BANGKOK: Thailand’s King Maha Vajiralongkorn has ordered police to stop completely blocking roads in Bangkok for royal motorcades, a government spokeswoman said.
The order followed rare criticism of royal motorcades and other inconveniences that Thais have aired online in recent months.
Thai police will instead block off only a part of the roads for the motorcade, said spokeswoman Narumon Pinyosinwat on her Facebook page.
She also posted a video outlining the new rules, which also included allowing people to resume using bridges that tower over the motorcade route.
“His Majesty the King is concerned his royal travel or that of the royal family’s could affect Thai people’s commute,” said a voice-over in the video.
Bangkok is one of the most congested major cities in the world, ranking 11th on US-based traffic analytics firm INRIX’s Global Traffic Scorecard in 2017.
Last year, the #royalmotorcade hashtag became one of the top-trending subjects on Thai-language Twitter.
Another recent hashtag, #islandsclosure, also rose to the top of the Twitter trending list over the New Year’s holidays, as southern tourist islands were closed off for visits by the king’s youngest daughter.
Thailand has a tough law against insulting the king, queen, heir or regent. Anyone who violates this law faces up to 15 years in prison.
Thai king Maha Vajiralongkorn orders new traffic rules after royal motorcades criticized
https://arab.news/cpjx3
Thai king Maha Vajiralongkorn orders new traffic rules after royal motorcades criticized
- The order followed rare criticism of royal motorcades
- Thai police will instead block off only a part of the roads for the motorcade
China says Philippines distorted facts about incident near disputed atoll
- The Chinese ministry defended its coast guard’s actions as “reasonable, lawful, professional and restrained”
BEIJING: China’s defense ministry accused the Philippines on Wednesday of distorting the facts about an incident involving the Chinese coast guard and Filipino fishermen near a South China Sea shoal, a charge Manila strongly rejected.
The Philippine coast guard said over the weekend that three Filipino fishermen were injured and two fishing vessels damaged when Chinese coast guard ships cut their anchor lines and fired water cannon near the Sabina Shoal on Friday, actions the Philippine defense secretary denounced as “dangerous” and “inhumane.”
The Chinese ministry defended its coast guard’s actions as “reasonable, lawful, professional and restrained,” and vowed to “take strong and effective measures” in response to “all acts of infringement and provocation,” according to a statement released on its social media account.
“The Philippine side amassed a large number of ships in an organized and premeditated manner to illegally intrude” into the atoll’s lagoon, the ministry said. “Philippine personnel even threatened Chinese coast guard on site with a knife,” it added.
Philippine defense ministry spokesperson Arsenio Andolong maintained that Manila has evidence to counter China’s assertions.
“The facts are not distorted. They are documented, timestamped, and corroborated by video recordings, vessel logs, and on-site reporting by the Philippine Coast Guard,” Andolong said in a statement.
“The Philippines is not hyping the issue, the facts speak for themselves. These are aggressive and excessive actions of an encroaching state,” he added.
Sabina Shoal, which China refers to as Xianbin Reef and the Philippines as the Escoda Shoal, lies in the Philippines’ exclusive economic zone 150 km (95 miles) west of Palawan province.
China claims almost the entire South China Sea, a waterway supporting more than $3 trillion of annual commerce. The areas Beijing claims cut into the exclusive economic zones of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Vietnam.
An international arbitral tribunal ruled in 2016 that Beijing’s sweeping claims had no basis under international law, a decision China rejects.
