Nine-year-old boy dies after being battered by Buddhist monk - www.newsnation.in

A nine-year-old Buddhist novice has died after a beating by a Thai monk who allegedly battered him with a stick and slammed his head against a pillar, officials said on Friday.

Monk Suphachai Suthiyano, 64, flew into a rage during a prayer session last weekend when the young disciple disrupted the ceremony with his “playful” behaviour.

The monk allegedly assaulted Wattanapol Sisawad with a bamboo stick at the temple in Kanchanaburi, two hours west of Bangkok, striking him on his back several times before bashing his head into a pillar.

The child fell into a coma and passed away yesterday, a hospital worker at Kanchanaburi provincial hospital told AFP today, requesting anonymity.

Nine-year-old boy dies after being battered by Buddhist monk - www.newsnation.in

Dealing with demons in modern times - The Nation

In an age often criticised as being too materialistic, plenty of people still make room for the opposite end of the spectrum - belief in the supernatural. Now a "ghost story" emerging from the Northeast has demonstrated once again that such concepts can be just as harmful.

A particularly serious case some time ago involved a 12-year-old schoolgirl being forced to live alone for years in her family's home in an Ubon Ratchathani village after the neighbours cast her parents out of the community because they were deemed phi pob. In February in eastern Sa Kaeo, three people ostensibly possessed by phi pob forced seven neighbours and family members at knifepoint to strip off their clothes.

Not quite a ghost, in traditional folklore, a phi pob is a demon that takes possession of a person and feeds on his entrails. Once the spirit abandons the host body, the person dies. One type of phi pob passes its ghastly habit onto its children.
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Anthropologists and psychologists have suggested that belief in the phi pob represents a social mechanism designed to control individuals' behaviour within a community, especially the smaller communities found in rural areas. Displaying behaviour incompatible with that of others can bring accusations of being possessed and, as a result, ostracism by those fearful of becoming themselves "infected". It's not uncommon for people thus accused to move elsewhere rather than carry the stigma.

The scientists' cool assessment of the phenomenon as a means of preserving order and unity within a community does little to alleviate concern over such troubling situations arising in these supposedly enlightened times.

Dealing with demons in modern times - The Nation

Bomb in Thai shrine kills 16, wounds 81 - Religion News Service

A bomb planted at one of the Thai capital’s most renowned shrines on Monday (Aug. 17) killed 16 people, including three foreign tourists, and wounded scores in an attack the government called a bid to destroy the economy.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast at the Erawan shrine at a major city-center intersection. Thai forces are fighting a low-level Muslim insurgency in the predominantly Buddhist country’s south, but those rebels have rarely launched attacks outside their heartland.

“The perpetrators intended to destroy the economy and tourism, because the incident occurred in the heart of the tourism district,” Defense Minister Prawit Wongsuwan told Reuters.
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While initial suspicion might fall on Muslim separatists in the south, Thailand has been riven for a decade by an intense and sometimes violent struggle for power between political factions in Bangkok.

Occasional small blasts have been blamed on one side or the other. Two pipe bombs exploded outside a luxury shopping mall in the same area in February, but caused little damage.

Police said that attack was aimed at raising tension when the city was under martial law.

Bomb in Thai shrine kills 16, wounds 81 - Religion News Service