NATION/WORLD
Tuesday, August 18, 2015
East Oregonian
Rush-hour Bangkok bombing
at busy shrine kills 18, hurts 117
Associated Press
BANGKOK — Police
combed through shattered
glass and other debris Tuesday
from a bomb blast in central
Bangkok that killed at least 18
people and injured more than
100 the night before, trying
to determine who set off the
most devastating single attack
in the capital’s recent history.
The explosion at a popular
shrine next to one of the city’s
busiest intersections went
off around 7 p.m. during
Monday’s evening rush hour,
as the upscale area was ¿lled
with tourists, of¿ce workers
and shoppers.
Defense Minister Prawit
Wongsuwan said the attack,
which no one immediately
claimed responsibility for,
was aimed at destroying
the country’s economy by
targeting a major tourist area.
“It is much clearer who
the bombers are, but I can’t
reveal more right now,”
Prawit said, as he headed into
a Cabinet meeting Tuesday
morning. “We haven’t ruled
out terrorism.”
He acknowledged that
authorities had no idea an
attack was planned.
“We didn’t know about
this ahead of time. We had no
intelligence on this attack,”
the defense minister said.
With a powerful Àash
caught on security video and
a boom heard blocks away,
the blast from the improvised
explosive device scattered
body parts across Rachapra-
song intersection, spattered
blood, blasted windows and
Portland business
group quietly works
to shape wage debate
By HILLARY BORRUD
Capital Bureau
AP Photo/Sackchai Lalit
Explosive Ordnance Disposal officers enter the Erawan Shrine after an explosion in
Bangkok, Monday. A large explosion rocked a central Bangkok intersection during
the evening rush hour, killing a number of people and injuring others, police said.
burned motorbikes to the
metal.
“Suddenly there was a big
boom, and the whole room just
shook, like someone dropped
a wrecking ball on top of our
ceiling,” said Pim Niyomwan,
an English instructor working
on the eighth Àoor of the
building right next to the
shrine. “The whole building
just shook. My four students
were hysterical.”
Video shortly after the blast
showed a scene of shock and
desperation: people running
for their lives and crying amid
the debris. An emergency
worker in an ambulance,
frantically pounding the chest
of a victim.
BRIEFLY
Judge gives clerk time to appeal before
issuing same-sex marriage licenses
MOREHEAD, Ky. (AP) — A federal judge on Monday
gave a Kentucky county clerk room to continue denying
marriage licenses to gays and lesbians while she takes her
religious objections case to a higher court.
U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered Rowan
County Clerk Kim Davis last week to issue licenses to two
gay couples, and ruled Monday that she is not entitled to
any more delays. But because “emotions are running high
on both sides of this debate,” he also stayed his decision
while she takes her case to the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeal.
Attorneys on both sides disagreed about the
implications. Dan Canon, representing the gay couples, said
Davis remains under the judge’s order. But Mat Staver, who
represents Davis and is the founder of Florida-based Liberty
Counsel, said the convoluted order essentially grants her
request for more time.
What is clear is that Davis will continue refusing to
issue marriage licenses to anyone in this county of about
23,000 people, home to Morehead State University in the
Appalachian foothills of eastern Kentucky. Until the case
is resolved, no new wedding can be legally recognized in
Rowan County unless the couple obtains a marriage license
somewhere else.
“This is not something I decided because of this decision
that came down,” Davis testi¿ed in federal court last month.
“It was thought-out and, you know, I sought God on it.”
Bad weather prevents rescuers from
reaching wreckage of Indonesian plane
JAYAPURA, Indonesia (AP) — Rugged, forested
terrain and bad weather Tuesday have prevented rescuers
from reaching the site where an Indonesian plane with 54
people on board crashed two days ago.
Smoldering wreckage of the Trigana Air Service
turboprop plane was spotted from the air Monday morning
in a rugged area of the easternmost province of Papua,
rescue of¿cials said. There was no immediate word of any
survivors from Sunday’s crash, which happened in bad
weather.
“Steep ravines and bad weather have slowed rescuers,”
said Henry Bambang Soelistyo, the National Search and
Rescue Agency chief. “They haven’t reached it yet, so we
don’t know yet if anyone survived.”
He said a helicopter was on standby to lower two
rescuers by rope into a valley about 300 meters (yards)
from the wreckage but visibility when the search resumed
Tuesday was just one meter (yard) due to heavy fog.
The ATR42-300 twin turboprop plane was Àying from
Jayapura to the city of Oksibil when it lost contact, and its
passengers included four postal workers aboard the plane
were escorting four bags of cash totaling $468,750 in
government aid for poor families to help offset a spike in
fuel prices, Franciscus Haryono, the head of the post of¿ce
in Jayapura, the provincial capital, told The Associated
Press.
Prime Minister Prayuth
Chan-ocha promised to
“hurry and ¿nd the bombers.”
“This is the worst incident
that has ever happened in
Thailand,” he said. “There
have been minor bombs or
just noise, but this time they
aim for innocent lives. They
want to destroy our economy,
our tourism.”
National chief of police
Somyot Poompanmoung said
the perpetrators aimed to kill
“because everyone knows
that at 7 p.m. the shrine is
crowded with Thais and
foreigners. Planting a bomb
there means they want to see
a lot of dead people.”
Early Tuesday morning,
Somyot was among those
surveying the damage as
police and soldiers guarded
the area. The normally busy
intersection that was closed
off to traf¿c and eerily
empty aside from onlookers
standing behind police tape
to take pictures. Barricades
were set up outside ¿ve-star
hotels in the neighborhood
and security stopped cars to
inspect trunks before letting
them pass.
More than 12 hours after
the blast, onlookers dashed
for safety as shards of glass
torpedoed to the ground
from windows of a nearby
building. Nobody appeared to
have been injured.
Pentagon plans to increase
drone Àights by 50 percent
JOINT BASE LANG-
LEY-EUSTIS, Va. (AP)
— Faced with escalating
aggression from Russia
and China, the Pentagon is
planning to increase its use of
drones by about 50 percent
over the next several years,
using the Army and civilian
contractors to put more of
the unmanned aircraft in the
air.
The decision to add
Army and civilian-operated
missions to the mix was trig-
gered because the Air Force
— which had been running
about 65 combat air patrol
missions a day — asked
to decrease that number to
60 because of stress on the
force. But 60 patrols don’t
come close to meeting the
demands of top military
commanders facing growing
security threats around the
world.
Senior U.S. of¿cials
said that while drones have
been used largely to target
terrorists and collect intel-
ligence over combat zones,
those needs may shift in the
coming years.
Top military leaders,
including the incoming
chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Joseph
Dunford, have named Russia
as the nation’s most serious
security threat. And China’s
rising military power and
island-building program in
the South China Sea have
increased tensions and
prompted a greater demand
for U.S. surveillance and
intelligence across the
Paci¿c.
One senior defense of¿-
cial said Pentagon leaders
are taking those security
challenges into account as
they decide how armed and
unarmed drones will be
used across Europe and the
Paci¿c. The of¿cials spoke
on condition of anonymity
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because they weren’t autho-
rized to discuss the issue
publicly.
Pentagon leaders have
been wrestling with the
problem for some time, as the
need for more airstrikes and
surveillance by drones over
Iraq and Syria to battle the
Islamic State group offsets
a decline in unmanned
Àights over Afghanistan as
the war there winds down.
Under the plans laid out by
senior defense of¿cials, the
Air Force would continue
to provide 60 daily drone
missions, while the Army
would conduct about 16,
and U.S. Special Operations
Command and civilian
contractors would do up to
10 each.
“It’s the combatant
commanders, they need
more. They’re tasked to do
our nation’s business over-
seas so they feel that stress
on them, and it’s not getting
better,” said Air Force Maj.
Gen. J.D. Harris, Jr., vice
commander of Air Combat
Command at Joint Base
Langley-Eustis. “There’s just
not enough of the Air Force
to go around.”
The civilian contractors
would Ày surveillance
drones, not the armed aircraft.
But senior defense of¿cials
said they need at least a small
contractor contribution in
order to reach the total of 90
combat air patrols per day.
Page 9A
SALEM — A group of
Portland business leaders
wants to shape the debate
over raising Oregon’s
minimum wage ahead of
the 2016 legislative session.
New Seasons Market
co-founder Stan
Amy
formed
North Star Civic
Foundation
earlier this year
with his wife
Christy Eugenis,
who is a partner
in a real estate
development
company, and Baggott
Rejuvenation
Hardware founder Jim
Kelly.
The group plans to work
on solutions to income
inequality and climate
change, and it is quietly
arranging a statewide
listening tour to learn what
Oregonians think about the
state’s minimum wage. The
tour appears to be an effort
to develop a minimum
wage proposal with support
from rural areas as well as
urban centers.
“Oregon has one of
the strongest track records
of bipartisanship in the
country, but in recent
years we’ve seen more
polarization,” North Star
Civic Foundation executive
director Caitlin Baggott
wrote in an email. Baggott
helped launch the Portland
get-out-the-vote nonpro¿t
Bus Project in 2002 and
served as its executive
director form 2011 to 2013.
Amy said part of the
group’s strategy was to
work “in the background,”
and he referred questions to
Baggott.
Oregon’s
minimum
wage is currently $9.25
an hour and two existing
coalitions, 15 Now Oregon
and Raise the Wage, are
promoting
competing
proposals to increase it.
Both coalitions include
unions, and both plan to
seek ballot measures in
2016.
Raise the Wage wants a
ballot measure that would
increase the minimum wage
to $13.50 by 2018, and
15 Now Oregon has ¿led
paperwork for a measure
that would raise the wage
gradually to $15 per hour
by 2019. Raise the Wage
also plans to push for legis-
lation next year that would
increase the minimum wage
to $13.50 an hour.
North Star Civic
Foundation has not
yet put forward
its own minimum
wage proposal, and
Baggott said the
group wants to ¿rst
gather input from
people around the
state. However, the
group is concerned
about “the growing
share of low-wage
workers who cannot earn
enough to support them-
selves without government
assistance,” Baggott wrote
in an email.
“It is clear that the
minimum wage will be
a major focus in next
legislative session and
that if it is not resolved in
that session expectations
are it will be on the ballot
the following November
— where current polling
shows strong support for an
increased wage,” Baggott
wrote. “We’re in the process
of organizing a series of
“kitchen table” conversa-
tions around the state with
rural and urban business
owners, farmers, non-pro¿t
leaders, and community
groups this fall.”
As North Star Civic
Foundation planned the
conversations, the group
sought recommendations
from newspaper executives
around the state. Publishers
of the Daily Astorian and
East Oregonian newspa-
pers were among those that
helped North Star Civic
Foundation connect with
local business leaders and
other community members.
Baggott said North Star
Civic Foundation wants
to engage “people on all
sides of this issue. We
are optimistic that there
is an opportunity to ¿nd
common ground and a path
forward that works for all of
Oregon’s communities, and
for all the parts of Oregon’s
economy.”
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Call toll free:
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Pendleton Office:
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