Local News

Bangkok best in Asia

Travel mag ranks city fourth in world

Bangkok has been named as the best place in Asia for visitors and ranked fourth in the world by Travel & Leisure magazine.

The city was voted best destination with the best value for money in Asia by the US-based magazine. Several  hotels in Bangkok were also voted Asia�s best hotels.

Bangkok Governor Apirak Kosayodhin received the World�s Best Awards 2004 certificate from the magazine on September 19.

The magazine rated the capital after Sydney, Rome and Florence in the global survey of more than 200,000 readers, who voted Bangkok the fourth best city thanks to its landscape, culture, restaurants, hospitality, social values and shopping places.

Apirak said he would work with the Tourism Authority of Thailand and the private sector to promote tourism.

It was the second time the magazine voted Bangkok Asia�s best.

Trimming parade

An overweight woman carrying a placard reading �So fed up of being fat� flashes a smile at onlookers during a miniskirt parade in Siam Square. The parade, sponsored by a firm in the slimming business, was held to raise awareness about the proper way to lose weight. � Bangkok Post

Full speed ahead

Oarsmen strive to take their boats to the finish line during a race on Khwae Om Canal in front of Wat Koh San Phra in Wat Phleng district of Ratchaburi on September 18. The race was held to promote water sports and eco-tourism.  � Bangkok Post

Drunk driving campaign targets students

Teachers trained to get message out

Senator Damrong Puttan�s Don�t Drive Drunk Foundation is targeting students in its campaign because so many are killed each year.

Addressing a foundation training session in Bangkok attended by  300 teachers from 150 schools nationwide, the senator said the course is a stage in the foundation�s campaign concentrating on educational institutes as drink driving is killing their students.

One or two students from almost every university in Bangkok die each month in road accidents resulting from driving while under the influence, he said.

He hopes that teachers who are trained will be able to pass on his foundation�s message to their students. His foundation will also campaign against allowing alcohol advertising in the media.

Paibul Suriyawongpaisal, head of Ramathibodi Hospital�s Community Medicine Centre, said teachers are an important factor in the success or failure of such campaigns.

Teenagers comprise the majority of fatalities in road accidents, 70-80 percent of which involve motorcycles, he said.

Baby Apec�s mom found guilty

Sentenced to 25 years in prison

The Roi Et woman who put her 4-day-old baby boy in plastic bags and left him for dead in a rubbish bin in the Sukhumvit area last year was sentenced to 25 years in jail by the Southern Bangkok Criminal Court on September 28.

The court found Nongnuch McKavinny, 24, guilty of abandonment, torture and killing a minor.

It sentenced her to death for leaving her baby boy, nicknamed Apec when he was discovered during the APEC summit in Bangkok, wrapped in plastic bags in a rubbish bin behind Robinson department store�s Sukhumvit 19 branch on October 17, 2003.

However, the death sentence was commuted to 25 years in prison due to the defendant�s confession and remorse shown after she held funeral rites in her home town for her dead son.

Nongnuch denied premeditated murder, but the court ruled that she had intended to abandon and kill the baby due to illness and stress after being deserted by her foreign husband and rejected by her new husband, who refused to adopt the boy.

Vocabulary

destination (n): a  place to which somebody or something is going or being sent
landscape (n): everything you can see when you look across a large area of land, especially in the country
hospitality (n): friendly and generous behaviour towards guests
concentrate (v): to give all your attention to something and not think about anything else
factor (n): one of several things that cause or influence something
comprise (v): to consist of somebody or something
fatality (n): a death that is caused in an accident or a war or by some other act of violence
abandon (v): to leave somebody, especially somebody you are responsible for, with no intention of returning
commute (v): to replace one punishment with another that is less severe
defendant (n): the person in a court of law who is accused of committing a crime or who is being sued by another person
remorse (n): the feeling of being extremely sorry for something wrong or bad that you have done
desert (v): to leave somebody without help or support