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Thailand hot news, breaking stories, crime, politics, tourism, and business—stay updated with in-depth reports and exclusive interviews on the latest events across the country. Get the latest from The Thaiger, your trusted Thailand news source.

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    What do you need before moving from the US to Thailand?

    The Thaiger key takeaways The most common medical emergencies for expats in Thailand include motorcycle accidents, tropical diseases, and food or water-borne illnesses. Air pollution and heat-related conditions like heatstroke also pose serious seasonal health risks, especially in northern and...

  • Extorted Taiwanese actress’ friend told to pay fine or go to jail | Thaiger

    Extorted Taiwanese actress’ friend told to pay fine or go to jail

    The Singaporean friend of the Taiwanese actress, who says she was extorted by police, says he was told to pay a fine or go to jail. The man was found to be in possession of illegal vaping devices that he had bought in Bangkok. The 29 year old man, who identifies himself as “Sky,” spoke to Bangkok Post at the…

  • One meth pill okay, two pills and you’re a dealer….. | Thaiger

    One meth pill okay, two pills and you’re a dealer…..

    Thailand’s Ministry of Public Health is moving forward with a new drug law that would make those who carry more than one pill of methamphetamine a dealer of illegal narcotics. According to Bangkok Post, the controversial law comes after Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said that the ministry would revise the law to deal with the country’s serious methamphetamine problem.…

  • Opportunist thief arrested for stealing Louis Vuitton bag at Bangkok mall | Thaiger

    Opportunist thief arrested for stealing Louis Vuitton bag at Bangkok mall

    An opportunist, light-fingered thief was arrested yesterday after she stole a Louis Vuitton handbag from a sexy model while she was trying on clothes at the Terminal 21 shopping mall in Bangkok. The clothes store owner, in Terminal 21 of the Asoke area of Bangkok, filed a complaint at Lumphini Police Station that a customer’s Louis Vuitton handbag was stolen…

  • Two young Thai activists in serious condition after staging hunger strike over lèse-majesté law | Thaiger

    Two young Thai activists in serious condition after staging hunger strike over lèse-majesté law

    Two Thai activists are reportedly in serious condition after staging a hunger strike over Thailand’s lèse-majesté law. The young women activists, 21 year old Tantawan Tuatulanon “Tawan,” and 23 year old Orawan Phupong “Bam,” were accused of insulting the monarchy after holding up a poster in a mall that allegedly defamed the monarchy. The poster’s writing asked whether people thought the…

  • Thailand is most searched destination for Chinese Airbnb guests | Thaiger

    Thailand is most searched destination for Chinese Airbnb guests

    Thailand is the most searched destination for Chinese Airbnb guests. According to Airbnb’s data, the Land of Smiles was the most searched spot for Chinese travellers within 24 hours of the government’s announcement on December 26, 2022, to lift inbound quarantine requirements. The entire list of the top 10 search destinations for Chinese tourists includes: Thailand US UK Japan Australia Canada…

  • Bangkok is third most polluted city in the world | Thaiger

    Bangkok is third most polluted city in the world

    Bangkok was ranked the third worst city in the world for air pollution after PM2.5 dust reached unhealthy levels. A heavy blanket of smog encased the capital’s skyscrapers as nationwide agricultural burning and forest fires pumped tiny dust particulates into the air, exacerbated by the city’s chockablock traffic and stone-dry weather. At 10am, Bangkok’s air quality index (AQI) measured 198,…

  • Thai supremo cancels Leicester City’s 7.8 billion baht debt | Thaiger

    Thai supremo cancels Leicester City’s 7.8 billion baht debt

    Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha revealed his long-standing commitment to Leicester City Football Club by cancelling the club’s enormous debt. Aiyawatt, the Leicester chairman, yesterday announced he has cleared the £194 million (7.8 billion baht) debt the Foxes owe to its parent company King Power International (KPI). This was accomplished through a debt-to-equity transfer to KPI, freeing Leicester from its outstanding liabilities. The…

  • Pattaya police officer denies fining vape-carrying Chinese tourists | Thaiger

    Pattaya police officer denies fining vape-carrying Chinese tourists

    The identity of the senior police sergeant major from Mueang Pattaya Police Station, who illegally fined Chinese tourists for carrying vapes, has been revealed. The suspect officer, referred to as “K” in previous reports, is Police Sergeant Major Nopphakit Pornwatthanakit. Nopphakit denies all allegations. Thai media also reported that Nopphakit has been praised in the past for his good deeds…

  • Death toll rises after suicide bomb in Pakistani mosque, expert calls it ‘national security crisis’ | Thaiger

    Death toll rises after suicide bomb in Pakistani mosque, expert calls it ‘national security crisis’

    UPDATE Following the horrific suicide bombing at a mosque in Peshawar, Pakistan on Monday, the death toll has risen from 59 to at least 100, according to a hospital spokesperson. The spokesperson for Lady Reading Hospital, Muhammad Asim Khan, said that at least 100 people have died following the attack. Meanwhile, the Inspector General of Peshawar Police Moazim Jah Ansari,…

  • Krabi hotel accused of favouring foreigners over Thais | Thaiger

    Krabi hotel accused of favouring foreigners over Thais

    Thai tourists condemned a hotel in Krabi for discriminatory service standards after the hotel provided better treatment to foreign guests and neglected domestic tourists. They claimed that the hotel prioritised foreign guests with higher purchasing power over them for financial gain. A Thai man posted three videos on his TikTok account, @thetharm, to share his bad experience at a hotel…

  • Elderly Thai monk ‘dies from stress’ after falling victim to scam | Thaiger

    Elderly Thai monk ‘dies from stress’ after falling victim to scam

    An elderly Thai monk suffered several seizures and passed away shortly after being scammed out of 5,000 baht at his temple in Nonthaburi province in central Thailand. Yesterday, 35 year old Preecha Saeng-on, an official from Wat Pak Nam temple in Nonthaburi province, informed the media that 91 year old Pra Chuen Seesuay – aka Luang Ta – suffered several…

  • Political activists seek justice after Pinky allowed to remove EM tag | Thaiger

    Political activists seek justice after Pinky allowed to remove EM tag

    Political activists in Thailand are seeking permission to get their electronic monitoring (EM) tags removed after the Thai Court granted permission for a female actress, Savika “Pinky” Chaiyadaj, to have her tag removed. Thai activists demand the removal of their EM tags, claiming they have committed no harm, caused no loss, and have not committed fraud or murder. According to…

  • Hampshire family launches urgent appeal to bring father home after Thailand bike crash | Thaiger

    Hampshire family launches urgent appeal to bring father home after Thailand bike crash

    A grief-stricken family from Hampshire is trying to get the body of their father back home after learning he died in a motorcycle accident in Thailand. Anthony Murphy lay dead in a hospital morgue for five days before he officials discovered his real name. At the time he was registered as John Doe, a name used when the true name…

  • Tourism council predicts 30 million foreign tourists in Thailand this year | Thaiger

    Tourism council predicts 30 million foreign tourists in Thailand this year

    Thailand’s tourist numbers have certainly picked up lately and some groups are very optimistic about numbers this year. The Tourism Industry Council of Thailand predicts that over 30 million foreign tourists will travel to Thailand in 2023, bringing 3 trillion baht to Thailand’s economy. The number of international tourists in Thailand before the Covid-19 pandemic was 40 million in 2019. …

  • ‘Unruly’ Italian passenger tied to her seat on Vistara flight | Thaiger

    ‘Unruly’ Italian passenger tied to her seat on Vistara flight

    Vistara cabin crew tied an ‘unruly’ Italian passenger to her seat after she allegedly became violent on a flight from Abu Dhabi to Mumbai in India on Monday. Airline staff alleged in a police complaint that 45 year old Paola Perruccio of Italian nationality assaulted a member of the cabin crew and spat on another mid-air. The complaint alleges that…

  • Sea nomads win land encroachment case in South Thailand | Thaiger

    Sea nomads win land encroachment case in South Thailand

    Sea nomads have won a land encroachment case in South Thailand after a month-long legal battle. The dispute was over a fence blocking access to a school on the island of Koh Lipe. The Ban Koh Adang school is located in a community populated by Thailand’s Moken minority group. The moken are a semi-nomadic Austronesian group that lives in Thai…

  • Qatar Airways launches thrice daily flights to Phuket | Thaiger

    Qatar Airways launches thrice daily flights to Phuket

    Qatari flag carrier Qatar Airways is launching three flights per day between Doha and Phuket in southern Thailand starting today, February 1, to meet the ever-growing demand. The additional flights bring the airline’s number of services to Thailand up to seven per day, including four flights to and from Bangkok. Doha is a major Middle Eastern transport hub and most…

  • American man dies after crashing Ducati into trailer truck | Thaiger

    American man dies after crashing Ducati into trailer truck

    Tragedy struck in the southern province of Phang Nga yesterday when an American man died after crashing his Ducati motorcycle into a trailer truck at 5.30pm on Phetchakasem Road. Officers from Mueng Phan Nga Police Station investigated the scene of the accident and found the body of the foreign man on the road at the back of the trailer truck.…

  • Thailand tourist fee: 300 baht via air, 150 baht via land/sea | Thaiger

    Thailand tourist fee: 300 baht via air, 150 baht via land/sea

    Thailand plans to charge foreign arrivals arriving by air a tourist fee of 300 baht (US$9.11) and a fee of 150 baht (US$4.56) for tourists entering the kingdom via land/sea by mid-2023. The 300 baht tourist fee for air arrivals has been in the pipeline for a long time and is set to be enforced in June after facing several Covid-19-related…

  • Activists pressure opposition to do away with royal defamation law | Thaiger

    Activists pressure opposition to do away with royal defamation law

    Thai activists are pressuring the opposition Pheu Thai Party to do away with the royal defamation law if elected to office this year. The requests come at a time when three demonstrators are seriously ill after going on a hunger strike over the royal defamation law. Two of the activists are currently in the hospital and listed in serious condition. Pheu…

  • Crazy Russian bites off British woman’s finger in Ko Pha Ngan bean bag row | Thaiger

    Crazy Russian bites off British woman’s finger in Ko Pha Ngan bean bag row

    A leisurely stroll on a Thai beach with two friends and a dog bizarrely evolved into a scene from a horror movie after a crazy Russian woman went berserk, chomped on a British woman’s finger and spat it out. The British woman was walking her dog with a German friend on a beach on Ko Pha Ngan Island when they…

  • Grab Thailand reveals foreign tourist trends | Thaiger

    Grab Thailand reveals foreign tourist trends

    Grab Thailand saw a 45% increase in foreign users between Q2 and Q3 in 2022, suggesting a positive outlook for the recovery of the tourism industry. The top five countries foreign Grab users came from are… Indonesia Malaysia Singapore United States Vietnam To meet the needs of foreign users, the ride-hailing super-app focussed on perfecting three key aspects of service:…

  • Failed Phuket construction projects trigger corruption investigation | Thaiger

    Failed Phuket construction projects trigger corruption investigation

    A number of failed Phuket construction projects have triggered a corruption investigation after being called into question by the STRONG Anti-Corruption Thailand Club. The Phuket government information office has shared posts online by the group that detail projects that were meant to be completed years ago, despite millions of baht being spent on them. According to The Phuket News, one…

  • Dusit Thani College lifts its service and tourism job fair to ASEAN level | Thaiger

    Dusit Thani College lifts its service and tourism job fair to ASEAN level

    Press Release It had been an annual practice for Dusit Thani College, a specialized educational institute in hotel management, tourism, and culinary arts under Dusit International, to organize Hospitality Career Day to give opportunities in hospitality industry to the college’s students before expanding the event into a national level last year. The fair, newly named Hospitality Talent Fair, attracted those…

  • Ukraine MP kicked out of parliament after visiting Thailand in unapproved trip | Thaiger

    Ukraine MP kicked out of parliament after visiting Thailand in unapproved trip

    A lawmaker in Ukraine is now without his job after posting a video of him on an unapproved holiday in Thailand. Mykola Tyshchenko posted a video of him splashing around in the ocean on Facebook while saying that he was on an approved business trip in Asia. According to the Pattaya Mail, he furthered his intentions for some fun in…

  • Chinese tourists wrongly fined 60,000 baht for carrying vapes, says law expert | Thaiger

    Chinese tourists wrongly fined 60,000 baht for carrying vapes, says law expert

    A group of Thai tour guides revealed that a group of Chinese tourists were fined 60,000 baht for carrying vapes in Pattaya. The police also gave a 50% discount and let the tourists pay only 30,000 baht. According to Thai law, Thai police cannot arrest or fine foreigners with vapes. They have to report the issue to the court. The…

  • Bangkok public bus condemned by Singaporean tourist | Thaiger

    Bangkok public bus condemned by Singaporean tourist

    A Singaporean tourist condemned Bangkok Mass Transit Authority (BMTA) public buses after the driver of a bus in the capital closed its door and drove off as she was about to climb onboard. A Singaporean woman posted a video on her TikTok account, njwah, complaining about the service of a public bus in Bangkok. She wrote captions in Thai and…

  • Koh Samui booms as over 200,000 tourists visit the popular island in January | Thaiger

    Koh Samui booms as over 200,000 tourists visit the popular island in January

    The picturesque island of Koh Samui in Surat Thani province, Thailand, has seen a remarkable turnaround to its economy in the first month of 2023 with over 200,000 tourists visiting in January alone. After a year of uncertainty due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the arrival of over 200,000 tourists has been a welcome sight for the island’s local economy. The…

  • Royalist accuses 14 year old girl of royal defamation in Thailand | Thaiger

    Royalist accuses 14 year old girl of royal defamation in Thailand

    Thai police summoned a 14 year old girl to a police station for questioning after an ultra-royalist accused her of royal defamation, according to Thai Lawyers for Human Rights. She is the youngest person ever to be charged with royal defamation, also called lèse-majesté. Arnon Klinkaew, a core member of an ultra-royalist group, accused the child of violating Section 112…

  • Three foreign tourists rescued from Thai jungle | Thaiger

    Three foreign tourists rescued from Thai jungle

    National park officials rescued three foreign tourists who got lost in the jungle in Koh Pha Ngan, Surat Thani province, southern Thailand, yesterday. All three are reportedly safe. At 5.30pm, the Chief of Than Sadet National Park, Tikamporn Phenchom, received a call that three foreign tourists were lost in the jungle on the Khao Ra mountain and needed help. Chief…