Hot News
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Sponsored Why 8 Atelier Residence is poised for growth: Phuket’s investment hotspot in the making
Phuket’s residential real estate market is no longer defined only by beachfront villas and short-stay resort condominiums. The island is now seeing sustained interest from international investors targeting long-term yields, capital stability, and access to full-scale lifestyle infrastructure. Looking at...
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2 crushed as truck overturns in Suphan Buri
Two men were crushed to death when tractor-trailer truck overturned in Suphanburi province in central Thailand yesterday. Horrific CCTV footage showed the moment the truck, carrying animal feed, overturned, crushing the two, who were travelling on a motorcycle with a sidecar. The deceased were identified as 64 year old Montha and 56 year old Phra Manop, a monk at the…
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Thailand’s plastics industry wants the government’s help to keep afloat
There may be less plastic bags being handed out around Thailand, and that’s a good thing. But there’s been a down side – the failure of an entire industry and the people it employees. Now the Thai Labour Minister is being asked to step in and help the dozens of Thai plastic bag manufacturers which are at risk of closing…
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Thai government scraps Mekong blasting project
The government has officially abandoned a controversial plan to blast rapids on the Mekong river in Chiang Mai province. The Chinese-led dredging and blasting plan, initiated in 2001, met with fierce opposition from locals and environmental groups, and the Cabinet agreed to scrap it at a weekly meeting on Tuesday. The plan was to enable ships to carry goods from…
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4 foreigners, 2 Thais nabbed in 3 drug busts
Four foreign nationals and two Thais have been arrested in three separate drug seizures involving heroin, ecstasy pills, cocaine, MDA, LSD and marijuana. The first bust saw two Taiwanese men arrested yesterday while trying to smuggle 15 kilograms of heroin out of Thailand in instant noodle packages and powder cans. The two, identified as Li Chun Hui and Li Chai…
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Pattaya Floating Market cleans up its act to prevent Coronavirus
Pattaya’s Floating Market has been vigourously scrubbed down in an effort to increase hygiene and prevent the potential spread of the Novel Coronavirus. Staffers cleaned the entire venue from top to bottom yesterday. Surface areas were cleaned with disinfectant and alcohol spray. Every vendor in the hundreds of booths and stalls took part, to make sure potential tourists know the…
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Head-on collision kills Austrian couple in Krabi
Two Austrian* tourists were killed in a collision with a truck in Thailand’s southern Krabi province on Monday. The pair were riding motorbikes registered in Krabi and veered into the wrong lane while navigating a turn on the road to Krabi Hot Springs when they collided head-on with an oncoming Mitsubishi pickup truck at approximately 4pm. Police and rescue workers…
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Army officer wounded in Chiang Mai firefight with drug runners
A firefight with drug smugglers in Chiang Mai province’s Chiang Dao district has left an army officer wounded and in hospital. A patrol was dispatched to a border village in Chiang Dao on Sunday, after a tip-off. The informant said drugs would be brought across the border through the Nong Kalang pass. Early yesterday a group was spotted coming from…
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Bangkok halts construction of electric rail and highrises for 3 days
The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration today ordered a 3 day suspension of the construction of seven electric train lines, highrise buildings and roads throughout Bangkok, in order to reduce PM2.5 pollution. The Pollution Control Department reported this morning that 39 areas in Bangkok and four in its suburbs were found to have high levels of PM2.5 particles, measured to be…
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Police chase, arrest two women with 300 kilograms of compressed marijuana
Authorities in the northeastern Nong Khai province arrested two women yesterday and seized 300 kilograms of compressed marijuana. The two were captured after trying to run a police checkpoint. Police told reporters the arrests came after a tip-off that marijuana would be smuggled from neighbouring Bung Kan province, once a part of Nong Khai. It was to be transported to…
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Thailand Inventors Day 2020 celebrates outstanding Thai inventions
Yesterday marked Thailand Inventors’ Day, when the National Research Council granted awards to outstanding researchers, inventors and innovations in the prevention of PM2.5 airborne dust and, it is thought, aerially transmitted Coronavirus, were put on display. An air scrubber manufactured by ALPIN ELECTRONICS, an innovative high performance machine ten years in development, on display at the 5 day event. The…
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Light winds across Thailand and cooler weather in the Northern hills
Watch out for some fog in the hills around the north of Thailand, a continuation of the smog problems in the city and a chance of thunderstorms during the day in parts of the south. A high-pressure system over upper Thailand and the South China Sea is weakening that will cause morning fog as well as cooler weather in some…
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China now battling an outbreak of bird flu in Hunan
On top of the growing Coronavirus outbreak and efforts of authorities to contain the spread, Chinese officials have now reported a case of the potent H5N1 bird flu in Shaoyang city in central China’s Hunan province. The province is south of Hubei but the outbreak of bird flu is unrelated to the Wuhan coronavirus. Avian influenza, aka. H5N1, avian flu…
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Three people dead in road incidents south of Bangkok
Three people are dead following two separate accidents in the Bang Phli district of Samut Prakan, south and east of Bangkok’s centre. The first incident occurred around 7.30pm on Saturday night on the Bang Na-Trat highway. A married couple were killed after their motorcycle was run over by a six wheeled truck. The couple were identified as 58 year old Somchai…
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Thai Airways considers leasing planes and outsourcing cabin staff
In its attempts to restructure the legacy national airline, senior staff of Thai Airways may lease aircraft and cabin staff. The plans are part of fleet and service improvement options as demanded by the Thai Government who had to find 11.1 billion baht over the first 9 months of 2019 to keep the national airline in the skies. According to…
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Hazy days and Sundays – Bangkok has fifth highest air pollution in the world
“Unhealthy”. That about sums up the air Bangkokians are breathing this morning, a situation almost completely avoidable but allowed to continue by the Thai Government. Bangkok is in bad company today with other polluted cities in Asia – Lahore, Hanoi, Delhi and Dhaka – as the fifth most polluted city in the world, a headline the Thai Government would prefer…
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Phuket’s governor appeals for calm, issues warning over fake virus news
Amid the flurry of news stories about the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak, Phuket’s Governor Phakaphong urged people this week to beware of fake news and reports that don’t cite their sources. “Fake news has been shared on social media, making people worried and damaging Phuket’s tourism image. Please check before believing it, reduce the panic.” One report that went viral this…
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Police catch serial bag and gold snatcher in Pattaya
Pattayans and tourists can breathe a little easier with the arrest of a serial gold and bag snatcher who preyed on both Thais and foreign tourists. Pattaya police report that 25 year old “Beer” was arrested Thursday. CCTV helped nab the suspect, who was responsible for many snatch-and-grab thefts in Pattaya. He snatched a gold necklace from a Thai woman on…
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Baht loses nearly half its 2019 gains
The Thai baht, whose meteoric rise seemed unstoppable only weeks ago, has become Asia’s worst performing currency so far this year. It’s lost nearly half of its 2019 gains in just a month as fears over the Wuhan Coronavirus outbreak threaten Thai tourism. The Year of the Rat has not been kind to Thailand. As late as December, there were…
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Brexit – a personal diary
Opinion by David Skelcey Friday, June 24, 2016 I woke up in my caravan at Glastonbury Music Festival, headed to the toilet and while doing my business read the news I was dreading. The Leave campaign had won the Brexit referendum by 51% to 49%. After getting dressed and kissing my sleeping partner and kids goodbye I headed off to…
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Grab plans to be in 30 Thai provinces this year
Grab, the everyday-everything-travel-food-delivery-super-app, has kicked off 2020 by announcing its expansion plan to second-tier cities and provinces across Thailand through a new, innovative business model using Mini-Grab Centres (Mini-GCs). The move will see it extend its presence to 30 of Thailand’s 76 provinces before the end of 2020 and help increase the benefits of Thailand 4.0 and the digital economy…
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2nd annual Thailand Game Expo opens at BITEC in Bangkok
AIS and M Vision have kicked off the 2nd Thailand Game Expo at the BITEC centre (Bangkok International Trade & Exhibition Centre) in Bangna. 700,000+ visitors are expected to attend the Expo this year, which runs through to this Sunday (February 2) and product sales tipped to top 2 billion baht. The event is organised by AIS eSports. Alistair Johnston, the…
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South Korean cycling prospect killed in Chiang Mai crash
A cyclist from the Korea Cycling Federation has died after being struck by a pickup truck during a training exercise in Chiang Mai. 18 year old Eom Se-beom was pronounced dead in an ambulance on his way to a hospital. It’s believed the truck crossed the centre line and crashed into Eom as he headed down a slope. Eom was…
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Two Thais arrested for spreading fake coronavirus news
The Thai government says that two people have been arrested for posting fake news about the outbreak of the Wuhan Novel Coronavirus. Buddhipongse Punnakanta, the minister of the digital economy, says his ministry’s “Anti-Fake News Centre” collaborated with the police to arrest Thitima Kongthon at her Bangkok house after she posted on Facebook that a patient infected with the virus died…
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1 killed in 8 vehicle pileup in Prachin Buri
One man is dead and another seriously injured after an eight vehicle pileup last night at a traffic light on a major highway in central Thailand. The crash involved four transfer trucks, two pickups and two cars in Prachin Buri City. One victim said she was slowing down to stop at a red light when an 18 wheel trailer truck…
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Airlines temporarily suspend flights to China
British Airways is suspending all direct flights to and from mainland China due to the Wuhan Coronavirus, making it one of the biggest international carriers to do so so far. The suspension comes after Britain warned against all but essential travel to the China on Tuesday. BA.com, the airline’s website, shows no direct flights to China are available through February.…
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2015 plan dusted off as North suffers severe pollution levels
All 77 of Thailand’s provinces have been told to adopt the 2015 disaster prevention and mitigation master plan to address the current PM2.5 air pollution crisis. The decision was approved by the cabinet this week after it was proposed by Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda. He says the 133 page plan contains guidelines for action on risk reduction, emergency response, international cooperation…
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U-Tapao, AIS collaborate on smart terminal
U-Tapao Rayong Pattaya International Airport and AIS, Thailand’s largest GSM mobile phone operator, have signed a Memorandum of Understanding to turn the airport’s Passenger Terminal 2 into a “smart terminal.” U-Tapao, a joint civil/military public airport serving Rayong and Pattaya City, has been working on developing digital solutions with AIS in its second passenger terminal since 2018. Now it is…
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Thai police scrutinised over record number of dismissed human trafficking cases
Thailand is home to about 610,000 modern-day slaves, or about one in 113 of its population of 69 million, according to the Global Slavery Index by the Walk Free Foundation. Yet Thai prosecutors turned down nearly a fifth of human trafficking cases sent to them by police last year. This has raised concerns that police were on a drive to…
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Deputy transport minister says Thai Airways must increase revenue, cut costs
Thai Airways International is in the process of slashing costs and restructuring. Deputy Transport Minister Thaworn Senneam discussed Thailand’s open sky policy and stressed the importance of increasing revenue and reducing expenditure to turn the airline around and make it sustainable. Thaworn, along with the assistant secretary at the Ministry of Transport and other officials visited Thai Airways’ HQ to…
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7.7 magnitude earthquake hits Caribbean, sparked tsunami fears
An earthquake, followed by a series of strong aftershocks, struck yesterday in the Caribbean Sea, shaking the area from Florida to Mexico. The tremor had a magnitude of 7.7 but apparently caused no casualties or major damage. The initial tremor struck at 2:10 pm Eastern Time and was centered 86 miles northwest of Montego Bay, Jamaica and 87 miles west-southwest…
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