Hot News
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Sponsored Do foreigners get free healthcare in Thailand?
Thailand’s healthcare system is well-regarded across Southeast Asia, with options ranging from public hospitals to world-class private facilities. But when it comes to foreign residents or tourists, healthcare access isn’t as straightforward. So, do foreigners get free healthcare in Thailand?...
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Arrogant Thai construction company rips off Myanmar migrant workers
An arrogant Thai construction company has been ordered to cough up wages it refused to pay to its migrant workers earlier this year. The arrogance of the unnamed building firm is underlined by the fact that no representatives came to court to defend or justify its action. The Labour Court in Phuket told the construction company to settle three months’…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Father’s Day celebrated throughout Thailand today
Today, the people of Thailand celebrate Father’s Day. It is a national public holiday for schools and many businesses are closed. The holiday is celebrated on this day to honour and commemorate the late King Bhumibol Adulyadej, father to the current king and a leader whom many revere as a symbolic father to all the people of Thailand. The holiday…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Disruptive Phuket-bound passenger thrown off flight in Karachi
A disruptive Phuket-bound passenger on a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul was thrown off the aircraft yesterday and arrested after the flight diverted to Pakistan’s Jinnah International Airport in Karachi. After the passenger was taken into custody by local law enforcement, the flight continued to Phuket. Turkish Airlines flight TK-172 on an Airbus A330 diverted to Karachi three hours into the…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Thailand tourism predicted at 80% of pre-Covid in 2023
Tourism Authority of Thailand Governor Yuthasak Supasorn just predicted that next year, revenue from tourism will hit 80% of the level it was before the Covid-19 pandemic. He made the bold prediction at the 22nd World Travel and Tourism Council Global Summit, being held in the Saudi Arabian capital of Riyadh. At that summit, the TAT was invited to take…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Pheu Thai Party under fire as Tuhao-Shinawatra connection exposed
Opposition Pheu Thai Party is under fire after police found that many houses connected to suspected Chinese gangster Chaiyanat “Tuhao” Kornchayanant were built by a company owned by the Shinawatra family. The Pheu Thai Party is the third incarnation of the party founded by former prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra in 2007. On Wednesday, the Royal Thai Police raided 11 locations…
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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…
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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%…
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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…
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World Cup broadcasting soap opera drama rumbles on
The FIFA World Cup 2022 Qatar broadcasting soap opera continues to provide drama. In this week’s episode, the National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission (NBTC) is demanding the Sports Authority of Thailand (SAT) return the 600 million baht it handed over because it can’t fulfil its World Cup broadcasting agreement. The long-drawn-out melodrama appeared to have reached a conclusion when Thailand…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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Thailand’s top cheesemaker toasts his own success
When Thailand’s top cheesemaker Jarutat Snidwongse Na Ayuthaya decided to make cheese for a living, he didn’t find much support. His family and friends doubted that was a market for Chiang Mai cheese. Thailand’s unique cuisine doesn’t find much space for dairy. Sixteen years on, and things could hardly be better in the small but perfectly formed Thai cheese cottage…
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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…
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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…
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Ladyboys steal Russian tourist’s gold necklace in Pattaya, Thailand
In a tale as old as time, another foreign tourist had their gold necklace stolen by ladyboys in Pattaya, Chon Buri province, eastern Thailand, in the dead of night. At 3am today, 24 year old Artem [surname withheld] of Russian nationality sought help from officers at Pattaya City Police Station. He said two ladyboys molested him and untied his gold…
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Tourists flock to famous market in Koh Samui
Tourists are flocking to a famous market in Koh Samui for its mouthwatering food. The vice president of the Tourism Council of Thailand said the tourists are loving the Pad Thai, papaya salad (Somtam), and grilled chicken at The Wharf Samui. The market opens every Wednesday and Friday from the late afternoon until late night. Tourism Council Vice President Wiwat Chuenban…
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9 year olds smoke cannabis on Pattaya Beach in Thailand
Netizens are concerned about the safety of children after pictures of a group of 9 and 10 year olds smoking cannabis from a bamboo bong on Pattaya Beach in Chon Buri province, eastern Thailand, went viral on social media. Thailand delisted cannabis as an illicit narcotic in June to allow the public to utilise the plant’s medicinal properties. But without…
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