Thailand Vows Measures to Prevent Money Laundering at Casinos
Thailand plans to record and monitor financial transactions of visitors to casinos to deter money laundering, officials said as the government sought to win over opponents of a bill to legalize gambling venues as part of new integrated resorts.
The Southeast Asian nation will enforce rules for responsible gaming, including a ban on casino advertisements and denial of entry for individuals deemed to carry 'financial risks,' said Suksit Srichomkhwan, deputy secretary-general to Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra.
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Thailand cuts border crossing hours with Cambodia over security
BANGKOK (Reuters) -Thailand shortened operating hours at 10 border crossings with Cambodia, citing security concerns, as tensions between the two countries simmered after a deadly clash last month. A day earlier, both the Southeast Asian countries reinforced their military presence along disputed border areas, Thailand's defence minister said. The two governments have exchanged statements, saying they were committed to finding a peaceful resolution after a Cambodian soldier was killed during a clash on May 28 in an undemarcated border area. Checkpoints, including the busiest in Thailand's eastern province of Sa Kaeo, halved operating hours to 8 a.m. (0100 GMT) to 4 p.m. local time, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., previously, Thai Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nikorndej Balankura told reporters on Sunday. Thailand operates 17 official border crossings with Cambodia, spanning seven provinces along their shared 817-km (508 miles) frontier, government data shows. "These are no immediate closure orders at border checkpoints. Rather, they are gradual and appropriate to the circumstances in specific areas," he said, adding the situation along the border remained calm. Residents near the Aranyaprathet-Poipet crossing in Sa Kaeo said the atmosphere was calm. "It surprised people a bit, but shops stayed open and most locals crossed back normally," said a staff member at Manue Home Stay, who gave his name only as Rong. Cambodia's Foreign Ministry reiterated a request to bring the border disputes to the International Court of Justice in a letter to Thai officials on June 6. "Given the complexity, historical nature, and sensitivity of these disputes, it is increasingly evident that bilateral dialogue alone may no longer suffice to bring about a comprehensive and lasting solution," Foreign Minister Prak Sokhonn said it the note, shared with reporters on Sunday. "A decision rendered by the ICJ, grounded in international law, would offer a fair, impartial, and durable resolution," he said. The Thai government has said it does not recognise the court's jurisdiction and proposed that all boundary-related issues be resolved through bilateral negotiations, with talks scheduled for June 14. Thailand and Cambodia have for more than a century contested sovereignty at undemarcated points along their shared border, which was mapped by France in 1907 when Cambodia was its colony. Tension escalated in 2008 over an 11th-century Hindu temple, leading to skirmishes over several years and at least a dozen deaths, including during a week-long exchange of artillery in 2011. Both governments have enjoyed warm ties, from a close friendship between former leaders, Thaksin Shinawatra from Thailand and Cambodia's Hun Sen. Thaksin's daughter and Hun Sen's son are the incumbent prime ministers of their countries.
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Ventura County government pay practices benefited CEO employees, audit shows
Employees of the top administrative office in the Ventura County government won substantial pay increases at disparate rates during the last few years of ex-CEO Mike Powers' tenure, an audit shows. Ventura County Auditor-Controller Jeff Burgh released a report on the audit of pay practices in May, three years after ordering the investigation from the Washington, D.C., law firm of FordHarrison. He has tied the delay to the complexity of making comparisons between the County Executive Office and dozens of other county departments and more recently the departure of Consuela Pinto, the firm partner in charge of the audit. Pinto informed him she was leaving the firm and that no other staff members were familiar with the audit, Burgh said. Reached via email, Pinto declined to comment. The county paid FordHarrison $82,000 before the auditor's office took over the audit in April 2024 and completed it, Burgh said. The audit examined a four-year period when Powers was the top executive for the county government, from January 2018 until he was forced out by the Board of Supervisors in March 2022 over a harassment claim filed by a female manager. Powers, who served as CEO for 11 years in all, denied any wrongdoing and filed a wrongful termination lawsuit that is still pending. The audit looked at whether employees of the CEO's Office received reclassifications of their positions into higher paying ones more often, started employment at higher points on the county pay scale, and won merit raises above 5% at a higher rate than people in several other departments. The query compared the pattern for employees of the CEO's Office with those in the General Services Agency, Information Technology Services, the Public Works Agency and the Auditor-Controller's Office. Burgh had initially said the analysis would compare compensation decisions for the CEO's Office with roughly two dozen other agencies in the large county government, but that it was narrowed down to four due to the volume of documents that needed to be gathered. The findings showed: Of 38 people whose jobs were reclassified, 20, or more than half, worked in the CEO's Office. Part of the paperwork was missing to support the reclassifications for 16 of the 20 CEO employees, but no omissions were cited for workers in the other departments. Typically, reclassification results in a 5% pay bump and a higher salary range. It's allowed for a variety of reasons including when someone's job duties change. Significantly more employees in the CEO's Office were eligible for and received merit increases above 5% than employees in the other four agencies. Three received the highest possible merit increase of 10%. CEO staff were hired above the midpoint of the salary range at a significantly higher rate than new hires in the other four agencies selected for the comparison. Almost half of 54 new hires in the CEO's Office got the benefit during the four-year period covered by the audit compared with a quarter in the auditor's and information technology offices and about 10% in the general services and public works agencies. Neither Powers or an attorney representing him in his lawsuit against the county could be reached for comment. In her response to the audit, current CEO Sevet Johnson said the audit report did not provide any evidence of preferential treatment, much less actual abuse of the personnel system for the benefit of the CEO's office. Nor did it show any violations of personnel rules, regulations or policies, she said. When he ordered the audit in 2022, Burgh said he did so after some county employees and managers expressed concerns about the appearance of disparate treatment for employees in the CEO's Office. Burgh said staff in his office had previously considered doing an audit of personnel decisions in the CEO's office, but that the "tipping point" came when former CEO public information officer Ashley Bautista was promoted to senior deputy executive officer three months after being hired. At the time, county officials tied the promotion to an expansion in her job duties. They appeared to grow dramatically during the COVID-19 public health emergency. Burgh said in 2022 that pay decisions benefiting other employees of the CEO's Office had also come to his attention. No specific employees including Bautista are mentioned in the audit report. Burgh said that's because they are personnel matters. The county's human resources department is a division of the County Executive's Office, an arrangement that the report suggested was too cozy. That structure and what was called "lack of independent oversight" appeared to result in more favorable personnel actions affecting compensation of CEO employees than the other four agencies reviewed, the report said. Reclassification of jobs in the CEO's office appeared to encounter fewer obstacles than in the other agencies, was not always supported with complete documentation, and was approved at a higher rate, the report said. The analysis called for additional safeguards to improve accountability for salary and other decisions for positions in the office. Human Resources should report directly to the Board of Supervisors and be moved out of the CEO's Office, the report advised. Johnson took strong exception to the audit findings even though she was not in charge of the CEO's Office at the time covered by the investigation. Johnson said Burgh does not possess the necessary expertise in employment practices to perform the audit himself, questioned whether he could be impartial, wanted to know why the law firm was no longer involved in the project and faulted the sample of agencies in the comparison. Still, she said the human resources division would endeavor to make improvements in cases where the findings clearly support such a change. Burgh said he expected any corrections to be completed by the end of next year. Kathleen Wilson covers courts, mental health and local government issues for the Ventura County Star. Reach her at This article originally appeared on Ventura County Star: Ventura County pay practices benefited CEO employees, audit shows
Yahoo
2 hours ago
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How 'Cali' became a slur among Vietnam's growing army of nationalists
Last fall, Vietnam opened a sprawling new military museum here, and among thousands of artifacts in the four-story building and a courtyard filled with tanks and aircrafts, one exhibit quickly became the star attraction: the flag of South Vietnam. The government regards the yellow banner with three red stripes as a sign of resistance to the communist regime, violating laws about inciting dissent. With few exceptions, it is not displayed. Reactions to the rare sighting soon went viral. Young visitors at the Vietnam Military History Museum posted photos of themselves next to the flag with deep frowns, thumbs down or middle fingers raised. As the photos drew unwanted attention, the flag was unpinned from a wall and folded within a display case. Social media content featuring rude hand gestures was scrubbed from the internet. But the phenomenon persisted. Several weeks ago, schoolchildren who were on tour made it a point to check out the flag. Every few minutes, a new group crowded around the banner — also known online as the 'Cali' flag — holding up middle fingers or crossing their hands to form an 'X.' In Vietnam, Cali — sometimes written as 'kali' — has long been a reference to the Vietnamese diaspora in California, where many Vietnamese-Americans still fly the flag of the south to represent the fight against communism and the nation they lost with the war. People who live in Vietnam, however, are more likely to view it as a symbol of American imperialism, and as nationalistic sentiment here has swelled in recent years, evoking the Golden State has become a shorthand of sorts to criticize those opponents. Read more: In Vietnam, an unlikely outpost for Chicano culture 'They use that as a label against anyone who disagrees with state policy,' says Nguyen Khac Giang, a research fellow at Singapore's Yusof Ishak Institute, known for its political and socioeconomic research on Southeast Asia. There have been other signs of growing nationalism in the past year, often in response to perceptions of American influence. In addition to animosity toward the 'Cali' flag, a U.S.-backed university in Ho Chi Minh City was attacked over suspicions of foreign interference. And an aspiring Vietnamese pop star who'd been a contestant on 'American Idol' was savaged on social media last summer after footage of her singing at the U.S. memorial service of an anti-communist activist surfaced. Vietnamese nationalism, Giang said, is bolstered at every level by the country's one-party rule. The government controls education and public media; independent journalists and bloggers who have criticized the government have been imprisoned. In addition, the party's ability to influence social media narratives has improved over the last several years, particularly among the nation's youth. Since 2017, Vietnamese authorities have employed thousands of cyber troops to police content online, forming a military unit under the defense ministry known as Force 47. In 2018, the country passed a cybersecurity law that enabled it to demand social media platforms take down any content that it deems anti-state. The resulting one-sided discourse means that views that don't align with official propaganda often draw harassment and ostracism. Read more: 50 years after the fall of Saigon, Vietnam tweaks the story of its victory At times, the government has also used that power to try and rein in nationalism when it grows too extreme — though banning posts about the South Vietnam flag did little to quell enthusiasm at the museum. Some visitors who were making hand signs said they were expressing their disapproval of a regime that, they'd been taught, oppressed Vietnamese people. One teenager unfurled and held up the national flag — red with a yellow star — for a photo. 'It's hard to say if I agree or disagree with the rude gestures,' said Dang Thi Bich Hanh, a 25-year-old coffee shop manager who was among the visitors. 'Those young people's gestures were not quite right, but I think they reflect their feelings when looking at the flag and thinking about that part of history and what previous generations had to endure.' Before she left, she took a selfie with her middle finger raised to the folded cloth. ::: Five years ago, when a student from a rural region of the Mekong Delta earned a full scholarship to an international university in Ho Chi Minh City, it seemed like a dream come true. But last August, when the school was caught up in the growing wave of nationalism, he began to worry that his association with Fulbright University Vietnam could affect his safety and his future. 'I was scared,' said the recent graduate, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution. He had just started a new job in education and avoided mentioning his alma mater to coworkers and wearing shirts marked with the school name. 'You had all kinds of narratives. Especially with the disinformation spreading at the time, it had some negative impacts on my mental health.' Read more: VIETNAM WAR / 1959-1975 The attacks included allegations that Fulbright, which opened in 2016 with partial funding from the U.S. government, was cultivating Western liberal and democratic values that could undermine the Vietnamese government. Nationalists criticized any possible hint of anti-communist leanings at the school, such as not prominently displaying the Vietnamese flag at commencement. Even last year's graduation slogan, 'Fearless,' sparked suspicions that students could be plotting a political movement. 'You are seeing new heights of nationalism for sure, and it's hard to measure,' said Vu Minh Hoang, a diplomatic historian and professor at the university. Hoang said the online allegations — none of which were true — led to threats of violence against the university, and there was talk that some parents withdrew their children because of them. Several students said their affiliation drew hate speech from strangers and distrustful questions from family members and employers. Academics said the Vietnamese government likely acted quickly to shut down the backlash against Fulbright in order to prevent the anti-American sentiment from harming its ties with the U.S., its largest trade partner. But some of the original accusations were propagated by state media and bots associated with the Ministry of Defense, hinting at a schism within the party. Hoang said that while nationalism is often utilized as a uniting force in Vietnam and beyond, it also has the potential to create instability if it grows beyond the government's estimation or control. 'For a long time, it has been the official policy to make peace with the overseas Vietnamese community and the United States,' Hoang said. 'So this wave of online ultranationalism is seen by the Vietnamese state as unhelpful, inaccurate and, to some extent, going against official directions.' ::: Last summer, footage of Myra Tran singing at the Westminster funeral of Ly Tong, an anti-communist activist, surfaced online. She'd achieved a degree of fame by winning a singing reality show in Vietnam and appearing on 'American Idol' in 2019, but she received harsh condemnation from online nationalists and state media when the video from several years ago went viral. Facebook and TikTok users labeled Tran, now 25, as traitorous, anti-Vietnam — and Cali. The controversy prompted a more broadly-based movement to ferret out other Vietnamese celebrities suspected of conspiring against the country. Internet sleuths scoured the web for anyone who, like Tran, had appeared alongside the flag of South Vietnam and attacked them. Read more: Letters to the Editor: The Vietnam War tore our country apart. Did we ever recover? An entertainment writer in Ho Chi Minh City, who did not want to be identified for fear of being targeted, says that as Vietnamese youth have become more nationalistic online, musicians and other artists have felt pressure to actively demonstrate their patriotism or risk the wrath of cancel culture. He added that the scrutiny of symbols like the South Vietnam flag has given those with connections to the U.S. greater reason to worry about being attacked online or losing job opportunities. That could discourage Vietnamese who live overseas — a demographic that the government has long sought to attract back to the country — from pursuing business or careers in Vietnam. 'There used to be a time when artists were very chill and careless, even though they know there has been this rivalry and this history,' he said. 'I think everybody is getting more sensitive now. Everyone is nervous and trying to be more careful.' Tran was bullied online and cut from a music television program for her 'transgression.' She issued a public apology in which she expressed gratitude to be Vietnamese, denied any intention of harming national security and promised to learn from her mistakes. Two months later, Tran was allowed to perform again. She returned to the stage at a concert in Ho Chi Minh City, where she cried and thanked fans for forgiving her. But not everyone was willing to excuse her. From the crowd, several viewers jeered and yelled at Tran to 'go home.' Videos of the concert sparked fierce debate on Facebook among Tran's defenders and her critics. 'The patriotic youth are so chaotic now,' one Vietnamese user complained after denouncing the hate that Tran was receiving online. Another shot back: 'Then go back to Cali.' Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
