Legacy Phuket Gazette
- Phuket News
Phuket man murdered within inches of his wife
PHUKET: A man driving his wife home from her job at Phuket Airport was gunned down in Sakoo subdistrict last night. Thachatchai Police were notified of the murder on the Sakoo-Nai Yang Road just after midnight. They identified the deceased as 29-year-old Niphon Thaiprasert, a resident of Sakoo Village 3.Mr Niphon died from a single gun shot that entered his…
- Phuket News
FC Phuket 1 – 0 Samutprakan Customs
PHUKET: A first-half goal by Sarach Yooyen was all it took for FC Phuket to secure all three points in a lackluster 1-0 home win against Samutprakan Customs United this evening. The goal by the returning national player came from a deflection of a free kick taken from just outside the top of the penalty area at about 15 minutes…
- Phuket News
Phuket may benefit from regional drive to target European tourists
PHUKET: The Andaman provinces announced last week a plan to launch a joint marketing campaign aimed at luring more Europeans – especially Scandinavians – and persuading them to stay longer. The Andaman Explorer campaign is the brainchild of the tourism associations in the five provinces along the coast of the Andaman Sea: Phuket, Krabi, Phang Nga, Trang and Ranong. Ittirit…
- Phuket News
Design re-thinks needed for Phuket and Bangkok Hotels
PHUKET: A hotel design consultant currently working on the interior design for the Regent Phuket, which opens here early next year, says that many hotels, particularly in Phuket and Bangkok, need to rethink their aesthetics in order to remain competitive. Competition is now fierce as many thousands of new rooms are coming on the market, not only in Phuket and…
- Phuket News
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…
- Phuket News
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…
- Phuket News
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…
- Phuket News
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.…
- Phuket News
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…
- Phuket News
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…
- Thai Life
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…
- Thailand News
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…
- Thailand News
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,…
- Phuket News
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,…
- Phuket News
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…
- Phuket News
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,”…
- Phuket News
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…
- Phuket News
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…
- Phuket News
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…
- Phuket News
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…
- Phuket News
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…
- Phuket News
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…
- Thai Life
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,…
- Phuket News
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…
- Thai Life
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…
- Thai Life
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…
- Phuket News
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…
- Phuket News
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.…
- Thai Life
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…
- Thai Life
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…