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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...

  • Flood warning for 11 southern provinces | Thaiger

    Flood warning for 11 southern provinces

    Southern Thailand has been soaked with rain over the past week. Now, the National Water Command Centre is warning 11 provinces of possible floods this coming weekend. They are expecting heavy rains from Thursday, December 8 through Sunday, December 11. Strong storms have been flickering power in some provinces in the south of Thailand, with high winds blowing debris and…

  • Everything stolen from Danish man’s 3 homes on Koh Samui | Thaiger

    Everything stolen from Danish man’s 3 homes on Koh Samui

    A Danish expat living in Koh Samui returned home from a five-month holiday to a most unpleasant surprise. Someone had ransacked his three homes and stolen nearly everything inside. The 43 year old man had been travelling abroad for nearly half a year with his Thai wife. Their homes are in Maenam on the northern coast of the popular holiday…

  • Whole new world of censorship pain on its way to Thailand | Thaiger

    Whole new world of censorship pain on its way to Thailand

    A whole new world of censorship pain is on its way to Thailand, with the latest act by the thought police becoming law on Christmas Day. Online platforms must abide by a new regulation to deal quickly with complaints about content deemed to violate the Computer Crimes Act. A new regulation issued by Digital Economy and Society (DES) Minister Chaiwut…

  • Apple plans to move production out of China and into Thailand | Thaiger

    Apple plans to move production out of China and into Thailand

    Apple Inc. plans to move production out of China, by far the dominant country in the company’s supply chain. Suppliers are being to asked plan for moves elsewhere in Asia, particularly India, Thailand, and Vietnam, to reduce the influence of Foxconn Technology Group. In a series of tweets, analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the main production location outside of China for…

  • Thai govt’s chemical castration policy takes effect next month | Thaiger

    Thai govt’s chemical castration policy takes effect next month

    The Thai government is preparing to introduce its controversial chemical castration policy on repeat sex offenders next month. The Justice Ministry revealed it is preparing for the new law which is set to take effect on January 23. The policy is aimed at preventing people convicted of sexual and violent crimes from reoffending. The Senate passed the bill, allowing the…

  • RTP urges Thai drivers not to ignore e-tickets, they’re real, not fake | Thaiger

    RTP urges Thai drivers not to ignore e-tickets, they’re real, not fake

    A Royal Thai Police (RTP) spokesperson confirmed e-tickets for traffic violations have been in use since May this year and they are not fake despite claims to the contrary. Pol Maj Gen Achayon Kraithong announced on Facebook that the RTP e-tickets are real after a well-known neurologist and professor at the Faculty of Medicine, Chulalongkorn University warned motorists of a…

  • A few good apples – Taxi drivers are not all bad | Thaiger

    A few good apples – Taxi drivers are not all bad

    Taxi drivers are not all bad. A Pattaya motorbike-taxi driver handed into police a foreigner’s wallet he found. The wallet contained about 18,000 baht. Identification found inside the purse was Franz-Joseph (surname withheld), a German national. The wallet contained 320 euros (12,000 baht) and 6,150 baht (US$180). The honest taxi driver, Amnuay Plungklang, contacted the media last week to publicise…

  • Pro-monarchy ‘dictator’ must be stopped from retiring in Australia, say Thai asylum activists | Thaiger

    Pro-monarchy ‘dictator’ must be stopped from retiring in Australia, say Thai asylum activists

    Exiled Thai activists are living in fear that a self-proclaimed “Van Helsing” “dictator” and pro-monarchy vigilante could be pursuing them in retirement. Rienthong Nanna, a doctor and former army general, announced on Facebook that he plans to retire in Perth, Australia causing fear among those who now live there after fleeing the country after his vicious campaign. Rienthong set up a…

  • Russian murder suspect arrested in Pattaya | Thaiger

    Russian murder suspect arrested in Pattaya

    A Russian man who fled to Thailand to escape murder charges was tracked down and arrested in Pattaya. Immigration Police worked together with the Russian Embassy in Thailand to coordinate in locating the man and taking him into custody. Now the process has begun to extradite him to Russia to face charges. Igor Guzhin had a warrant issued for his…

  • 6 months in, Bangkok Governor Chadchart rated highly | Thaiger

    6 months in, Bangkok Governor Chadchart rated highly

    A new poll shows that after six months in office, Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt remains popular with a high approval rating. An impressive 81.55% of people polled said that they were satisfied with Chadchart’s performance as governor so far. Only 18.47% of those who answered the poll said they were not satisfied. Chadchart was elected as governor in May in…

  • Raid roundup: Pattaya pubs, cannabis shops scrutinised | Thaiger

    Raid roundup: Pattaya pubs, cannabis shops scrutinised

    Police in Pattaya are continuing their crackdown to clean up unseemly and illegal activities in an attempt to polish the tourist city’s reputation. Over the past few days, officers carried out inspections of cannabis shops around the city as well as raids on several entertainment venues that now face closure. Early this morning, two pubs in Pattaya were shut down…

  • ‘Big Joke’ goes back to school to hunt visa crooks | Thaiger

    ‘Big Joke’ goes back to school to hunt visa crooks

    As Big Joke leads his investigation into Chinese gangs operating in Bangkok, the probe is expanding so fast that it is only a matter of time before the cops are investigating every business in the nation’s capital. There are no untouchables as criminal Chinese businesses appear to have pervaded almost every corner of Thai life from the scum floating at…

  • Air Canada’s Vancouver-Bangkok flight touches down Thailand | Thaiger

    Air Canada’s Vancouver-Bangkok flight touches down Thailand

    Air Canada’s Vancouver-Bangkok flight touched down in the Kingdom of Thailand early this morning and, for the first time in 10 years, there is a nonstop flight between North America and Thailand. On December 1 at 11pm local time, the Air Canada Boeing 787 Dreamliner AC65 took off from Vancouver International Airport to begin its 15-hour and 55-minute journey to…

  • Anutin responds to photo of cannabis smoking kids on Pattaya Beach | Thaiger

    Anutin responds to photo of cannabis smoking kids on Pattaya Beach

    Minister of Public Health Anutin Charnvirakul has responded after photos of a group of 10 year olds smoking cannabis from a bamboo bong on Pattaya Beach went viral on social media. The legalisation of cannabis came with very little regulation, but a prohibition on sales or consumption by anyone under 20 years old was put in place almost immediately. Anutin has been…

  • Thai student allegedly raped by Hyderabad U professor | Thaiger

    Thai student allegedly raped by Hyderabad U professor

    Students at the University of Hyderabad are staging protests in support of the Thai student allegedly raped by her professor yesterday. The Thai student claimed that she was raped at the home of a senior professor last night. Local police arrested the suspect, Ravi Ranjan, said to be in his sixties. Ranjan is a faculty member in the department of…

  • Phuket welcomes 6,730 flights in December | Thaiger

    Phuket welcomes 6,730 flights in December

    High season has arrived in Phuket, as the airport schedule lists 6,730 flights this month. The average number of flights per day throughout the month of December will reach 217, up from about 200 in November. (The busiest day in November saw 219 flight land with 10,467 passengers arriving.) Some 3,000 of those flights are international arrivals, while 3,730 flights…

  • Bangkok airport expansion prepares for bidding war | Thaiger

    Bangkok airport expansion prepares for bidding war

    Bidding will open next year on Bangkok’s airport expansion at Suvarnabhumi International and Don Mueang International, according to Thailand’s transport minister Saksayam Chidchob. The expansions are needed to meet rising demand since Thailand dropped COVID entry restrictions on October 1 this year. Some 3 million passengers used Thai airports in October, compared with average monthly traffic of about 1.2 million…

  • Child Protection Foundation leader faces child labour charges | Thaiger

    Child Protection Foundation leader faces child labour charges

    Authorities in Thailand are claiming there’s a fine line between protecting children and exploiting them. Amphawa District Police in the Samut Songkhram province filed human trafficking charges against the Secretary-General of the Child Protection Foundation. The foundation has protected the rights of children, but charges accuse them of using those children as labour in a resort owned by Secretary-General Montri…

  • Red-Bull hit-and-run prosecutor dismissed | Thaiger

    Red-Bull hit-and-run prosecutor dismissed

    Red-Bull hit-and-run prosecutor Chainarong Saengthong-aram has been dismissed by the Public Prosecutors Commission. The former senior prosecutor at the Office of the Attorney General (OAG) was discharged after tampering with evidence in the case involving Red Bull heir Vorayuth Yoovidhya. An initial report showed that Vorayuth was driving his Ferrari at 177 kilometres per hour when he hit and killed…

  • Phuket flight cancellation due to earlier cancelled flight, runway maintenance | Thaiger

    Phuket flight cancellation due to earlier cancelled flight, runway maintenance

    After pandemonium at Phuket International Airport on Thursday night with a flight cancellation stranding 300 passengers overnight, airport and tourism authorities say they’re more prepared and it won’t happen again. It all started when budget airline Thai VietJet cancelled a flight from Phuket to Bangkok minutes before take-off last night because staff couldn’t find a seat for one passenger. But…

  • Bullets-in-bag Israeli given 18 months in Thailand | Thaiger

    Bullets-in-bag Israeli given 18 months in Thailand

    The bullets-in-bag Israeli police officer was handed an 18-month jail sentence on Friday for arriving in Thailand with a deadly cargo of live ammunition. Gal Shmuel Farjun was arrested in October at Phuket Airport with two loaded magazines in his suitcase. The 29 year old claimed to have left the bullets in his bag “by accident.” The Israeli Foreign Ministry…

  • Thai baht soars to six-month high against US dollar | Thaiger

    Thai baht soars to six-month high against US dollar

    The Thai baht opened at 34.78 against the US dollar today, strengthening from yesterday’s close of 35 to a six-month high. The baht’s sudden rise is down to the Bank of Thailand’s (BOT) hiking the policy rate by a quarter point earlier this week. The BOT remains committed to a gradual monetary tightening policy, raising the policy rate from 1%…

  • Motorcycle taxi riders rally against unlicensed ride-share app drivers in Pattaya | Thaiger

    Motorcycle taxi riders rally against unlicensed ride-share app drivers in Pattaya

    Over 100 Pattaya motorcycle taxi riders showed up at Pattaya City Hall yesterday to make some noise about unlicensed ride-share app drivers. The motorcycle taxi riders are calling for a crackdown, saying that these unlicensed drivers are stealing their passengers. In an open letter to Pattaya Deputy Mayor Wuttisak Rueimkitkan, the riders accused app drivers of: Not having had their…

  • Over 100 tonnes of garbage estimated near Phuket Fishing Port | Thaiger

    Over 100 tonnes of garbage estimated near Phuket Fishing Port

    Over 100 tonnes of garbage are estimated to have accumulated in a village near Phuket Fishing Port in Ratsada. The garbage has been building up for over 20 years and was recently brought to light through social media posts. The director-general of the Department of Marine and Coastal Resources (DMCR), Atthaphon Charoenchansa, visited the village yesterday. Attaphon spoke to villagers…

  • Thai Vietjet plans new routes to China, India, Japan, Vietnam | Thaiger

    Thai Vietjet plans new routes to China, India, Japan, Vietnam

    Thai Vietjet has big plans for next year with new routes in the pipeline to destinations in China, India, Japan, and Vietnam. Woranate Laprabang, chief executive of TVJ said… “We want to be driving the Thai economy by bringing in more foreign tourists.” Domestic flights accounted for about a third of flights operated by the airline this year. At the…

  • Police arrest weight loss pill executive for causing 4 deaths in Thailand | Thaiger

    Police arrest weight loss pill executive for causing 4 deaths in Thailand

    A dietary supplement executive was arrested in Bangkok, Thailand, yesterday after four people died from taking his company’s weight loss pills. Police arrested 50 year old Nuttawat outside a condo in the Huai Kwang district under an arrest warrant issued by Kanchanaburi Provincial Court on January 18, 2022, for, “secretly adding a substance to food, medicine or other edible products…

  • Thai AirAsia Melbourne and Sydney connections take to the air | Thaiger

    Thai AirAsia Melbourne and Sydney connections take to the air

    Australians can expect cheaper flights to Thailand, thanks to the arrival of a Thai AirAsia X on the busy Melbourne and Sydney routes. For the first time since the pandemic began, a non-stop Melbourne to Bangkok flight took off yesterday afternoon from Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport. The budget airline’s first flight on its new Sydney to Bangkok route departed today. Thai…

  • Fireworks to dazzle Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River area on New Year’s Eve | Thaiger

    Fireworks to dazzle Bangkok’s Chao Phraya River area on New Year’s Eve

    Bangkok fireworks lovers have a new treat awaiting them on New Year’s Eve. Fireworks will dazzle the capital’s Chao Phraya River area during the countdown. Bangkok’s largest shopping mall, ICON SIAM, is hosting the event, Amazing Thailand Countdown 2023, at Icon Siam River Park on December 31. The event’s theme is “win the world for Thailand.” The firework displays will be…

  • New details unfolding over alleged assault by Pattaya loan sharks | Thaiger

    New details unfolding over alleged assault by Pattaya loan sharks

    UPDATE New details are unfolding around a Pattaya woman who on Monday, November 28 alleged that loan sharks had abducted and assaulted her. The woman, 21 year old Tasneeporn Youngram, said that four loan sharks forced her into a car on Soi Paniad Chang in Bang Lamung. She said they then brought her to a deserted road, where they beat…

  • Family of man who died after a hair transplant warns others to avoid cowboy clinics | Thaiger

    Family of man who died after a hair transplant warns others to avoid cowboy clinics

    The family of an Indian man who died from a hair transplant (HT) urges others to avoid cowboy clinics offering too good-to-be-true low-cost procedures. Balding Indian television executive Athar Rasheed decided to get an HT last year only for it to end fatally. The 30 year old wanted to improve his appearance, boost his confidence, and look younger, as many…