New Year cheer
A boy on February 19 plays with a lion dancer during Chinese New Year celebrations in the Yaowarat area of Bangkok.
Grounded flight
Plane has trouble with door
On February 18, passengers of a Nok Air flight were stranded at Nan airport for more than three hours after a rear cabin door could not be securely closed before take-off.
The crew of Flight DD8819, bound for Bangkok’s Don Mueang Airport, asked the 86 passengers to alight from the plane and wait in the passenger terminal after the airline’s technical staff failed to fix the problem.
Nok Air official Patee Sarasin said he expected that some nuts on the door might have been loose. The aircraft could not take off for safety reasons, he said, so the company sent a replacement plane to Nan airport.
Strict for smokers
WHO approves of proposed laws
The World Health Organisation (WHO) backs the Public Health Ministry’s new tobacco control law, the government said on February 18.
WHO director-general Margaret Chan expressed support for the law in a letter to Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha, Public Health Minister Rajata Rajatanavin reported.
The law is awaiting cabinet scrutiny but has already met strong resistance among tobacco retailers and growers who fear they will lose benefits. The bill’s main targets are to reduce smoking among youths by increasing the minimum age at which somebody can buy tobacco from 18 to 20 years old, banning the online sale of tobacco products and the sale of individual cigarettes. The law will also list e-cigarette and baraku as tobacco products.
EASY NEWS FOR M1-3
Trucker arrested
Driver caught with drugs
Police arrested a truck driver. It happened in Phatthalung’s Muang district on February 16. The suspect possessed about 40,000 methamphetamine pills. He was 32 years old.
Vocabulary
- alight (v): to get out of a bus, a train or other vehicle
nut (n): a small piece of metal with a hole through the centre that is screwed onto a bolt to hold pieces of wood, machinery, etc. together
retailer (n): a person or business that sells goods to the public
