Thai cave rescue - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz Catholic News New Zealand Mon, 16 Jul 2018 09:39:13 +0000 en-NZ hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 https://cathnews.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/cropped-cathnewsfavicon-32x32.jpg Thai cave rescue - CathNews New Zealand https://cathnews.co.nz 32 32 70145804 Stateless Thai cave survivors may get citizenship https://cathnews.co.nz/2018/07/16/cave-survivors-citizenship/ Mon, 16 Jul 2018 08:04:10 +0000 https://cathnews.co.nz/?p=109316 citizenship

Thailand's Interior Ministry and the Children and Youth Department have, on Thursday, promised to find a way to bestow citizenship on three stateless people rescued from a flooded cave in northern Thailand. Coach Ekkapol Chantawong and two of the boys, Pornchai Kamluang and Adul Sam-on, will be receiving legal assistance in the nationality verification process. However, on Friday Read more

Stateless Thai cave survivors may get citizenship... Read more]]> Thailand's Interior Ministry and the Children and Youth Department have, on Thursday, promised to find a way to bestow citizenship on three stateless people rescued from a flooded cave in northern Thailand.

Coach Ekkapol Chantawong and two of the boys, Pornchai Kamluang and Adul Sam-on, will be receiving legal assistance in the nationality verification process.

However, on Friday the provincial governor, Prachon Pratsakun, denied any favouritism in considering citizenship for the three.

14-year-old Adul Sam-on, at age 6, escaped a territory in Myanmar known for guerrilla warfare, opium cultivation and methamphetamine trafficking.

His parents slipped him into Thailand in the hope that proper schooling would provide him with a better life than that of his illiterate, impoverished family.

Adul lives in a Christian church home with 20 other refugees, most of whom were sent to Thailand by their parents so they could go to school.

Proficient in English, Thai, Burmese, Mandarin and Wa, Adul politely communicated to the British divers his squad's greatest needs: food and clarity on just how long they had stayed alive.

When a teammate piped up in broken English, "eat, eat, eat," Adul said he had already covered that point.

"The citizenship application process requires authentication. There's a clear rule regarding birthright citizenship, if their parents are Thai citizens or not," Pratsakun said.

"I have to look through the details. It has to be processed according to the regulations.

"There are lots of people along the border who are asking for Thai citizenship at the moment," he added.

There are currently around 500,000 stateless persons in Thailand.

Some people have to wait for more than 10 years to get Thai nationality.

The process takes a long time because there is insufficient staff at the local administration organisation to handle the very large number of applications.

Source

Stateless Thai cave survivors may get citizenship]]> 109316 Buddhist meditation kept the Thai boys calm in cave https://cathnews.co.nz/2018/07/12/buddhist-meditation/ Thu, 12 Jul 2018 07:51:56 +0000 https://cathnews.co.nz/?p=109250 Buddhist meditation helped the 12 twelve members of a junior football team keep calm and survive their ordeal. Their 25-year old coach, Ekapol Chanthawong, who led them on a hike into the cave when it flooded on 23 June, trained in meditation as a Buddhist monk for a ten years. He taught the boy to Read more

Buddhist meditation kept the Thai boys calm in cave... Read more]]> Buddhist meditation helped the 12 twelve members of a junior football team keep calm and survive their ordeal.

Their 25-year old coach, Ekapol Chanthawong, who led them on a hike into the cave when it flooded on 23 June, trained in meditation as a Buddhist monk for a ten years.

He taught the boy to meditate during their almost three-week wait for rescue to keep them calm and preserve their energy. Read more

Buddhist meditation kept the Thai boys calm in cave]]> 109250