The latest Thai soap opera sensation is tall and strong-jaw handsome. He’s also the country’s finance minister.
The Oxford-educated minister, Korn Chatikavanij, made a cameo appearance on the popular Thai period drama Vanida on Tuesday night to broadcast a message about the government’s bid to tackle loan shark debt.
The ministry estimates that about 1 million households owe money to loan sharks, who demand monthly interest of up to 40 percent.
Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva’s administration has been trying to eradicate the problem, which mainly involves low-income Thais in rural areas who don’t live near banks or think banks only loan to the wealthy.
Vanida is a sappy drama set in World War II Thailand that revolves around a love triangle between a colonel, his aristocratic fiancee and the daughter of a merchant. Debt is central to the story line, in which the colonel’s money problems get him into all kinds of trouble.
Korn has cited the show on his Facebook page to explain illegal debt collection practices, and the finance ministry collaborated with the show’s producers for a three-minute short that followed the main show on Tuesday night.
It begins with the three main characters talking about someone who owes money and the colonel says: “Nowadays the government is helping with debt.”
Cue Korn, who enters in gray trousers, a white shirt, striped tie and suspenders.
“The issue.”
Thai politicians have long used popular media to reach the public. In 2006, then-prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra starred in his own reality show, in which he traveled to Thailand’s poorest villages and camped out there in a bid to boost his popularity among his power base. Later that year, he was deposed by a coup.
Two Belgian teenagers on Tuesday were charged with wildlife piracy after they were found with thousands of ants packed in test tubes in what Kenyan authorities said was part of a trend in trafficking smaller and lesser-known species. Lornoy David and Seppe Lodewijckx, two 19-year-olds who were arrested on April 5 with 5,000 ants at a guest house, appeared distraught during their appearance before a magistrate in Nairobi and were comforted in the courtroom by relatives. They told the magistrate that they were collecting the ants for fun and did not know that it was illegal. In a separate criminal case, Kenyan Dennis
Incumbent Ecuadoran President Daniel Noboa on Sunday claimed a runaway victory in the nation’s presidential election, after voters endorsed the young leader’s “iron fist” approach to rampant cartel violence. With more than 90 percent of the votes counted, the National Election Council said Noboa had an unassailable 12-point lead over his leftist rival Luisa Gonzalez. Official results showed Noboa with 56 percent of the vote, against Gonzalez’s 44 percent — a far bigger winning margin than expected after a virtual tie in the first round. Speaking to jubilant supporters in his hometown of Olon, the 37-year-old president claimed a “historic victory.” “A huge hug
A judge in Bangladesh issued an arrest warrant for the British member of parliament and former British economic secretary to the treasury Tulip Siddiq, who is a niece of former Bangladeshi prime minister Sheikh Hasina, who was ousted in August last year in a mass uprising that ended her 15-year rule. The Bangladeshi Anti-Corruption Commission has been investigating allegations against Siddiq that she and her family members, including Hasina, illegally received land in a state-owned township project near Dhaka, the capital. Senior Special Judge of Dhaka Metropolitan Zakir Hossain passed the order on Sunday, after considering charges in three separate cases filed
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
RSS