- World News
World News: Fire fears as temperatures soar in New South Wales
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH– World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international communityPHUKET: Total fire bans remain in place across New South Wales, Australia, as firefighters battle blazes in searing heat.Parts of Tasmania’s east coast have been cut off by bushfires as a blaze on the Tasman Peninsula continues to burn out of control.More than a dozen properties have been…
- Phuket News
Russian tour counters closed in Phuket, pending probe
PHUKET: All Russian tour counters in the Kata-Karon beach areas have been ordered to close until further notice and the local Labor Office has been requested to investigate them for possible breach for foreign worker regulations. The news came at a meeting at Kata-Karon Municipality yesterday, held to resolve the ongoing dispute between local tuk-tuk and taxi drivers and Russian…
- World News
World News: Rape victim’s friend speaks out
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH– World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international communityPHUKET: (Reuters): Passers-by left a gang-raped Indian student lying unclothed and bleeding in the street for almost an hour, a male friend who was assaulted with her said yesterday (January 4) in his first public comments on the case.The 23-year-old student died in hospital two weeks after she…
- Phuket News
Phuket tourism leaders lambast Sydictive new year party for noise, trash
PHUKET: Leading Phuket tourism and hotel figures yesterday personally brought forward a barrage of complaints to the Phuket Governor about the Sydictive Element new year party, citing complaints that noise forced guests to check out early and trash was left strewn along Patong Beach. The delegation filing the complaint comprised Phuket Tourist Association (PTA) President Ponganun Suwannakarn and PTA Vice…
- Phuket News
Migrant workers can stay “for now’: Phuket Employment Chief
PHUKET: Migrant workers in Phuket will not be deported while waiting to complete the nationality verification process, the Phuket Provincial Employment Office (PPEO) has confirmed. “Whether or not illegal workers will be deported will be announced after the Cabinet meeting on January 8,” PPEO chief Yawapa Pibulpol told the Phuket Gazette today. “It all depends on the Cabinet. We will…
- Phuket News
Marine police hook Phuket fish smuggler
PHUKET: A local resident in Rawai, at the southern end of Phuket, was arrested yesterday trying to smuggle more than 200 protected-species fish to Bangkok.Marine Police and Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR) Region 5 office in Phuket arrested Boonsuan Raknawa, 41, after officers received information about protected fish being smuggled to Bangkok via a public bus.“The suspect was…
- Phuket News
Anxiety key factor in Australian tourist death: Phuket hospital staff
PHUKET: While Phuket police continue their investigation into the death of 21-year-old Australian tourist Sebastian Eric Faulkner, staff at Patong Hospital have reported that the young man was showing signs of anxiety when he presented himself to the hospital just hours before his death.On recognizing the symptoms, doctors at Patong Hospital admitted him for minor depression.Mr Faulkner, from Melbourne, plunged…
- World News
World News: Back to school for Sandy Hook Elementary School’s surviving students
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH– World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international communityPHUKET: (Reuters): Classes resumed yesterday (January 3) for more than 400 surviving students of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, 20 days after a massacre at the school that killed 20 first graders and six adults last month.Across Newtown’s sprawling Sandy Hook neighbourhood, home to the school where…
- Phuket News
Phuket blockade wins tuk-tuk drivers reprieve from Russian operators
PHUKET: Tuk-tuk and taxi drivers who established a road blockade in Karon last night will take further action if a meeting at 2pm today does not resolve a dispute over Russian tour operators undercutting local prices, the Phuket Gazette was told. Karon Kamnan Winai Chidchiew broke the news after about 100 tuk-tuk and taxi drivers blockaded the Karon beachfront road…
- Phuket News
Phuket United beat Lampang United
PHUKET: Phuket United beat Lampang United 7-3 in their third home game of the Thai Futsal Premier League (TFPL) season on January 2.The match was played in front of 600 supporters at the 4,000-seat Indoor Sports Complex at Saphan Hin.Before the game, Phuket United’s head coach Suphol Senapeng told the Phuket Gazette: “Our main objective for this game is concentration…
- Opinion
Phuket Opinion: Losing Patong’s beauty to the dust of progress
PHUKET: Wichan Sawatdirak, now in his 80s, was the Kamnan for Patong for more than 20 years, long before Patong became a municipality.Born in Baan Mon village, he has lived in Patong his entire life. Respected by Patong locals, he was instrumental in the development of Patong’s transport infrastructure by providing vital roads around Patong City and links to Kathu…
- Phuket News
Villagers battle Patong tunnel to save ancestral homeland
PHUKET: With a history going back over 200 years, Baan Mon is the “original” Patong community. However the community members, numbering more than 1,000, are now in the front line as they scramble to protect their homes from the construction of the Patong tunnel – Phuket’s first road tunnel project. Baan Mon villagers claim that 90 per cent of residents…
- Phuket News
Phuket suffers deadly “Seven Days of Danger’
PHUKET: The nationwide Seven Days of Danger road-safety campaign ended at midnight last night with three more deaths on Phuket’s roads than during last year’s safety efforts, but far fewer accidents reported. Nine deaths and 24 injuries in a total of 27 accidents were recorded by the Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation Phuket branch (DDPM-Phuket). Last year, six people…
- Phuket News
Phuket Police bust man with “Million-baht meth foot’
PHUKET: Phuket Police have busted a man with methamphetamine crystals and pills, worth an estimated street value of one million baht, taped to his foot while they were making routine stops at a road checkpoint. Narong Pongkornsopha, a 35-year-old resident in the neighboring area of Pa Klok, was stopped at the checkpoint to the south of the Heroines’ Monument at…
- Phuket News
Phuket Police closing in on Phi Phi speedboat driver’s killers
PHUKET: Police have made headway in identifying and capturing the murderers of a Phi Phi speedboat driver who was stabbed to death in Phuket Town just before dawn yesterday. Ronnachai Chayliang, 26, was found dead in front of Wat Wichit Sangkharam, on Narisorn Road, at about 5:20am. He had suffered knife wounds to his neck, chest and back. “The body…
- World News
World News: Three dead in Swiss shooting
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH– World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international communityPHUKET (Reuters): Three people were killed and two wounded late on Wednesday when a gunman opened fire in the Swiss village of Daillon, Swiss police said this morning.The suspect threatened police when they tried to arrest him, and officers shot and wounded him before taking him into custody,…
- World News
Phuket Media Watch: UN lifts Syria death toll to ‘truly shocking’ 60,000
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH– World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international communityPHUKET (Reuters): More than 60,000 people have died in Syria’s uprising and civil war, the United Nations said on Wednesday, dramatically raising the death toll in a struggle that shows no sign of ending.In the latest violence, dozens were killed in a rebellious Damascus suburb when a government…
- Phuket News
Phuket Rohingya repatriated to Myanmar
PHUKET: In a stunning development this morning, Phuket Governor Maitri Inthusut announced that the 71 Rohingya rescued from an open boat adrift off Phuket yesterday are en route to be repatriated to Myanmar. The move to repatriate the refugees, including women and children, came at the request of the refugees themselves, Gov Maitri said. Speaking at the monthly “Governor Meets…
- Phuket News
Krabi tourists roused by new year fire
PHUKET: Tourists on holiday in Ao Nang, Krabi, across the bay from Phuket, were roused from their new year slumber early yesterday morning as hotel staff ordered an emergency evacuation and firefighters attempted to douse a blaze in a room full of gas cylinders. Hundreds of tourists staying at the Ao Nang Buri Resort ran for the safety of Haad…
- Phuket News
Storm leaves 70 Rohingya adrift off Phuket
PHUKET: A boat carrying about 70 Rohingya fleeing persecution in their homeland in Myanmar were taken into custody by the Thai authorities off Phuket today.Local fisherman first sighted the boat off Bon Island, off Rawai Beach at the southern end of Phuket, and reported it to Rawai Municipality.“I was told by fishermen this morning that there was a suspicious-looking boat…
- Phuket News
Phuket ushers in the New Year 2013
PHUKET: About 1,000 people gathered at Queen Sirikit Park in Phuket Town this morning to join a mass blessing ceremony to usher in the new year 2013. Phuket residents, officials and tourists offered alms to 145 monks as part of the festivities this morning. Phuket Vice Governor Sommai Prijasilpa at 7am officiated the blessing ceremony, joined by Vice Governors Somkiet…
- Phuket News
Phuket 2012: Safety shaken, not stirred
PHUKET: The need for a quicker exit from Phuket’s nightlife capital of Patong was highlighted by the chaos on the road in the early hours of April 11, after a 7.3-magnitude, submarine earthquake, that struck off Sumatra, caused the National Disaster Warning Center to issue a tsunami “alert” (not a warning) that had coastal residents heading for the hills. A…
