Swiss man jailed for Thai insult.

I thought the Swiss were supposed to be neutral?

 

Swiss man jailed for Thai insult

Oliver Jufer has lived in Thailand for more than a decade

A Swiss man has been jailed for 10 years after pleading guilty to charges of insulting the Thai king.

Oliver Jufer, 57, was arrested last December after drunkenly spray-painting posters of King Bhumibol Adulyadej in the northern city of Chiang Mai.

Earlier this month he pleaded guilty to five charges under Thailand’s draconian lese majeste law.

Judge Phitsanu Tanbukalee said that Jufer received a reduced sentence because he had admitted his guilt.

“This is a serious crime, and he was sentenced to four years for each of five counts, for a total of 20 years,” he said.

“Because he confessed, the court has reduced his sentence to 10 years.”

Jufer is believed to be the first foreigner ever imprisoned for the offence.

Others have been charged in the past, but later expelled from the country rather than jailed.

Sensitive issue

Jufer, who had faced a maximum sentence of 75 years, has lived in Thailand for more than 10 years.

KING BHUMIBOL ADULYADEJ   Born in 1927, ascended throne in 1946 World’s longest-serving current head of state Official powers are limited, but wields enormous influence because of popular backing Widely believed to have given backing to 2006 military coup Sensitive regimes

He was recorded on surveillance cameras defacing the portraits on the king’s 79th birthday.

Earlier he had tried to buy alcohol but been refused, since such sales are sometimes banned on important days. King Bhumibol, the world’s longest-serving current head of state, is a very popular figure in Thailand.

The case has highlighted strict laws in Thailand which forbid any criticism of the monarchy.

Such is the sensitivity of the issue, says the BBC’s Jonathan Head in Bangkok, that it is receiving little attention in the Thai media.

Most Thais feel a deep reverence for their monarch. But they also fear discussing the institution because of the severe penalties for criticising members of the royal family.

Jufer has a month to lodge an appeal against the sentence, our correspondent adds, but his best hope now is probably a royal pardon.

Now this isn’t in itself funny (it’s pretty fucked up for the Swiss dude) but what IS funny is the picture of their leader. Look at that guy!  He looks like a Jewish lawyer pansey.  I would be jailed within a day if I lived under those laws and had a leader so ripe for jokes!

Poor country though, they will never have comedians like Jay Leno.

Mark

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Clowns are creepy, but this is too much.

Colombia clowns killed on stage

Two circus clowns have been shot dead during a performance in the eastern Colombian city of Cucuta, police say.

The attacker jumped into the arena and fired before fleeing, police chief Jose Humberto Henao told Efe news agency.

Local reports say the audience of about 20 people, mostly children, thought the shooting was part of the show before realising both men had been killed.

Last year, a prominent circus clown, known as Pepe, was also shot dead by a unknown assailant in Cucuta.

The motive for the latest killing remains unclear, police said. Local media reports suggest two attackers may have been involved.

One clown was shot in the head as he performed on stage, about an hour into the Circo del Sol’s evening show.

The second, named as 18-year-old Franklin Leal, from Cucuta, was then shot as he stood by the ticket booth, according to the newspaper La Opinion.

The travelling circus had set up in a suburb of Cucuta, capital of Norte de Santander province near the Venezuelan border, about 10 days earlier, the paper says.

As wretched as this all is, the only thing I can say is: “Homey don’t play that.”
Mark

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Man tries to get in jail for eating chocolate

Hey sometimes you just need to make a point:

AMSTERDAM, Feb 9 (Reuters Life!) – A Dutch journalist asked an Amsterdam court on Friday to convict him for eating chocolate, saying by doing so he was benefiting from child slavery on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast.

Teun van de Keuken, 35, is seeking a jail sentence to raise consumer awareness and force the cocoa and chocolate industry to take tougher measures to stamp out child labor.

“If I am found guilty of this crime, any chocolate consumer can be prosecuted after that. I hope that people would stop buying chocolate and thus hurt the sales of big corporations and make them do something about the problem,” van de Keuken said.

Ivory Coast, the world’s No. 1 cocoa producer which has been racked by instability since a brief 2002 civil war, is the target of allegations by international rights groups that children are working as slaves on its cocoa plantations.

Van de Keuken launched his attempt to be charged for eating chocolate two years ago when the Dutch public prosecutor ruled that it was not a case for the courts and that the journalist was not directly involved with the cocoa business.

On Friday, he appealed against the prosecutor’s decision before a court which is expected to rule in April.

The journalist traveled to Burkina Faso to track down former child slaves who he said were sold by their impoverished parents or lured by merchants to work on Ivory Coast farms.

Van de Keuken said he has now brought one of these former child slaves to testify in court against him.

“We profit from these people and they get almost nothing in return. As consumers we are also responsible for these atrocities,” van de Keuken told Reuters.

He urged consumers to choose fair trade chocolate but warned it was often difficult to trace the origin of cocoa beans.

The Netherlands is the biggest importer and processor of cocoa beans in the European Union, which accounts for 40 percent of global cocoa processing.

“I cannot deny that there are issues with child labor but it is totally wrong to call it slavery,” said Robert Zehnder, secretary general of the European Cocoa Association (ECA). “We work with governments and NGOs to address the problem.”

David Zimmer from the CAOBISCO industry association said boycotts of chocolate would hurt farmers in west Africa as 10 million people depended on cocoa for their livelihood.

Members of the global chocolate and cocoa industry signed an accord in late 2001 for the introduction of a certification system by July 2005 that would enable customers to choose chocolate produced without abusive labor practices. But, to the frustration of rights groups, deadlines have been slipping.

Man it would suck if they created a judicial precedent where you couldn’t eat chocolate… that would especially suck for Valentine’s Day. And I bet some of the good danish food (especially their desserts) would really suck without chocolate ingredients…

Mark

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Man steals police car because he’s too tired to walk

Yep. Too tired to walk home, he steals a patrol car.

TOKYO, Feb 6 (Reuters Life!) – A Japanese man told police he stole a patrol car that had been left idling outside a post office in Gunma, north of Tokyo, because he was too tired to walk home.

Police officers had left the vehicle in the car park with the engine running, while they investigated a report that a stolen card had been used at the post office, the Mainichi newspaper said on Tuesday.

“I came out shopping by train, but I got tired walking, so I thought I would drive the police car home,” the man told police.

He was apprehended about 15 minutes later in the driveway of a private home, about 4 kms (2.5 miles) from the post office, the Mainichi said.

And they say we Americans are lazy!

Or maybe he just thought it could transform into a giant robot and simply drove it home when that didn’t work out.

Mark

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Prison hostage released for some pizza!

Hostage released for pizzaAn Australian prison guard held hostage for two days was released after a ransom demand for pizzas was met.Up to 20 inmates at the Risdon Prison in Hobart, Tasmania, seized the guard in a protest over conditions in the maximum security jail.

Initially they made 24 demands to authorities, but eventually gave up their hostage after agreeing to 15 pizzas, Coke and garlic bread instead.

“At midnight, the final sticking point with the inmates was that they were requiring pizzas to be delivered. Our staff member was negotiated out with the delivery of 15 pizzas,” Graeme Barber, Tasmania’s director of prisons, told The Advocate newspaper.

The guard is recovering from his ordeal at home.

I guess sometimes you just really get a strong craving for pizza. I hope they at least asked for good pizza.

Mark

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Man learns to tell “pigs” from cops

This sounds like something out of that “Eye for an Eye” show.

A New Zealand man who called police officers ‘pigs’ has been ordered to spend a day at a pig farm.

The 22-year-old has also been ordered to write an essay about the difference between pigs and police officers.

The man was charged with using offensive language after he hurled abuse at police during a trip to Auckland.

Community Magistrate Robyn Paterson at Tauranga District Court ordered him to spend a day at a pig farm and present a short essay on his experiences, reports The Bay of Plenty Times.

According to the newspaper, he wrote: “I was very, very drunk. I have stopped drinking because of what happened. I have wasted the police’s time and my time.”

He maintained the word pig could be found in the Oxford dictionary and was often used to describe police.

But added he had learned ‘that there is nothing at all in common with a pig and an officer’.

This is definitely a bizarre ruling, I wonder howcommon this sort of thing is with the New Zealand justice system. I could so write a simple essay explaining the differences between pigs and cops. I may indirectly suggest that they’re similar in a lot of ways, but I could do it. The only thing I’d really disagree with is having to spend a day at a pig farm which I’m guessing isn’t that pleasant an experience.

Though it would also be tempting to try and justify the use of the word “pig” as vernacular slang in relation to police officers. =P

Mark

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Tijuana police are now armed with slingshots!

Tijuana police issued slingshots

Guns confiscated amid allegations of collusion with drug runners

TIJUANA, Mexico – The police department has issued about 60 slingshots to officers in the violent border city of Tijuana, where soldiers confiscated police weapons two weeks ago on allegations of collusion with drug traffickers.

Municipal police spokesman Fernando Bojorquez said Monday that the slingshots, along with bags of ballbearings, were given to officers patrolling areas of the city visited by tourists.
Tijuana’s police force of 2,000 officers has been without guns since Jan. 5, but some patrol alongside armed state police.

President Felipe Calderon sent 3,300 soldiers and federal police to Tijuana at the beginning of January to hunt down drug gangs. The soldiers swept police stations and took officers’ guns for inspection amid allegations by federal investigators that a corrupt network of officers supports smugglers who traffic drugs into the U.S. The weapons are still being checked.

About 100 police demonstrated outside Tijuana town hall on Monday demanding the return of their guns. “The arms are our tools for work,” said officer Juan Manuel Nieves. “Do they want more police to be killed?”

More than 300 people were slain in Tijuana last year including 13 police officers.

Well they’re still a bit more heavily armed than British police officers, but this is a very amusing development! If you’ve been to TJ the Federales tend to be a frightening sight, mexicans with automatic weapons who can throw you in jail for looking at them wrong. They tend to have no qualms planting evidence on your person (happened to a number of people I know) and throwing you in jail. They are very open to bribes though – and they often use their corruption to make money.

There was a time in TJ when my cousin and I were driving a rental car down there (oops!) and on our way back we got pulled over by a TJ officer who told us we went the wrong way down a road (yeah right) and we had to follow him to the station to pay a fine of $80. My cousin was wise enough to ask, “Can we pay here?” and he told us that would only be $40… so we handed it over and he left. Not a bad deal for him, getting 40 for bringing false charges against some tourists…

Anyway, the world will probably be a better place when Federales are armed now only with slingshots.

Mark

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An awesome job!

Private Investigators getting paid to have sex.

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) — Sydney officials have paid private detectives thousands of dollars to have sex with prostitutes to gather evidence needed to shut down illegal brothels, a newspaper reported Sunday.

Nine local councils have paid private investigators a total of 25,000 Australian dollars (US$19,740) over the past three years to go undercover and root out the illicit trade, according to The Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

Nick Ebbeck, the mayor of Kuringai council, which has reportedly spent A$7,000 (US$5,520) in the past month employing detectives to have sex with prostitutes, said extreme measures were necessary.

“We have to employ private investigators to actually go through with the act and come up with reports that will suffice in a court process,” he was quoted as saying.

“On numerous occasions over numerous days and times they had to fulfill the act.”

He said the evidence given by the investigators was successful in closing two illegal brothels this month.

Licensed brothels are legal and relatively common in Sydney, but a number of unlicensed premises operate throughout the city. Some councilors have complained that the burden of proof for shutting down illegal brothels is too high.

As long as you took the right safety precautions this would be an amazing job… I sooo have to move to Australia and become a Private Investigator!

Mark

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Sex Offender convinced child molesters he was 12

This has to be one of the best news stories ever!

Preteen’ boy toy dupes Az men, is found to be 29

‘This is the weirdest case I’ve seen in 18 years’

BOB CHRISTIE
The Associated Press

PHOENIX – A 29-year-old convicted sex offender from Oklahoma allegedly conned two Arizona men into believing he was a 12-year-old boy, moving into their home and having an ongoing sexual relationship with them, sheriff’s officials in Yavapai County said Friday.

The ruse was discovered Wednesday after one of the men tried to enroll the fake 12 year old in a charter school in Chino Valley, about 90 miles northwest of Phoenix, using the name Casey Price.

School officials became suspicious and called deputies, telling them they thought the guardianship papers and birth certificate presented by a man who said he was the “12 year old’s” grandfather appeared to be fake and that “Price” looked much older than 12, said Susan Quayle, a spokeswoman for the Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office.

“They were very upset when the detectives told them they had been having a sexual relationship with a 29-year-old man and not a pre-teen boy,” Quayle said, referring to the two men.

Sheriff’s detectives investigating the case learned that the “grandfather” was Lonnie Stiffler, 61, who lived in a home in Chino Valley with Robert James Snow, 43, a sex offender who had failed to register with authorities, and the “12-year-old.”

Deputies served a search warrant at the home Thursday and found Stiffler, Snow, Brian J. Nellis, 34, and the phony pre-teen boy, who turned out to be Neil Havens Rodreick II, 29.

Oklahoma Department of Corrections online records show that Rodreick was convicted in 1996 of lewd and indecent proposal to a minor and served time in prison from Nov. 19, 1996, to Jan. 30, 2002. The records show that Nellis was convicted in 1997 of lewd molestation and was imprisoned from July 24, 1997, to July 28, 2000.

During interviews with the men, detectives learned that Stiffler and Snow met Rodreick through an Internet chat about two years ago, Quayle said, and they began to trade sexually explicit photos. He convinced them he was “Casey Price” and was only 12.

Stiffler and Show went to Oklahoma and met Rodreick at a hotel, then brought him back to live with them in Arizona and began an ongoing sexual relationship, Quayle said.

Rodreick apparently shaved his body hair and used makeup to keep up his guise as a pre-teen boy, Quayle said. He also dressed as a juvenile and tried to act and talk like a pre-teen.

“He looks young, I would not have guessed that he’s almost 30,” Quayle said, though she noted he certainly looked much older than 12.

When detectives unraveled the case and told Stiffler and Snow that “Price” was named Rodreick and was in fact 29, Quayle said they became dismayed and angry that they had been “conned.”

Nellis was apparently Rodreick’s cell mate in an Oklahoma prison and is also a registered sex offender, Quayle said.

Detectives have evidence that Stiffler and Snow enrolled Rodreick in other Arizona schools, possibly in Payson, El Mirage and Prescott Valley. They have notified law enforcement agencies in those jurisdictions to begin investigating, Quayle said.

“I think what we’re looking at is that he’s being used to troll for other kids,” she said.

All four men made an initial appearance in Yavapai County Justice Court Thursday, with all but Stiffler being held on $50,000 bond on a charge of failing to register as sex offenders. Stiffler was booked on two counts of forgery and one count of hindering prosecution and ordered held on $100,000 cash bond.

All four men were assigned public defenders, but Yavapai County Public Defender Janet Lincoln said her office had not seen any reports by Friday afternoon or met with the men and would have no comment. The county attorney’s office issued a statement saying that decisions on additional charges would be made by Monday afternoon. Quayle said deputies are looking into other possible charges, but are not asking for child molestation charges involving Rodreick.

“We can’t charge them with child molest because he was not a child,” Quayle said.

Quayle praised officials at the Mingus Springs Charter School where Rodreick tried to enroll Wednesday.

“This school, they really deserve congratulations,” she said. “They jumped on it, they were not fooled and they called us right way.

“This is the weirdest case I’ve seen in 18 years,” Quayle said. “Even the detectives said it was the weirdest. If it wasn’t so sad it would be funny.”

I think the best part (by far) is that they became so upset to find out that their pre-teen butt buddy was in fact an adult almost 30 years old… It’s so strange that they only like pre-teen boys for their homo urges and not adults, kind of disgusting actually.

In any case, this is a wonderful example of the lowest rungs of humanity!

Mark

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Car navigation systems can get you killed!

There has been an issue where German motorists for example crash when obeying their satnav (satellite navigation) system commands…

BERLIN (Reuters) – A 46-year-old German motorist driving along a busy road suddenly veered to the left and ended up stuck on a railway track — because his satellite navigation system told him to, police said Sunday.

The motorist was heading into the north German city of Bremen “when the friendly voice from his satnav told him to turn left,” a spokesman said.

“He did what he was ordered to do and turned his Audi left up over the curb and onto the track of a local streetcar line. He tried to back up off the track but got completely stuck.”

The police spokesman said about a dozen trams were held up until a tow truck arrived to clear the car off the track.

Several German motorists have crashed their cars in recent months, later telling police they were only obeying orders from their satnavs.

You know, this could just be a common excuse for bad driving… it wouldn’t be that unbelievable altogether. Though it’s also kind of funny that people just obey without thinking about it. “Take a left through that brick wall.” “Ok.”

Mark

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