News
Thailand news, politics, business, crime, lifestyle, and tourism—stay updated with breaking news and in-depth analysis from Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and beyond. The Thaiger delivers the latest national news that matters.
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Roadworks delay for “death bend’
THALANG: Road construction to straighten the notoriously dangerous Kho En “death bend” on Thepkrasattri Rd has been delayed, with just 2% of the roadwork finished on the project that began June 28 and was scheduled for completion by December 24.The Phuket Highway District contracted Chaiyakorn Co Lt to expand the 440-meter section of the four lane road and decrease the…
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Rawai attacks continue; Man survives machete attack
RAWAI: The late-night road attacks on motorcyclists in the south end of the island continue unabated, with two more reports of attacks in the last 24 hours and several others earlier this month continuing to pour in to the Gazette news desk. Last night a 24-year-old Norwegian man, staying in Phuket on disability pension because he is officially registered as…
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Construction of controversial Tesco continues
THALANG: The ongoing dispute between some Cheng Talay residents and mega-retailer Tesco Lotus is no closer to being solved, as construction continues on the fiercely-opposed Tesco Lotus Express Store in Bang Tao. At a meeting yesterday between Thalang District chief Chaivat Tapee and representatives from Cherng Talay Municipality, the newly-elected Cherng Talay Tambon Administration Organization (OrBorTor) and a group of…
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Phaya Thai hospital plan comes under fire
PHUKET (Nation): The Phuket Provincial Administration Organization (OrBorJor) project to revamp the old Phyathai Hospital on the east side of Phuket City has come under criticism by Health Ministry officials, who claim it will lure qualified staff away from already short-staffed medical facilities.Ministry policy and strategy bureau director Dr Supakit Sirilak said state hospitals outside Bangkok already had too few…
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Haze shrouds Phuket, neighboring provinces
PHUKET: Unusually hazy conditions over the island today are normal and not the result of any forest fires in the region, Phuket’s top meteorologist says. Wiwat Intarapanich, Chief of Weather Forecasting at the Meteorological Department’s Southern Meteorological Center (West Coast), told the Gazette this afternoon that the haze is normal for the southern region at this time of year and…
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Monks give the breast medicine
TAK: When modern medicine fails, people often turn to what has, in the West, come to be known as “alternative medicine”. Phuket has a large market for such treatments, such as acupuncture clinics and herbal spas offering cures for a wide variety ailments, both real and perceived. These more familiar forms of “alternative” medicine are not all Thailand has to…
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Police hunt fish-paste five
CHONBURI: One might think that armed robbery follows a fairly formulaic process: just grab a weapon, threaten someone and, if everything goes to plan, flee with the loot.However, as with other professions, there are also cultural aspects involved in the choice of equipment. An Amazon Indian might use a blowpipe in a hold-up, whereas a Zulu would more naturally opt…
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Film Fest gets underway
PATONG: The first Phuket Film Festival gets underway at the new SF Cinema City on the 3rd Floor of Jungceylon at 6 pm tonight. The week-long festival will kick off with a star-studded gala event before the screening of Dance Machine, a quirky comedy by Spanish director Oscar Aibar, who won Best Director award for his 1995 film Atolladero at…
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Four Chinese arrested for smuggling fuel
PHUKET: Phuket Marine Police yesterday arrested four Chinese sailors near Koh Hei after they were caught with 20,000 liters of illegal fuel on board, Pol Lt Col Prasert Srikunnarat told the Gazette.“We were informed about 2 pm of an odd-looking boat about three miles from Chalong. We went there and found an old, unregistered boat flying orange cloth as a…
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Rawai crackdown nets two “road robbery’ suspects
CHALONG: Chalong Police have charged two suspects for armed robbery following a spate of violent robberies on roads in Rawai in recent weeks, but the pair are not suspects in the killing of Norwegian Simen Knudsen last month.The two suspects, identified as Itthipol “Ron” Chudam, 21, from Songkhla, and Boonkiet Chuchao, 18, of Nakhon Sri Thammarat, have denied any involvement…
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One dead, two missing as Phang Nga ferry sinks
PHANG NGA: A ferry overloaded with construction material capsized and sank off Koh Prathong in Kuraburi district about 1 am Tuesday, claiming the life of the captain. Two others survived, but a woman and her granddaughter are missing presumed dead.Pol Maj Nirat Chuayjit of the Marine Police office in Kuraburi identified the sunken ferry as the Jern Jern, a flat-topped…
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Man attacked outside 7-Eleven in Rassada
RASSADA: A man was hospitalized Monday after being attacked by a gang of three men outside a 7-Eleven store on Srisuthat Rd in Rassada.Phuket City Police Investigations Inspector Lt Col Adul Nirapai said the three men set upon Sommaai Jindapol, 22, at about 10 pm.A 7-Eleven employee told police that the attack began outside the store, but spilled inside and…
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Govt-assessed land prices skyrocket
BANGKOK: Over the past four years, Phuket has recorded the highest land-price increase in Thailand, according to unofficial results of a nationwide land appraisal conducted by the Treasury Department.A source in the Treasury Department told a Prachachart Turakij reporter that on average, land prices in Phuket had increased 157.7% due to sustained growth in the tourism, real estate and retail…
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Body of boat sinking victim found
SATUN: The body of a man missing at sea for 17 days after the boat he was on sunk off Koh Racha Yai was recovered by Marine Police yesterday at Koh Tarutao in Satun.Phuthong Tirawattana, an employee of the Tai Lee Yong seafood restaurant in Saphan Hin, was one of five co-workers left floating through the night in stormy seas…
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Karon Stadium debacle forces major tourneys to relocate
KARON: The poor state of the pitch at Karon Stadium has forced two international sporting events, the Phuket Soccer 7s and the King’s Cup 80-80 International Rugby Tournament, to be relocated.After more than a month of the organizers voicing their concerns over the pitch, which in poor condition could result in player injuries, the Soccer 7s will be played at Surakul Stadium in Phuket…
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Khao Sok Cave Tragedy: Guides were warned, survivor recounts ordeal
SURAT THANI (Nation, Gazette): The two Thai tour guides who led a group of foreign tourists into a cave at Khao Sok National Park over the weekend did so despite a warning by park officials about the danger of flooding inside, the Gazette has learned.Both guides and six of the seven tourists who entered the cave with them died in…
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Vegetarian Festival in full swing
PHUKET CITY: Phuket Vegetarian Festival 2007 is well underway, with Kuan Te Kun Shrine, locally known as Sapam Shrine, this morning conducting the first of the nine street processions that are among the festival’s major highlights. The Sapam Shrine procession started at 8 pm at Nakhon Rd, behind the Phuket City Police Station. Amidst the cacophony of firecrackers set off…
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Another attack in Rawai, Aussie and Brit mugged
RAWAI: An Australian woman was pulled off her motorcycle and robbed at gunpoint early Sunday morning in the same area where Norwegian tourist Simen Knudsen was killed two weeks earlier.The victim, 27-year-old Australian Sooz Lomas, arrived in Phuket about two weeks ago to learn Thai boxing at the Rawai Muay Thai camp.About 2:30 am on Sunday, Ms Lomas left the nearby Icon…
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Wind shear probable cause of OG269 crash
BANGKOK (The Nation): Transport Permanent Secretary Chaisawat Kittipornpaiboon today announced that decoding of the One-Two-Go flight OG029 “black box” flight recorder revealed that the plane skidded off the runway and crashed into an escarpment due to bad weather.As chairman of the air-crash investigation committee, K. Chaisawat said that the flight suffered from wind shear and the captain could not land as planned.Black…
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Phuket launches twin-bins scheme
PHUKET CITY: Phuket City Municipality has launched an initiative to solve some of the island’s waste woes with the addition of 400 pairs of mobile garbage bins around town, allocated to the areas in town deemed to have the densest population.Each pair comprises a light-blue bin for organic waste and a green bin for general waste. A budget of six…
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Pakistani stabbed in Patong
PATONG: A Pakistani gang member has been arrested for the October 5 stabbing in Patong of a Pakistani businessman who refused to pay a protection fee to a local racket, said Pol Maj Bundit Kaosutham. Marmoon Igbal Butt was returning to his car after attending a party when he was confronted by Ram Nagar Raygarn, 38, said Maj Bundit.Ram told…
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Pedestrian run down, killed
RAWAI: A 10-wheeled truck mowed down and killed a pedestrian walking on a sidewalk on Saiyuan Rd last at about 3 pm Thursday afternoon, said Pol Lt Col Sanguan Muangtham of the Chalong Police.“When police arrived on the scene they found the body of the man underneath the truck. The victim was male aged 40 to 45 years old. He…
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Not-so-lucky yacht sinks
KOH PHI PHI: A sailing yacht sank in Ton Sai bay, off Koh Phi Phi Don around 2 pm on October 7. The unfortunate vessel, named Lucky, departed from Phuket on October 6 and anchored in Ton Sai bay in Krabi.According to Pol Lt Col Somchart Supawut, inspector of Krabi Marine Police, on the same day, the yacht raised its…
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Vegetarian festivities underway
PHUKET CITY: Thousands of people gathered at Chinese shrines around Phuket today to participate in pole-raising ceremonies before for the Vegetarian Festival, which starts in earnest tomorrow. Permanent Secretary for Interior Pongpayom Wasaputi joined the crowds dressed in white at Jui Tui shrine to place squares of gold leaf on the bamboo poles before they were raised at the auspicious…
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Stressed cleric seeks karaoke
SRISAKET: Apart from imparting knowledge, a key role for any educator should be setting a good moral and ethical example for his or her students. This is especially true if the teacher is in charge of disseminating religious doctrine. Teaching can be a stressful business, however. Thus, it was “the need to unwind” that one high-ranking monk gave as his…
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Fortunate fellow crashes own cremation ceremony
CHAI NAT: Attending your own cremation – as in actually turning up alive, rather than making a brief appearance stuffed in a box before being burned – would be an interesting experience. Think about it, you could hear the good points of your personality extolled in a eulogy and see who looked genuinely upset – and who looked secretly pleased.…
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The pesky python
YALA: Being a teacher in the Deep South during these troubled times takes a certain amount of bravery and acceptance of personal danger. It was perhaps these qualities that helped one teacher from Yala Province keep his head while all those about him were losing theirs when faced with a very real threat. The threat, however, was not a rifle-toting…
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Late flowering lust
NAKHON SRI THAMMARAT: Police in Thung Song arrested a 73-year-old monk on September 6 after receiving a tip-off from hotel staff that he had been in a hotel room with a woman for an inappropriately long time. Officers from Thung Song District Police Station banged on the door of the sixth-floor room at the Thai Hotel for a considerable time…
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Cops collar banana tree rapist
NAKHON SRI THAMMARAT: “Banana Tree Aek” – feared rapist of women, domestic animals and fruit trees – was finally taken into custody by police August 27. His excuse for his animal raping antics was, according to police, “everybody does it”. Aekarat Dapngen, 23, was wanted for the rape of several women and animals in Nakhon Sri Thammarat City’s Ton Wah…
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Regional Police HQ coming to Phuket
MAI KHAO: The Royal Thai Police Region 8 command headquarters, currently in Surat Thani, will be moving to Mai Khao, where a 150-rai parcel of Treasury Department land has been put aside for the project.Phuket Governor Niran Kalayanamit chaired a meeting on the move at Phuket Provincial Hall on October 9. He told the meeting that the upcoming moved reflected…
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