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BANGKOK – A Czech fugitive wanted in his homeland for knowingly spreading HIV to multiple victims has been arrested on a Thai resort island after living in the country for more than a year, police said Wednesday.
Zdenek Pfeifer, 49, was detained at his apartment on the island of Phuket on Tuesday evening, Thai Interpol said in a statement.
His arrest came after reports warning of his presence in the popular holiday nation went viral on Thai social media this week.
“Thai police will contact Czech Interpol once he has been prosecuted for local violations,” Thai Interpol said, adding he was arrested for illegally overstaying his visa.
Czech media reports said Zdenek fled the country in June 2015 after he was charged with deliberately infecting more than a dozen men with HIV, including a minor.
Colonel Krissana Pattanacharoen, Thailand deputy national police spokesman, said Pfeiffer faced “sex offence” charges back home.
He first entered Thailand in June 2015 on a tourist visa which ran out in August of that year.
“Along the way we received the red notice from Interpol and police arrested him yesterday for overstaying,” he told AFP.
Lieutenant-General Nathathorn Prousoontorn, commander of Thailand’s immigration police, told reporters that there was currently no complaint filed locally that Pfeiffer had knowingly infected anyone with HIV.
Phuket is a hugely popular southern Thai island known for its many resort hotels as well as a seedy red-light district centred around Patong Beach.
Singapore is beefing up its capabilities to investigate air and maritime accidents that happen globally.
On the air side, the aim is to be not just an aviation hub for commercial flights but also the centre for industry training and expertise in areas like air traffic management and air incident investigations.
From a two-man team in 2002, the Transport Safety Investigation Bureau (TSIB) now has 16 staff, including a pilot and several engineers.
There are also 20 volunteers, including officers from the Republic of Singapore Air Force, who can be activated when necessary.
The TSIB, a unit under the Ministry of Transport, was launched in August last year after a restructuring.
From just focusing on air accidents, its new mandate includes investigating marine incidents.
Before the change, it was called the Air Accident Investigation Bureau.
Over the years, the bureau has also built up its expertise and knowledge.
The capability was further strengthened last year with the opening of a new laboratory at TSIB’s Changi Airport office, which The Straits Times visited last week.
While, previously, the team could work only with black boxes that were still intact, it now has equipment to also analyse damaged boxes, for example if they have been submerged underwater.
Black boxes are flight data recorders which contain cockpit voice recordings and other information critical for investigations.
So far, the TSIB has been involved in not just incidents involving Singapore carriers but also assisted in other investigations.
For example, the team was involved in the probe into the crash of an AirAsia Indonesia plane in December 2014 while flying from Surabaya to Singapore and the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 in March the same year.
Compared with established entities like the National Transportation Safety Board in the United States, the European Aviation Safety Agency and the Australian Transport Safety Bureau, the Singapore bureau may still be considered to be in its infancy stage.
However, within the region and, in particular, South-east Asia, the TSIB is ahead of many of its counterparts.
TSIB’s deputy director (air safety investigation) Michael Alan Toft said: “I think we have positioned ourselves well and from feedback that we have received from the International Civil Aviation Organisation (a United Nations arm which oversees global commercial aviation), I think they see us as being quite progressive within the region.”
As the number of flights continues to grow in the Asia-Pacific and globally, and ship movements continue to increase, ensuring safe practices and processes is critical, experts said.
This is a key role that the TSIB plays, said Captain Kunal Nakra, the authority’s deputy director (marine safety investigation).
While the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore and Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore ensure that rules and regulations are adhered to, the TSIB is tasked to go further and dip deeper, he said.
“We ask all the ‘whys’. So if a ship catches fire, why did the fire occur? Did the crew fight the fire as they were supposed to? If not, there is a lapse there. Why? Maybe there is an issue with the training. So we strip it down to those levels,” he said.
Mr Toft added: “We don’t just stop at the sharp end of the stick.”
karam@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on January 18, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.
The Joint Council for Bilateral Cooperation (JCBC) – the highest- level forum between China and Singapore – will be held next month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday.
The JCBC is the top bilateral body that meets yearly to deepen political ties and economic co-operation between both countries.
It is co-chaired by Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean and Chinese Vice-Premier Zhang Gaoli.
MFA said on its website that Permanent Secretary Chee Wee Kiong and China’s Vice-Foreign Minister Liu Zhenmin yesterday discussed upcoming bilateral exchanges, including the JCBC and the China-Singapore Forum on Leadership.
Mr Liu was here for the 10th Bilateral Consultations between the foreign ministries of both countries, which he co-chaired with Mr Chee.
The consultations, started in 1996, are a platform for both foreign ministries to discuss bilateral co-operation, ASEAN-China co-operation, and to exchange views on key regional and global developments.
Mr Chee and Mr Liu also reviewed the “longstanding and multi-faceted co-operation” between Singapore and China, MFA said.
They noted that both sides maintained high-level exchanges last year, including Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s meetings with President Xi Jinping at the G-20 Summit in Hangzhou, and with Premier Li Keqiang at the ASEAN Summit in Vientiane.
Mr Chee and Mr Liu also reviewed the good progress of the three government-to-government projects, including the latest Chongqing Connectivity Initiative, which aims to turn the Chinese city into a logistics and services hub.
Mr Chee expressed Singapore’s support for China’s “Belt and Road” initiative, a new area of collaboration which MFA said would build upon the countries’ substantive bilateral ties.
The senior diplomats also discussed how to strengthen ASEAN- China relations and connectivity, as well as how the tourism authorities from both sides can promote tourism between ASEAN and China.
In recent times, Singapore’s bilateral ties with China have come under the spotlight after Hong Kong Customs seized nine of the Singapore Armed Forces’ Terrex armoured vehicles on Nov 23. Hong Kong has said it would handle the matter according to its laws.
asyiqins@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on January 18, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.
NEW DELHI – Air India will introduce women-only seats on its domestic flights to give female passengers more choice and comfort, said a senior official from the national carrier, rejecting claims the move was linked to reports of in-flight sex attacks.
From Wednesday (Jan 18), Air India will allocate six seats in the third row of its economy class cabin for solo women travellers – making it the only airline in India, and possibly the world, to take this step, said the official.
India already has policies which segregate women from men on public transport to avoid sexual harassment and molestation. Many trains – both underground and overground – have carriages reserved for women, and some buses have women-only seats.
“We are doing this as we get lots of requests by female passengers at the check-in counter who want to sit next to another woman, rather than a male passenger,” said Mr G. Prasada Rao, Air India’s general manager for corporate communications.
“It is not connected to the reports of sexual assaults. It’s more to do with the fact that economy class doesn’t have much space to move around easily and comfortably for women, so this option will give them more choice.”
Mr Rao said that seats would be offered at no extra cost and would be available for up to an hour before check-in closed. The airline may also extend this policy to international flights, after measuring its effectiveness on domestic routes, he added.
Many news reports have linked Air India’s decision to introduce the women-only seats to incidents of sexual assaults on the state-owned carrier over the last month.
On Dec 21, a 40-year-old female passenger complained that a man sitting next to her groped her as she slept during a flight from Mumbai to New York.
Less than two weeks later, a female flight attendant complained of being molested and subjected to lewd language by a male passenger during a flight from Delhi to Muscat.
Both men were reported to local police upon landing.
Women and girls in India face a barrage of threats, including sexual violence whilst travelling, say activists, blaming deep-rooted patriarchal attitudes that objectify women.
There are numerous reports of women being groped or “touched up” on crowded buses or on trains and even on flights. In some cases, victims have taken to social media – posting videos and photographs of the perpetrators – to report the assaults.
Singapore’s consumer watchdog is putting its focus on errant online retailers as the number of complaints against e-commerce merchants climbs.
Last year, the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) received 636 e-commerce-related complaints, up from 523 in 2015 and 485 in 2014.
Case wants to work with the authorities to come up with industry standards for such transactions and help consumers seek recourse if they receive defective products, or do not receive a product at all.
Case’s new executive director Loy York Jiun, in an interview with The Straits Times last week, listed this as one of his top priorities now that he has taken over the reins from Mr Seah Seng Choon, 64.
The 43-year-old Mr Loy, who took up his new role on Jan 1, noted that the difficulty in resolving such e-commerce disputes is that some merchants may be based overseas.
“It may be hard to contact them and get a response because they are not bound by our laws, so they may feel we can’t do anything to them,” he said.
One way to get around the issue is to work with trading platforms that have a presence in Singapore to come up with a refund policy, he said.
For example, an existing platform gives customers a specified number of days to raise any issues about their transaction.
Only after that does it release payment to merchants.
Case is also looking to put out more timely advice for consumers by using a variety of platforms.
For example, during the school holidays, Case plans to offer consumers advice on what to look out for before purchasing a holiday package.
While Case will continue to hold educational seminars for consumers, Mr Loy admitted that this “may not be the most efficient” way to reach out to consumers.
“Nowadays, we get most of our information on our mobile phones, so I think we have to go with the times… (and) use mass media and social media to reach out to consumers,” he said.
As for prepayments, Mr Loy said Case would continue to push for the law to be amended to make it unlawful for firms to collect prepayments without offering consumers some protection in return – despite concerns that such legislation would be onerous on businesses and would pass on costs to consumers.
This follows the high-profile closure of gym chain California Fitness last year which left customers stranded with unused packages that amounted to tens of thousands of dollars.
While focusing on online retailers, prepayments and educating consumers, Mr Loy added that Case would continue to resolve as many disputes as possible.
Every year, Case handles more than a thousand disputes and about 70 per cent are settled amicably while the rest involve the consumer taking action against the retailer by going to the Small Claims Tribunal or civil courts.
Mr Loy, who previously held various senior appointments within the National Trades Union Congress, saw similarities between his new role of helping consumers negotiate with retailers and his past experience championing the rights of workers.
“At the end of the day, it’s about helping the common man who’s at a disadvantage because of an imbalance of power or imbalance of information,” he said.
“It’s about helping them level up, so they can play in a level playing field.”
mellinjm@sph.com.sg
This article was first published on Jan 18, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.
Before he became the Attorney-General in 2014, Mr V. K. Rajah twice declined the offer in 2007 and 2013.
“I was a reluctant A-G, but once I decided to be A-G, I put my heart and soul into it,” he said in an interview with The Straits Times at his office last Friday.
“I put in 110 per cent, and as long as I held office, I wanted to discharge my responsibilities to the best of my ability.”
In a wide-ranging interview, Mr Rajah, who left the post last Saturday, said one of the changes he implemented soon after taking the job was a reporting mechanism to review the prosecution’s sentencing positions.
If the position was excessive or disproportionate, the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) would inform the defence counsel to go ahead and appeal, and prosecution would not object.
Mr Rajah, 60, said prior to this, prosecutors reported to the senior leadership matters that might attract media or public attention.
“I was more interested in (other) matters and our sentencing position that would affect the larger swathe of the population, from shoplifting to property, offences of any sort… and I wanted us to review our sentencing position on every possible area of criminal activity,” he said.
All cases that were concluded were reported in the form of a summary report and Mr Rajah would review these cases every evening.
In one unusual case, the AGC even appealed for a sentence to be reduced.
The accused, a cyclist who had knocked down an elderly person, did not have his own lawyer.
Originally sentenced to eight weeks’ jail in 2015, his sentence was reduced to three weeks after the Deputy Public Prosecutor appealed to have it slashed.
Mr Rajah said his “obsessiveness for looking at things granularly” boiled down to a need to exercise the power of the prosecution carefully.
Not all were on board at first with the decisions he made, including the move to appeal to have the cyclist’s sentence reduced.
Some colleagues had told him the decision would not have been possible in the AGC a decade ago, because “that’s not part of our culture”.
“But having said that, I think all of them were immediately on the same side because they realised and appreciated that this accorded with their role as ministers of justice.
“My operating ethos in every … office that I held is to ensure fairness. And fairness includes, apart from due process, proportionality. It’s in no one’s interest for individuals to be punished harshly,” he said.
Another initiative launched in his time involved lawyers in the AGC who volunteered to work with abused foreign workers.
They halved the time it took to resolve cases that otherwise would require the foreign workers to stay for months or even years in Singapore to resolve their situation in court.
Mr Rajah hailed the work of AGC staff.
“Many officers in the AGC and in the public service work anonymously as they should and get very little credit.
“They put in long, long hours of work over weekends, over holidays, and they do this not because they are looking for recognition, but they do this because they believe it’s the right thing and they are serving a wider cause.”
Mr Rajah spent 20 years in the private sector, becoming managing partner of law firm Rajah & Tann.
In 1997, he was among the first lawyers to be appointed Senior Counsel.
He was then on the Bench for 10 years, first being appointed Supreme Court justice in 2004 and then Judge of Appeal three years later.
It was then, in 2007, that he first declined the Attorney-General post.
“I enjoyed my work. Further, I was keen to continue working with Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong, whom I greatly respected. I regard him as the finest legal mind who has held public office in Singapore.”
Outside of his office, Mr Rajah reads extensively on social and political issues that affect Singapore and the wider world, as well as the sciences, such as psychology and neuroscience.
“But since I became A-G, I’ve read only a handful of books,” he said, as he spent more time reading up on ongoing cases, even the minor ones, such as shoplifting.
Mr Rajah said: “I could leave my law firm when I wanted to and the fact that it continues to thrive 13 years after I left it means that I left it with good foundations and in good shape.”
Former defence minister Howe Yoon Chong, in a conversation with Mr Rajah years ago, called the same quality a “walking capital” and the term stuck with him.
He entered the role as the “reluctant A-G”, but with his retirement, he said: “I made sure everything that I’ve done, every institution I’ve done, I have left it in better shape.”
V. K. Rajah on two cases of significance
WHY AGC DID NOT PUSH FOR A HEAVIER SENTENCE FOR DAD WHO KILLED SON
Banker Philippe Marcel Guy Graffart, then 42, had killed his five-year-old son last year amid a bitter custody battle.
The charge was reduced from murder to culpable homicide as the Belgian national was assessed to be suffering from a major depressive disorder.
His estranged French wife had engaged lawyers to press for a higher sentence.
The Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC), said Mr Rajah, would use the full force of law to prosecute cases that were cold-blooded and premeditated.
“Where homicide takes place as a result of mental issues, it’s unpremeditated, where there is a momentary loss of control, we appraise the facts differently,” he said.
He also observed that the case arose out of a bigger divorce squabble.
This is why family law should be practised in a more collaborative and amiable way, he said.
Mr Rajah added: “Unfortunately after reading the file – and I went through it very thoroughly – I felt that the lawyers advising the couple added fuel to the fire.”
WHY PROSECUTION APPEALED TO REDUCE CYCLIST’S SENTENCE
Mr Rajah said the public might not be aware but the AGC has informed counsel to appeal when a sentence is excessive or disproportionate after reviewing the case.
The 2015 case involving Mr Lim Choon Teck, then 35, was different as he did not have a lawyer. Mr Lim had received a jail sentence of eight weeks for knocking down an elderly pedestrian while cycling on a pavement.
After a review, Deputy Public Prosecutor Prem Raj Prabakaran appealed to have the sentence reduced, arguing that the prosecution believed the original sentence was disproportionate to his culpability and the fact that he had pleaded guilty at the first reasonable opportunity.
“If (Mr Lim) appealed, there was no certainty that the High Court judge might agree with him… So I directed my colleagues, and they were taken aback that we should appeal,” said Mr Rajah. Mr Lim’s jail term was cut to three weeks.
Mr Rajah said: “I’m glad the case was publicised because it also assured the public that AGC was trying to do right rather than to punish people excessively.”
vijayan@sph.com.sg
nghuiwen@sph.com.sg
NEW DELHI – Former Star India television network chief executive Peter Mukerjea will stand trial for the murder of his 25-year-old stepdaughter Sheena Bora in a sensational case that has continued to grab the headlines in India.
Peter Mukerjea, his wife Indrani and her former husband Sanjeev Khanna were charged with murder, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy yesterday by a Mumbai court, which set Feb 1 as the start date for the trial.
All three pleaded not guilty in court yesterday, with Indian television media showing shots of the 44- year-old Indrani, a once glamorous television executive active in the Mumbai social scene, being taken to court in plain clothes and with grey-streaked hair tied in a bun.
In a twist, she revealed her intention to file for divorce in court yesterday.
The murder of Ms Bora, whose mother Indrani had passed her off as her sister for years, has grabbed the headlines in India as it involves a well-known society couple, murder intrigue and an alleged cover-up.
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Mukerjea, 63, was for a decade the head of Mr Rupert Murdoch’s Star India television network, while Indrani was chief executive of INX Media, a television company she co-founded with her husband.
The saga started when Ms Bora disappeared in 2012 without telling her boyfriend, friends, colleagues and family members. At the time, she was in a relationship with Mr Rahul Mukerjea, Peter Mukerjea’s son from an earlier marriage, a relationship that was reportedly opposed by both Indrani and Mukerjea.
Investigators accused Indrani of strangling Ms Bora on April 24, 2012, and, with the help of her former husband Sanjeev Khanna and driver Shyamvar Rai, dumping the remains of the body in a forest area some 100km from Mumbai. The body was discovered in 2012 by local villagers but was identified only three years later.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has alleged that Mukerjea, who was out of the country then, was aware of the murder.
Investigators alleged that the Mukerjeas went on to cover up Ms Bora’s disappearance after the murder.
Indrani, according to investigators, used Ms Bora’s mobile phones to send messages to people to say that she was in the United States. The recipients included Ms Bora’s boyfriend Rahul, who had started by then to ask the police to investigate her disappearance.
The Indian media has covered every twist in the story, with TV channels even getting hold of recordings of phone conversations between Mr Rahul Mukerjea and Peter Mukerjea and Indrani over Ms Bora’s disappearance, which were handed over to the CBI.
According to Indian media reports, the murder came to light after the driver gave details of it to the police.
Mukerjea’s lawyer Mihir Gheewala told The Straits Times that it was now up to the court. “The court will decide if there was a conspiracy or not. Truth has taken a back seat – that is our argument.”
Additionally, Indrani and Sanjeev Khanna were charged with plotting to kill her son and Ms Bora’s brother, Mikhail. Mr Mikhail Bora had earlier alleged that Indrani had spiked his drink on the same day that Ms Bora was killed.
Yesterday, Mr Bora said the family wanted justice for his sister. “We hope that we will get justice very soon. We are hoping for the best. I am hoping the law and court will deliver justice to my sister and me,” he told reporters.
This article was first published on Jan 18, 2017.
Get a copy of The Straits Times or go to straitstimes.com for more stories.
THE UN World Economic Situation and Prospects report released Wednesday places South and East Asia as the world’s most dynamic regions with a strong economic outlook for 2017.
In light of disappointing global growth, Lenni Montiel, Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, stressed the “need to redouble the efforts to bring the global economy back on a stronger and more inclusive growth path and create an international economic environment that is conducive to sustainable development.”
The report states that the world economy expanded by just 2.2 percent in 2016, the slowest rate of growth since the Great Recession of 2009. But while the global growth forecast has been revised downward from previous projections, the projections for Asia remain very optimistic.
SEE ALSO: Philippines: Economy ‘in a good spot’ amid war on drugs
Domestic demand, in particular private consumption and public investment, and supportive macroeconomic policies remained the key drivers of regional growth. However, exceptionally weak export growth continued in 2016, contributing to the underperformance of several larger economies.
Many of the larger Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) nations, namely Indonesia, Philippines and Thailand, saw an acceleration of output growth in 2016, driven by stronger domestic demand.
Indonesia is expected to experience more growth, from 4.8 percent in 2015 to between 5.1 and 5.3 percent annually during the 2016-2018 period.
Philippines, on the other hand, is estimated to have grown by 6.3 per cent in 2016, up from 5.9 per cent in 2015, and is expected to expand by 6.0 per cent to 6.1 per cent annually during 2017-2018.
The report said this due to an increase in household spending, thanks to favourable employment conditions, larger remittance inflows, higher public sector salaries and an increase in government spending, particularly preceding the general election in May 2016.
It said Thailand’s economy is estimated to grow at an annual pace of 3.1 percent to 3.4 percent between 2016 and 2018, an increase from 2015’s 2.8 percent.
The report said some slowdown in economic activities can be expected in the transition period following King Maha Vajiralongkorn’s ascension to the throne, but this will only be temporary and is not likely to be significant.
Meanwhile, ASEAN neighbours Singapore and Malaysia saw a deceleration of growth from 2 and 5 percent in 2015 to 1.7 and 4.4 percent in 2016 respectively. The slowing in Singapore is, however, expected to be temporary with projections in 2017 and 2018 seeing a return to form due to a modest recovery in global and regional trade.
The report attributes the underwhelming growth in Malaysia to decreased consumer spending – the main growth driver in recent years – due to less robust job markets and households’ adjustment to the higher cost of living, especially since the introduction of the goods and services tax in 2015.
SEE ALSO: Najib’s taxing problem: The politics of Malaysia’s GST
Among the largest countries, India has positioned itself as the most dynamic emerging economy. India’s economy is projected to expand by 7.7 percent and 7.6 percent in 2017 and 2018 respectively, benefiting from strong private consumption.
Despite the optimistic outlook for Asia, it is based on factors that are subject to considerable uncertainty – stronger demand in developed economies, higher global commodity prices and rising infrastructure investment are all considered to be key drivers in economic growth.
Political instabilities in some areas could also pose a risk to investment prospects.
Distressing images and videos of skeletal sun bears begging for food from visitors in an Indonesian zoo has prompted calls for them to be rescued.
In one video posted on Jan 10, the bears are seen standing up on their hind legs inside their pen, and appearing to plead with visitors, who throw in bits of cake, sweets and crackers to feed them.
Another video, which was posted in May last year, shows the extent of the creatures’ plight when one starving bear was filmed eating its own faeces.
The videos were posted on YouTube by the Scorpion Wildlife Trade Monitoring Group.
Scorpion’s director, Gunung Gea, was quoted by Daily Mail Australia as saying: “When my team visited the zoo last week there was no grass or live trees on the floor of their cage. We saw a sun bear eating its own dung but when we contacted the zoo’s officers they told us the bear was medicated and we weren’t allowed to see it.”
The group has started an online petition to pressure Bandung mayor Ridwan Kamil to close the zoo, which was also in the spotlight last year when images showed a Sumatran elephant that died with large sores on its body.
The petition has garnered over 2,200 signatures since.
Volunteers from the animal welfare group also said that the sun bears in the zoo were only a fraction of their healthy 80kg weight, The Straits Times reported.
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Sun bears are the smallest of the world’s eight bear species and are found throughout mainland Asia, Sumatra and Borneo.
According to National Geographic, their natural habitats are being threatened due to deforestation and poachers have also hunted them for their body parts and fur.
In 2015, a sun bear was beaten by workers at an oil palm plantation in Sarawak. The worker had reportedly been shocked by the creature’s strange appearance.
Read also: Strange creature beaten unconscious by Sarawak workers
It was subsequently reported that the bear, which had lost its fur due to a skin disease, was captured and taken to a wildlife centre in Sarawak to be nursed back to health. However, The Borneo Post reported that it later died of cancer.
Read also: Sun bears found at private zoo moved to wildlife park
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