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Thailand news, politics, business, crime, lifestyle, and tourism—stay updated with breaking news and in-depth analysis from Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Pattaya, and beyond.
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If you plan to stay longer in Thailand, having health insurance is now more important than ever. Thai immigration often asks for proof of medical coverage when you apply to extend your visa. This applies to many types of visas,...
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Hydrofoils the latest boon for Phuket
PHUKET: At present it sits on the quay at the Phuket Deep Sea Port in Ao Makham, looking like it’s just waiting for Buck Rogers or Dan Dare to come aboard and blast off into space. It’s not quite that exotic, however. This is the first of three hydrofoils that will whisk passengers off to Phi-Phi, Krabi, Koh Lanta or…
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Phuket’s infamous jet-ski man bailed
PATONG, PHUKET: Winai ‘JJ’ Naiman, the jet-ski operator arrested on extortion charges in Phuket this week, was bailed yesterday. An officer at Phuket Provincial Court said Mr Winai had posted a land title deed worth 700,000 baht to secure his release. Footage of Mr Winai, 28, threatening a group of British Royal Navy Marines with a gun was broadcast on…
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Phuket police seize almost 4,000 ya ba pills
THA CHAT CHAI, PHUKET: Phuket police arrested a 26-year-old man in possession of almost 4,000 ya ba (methamphetamine) pills at Tha Chat Chai checkpoint yesterday. Mr Pakorn Sa-nguansin told police he was a courier delivering the pills to a customer in Mai Khao. He picked up the drugs from a Burmese man in Phang Nga, he said. Tah Chat Chai…
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Appeal for help from Phuket’s divers
PHUKET: The Department of Marine and Coastal Resources is appealing to Phuket’s dive industry for volunteers to take part in its ‘Reef Watch’ surveying program. The program aims to assess the health of Thailand’s coral reefs. The collected data will be used as part of World Ocean Day 2010, and all findings will be available to the public. The research…
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Phuket jet-ski operators face insurance scheme
KATHU, PHUKET: Phuket’s jet-ski operators will soon have to insure their craft for damage, the Phuket governor told a crowd of industry representatives at a crisis meeting at Patong Municipality offices yesterday. The measure is aimed at ending the island’s infamous ‘jet-ski scam’, in which unsuspecting tourists are made to pay thousands of baht for spurious repairs to the vehicles…
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Phuket Airport to get Asean upgrade
MAI KHAO, PHUKET: Phuket may have lost out to Hua Hin in the race to host October’s Asean Summit, but a 30-million-baht upgrade of Phuket Airport planned to help cope with the meetings will go ahead anyway, the Gazette has learned. The improvements, which include increasing the number of channels through Immigration, adding X-ray machines and expanding the car park,…
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New Phuket airline launches regional flights
PHUKET: A new Phuket-based airline has announced the launch of daily flights between Phuket and Haad Yai along with a new weekend Phuket-Langkawi route. The newly-launched Happy Air will begin operating flights from Phuket next month with its 34-seat Saab 340A aircraft. The daily 40-minute Phuket-Haad Yai flights are currently scheduled to depart from Phuket at 9:30am and arrive in…
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Landlocked Chinese eye up Phuket’s beaches
PHUKET CITY: Representatives from three landlocked Chinese provinces were in Phuket this week to examine the island’s appeal as a tourist destination for their sand- and sea-deprived residents.The delegates from Yunnan, Hunan and Guizhou provinces, which have a combined population of over 150 million, held talks with Phuket Governor Wichai Phraisa-ngop and other officials at Provincial Hall yesterday.The six Chinese…
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Phuket parents make the most of lucky number nine
PHUKET: Many Phuket couples tied the knot yesterday in wedding ceremonies specially arranged to take place on the auspicious date 09/09/09. Many expectant mothers also considered it fortunate to give birth on the day considered especially lucky by Thais. Seventeen Thai women and one Burmese gave birth at Vachira Phuket Hospital yesterday, ten of them naturally, the rest by Cesarean…
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Loan shark shaken by suicide cell
BANGKOK: A loan shark found the police were the least of his worries after being detained in a haunted cell. On September 1, Crime Suppression Division (CSD) officers arrested Sombun Thong-kham, 39, for extortion and unauthorized money lending, and placed him in custody at CSD headquarters on Phahonyothin Rd. Around 3am the following morning, the duty sergeant heard Mr Sombun…
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Drunk driver chows on cops
UDON THANI: A drunk driver bit two police officers who asked him to take a breathalyser test. Police said salesman Chatsak Ploicharoen, 36, was weaving all over the road as he drove his pickup truck towards a police checkpoint in Udon Thani. Police signaled for him to stop, but he drove straight through the checkpoint. Two officers chased after him…
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Chinese celebrate Por Tor festival in Phuket
PHUKET CITY: Phuket’s ethnic Chinese community celebrated the annual Por Tor festival in style over the weekend with ceremonies at the new Phuket City Fresh Market 1 on Ranong Rd. Science and Technology Minister Kalaya Sophonpanich presided over the opening of the festivities, which featured Thai and Chinese cultural shows on a stage in front of the market. It was…
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Phuket Lifesaving Carnival in Patong next month
PHUKET CITY: The Phuket Lifesaving Carnival is set to return to Patong next month after the original event in July was postponed because of bad weather. The carnival is now scheduled to take place on October 3. Carnival organizers are hoping to attract between 40 and 60 international entrants and as many as 80 local participants. Events will include a…
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Bt2 billion for Phuket conference center: Anchalee
PHUKET CITY: Phuket will receive a two billion baht central government budget in fiscal 2010 to build the long-awaited international convention and exhibition center (ICEC) at the island’s northern tip, the Prime Minister’s Office has announced. Anchalee Vanich-Thepabutr, who currently serves as Deputy Secretary of the Office of the Prime Minister’s political affairs section, made the announcement via a press…
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Phuket prepares for lucky number nine
PHUKET: Tomorrow – the ninth day of the ninth month of the year 2009 – is considered a highly auspicious day by Thais.In Phuket, Governor Wichai Phraisa-ngop will preside over a ceremony attended by his deputies and other government officials at Phuket Community Hall to mark the special date.A large number of couples will also register marriages at Phuket’s registry offices…
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Phuket president cleared of vote-buying
PHUKET CITY: Phuket Provincial Administration Organization (PPAO) President Paiboon Upatising has been cleared of vote-buying following an Appeals Court ruling earlier today. Mr Paiboon said he would return to work ‘immediately’ following the ruling by the Region 8 Court of Appeals in Bangkok. The verdict overturned a ‘yellow card’ ruling by the Election Commission (EC) in Bangkok, which found there…
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Phuket Land Office announces February deadline
PHUKET CITY: Holders of Sor Kor 1 land possession papers have only until early February to apply for upgrades to full land title deeds, the Phuket Provincial Land Office has announced. Land Office chief Paitoon Lertkrai said that all Sor Kor 1 papers, which allow holders to use land for commercial purposes, will expire on February 6 next year. “To…
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UFOs drop into Phuket
PHUKET: A family in Phuket had a close encounter with unidentified falling objects at the weekend when about a hundred small spheres ‘dropped from the sky’ onto their roof and garden.The family of six said the transparent balls fell on their home in Wichit about 9am on Sunday directly after a rain shower.“After the rain had stopped, we heard the…
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Opinion: Nature punishing man’s folly in Phuket
Developments in recent weeks underscore the need for better engineering design when planning construction projects on the island. Phuket was able to withstand centuries of tin mining with enough of its natural beauty intact to subsequently develop into a world-class tourist destination. Yet as destructive as tin mining was, its legacy has been no match for the environmental destruction that…
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Phuket’s police find nothing in drug raids
PHUKET CITY: Phuket Governor Wichai Phraisa-ngop, some top officials and a lot of police officers crashed some of Phuket City’s most popular parties on Friday night – on the hunt for drugs and weapons. But those who fret about the loose morals of Thailand’s youth of today will be relieved to find out the police came out empty-handed. Gov Wichai,…
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Phuket road project still on hold
PHUKET CITY: The Phuket Governor and three of Phuket’s top politicians on Thursday traveled to Bangkok to lobby Cabinet to endorse a controversial plan to allow construction of a new road to Saphan Hin through protected mangrove forest. Phuket Governor Wichai Phraisa-gnop made the trip with Phuket MPs Tossaporn Thepabutr and Rewat Areerob, as well as appointed Senator Phummisak Hongyok,…
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Phuket police report rise in prostitution
PHUKET CITY: Police reported a rise in arrests for prostitution in Phuket during August 2009, with 164 arrests representing a 70.8% increase over the same month last year. Statistics for August released by the Phuket Provincial Police show that drug-related offenses were the most common crimes, with 208 people arrested in 179 cases. The figure is a 50.4% increase year-on-year.…
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Plans for wind farm near Phuket’s “Big Buddha’
PATONG, PHUKET: The Phuket Provincial Energy Office plans to build windmills in the Nakkerd Hills near the ‘Big Buddha’ image, a seminar on alternative energy was told on Thursday. Phuket Energy Office chief Jirasuk Tummawetch made the announcement during the seminar, held at the Royal Paradise Hotel in Patong. Chaired by Phuket Vice Governor Smith Palawatvichai, the seminar was organized…
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Phuket Police to earn “coffee money’
PHUKET CITY: Phuket City Police Superintendent Wanchai Ekpornpit has a passion – other than fighting crime, of course. Col Wanchai is mad about coffee. That’s why he came up with the idea for ‘The Seat’, a new coffee shop under construction next to Phuket City Police Station. The Seat is a ‘police welfare project’ aimed at supplementing the ‘meager income’…
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Phuket pounded by moonsoon weather
PHUKET: Strong monsoon winds last night uprooted a large tree in front of Wachira Phuket Hospital causing a blackout in the immediate area when the tree fell onto power lines along Yaowarat Road.By 8am, municipality workers were using a crane and chainsaws to lift the tree off the power lines and cut it into logs to be loaded onto trucks…
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Phuket cheerleading squad to take on Asia’s best
PHUKET CITY: A cheerleading squad from Phuket will represent Thailand at the Asian Thailand Cheerleading Invitation 2009 contest at Nimibutr National Stadium in Bangkok on September 19 and 20. The team, all Phuket Wittayalai School students, will face stiff competition from teams representing Japan, Korea, China, the Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore and other countries in the region. Although Phuket is a…
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Phuket Gazette readers favor total ban on jet-skis
PHUKET CITY: A majority of readers believe jet-skis should be banned with immediate effect, the results of the latest Phuket Gazette Poll have revealed. A total of 1,346 people voted in the poll, which asked what Phuket’s policy on jet-skis should be. A clear majority, 53.8%, supported a total ban on jet-skis with immediate effect. Local expat residents were 58%…
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New Phuket Gazette Poll online now
PHUKET CITY: The new Phuket Gazette Poll is online and awaiting your vote. Drownings on Phuket’s beaches continue, the latest being a Russian man of Karon beach. A local leader says that with under-equipped and underpaid beach guards, more deaths are inevitable. We’re asking you what you think should be done to prevent any more tragedies at Phuket beaches. To…
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Top cop orders end to Phuket jet-ski scams
PHUKET CITY: Phuket police are under strict orders to crackdown on jet-ski operators who scam tourists and to actively assist those who become victims of the scammers at Phuket’s popular beaches. The orders came from Phuket Provincial Police Commander Pigad Thantipong after he made a frank admission during a press conference that some police officers were knowingly allowing jet-ski…
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Phuket Immigration sweep nets 42 foreign workers
KARON, PHUKET: Forty-two foreign workers were arrested during an Immigration police raid on vendor stalls in Karon early last night. Phuket Immigration Police Superintendent Col Chanatpol Yongbunjerd said the arrests were part of an ongoing crackdown on alien workers violating the terms of their work visas by engaging in work, such as retail sales, that is restricted to Thai nationals.…
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