local authorities, insurers and jet ski operators will meet again on Wednesday to thrash out the details of insurance premiums for jet skis.
A total of 219 jet skis are available for rent on Surin, Bangtao, Kamala, Patong and Kata-Karon beaches.
Mr Samith said the provincial marine office had been asked to survey and register jet ski operators in the province.
The deputy governor said operators will be asked to stop overcharging and extorting tourists or demanding exorbitant compensation for minor damage to jet skis.
Suvimol sae Lim, director of the Phuket insurance commission office, said Phuket should serve as a trail-blazer in jet ski insurance as so far no insurers had ever provided coverage for jet ski operators in the country.
She said if jet ski insurance was introduced in the province, this would help sort out problems involving the extortion of foreigners over damage.
Tourists who rented jet skis would feel confident they would not be taken advantage of, Ms Suvimol said.
"If Phuket is successful, it will serve as an example for other provinces which has jet ski operators," she said.
Ms Suvimol said initially proposed insurance packages would cover damage to jet skis, insure against loss of income due to the damage to jet skis and provide coverage to tourists renting them.
So far only the Bangkok Insurance company has offered to provide cover for jet skis in Phuket, Ms Suvimol said.
Anusorn Sa-re, head of the Phuket association of jet ski operators, said he agreed with the proposal and said the insurance premium must be acceptable to operators. He said operators can only earn income between December and May. They could not make money during the remainder of the year as it is the monsoon season.
Recently, video clips have been distributed showing a female British tourist being arrested for marijuana possession at a full moon party on Koh Phangan and a British marine and a US marine being threatened to pay exorbitant compensation for damage to rented jet skis on Phuket in separate incidents.
POLICE TO ENLIST 1,000 INFORMERS
Police are enlisting 1,000 residents to help them fight crime.
Wichai Sangprapai, chief of the city police unit, said the Sai Lub Phan Na (Spies With A Thousand Faces) project encourages residents to play an active part in cracking down on crime in their communities.
One thousand volunteers have been recruited from 140 communities in areas under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police Division 1, which supervises Government House, parliament, Ratchadamnoen Avenue, Sam Sen, Phaya Thai, and Huai Khwang. The project was launched yesterday.
The Office of the Narcotics Control Board has allocated 420,000 baht to train the volunteers to work as police informants. Pol Maj Gen Wichai said they will be rewarded for their efforts.
Wichai Sangprapai, chief of the city police unit, said the Sai Lub Phan Na (Spies With A Thousand Faces) project encourages residents to play an active part in cracking down on crime in their communities.
One thousand volunteers have been recruited from 140 communities in areas under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan Police Division 1, which supervises Government House, parliament, Ratchadamnoen Avenue, Sam Sen, Phaya Thai, and Huai Khwang. The project was launched yesterday.
The Office of the Narcotics Control Board has allocated 420,000 baht to train the volunteers to work as police informants. Pol Maj Gen Wichai said they will be rewarded for their efforts.
Mong lands gold in team event
Mong Thongdee, a stateless child from Chiang Mai province representing Thailand in an international paper airplane flying contest in Japan, yesterday emerged the champion in the team event.
MONG GOES FOR GOLD: Mong Thongdee prepares to throw his paper plane in Japan yesterday.
The 12-year-old boy was part of a three-man team which included two adults at the All-Japan Origami Airplane competition being held at the Makuhari Complex in Chiba, Japan, according to Japanese newspaper Mainichi.
Mong's paper plane stayed in the air for 11 seconds, which was good enough for victory, but not good enough to break the record of 12.50 seconds set last year.
Mong was wearing a yellow shirt and a pair of jeans when he made his throw.
After the team victory, in which only the best throw is counted out of the three throws, he smiled and shook hands with members of the rival teams.
Mong said he wanted to thank all the people who supported him and said he would tell his parents he was proud to have represented Thailand and won.
He will be competing Sunday in the individual event.
Mong is a Prathom 4 (grade 4) student at the Ban Huay Sai School in Chiang Mai province.
Mong almost didn't make it to Japan for the competition as he is a stateless person in Thailand - his parents are Burmese - and he has no ID card and didn't qualify for a Thai passport.
But after the story of his plight first broke in the Bangkok Post Sunday, senior government officials stepped in.
Mong was then given the all-clear to travel to Japan after PM Abhisit Vejjajiva stepped in. A certificate and temporary passport were issued to the boy, allowing him to travel to Japan.
MONG GOES FOR GOLD: Mong Thongdee prepares to throw his paper plane in Japan yesterday.
The 12-year-old boy was part of a three-man team which included two adults at the All-Japan Origami Airplane competition being held at the Makuhari Complex in Chiba, Japan, according to Japanese newspaper Mainichi.
Mong's paper plane stayed in the air for 11 seconds, which was good enough for victory, but not good enough to break the record of 12.50 seconds set last year.
Mong was wearing a yellow shirt and a pair of jeans when he made his throw.
After the team victory, in which only the best throw is counted out of the three throws, he smiled and shook hands with members of the rival teams.
Mong said he wanted to thank all the people who supported him and said he would tell his parents he was proud to have represented Thailand and won.
He will be competing Sunday in the individual event.
Mong is a Prathom 4 (grade 4) student at the Ban Huay Sai School in Chiang Mai province.
Mong almost didn't make it to Japan for the competition as he is a stateless person in Thailand - his parents are Burmese - and he has no ID card and didn't qualify for a Thai passport.
But after the story of his plight first broke in the Bangkok Post Sunday, senior government officials stepped in.
Mong was then given the all-clear to travel to Japan after PM Abhisit Vejjajiva stepped in. A certificate and temporary passport were issued to the boy, allowing him to travel to Japan.
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