Year: 2011
- Opinion
Phuket Opinion: Landslides expose greed, incompetence
PHUKET: There is a Thai idiom, gam dai khrai gaw gam nan yawm sanawng, that has as its English-language equivalent, “You reap what you sow”. Similar maxims no doubt exist in every language because of the universal truths they contain. Local leaders throughout Phuket are grappling for ways to deal with the damage from the floods and landslides that have…
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Caution urged along Phuket airport road
PHUKET: The Highways Department office in Phuket is asking motorists to slow down and exercise caution when passing work on the airport road expansion project in Thalang. Aroon Saneh, head of the regional Highways Department that covers Phuket and parts of Phang Nga, said work on the 120-million-baht project to widen a 4.6-kilometer stretch of the road from two lanes…
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Phuket tuk-tuks join Thai flood-relief effort
PHUKET: The flood-relief effort continues in Phuket, where local tuk-tuk drivers were among those donating boats and other necessities to those affected by the worst flooding in Thailand in decades. Karon vendors and Kata-Karon Tuk-Tuk and Taxi Club members yesterday presented Phuket Vice Governor Somkiet Sangkaosutthirak with 13 fiberglass boats, life-jackets, clothing and other goods to be sent to flood-affected…
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Burmese crew’s mutiny-murder run ends in Phuket
PHUKET: A mutinous Burmese fishing crewman has confessed to Phuket Police that he hacked to death the ship’s “cruel” Thai captain before attacking the vessel’s technician, who jumped overboard and is presumed dead.The crew of seven Burmese were found yesterday aboard the fishing vessel Wor Suphaporn, stranded off Mai Thon island.“Nud”, 25, confessed to Phuket Police that on October 12…
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FC Phuket take on Customs United tomorrow
PHUKET: Following a two-week break from league play, FC Phuket will host Samut Prakan Customs United (SCU) tomorrow (Sunday) at Surakul Stadium in Phuket Town. Kickoff is scheduled for 6pm. The last time these two teams met was in May, when they played to a 2-2 draw in Samut Prakan. Based on season stats, the odds look to favor Phuket.…
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Phuket rain hampers towers of power move
PHUKET: The heavy rains across Phuket this week continue to hamper efforts to replace power poles leaning dangerously on Patong Hill. The poles were undermined by a mudslide on October 5 following days of incessant downpours. The Provincial Electricity Authority (PEA) Phuket office has been attempting to replace the poles. The current plan is to have the poles removed by…
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Phuket Governor transfer rumors “unconfirmed’
PHUKET: The Governor’s Office today said they could neither confirm nor deny rumors that Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha will be transferred out of the province this month. “Our office has yet to be informed of any transfer orders regarding the governor or his deputies,” Manas Nurak, personal secretary to Governor Tri, told the Phuket Gazette. “The central government in Bangkok…
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Dutch tourist slashed by deranged vagrant in Krabi
PHUKET: A Dutch tourist is recovering from neck lacerations sustained in a knife attack by a homeless drifter in front of a McDonald’s outlet in Krabi. Krabi Police raced to the scene at Ao Nang Beach yesterday morning. When they arrived shortly after 11am they found 29-year-old Dutch tourist Reiner Fleaf lying on the sidewalk in a pool of his…
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Phuket Movie Watcher: Arts news from around the world
Steve Jobs the movie THE filmmakers behind The Social Network are planning a biopic of Steve Jobs’ life after buying the rights to the former Apple CEO’s authorized biography. Sony bought the rights to the book, simply titled Steve Jobs, by Time magazine former Managing Editor Walter Isaacson for a seven figure sum just days after 56-year-old Jobs died of…
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Weird World News: The Superhero of Seattle, Moss Man and Superman fan in high jinks
PHUKET: Superheroes and villains made headlines around the world this week in bizarre, botched and bone-headed acts of super silly proportions. Masked ‘superhero of Seattle’ arrested for assault IN SEATTLE, Washington, they really do have a superhero watching over the city at night. But there’s just one problem: He was arrested this week for assault. The “superhero of Seattle”, also…
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Phuket woman takes life by hanging
PHUKET: In the second suicide by hanging in Phuket in three days, the body of a local woman was found suspended by the neck from a tree near her home in Thalang this morning. Tah Chat Chai Police were notified of a suicide on Soi Nai Yang 3, opposite Wat Nai Yang in Sakoo, at about dawn today. When they…
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Muslim marries ladyboy, asks for refund
SATUN: A Muslim man’s marriage to a 16-year-old ladyboy has collapsed after drawing a storm of criticism from the local community, who claimed the wedding was against the principles of Islam. Leaflets were even circulated in the family’s village in Paera subdstrict in Satun claiming the “sacrilegious” binding of lovers had caused recent flooding in the province. Ismael Langji, 18,…
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Landslide on Phuket bypass road causes serious damage
PHUKET: Another landslide on the bypass road last night caused over one million baht in damage to stock at the Adisak Trading Company warehouse in Phuket, which was due to be cleared of stock today. Warehouse chief clerk Natthaphum Ongsala, 28, said the landslide breached the warehouse roof and wall, destroying a wide range of stock including buckets of thinner,…
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Phuket Prison warden hangs himself
PHUKET: A guilt-ridden warden at Phuket Provincial Prison took his life by hanging yesterday evening. Phuket Prison chief Rapin Nichanon identified the deceased as 52-year-old Suwit Srisangthong, who lived in a home for government workers on the prison grounds. When friends went to wake Mr Suwit for work yesterday morning, they found him hanging by the neck from a ceiling…
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Phuket Blues Fest moves to Laguna
PHUKET: The Phuket International Blues Rock Festival this year will be held at Laguna Phuket for the first time in the event’s seven-year history. “With 1,300 hotel rooms and a large expat village in the immediate neighborhood, as well as easy access from anywhere in the north of the island, Laguna is the perfect place to stage such an event,”…
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Phuket rains rip another tear in Patong Hill road
PHUKET: Officers from Patong Municipality’s Engineering Division today patched yet another section of the road over Patong Hill, this time on the left-hand eastbound lane for traffic heading toward Phuket Town. The section of freshly damaged road lies about 200 meters west of the Chao Pho Seua Shrine (Tiger Temple) at the top of the hill. “We noticed the damage…
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Patong disaster officers launch flood-relief campaign
PHUKET: The Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation (DDPM) office at Patong Municipality today launched a campaign to collect donations of flood relief items from people living in Patong and along Phuket’s west coast. Donations of any essential items, such as dried canned food, rice, clothes and cash, are welcome, an officer at the DDPM Patong office told the Phuket…
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Phuket boy, 9, tops EU contest
PHUKET: A nine-year-old Phuket student was yesterday honored with a personal visit from David Lipman, the Head of the Delegation of the European Union (EU) to Thailand. The occasion was to mark young Suthipat Suwanrathpum being selected as one of the 14 winners in a drawing competition held by EuropeAid to highlight gender equality. The drawing by Suthipat, also known…
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Phuket firestarter bamboozles police
PHUKET: The cause of a fire in an uninhabited Phuket shop-house this morning remains unknown, with police saying it was not a short circuit. No one was injured in the fire. The blaze started at about 8:30am on the second floor of a two-storey shophouse in Thalang – about 100 meters from the Heroines’ Monument towards Pa Khlok. The second…
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Phuket prisoners plunge into fight against floods
PHUKET: Inmates at Phuket Provincial Prison were dispatched to Thalang over the past two days to clear canals of overgrowth and to improve drainage in flood-affected areas of Pa Khlok. Armed with sickles and under close observation by prison wardens, more than 30 inmates with ‘good behavior’ records took part in the operation, which helped ease the suffering of residents…
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Major earthquake strikes off Bali; Australian brain damaged by toxic cocktail on Bali holiday
PHUKET NEWS HOUND – Regional News selected by Phuket Gazette editors for Phuket readers Strong earthquake strikes off Bali, Indonesia Phuket Gazette A strong earthquake struck off the Indonesian island of Bali a few minutes ago, seismologists said, but no tsunami warnings were issued. The 6.8-magnitude earthquake at 11:16am local Bali time (10:16 Phuket time) was centered about 143 kilometers…
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More landslides strike Phuket
PHUKET: Two more small landslides were reported in Phuket’s Rassada subdistrict yesterday, one causing a temporary road closure and the other damaging the wall of a hillside residential estate. The first slide hit on Monday night the Ban Thepkrasattri housing estate just south of Mission Hospital on Thepkrasattri Road inbound, damaging a five-meter section at the base of a retaining…
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Phuket meth users hooked by cosmetic claims
PHUKET: Crystal meth dealers in Phuket are attracting new users by claiming the drug has cosmetic benefits. Doctors say that although the stimulant may cause some changes in a user’s physical appearance, it is far from the desired effect. Concerned about a rise in the use of ya ice (crystal methamphetamine) in Phuket and nearby provinces, police and health officials…
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Phuket Gardening – Vulgar, but varied
PHUKET: The humble coleus was one of the first houseplants to become generally available in Europe after WWII. In those days, it came in relatively few variations, but it has since been hybridized so extensively that it now has what may be the largest range of foliage colors of any plant. Some people may regard it as a bit vulgar,…
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Iranian Actress sentenced to 90 lashes for role in Australian film
Phuket NEWS Hound – World news selected by Phuket Gazette editors for Phuket’s international communitySydney Morning Herald An Iranian actress has been sentenced to one year in prison and 90 lashes for her role in an Australian film, media reports said on Tuesday, days after a student activist was lashed 74 times for insulting the country’s president. Marzieh Vafamehr was…
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Rains, landslides cause B100mn in damage to Phuket roads
PHUKET: The ongoing downpours that continue to plague the island have caused 100 million baht in damage to Phuket roads, Governor Tri Augkaradacha revealed today. The news came as Governor Tri today ordered Phuket’s three District Chiefs to take precautionary measures to protect people in their respective areas from floods and landslides. “Because of the floods and landslides that have…
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Phuket Books: ‘State of Wonder’ by Ann Patchett
PHUKET: Ann Patchett’s seventh novel State of Wonder (Harper Collins, New York, 2011, 353pp) made a big splash upon publication, with many critics comparing it to Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. This is nonsense. Comparing Kurtz, the cruel conqueror of an African tribe in the heart of the Congo, to Dr Annick Swenson, an elderly, eccentric and cleverly mendacious medical…
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Tri Tim conquers Phuket’s Naithon hills
PHUKET: Tim Haddon, Director of Golf at Laguna Phuket Golf Club, is an underdog who has undertaken the challenge of participating in the Laguna Phuket Triathlon (LPT) 2011, which will take place in Phuket on 27 November. Here, ‘Tri Tim’ tells us what it’s like to be training for his first triathlon. His story needs to be read in the…
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Phuket to stage “World Musiq Festival’
PHUKET: Phuket will stage a “World Musiq Festival” at Saphan Hin in Phuket Town from December 2 to 5 to honor the 84th birthday of HM King Bhumibol Adulyadej on December 5. Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha chaired a meeting at Provincial Hall yesterday to discuss the basic details of the event. Present at the meeting were Phuket Provincial Administration Organization…
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Phuket Live Wire : TrueMove-H: New kid on the wireless block
PHUKET: Last week in Live Wire I talked about finding a good wireless Internet service provider. At the time I didn’t have enough first-hand experience with the new True wireless system, called TrueMove-H, to give you a definitive opinion about the service. Now I have a week of “3G+” under my belt, and the results are good, but not great.…
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Phuket gets ready for the Banana Walk
PHUKET: Patong Beach Hotel Ltd – owners of the Patong Beach Hotel and Banana Disco – today announced the opening of a “new-lifestyle” shopping center in Patong, on Phuket’s west coast. The news follows the developer breaking ground last week for the Banana Walk shopping mall, scheduled to open in May next year. The complex will be located along Thaweewong…
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Phuket Comedy: A funny thing happened on the way to Patong
PHUKET: An Englishman, an Irishman and a Kiwi walk into a hotel… well, they will do on October 19 for the Punchline Comedy night at the Holiday Inn Resort, Patong Beach, Phuket. After a four month break, the kings of Phuket comedy return with a truly international show with the three gifted funny men coming from Ireland, New Zealand, and…
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Phuket Music Rewind: Sri Panwa’s night with DJ heavyweights
PHUKET: Looking back at the Sri Panwa party that everyone’s been talking about, and what music fans had to say. The DJ line-up at Sri Panwa’s recent gig (September 28) had music fans buzzing with excitement weeks before the event. Hundreds of locals, expats and tourists shared the dance floor, the balconies and the bars at the five-star resort’s Baba…
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Training tips for the Phuket Triathlon
PHUKET: For most triathletes swimming seems to be the most demanding technical aspect of the three disciplines. I remember my first triathlon. I was very nervous about the swim start, about being in the open water and I was not sure how to manage swimming in a straight line. It took a while to become an experienced open water swimmer.…
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Illegal dam bursts, mudslide hits Phuket housing estate
PHUKET: Continuing rains across Phuket last night caused a mudslide that forced the evacuation of a residential estate in Rassada. There was considerable property damage, but no injuries were reported. After another night of heavy rain, the mudslide hit the Baan Natkamon estate at about 3am. The first home inundated with flowing mud was that of Opas Chupan, whose unit…
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Phuket Gazette’s Top Sporting Tips: Tennis
PHUKET: This week’s tennis tip about the serve comes courtsey of Travis Bertram who is the Tennis Director for Thanyapura Sports and Leisure Club, Phuket. The serve is one of the most important shots in tennis, if not the most important. There are two major checkpoints to look for or be aware of on the serve, the wrist and balance…
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Phuket’s Young gunning for India
PHUKET: Atlantic Racing Team driver Dylan Young from Phuket proved his worth to sponsors and other supporters with a superb drive at the JK Racing Asia Series in Singapore recently. Young finished Race One in 8th place and Race Two in 6th position, which gave the 22-year-old a double-points scoring finish for the weekend. Under lights at the Singtel Singapore…
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