Legacy Phuket Gazette
- Entertainment
Expat Business: Rocket Scientist and Phuket entrepreneur Don Battles tells his story tonight at RPM
PHUKET: NASA rocket scientist, farmer, entrepreneur, intellectual and whiskey-drinking former Phuket resident Don Battles will launch his autobiography ‘Merchant of the Orient’ tonight, 6:30pm, at the Speakeasy bar in Royal Phuket Marina. Now living in Chiang Rai in his 30th year of Thai residence, Don will also tell us what he thinks a foreigner needs to do – and not…
- World News
Phuket Gazette World News: Search for missing Malaysia jet set to move to sea floor
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Search for missing Malaysia jet set to move to sea floor Reuters / Phuket Gazette PHUKET: A robotic search vehicle is likely to be sent deep into the Indian Ocean on Tuesday to look for wreckage of a missing Malaysian jetliner on the sea floor, as…
- Thailand News
Phuket Gazette Thailand News: South alert after blasts; Army targets 4 triggers; PDRC denies coup; Killer claims gold
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – Thailand news compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community South on alert after deadly bombings The Nation / Phuket Gazette PHUKET: Security has been beefed up in the restive deep South ahead of the long Songkran holiday next week, following destructive bombing attacks in Yala over the past two days. Yesterday’s bomb explosion at a…
- Phuket News
Phuket police station blockade yields B900k cash compensation
PHUKET: An angry family ransomed the Chalong Police Station for 900,000 baht in compensation for failure to apprehend the suspect of deadly hit-and-run nine months ago. The three vehicles blocking anyone from entering the police station were not moved until the owner of the pickup truck that struck the man dead offered cash compensation (story here). “I want to end…
- Phuket News
Phuket Airport taxi driver faces inquest for drunk nap behind the wheel
PHUKET: The Phuket Airport taxi driver who was found asleep behind the wheel and smelling of alcohol early yesterday morning will be called in for questioning by the Phuket Land Transportation Office (PLTO). The news follows Thalang Police being called to Baan Lipon, between Thalang Town and the Heroines Monument, at 5:30am to find a registered taxi pulled over in…
- World News
Phuket Gazette World News: Actor Mickey Rooney dies at 93
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Actor Mickey Rooney, brash star of 1930s and ’40s, dies at 93 Reuters / Phuket Gazette PHUKET: Actor Mickey Rooney, who became the United States’ biggest movie star while still a brash teenager in the 1930s and later a versatile character actor in a career that…
- World News
Phuket Gazette World News: Syria’s Assad secure, will seek re-election, says Hezbollah leader
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Syria’s Assad secure, will seek re-election, says Hezbollah leader Reuters / Phuket Gazette PHUKET: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will stand for re-election this year and no longer faces a threat of being overthrown, the head of his Lebanese Shi’ite ally Hezbollah said in an interview published…
- Phuket News
Video Report: Airport Customs snare Phuket drug mule with B7mn of crystal meth
PHUKET: A Thai woman was arrested at Phuket International Airport yesterday after she tried to smuggle 2.5kg of ya ice (crystal methamphetamine) from China into Phuket. Customs officers valued the drugs at about 7 million baht. “Buachompoo Pattanapiyawach, 39, was caught with drugs in her luggage after it was scanned by an x-ray machine,” Phuket Airport Customs Director Montira Cherdchoo…
- Business News
Phuket Business Development Office holds Foreign Business Act seminar in English for the first time
PHUKET: The Phuket Business Development Office (BDO) has announced that it will be hosting a seminar aimed at educating foreign business operators about the provisions of Thailand’s Foreign Business Act B.E. 2542. Topics addressed during the seminar will include whether it is necessary to set up a company to do business in the Kingdom, avoiding red tape and issues surrounding…
- World News
Phuket Gazette World News: Pro-Russia protesters raid Ukraine building, seize weapons
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Pro-Russia protesters raid Ukraine building, seize weapons Reuters / Phuket Gazette PHUKET: Pro-Russian protesters who broke into state security headquarters in the eastern Ukrainian city of Luhansk have seized weapons, and highway police have closed down entrances into the city, local police said on Monday. Mainly…
- Phuket News
Phuket official loses B4mn Benz in chicken run wipeout
PHUKET: A six-wheeled truck hauling a battery of chickens bound for Krabi crushed a brand-new, 4-million-baht Mercedes-Benz belonging to a local official in Mai Khao, in the north of Phuket, on Saturday. The accident took place at 11am on Thepkrassatri Road northbound, about 300 meters from the entrance to Sai Kaew Beach. “I came to check on a construction site,”…
- Phuket News
Still no extradition request for Phuket fugitive arrested a month ago
PHUKET: One month after his arrest in the Philippines, the extradition of British fugitive Michael John Taylor, also known as “Mick the Pom”, wanted in Phuket on murder charges, appears to be at a standstill. Phuket’s top cop Maj Gen Ong-art Phiewruangnont says he has no knowledge of the case, and the officer in charge of it, Lt Col Danprai…
- Phuket News
Phuket FC slaughter BKK Iron Bulls
PHUKET: As the Phuket FC Ronins sharpened their blades in preparation for their battle against the Bangkok FC Iron Bulls last Saturday, nearly 5,000 fired-up fans braved the roads to Surakul Stadium under unsettled skies. Fans were on their feet from the beginning, cheering on their hometown team, and jeering at the Iron Bulls. They had two reasons for their…
- Phuket News
Minor Group’s 5-billion baht Phuket investment
PHUKET: Investment confidence on the resort island of Phuket has continued to ramp up in 2014 despite the Bangkok political crisis. The launch of fifteen ultra luxury villas on the prime west coast by the Thai-listed group Minor International PLC is at the forefront of the upscale movement. Tagged as The Residences by Anantara Layan, the villas range from four…
- Phuket News
Stabbing in Phuket attributed to red-shirt, PDRC divide
PHUKET: An argument over the political divisions being played out in Bangkok ended with a red-shirt supporter from Isarn, Northeastern Thailand, stabbing two Southern Thai fruit vendors in Patong on Saturday night. One eyewitness told the Phuket Gazette that the argument erupted while seven vendors – who all sell fruit on Patong Beach for the same employer – were drinking…
- Phuket News
BISP Flying Fish storm the pool at Thanyapura
With temperatures soaring close to 40 degrees Celsius, 312 energetic six-to-18-year-old swimmers and their many supporters packed the grandstands at the Thanyapura Invitational Swim Meet presented by Rocket Science Sports, on March 29 and 30. Thanyapura’s Olympic standard aquatic center played host to a total of 17 teams, and swimmers from eight countries joined the meet from as far afield…
- Phuket News
Phuket to be “unaffected’ during 28-day power disruptions
The Provincial Energy Office has assured that Phuket and other tourism provinces along the Andaman coast will remain unaffected as a major natural gas supply line that feeds the national grid goes offline for 28 days in June and July. The news follows the announcement that the supply of natural gas from field A-18 in the Joint Development Area (JDA)…
- Hua Hin News
Phuket Gazette World News: Chinese, Australian ships try to verify potential ‘pings’ from Malaysia jet
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – World news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Chinese, Australian ships try to verify potential ‘pings’ from Malaysia jet Reuters / Phuket Gazette PHUKET: Chinese and Australian ships hunting for a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner have picked up separate acoustic signals in different parts of a vast Indian Ocean search area and are trying…
- Phuket News
Officials stunned as B15bn Andaman Bridge rumors resurface
PHUKET: A stunned Governor of Satun Province has denounced reports that plans were afoot to build a four-lane motorway over the Andaman Sea to join Satun Town in Southern Thailand with Perlis in northwestern Malaysia. Governor Nuachai Jiraapirak dispelled the rumors this week after news reports began circulating online early last month, unofficially calling the supposed joint Thailand-Malaysia initiative the…
- Phuket News
Phuket Lake Filling: A sneak behind the watershed
Special Report A housing developer faces legal action if he continues filling in a lake north of Samkong. Soil-dumping as part of an anti-erosion project may continue as long as health issues are addressed. The Phuket Gazette‘s Irfarn Jamdukor reports. PHUKET: Rassada Municipality is preparing to file a police complaint if the lake filling at the Srisuchart Grandview housing estate,…
- Thailand News
3,000 police, troops for red rally in Bangkok
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – Thailand news selected by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community 3,000 police and troops for red rally Phuket Gazette / The Nation PHUKET: More than 3,000 policemen and soldiers will be dispatched to take care of the pro-government red shirts’ mass rally near Bangkok today amid increasing concern there could be clashes between pro- and anti-government…
- Phuket News
10-year-old on life support after Phuket motorbike crash
PHUKET: A 10-year-old girl is unresponsive and on life support at Vachira Phuket Hospital after a motorbike accident on Thepkrasattri Road in Koh Kaew on Thursday. Rattanawadee Tukthin was returning home from Big C on a motorbike driven by her sister, Anjira Tukthin, 17, when the pair crashed into a utility pole. “Ms Anjira is recovering in hospital after receiving…
- Phuket News
Men fire on Phuket armored van transporting B10mn, then flee as van gives chase
PHUKET: Three suspects who opened fire on an armored van carrying 10 million baht yesterday afternoon were chased down by the van driver, but managed to escape. The van had left Tesco Lotus in Phuket Town and was northbound on Thepkrasattri Road, headed to refill ATMs in Bang Tao and at the Phuket International Airport when the men fired on…
- Opinion
Tempest in a longtail
PHUKET: I could feel the Sea Sheperd weekend warrior rising up in me, ready for battle, after reading about the “Yamu Night Fishing Game.” As a sunny-weather marine conservationist, I have no issues with sport fishing competitions. However, I suffered a knee-jerk reaction to seeing “sharks and rays” listed as a category for the Yamu fishing tournament. Glimpses of proud…
- Opinion
Essence of life endangered in Phuket
PHUKET: It is sad, but not surprising, that it took a recent public intervention to finally stop a well-known local Phuket businessman from backfilling an important water storage reservoir on the island. Given our nation’s growing reputation internationally as a hotspot for protests, it is difficult to fathom why so few demonstrations on the island are ever fomented by the…
- Phuket News
Rescuer recovering from fumes that killed Phuket sewer workers last week
PHUKET: The rescue worker who passed out while attempting to save four workers who died in a Phuket Town sewer on March 26 is recovering in the hospital and will be discharged in a week. Jessada Janpen, 25, was one of the first to arrive on the scene, and immediately descended into the sewer to rescue the maintenance workers. Although…
- Phuket News
Video Report: Phuket crepe maker meets the stranger who saved him from sharks
PHUKET: It was an emotional meeting last week between the man who lost his only source of livelihood – a sidecar outfitted to make crepes – and the New Zealand woman who gave him the money he needed to avoid borrowing cash from loan sharks to buy a new one. Crepe vendor Prayoon Impuang, whose sidecar was consumed by flames…
- Phuket News
Foreigners in Phuket: Dive shop blitz clarifies instructors’ work descriptions
PHUKET: Foreign dive instructors’ job descriptions were clarified during an inspection led by Phuket Governor Maitri Inthusut in Patong today, as the Public-sector Anti Corruption Commission (PACC) investigates allegations that police were extorting money from them due to ambiguities in work permits (story here). “We only came to check work permits and clarify the information within them to the employees.…
- Phuket News
Another Phuket workplace fatality: Shrimp farm worker found dead in boat
PHUKET: A Myanmar national was found dead this afternoon at the Sri Soonthorn shrimp farm where he worked, marking the fifth work-related death within two weeks in Phuket. The body of Nyi Paing, 25, was found on a boat in one of the farm’s ponds by a co-worker after he did not return from his morning work routine, Lt Col…
- Phuket News
Phuket Gazette sets record with 108-page issue
PHUKET: The Phuket Gazette hit the newsstands with a resounding thump today with a record-breaking 108 pages. This week’s issue of the island’s leading English-language newspaper is packed with content, boasting the 32-page China Daily Asia Weekly, a world-class publication built in Hong Kong; the 16-page Russia Beyond The Headlines (RBTH), published by the renowned Moscow-based Rossiskaya Gazetta; and an…
