Drivers, it’s time to put your mobile phones away when you’re on the road.

A two-year-old boy in Fujian, China, was knocked down by a distracted driver last Monday (April 10), Shanghaiist reported.

CCTV footage showed a man getting into his car while talking on his mobile phone. He did not notice the toddler who had walked to the front of his car.

As he drove, the toddler fell onto his back and the vehicle ran over the boy. The driver was later seen getting out of his car to help the injured child.

A medical checkup revealed that the boy only suffered minor injuries from the accident.

This is one of the recent cases of drivers knocking down young children in China.

Earlier this month, an 18-month-old girl in Hubei was playing on the road outside her father’s shop when a car reversed and ran over her with both rear and front tires.

The girl got away from the ordeal with only some scrapes on her face.

Unfortunately, not every child managed to survive such accidents.

Last Tuesday (April 11), a three-year-old toddler in Zhejiang ran towards a car that was making a turn. He was struck down by the vehicle, leaving behind a pool of blood on the road.

Realising something was amiss, the driver got out of his car and called the police for help. But it was too late for the child who died shortly after he was taken to the hospital.

Local police said that these children are too young to understand the dangers of the road and should always be accompanied by a guardian.

Toddlers are often too short to be seen over a vehicle’s engine or through the rear view mirror, they added.

Although some of these children were not seriously hurt by the accidents, online users have voiced their concerns about internal injuries or future health problems in the young victims.

minlee@sph.com.sg

The government has begun to have second thoughts about its free-visa policy, saying it has not been working as expected to boost the number of foreign tourists visiting the country.

The Tourism Ministry, the Law and Human Rights Ministry and the Foreign Ministry have therefore decided to reduce the number of countries that enjoy the privilege, which had been granted to 169.

Each ministry claimed to have listed countries that were under consideration to be removed from the list.

The Tourism Ministry, for instance, has said that 49 of the 169 countries would likely be excluded from the free-visa list as fewer than 100 tourists came from them in about the first six months after the policy was launched for each.

Some even contributed zero arrivals throughout 2016, including Puerto Rico.

Other countries on the list include Algeria, the Marshall Islands, Cuba, the Bahamas, Kiribati, Jamaica, Namibia and Vanuatu.

“According to our evaluation, we should shortlist which countries deserve the free visa and the ones to be given visas-on-arrival instead,” the ministry’s deputy minister for international marketing, I Gde Pitana, said on the sidelines of a hearing with members of the House of Representatives on Monday.

He quickly added that the free visa policy was not completely useless as it had helped increase the total number of foreign visitors by 19.43 per cent from 2015 to 2016.

Egyptians represented the highest increase with 53.35 per cent, followed by Bahrainians with 41.63 per cent, Indians with 28.78 per cent, British people with 27.56 per cent and Saudi Arabians with 26.91 per cent.

The Law and Human Rights Ministry went further by proposing to remove 82 countries from the list as they contributed less than 1 per cent, less than 1,000 tourist arrivals, to the total of 9,9 million arrivals in 2016.

Most of those countries are in Latin America and Africa.

“These countries are worth being considered to be excluded for our list of free-visa receivers,” immigration authority’s director for immigration traffic, Maryoto Sumadi, told the hearing.

Law and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly admitted that the government should have been more selective in deciding which countries should have been given a waiver of visa fees.

“When their people never come to Indonesia, why should they keep enjoying the free visa?” Yasonna said.

The Foreign Ministry has also pushed for a review of the policy, but for a different reason.

Some countries should be removed from the list not only because they have made only a small contribution to Indonesia’s tourist industry but also because they had not made reciprocal gestures.

“A free visa is not the only instrument to attract tourists,” the ministry’s director general for protocol and consular affairs, Andri Hadi, told lawmakers.

The government started to implement the free-visa policy in 2015 as an attempt to attract up to 20 million foreign tourists to the country’s vacation destinations by 2019.

The citizens of about 15 countries, including ASEAN countries, have actually enjoyed free visas since 2003, but the government decided to open the door for 30 more countries in June 2015, welcoming people from China, Russia, South Korea, Japan and the United States without charging them for visas.

Three months later, the government waived the visa fees for the citizens of 45 more countries, mostly people from Europe and the Middle East.

In March 2016, tourists from 79 more countries, including many African nations, also started to enjoy the privilege.

Consequently, the country lost about Rp 1.2 trillion (S$127 million) in non-tax revenues last year.

Critics, meanwhile, have claimed that many foreigners have misused the policy and contributed to the rise of transnational crimes.

Lawmakers have supported the government’s plan to take some countries off the list, arguing that the policy had brought no significant benefits to the country.

“This policy definitely needs an evaluation,” Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) lawmaker Evita Nursanty said.

The Presidential office has welcome the plan to develop a Disneyland entertainment venue in Boyolali regency, Central Jakarta, with the hope that it will have a multiplier effect on development in the region.

“Indonesia is wide open for any investment that has a multiplier effect on development in the region,” said Cabinet Secretary Pramono Anung at the Presidential office in Jakarta on Monday as reported by tempo.co.

Previously, Boyolali Regent Seno Samudra said he had received an offer from Disneyland management in California for the company to develop a venue on a 100-hectare site in the regency with a total investment of about Rp 6 trillion (S$63.21 billion).

The ground-breaking ceremony for the project is scheduled for Sept. 1.

Pramomo said that in the area, the government had established a growth-centre triangle – Solo (Surakarta), Klaten and Yogyakarta – in which Boyolali had been included and would be promoted as a target for investment.

“If a Disneyland really is to be developed, it is great news and it will be a large investment,” Pramono added.

Pattaya, Thailand – In a daring nautical themed outfit, sex worker May confidently predicts the survival of Thai sleaze town Pattaya despite a junta attempt to tame the kingdom’s “Sin City”.

She is bullish because she, like tens of thousands of others in the industry, have no plans to give up their jobs. And there are no signs the hordes of foreign sex tourists are abating.

Two hours east of Bangkok, Pattaya’s bawdy reputation hails from the Vietnam War era when American GIs partied in their downtime.

Today it spins money off its no-holds-barred reputation and its most successful sex workers earn anywhere between 70-150,000 baht ($2-4,400) a month, as much as ten times the national average wage.

“I make good money here, for me and my family,” May told AFP as she touted for clients near ‘Walking Street’ – a mile-long drag festooned with bars and clubs pouring out ear-crushing EDM music.

But concerns about the impact on Thailand’s reputation have spurred authorities to act, while frequent reports of underage sex workers, drug abuse and mafia operations further muddy Pattaya’s name.

May, who is transgender, said the strip has felt more subdued in recent weeks as police and soldiers conduct frequent patrols as part of a clean-up ordered by the censorious ruling junta.

Police Lieutenant Colonel Sulasak Kalokwilas is one of those tasked with what many might deem the ultimate Sisyphean task: weaning Pattaya off sex.

“We are suppressing obscene and dirty shows. We’re trying to make those bars disappear,” he explained.

As he spoke, lines of women stood behind him in revealing outfits enticing punters into bars with names like Taboo and G-Spot as well as Fahrenheit – a nightspot boasting “The Hottest Girls in Pattaya”.

“The lady boys and women working there, they are not involved in the sex trade,” said Pattaya’s police chief Colonel Apichai Kroppeth, echoing the kind of Thai police rhetoric commonly divorced from reality.

“They work as waitresses, sit and chat with customers, some dance in shows,” he said.

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Photo Gallery

Thai authorities crack down on ‘Sin City’ Pattaya

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Bar fines, short-times

For many residents of the city the latest moral outrage fits a familiar pattern: negative overseas headlines prompt authorities to launch high-visibility – yet limited – crackdowns on an industry that pays the bills for everyone.

“You’re expecting the poachers to be the gamekeepers?” said one westerner who has made Pattaya his home, when asked if the latest clean-up will work.

The sex trade is a cash cow for the bar owners, girls, massage parlours, hotels, taxis, mafia and, many have long alleged, the cops charged with policing.

Thais call it “pon prayote”, says British journalist Andrew Drummond who reported on crime in Thailand for two decades.

“It means everyone benefits… it brings in massive amounts of money and simply couldn’t happen without police connivance.” Apichai insisted there was “no bribery for sure” in his force.

Prostitution is illegal in conservative Thailand. Yet it remains ubiquitous for local and foreign customers alike.

Businesses use a well worn loophole to avoid prosecution, hiring sex workers inside the bars merely to entertain and talk to patrons.

A small “bar fine”, usually around 500 baht ($14), secures private “short time” away from the bar where any deal struck for sex is purely between the punter and prostitute.

While authorities have vowed to shutter the trade, there is little discussion on what happens to the sex workers – who often support large families with their earnings.

There are no exact numbers, but a 2014 UNAIDS report suggested some 140,000 females are employed by sex work across Thailand. Tens of thousands are thought to operate in Pattaya alone.

Par for the course

Tourism officials are optimistic for change, citing the increasing number of families coming to the town’s resorts and its popularity for sports, such as jet-skiing and golf.

“In terms of facilities I think we are already there,” said Suladda Sarutilavan, Pattaya’s director of tourism.

Last year some 12 million tourists – seventy per cent foreigners – visited a city which now boasts over 100,000 rooms across 2,000 hotels, from cheap backpackers to swanky golf courses and family apartments.

While not everyone who comes is a sex tourist, she admits the city’s seedy image and crime headlines are a problem.

“It makes us feel a little bit uncomfortable,” she said.

Two recent killings have renewed the spotlight on the city’s reputation as a bolthole for foreign criminals.

In January, British businessman Tony Kenway was gunned down as he left the gym, a hit police linked to “boiler room” scams.

In 2015 an Australian former Hells Angel was kidnapped in broad daylight and murdered.

Foreigners who have made Pattaya home lament the killings, but say they fail to tell the wider picture of a largely safe, affordable city.

“Every night I went out in Coventry there was always one or two fights. I feel completely safe here,” said Briton Bryan Flowers, who moved to Pattaya a decade ago and now owns a dozen bars.

Others argue fancy hotels, malls and golf courses can flourish in step with the town’s party reputation.

“It’s why a lot of people come here,” Simon Peatfield, another Brit who owns restaurants and sports bars, said.

“There’s only so much golf you can play.”

STREET FOOD vendors will disappear from Bangkok by the end of the year in the interests of cleanliness, safety and order, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) says.

In the capital, which is internationally recognised for its street food, famous locations such as Chinatown/Yaowarat and Khao San Road would be cleared of vendors in a bid to beautify Bangkok.

A month after the city was named the finest street food destination in the world by CNN for the second year, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) continued its operation to reclaim the pavements for pedestrians and announced that vendors would be banned entirely from the capital’s streets.

The CNN report said that “it is impossible to avoid street food in Bangkok, where sidewalk vendors in different parts of the city operate on a fixed rotation. It said that some take care of the breakfast crowd with sweet soymilk and bean curd, others dish up fragrant rice and poached chicken for lunch. The late-night crowd offers everything from phad thai noodles to grilled satay”.

Wanlop Suwandee, chief adviser to Bangkok’s governor, said yesterday that the internationally recognised areas of Yaowarat and Khao San Road would be the next target after they successfully cleared the pavements of food vendors in areas such as Siam Square, Pratunam, and the flea market under Phra Phuttayotfa Bridge.

“The BMA is now working to get rid of the street vendors from all 50 districts of Bangkok and return the pavements to the pedestrians. Yaowarat and Khao San Road will be our next goal in clearing out illegal vendors,” Wanlop said.

‘No exceptions’

While Wanlop said he was grateful for CNN’s recognition of Bangkok as the world’s best street food city, he said cleanliness and safety in the streets were the BMA’s priorities.

“The street vendors have seized the pavement space for too long and we already provide them with space to sell food and other products legally in the market, so there will be no let-up in this operation. Every street vendor will have to move out,” he said.

Piyabutr Jiuramonaikul, president of the Khao San Business Council, said he did not know about the BMA’s plans to manage the street vendors in Khao San Road and there would have to be further discussions with the city authority.

“There are more than 200 street food vendors in Khao San Road and they are the uniqueness of our district that attracts many tourists from around the world,” Piyabutr said.

Bangkok resident Romdheera Phruetchon said that while she agreed with the BMA’s efforts to create clean and tidy pavements, this could coexist with the preservation of city’s world-famous street food.

“The BMA should set up a zone for the street vendors, so they can keep their jobs and preserve the charm of Bangkok’s street food,” said Romdheera. “The people can benefit from selling goods, while the tourists can enjoy the unique street food of our city.”