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A BRITISH tourist has been found dead in a Bangkok red light district hotel room with the safe ransacked.

Dad-of-two Luke Ramage, 31, who is feared to have been murdered, had arrived in Thailand just hours earlier.

He was found sprawled on his bed. There was bruising around his shoulders and legs and sign of a fight.

His luggage was still packed and the room’s safe was open.

There were no valuables inside and cigarette packs were scattered on the floor.

Police say a friend of Luke, of Consett, Co Durham, raised the alarm at the Bavana Hotel — then vanished.

A source said: “The receptionist found the body. She said a friend staying in another room told them the victim had a problem.

“She went up to check and when she came back down he had disappeared. The man was dead when police arrived. There were signs of a fight.

“The safe had been opened in a suspected theft. There were only cigarettes left.”

Hours before his death Luke posted a Facebook photo of himself with two pals in a Bangkok bar.

He wrote: “Keeeeeemon. Boys on tour.”

Luke, who works for a cleaning firm, was planning a trip to Phuket and was also due to head to Malaysia, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos before returning to Thailand.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/7994841/dad-found-dead-hotel-room-bangkok/

 

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Clip, hot head man, aged 30-35, parking in the middle of Sukhumvit Road Kicking and punching a motorbike driver in the middle of Sukhumvit Road Around the U-Turn around Soi Santi Kham Samrong Nuea Subdistrict, Mueang District, Samut Prakan Province After the story has been released, there are people to criticize the behavior of the driver's behavior.

https://www.77kaoded.com/content/1124987

 

 

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A shutdown to contain the coronavirus has killed Thailand's party scene and forced sex workers like Pim out of bars and onto desolate streets. She's scared but desperately needs customers to pay her rent.

Red-light districts from Bangkok to Pattaya have gone quiet with night clubs and massage parlours closed and tourists blocked from entering the country.

That has left an estimated 300,000 sex workers out of a job, pressing some onto the streets where the risks are sharpened by the pandemic.

"I'm afraid of the virus but I need to find customers so I can pay for my room and food," Pim, a 32-year-old transgender sex worker, told AFP in an area of Bangkok where previously bawdy neon-lit bars and brothels have gone dark.

Since Friday Thais have been under a 10 pm to 4 am curfew. Bars and eat-in restaurants closed several days earlier.

Many of Bangkok's sex workers had jobs in the relative safety of bars, working for tips and willing to go home with customers.

When their workplaces suddenly closed most returned home to wait out the crisis.

Others like Pim went to work the streets.


Since Friday Thais have been under a 10 pm to 4 am curfew. Bars and eat-in restaurants closed several days earlier. 
The government says it is ready to enforce a 24-hour curfew if necessary to control a virus that has infected more than 2,000 people and killed 20, according to official figures.

Pim is paying a heavy price for the movement restrictions -- she has not had a customer for 10 days and the bills are stacking up.

Her friend Alice, another transgender sex worker, has also been forced to move from a go-go bar to the roadside.

"I used to make decent money sometimes $300-600 a week," Alice says.

"But when businesses shut down my income stopped too. We are doing this because we're poor. If we can't pay our hotel they will kick us out."

- High risk -

The already high risks of sex work have rocketed as the virus spreads.

Sex workers have flocked back to homes across the country in anticipation of several weeks of virtual lockdown before Thailand's night economy comes back to life.

There are fears the malaise could last for months, yanking billions of tourist dollars from the economy and leaving those working in the informal sector destitute.


The occasional tourist loiters near clusters of sex workers, before a furtive negotiation and a quick march to a nearby hotel, one of the few still open on Bangkok's main tourist drag
They include sex workers -- an illegal but widely accepted part of Thailand's nightlife.

There are concerns that a Thai government emergency scheme to give 5,000 baht ($150) to millions of newly jobless over the next three months will exclude sex workers because they cannot prove formal employment.

The Empower Foundation, an advocacy group for the kingdom's sex workers, says entertainment venues make around $6.4 billion a year, many of them selling sex in some form.

Women are suffering the most from the virus measures, it says. Many are mothers and their family's main income earner, forced into sex work by lack of opportunities or low graduate salaries.

The group has written an open letter to the government urging it to "find a way to provide assistance to all workers who have lost their earnings".

As the 10 pm curfew looms, Pim and Alice prepare for a final forlorn patrol for customers.

"I think the government has been really slow. They don't care about people like us who work in the sex industry," Alice said.

"We're more afraid of having nothing to eat than the virus."

https://www.afp.com/en/news/3954/scared-desperate-thai-sex-workers-forced-street-doc-1qd9zo1

 

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In a shock ending to a case which has dragged on for years, charges against Vorayuth “Boss” Yoovidhya, in a 2012 hit and run incident – one that resulted in a police officer’s death – have been dropped. Vorayuth is heir to the Red Bull fortune and a member of one of Thailand’s wealthiest families.

The Office of the Attorney General of Thailand made the decision to stop pursuing the charges against Yoovidhya in a court of law, resulting in Thai police reportedly dropping the charges.

As a spokesman for the Royal Thai Police told CNN this morning that the department has followed the decision of the Attorney General’s office and revoked the warrant for Yoovidhya’s arrest. The deputy head of Bangkok’s Thonglor police station, also reportedly confirmed the revocation of the arrest warrant to the associated press.

For years, Yoovidhya had an Interpol “red notice”, meaning a worldwide request for his arrest pending extradition, but the notice mysteriously disappeared from the Interpol website earlier this year and no explanation has been given. Interpol declined to discuss individual cases but told the Bangkok Post that generally a published notice is removed from its website if “the suspect has been arrested and extradited or died, the country which requested it has withdrawn its request, the judicial authorities in the country behind the notice have withdrawn the national arrest warrant against a suspect, the notice is the subject of an appeal or the notice has been cancelled or the status of the notice has changed from public to restricted”.

35 year old Boss had been facing charges of speeding, hit-and-run and reckless driving causing death. They relate to the 2012 incident in which Boss, driving a black Ferrari, hit a police officer and allegedly fled the scene, after dragging the officer for some distance. The officer later died. Boss allegedly admitted to driving the vehicle but claimed that the police officer had cut in front of him. The case caused widespread outrage in Thailand. Boss was allegedly under the influence of alcohol at the time.

Authorities claimed they had been searching for Boss, who missed at least 8 court appearances over at least 5 years before managing to flee the country. Officially, Boss has been “missing” for years, although he has been spotted in public numerous times in London and elsewhere. Thai police claim they have been trying to find him.

Boss is the son of Thailand’s second richest man and the grandson of the founder of Red Bull. His father’s estimated wealth is in the billions of dollars, according to Forbes magazine.

https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/crime/hit-and-run-charges-against-red-bull-heir-boss-yoovidhya-dropped

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1 hour ago, Pdoggg said:

Due to the spread of Covid, Bangkok bars, nightlife, and music venues have a midnight curfew until January 4th.   Puts the kabosh on New Year's Eve. 

Hey @PdogggThis is not entirely accurate. Only venues serving food can stay open until midnight. So pubs and restaurants but not bars with hostesses.

So Why Not, Check Inn etc have to close. Although I have heard they are both working on ways around it allowing them to stay open.

Can you imagine on New Years getting everyone to leave so you can close at midnight. What a cluster fuck that would be!

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27 minutes ago, stoolpusher said:

Easy done , they just have food available and a place to eat ....Why not bar has both 

Technically I don't think it means just serving food but allowing you to order food from a menu. Also I presume the premises would have to be licensed for food. But hey this is Thailand and there are usually ways to overcome these difficulties.

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don't find him creepy at all, good to see the parts of Bkk no one else covers.  Also good to see there IS street food somewhere in Bkk.  He had some good info there. Maybe kvetching about youtube guy is a side effect of the vaccination? :)

don't find this creepy at all...

 

 

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On 5/8/2021 at 12:59 PM, JustSumGai said:

don't find him creepy at all, good to see the parts of Bkk no one else covers.  Also good to see there IS street food somewhere in Bkk.  He had some good info there. Maybe kvetching about youtube guy is a side effect of the vaccination? :)

don't find this creepy at all...

 

 

Definitely a terrific act of generosity on the part of the guy who donated the 10k USD for this effort, and all those who helped make it happen.  I've watched a few of this guy's vids now.  I find them informative and the videography is really good.  For sure he's seems a bit of a high energy SoCal dude, but I detect a bit of a Canadian accent in there.  Anybody know where he's from?  Anyway, I'll take high energy over grumpy any day!

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10 hours ago, seven said:

I'd say so. The 'about' is a giveaway. Not SoCal.

 Ok then, hes energetic and enthusiastic. Not creepy. Sorry.

I agree,Canadian. But a lot of people from Nth America have that sales type pitch. Just another one!.

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