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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Sponsored How one hospital visit in Thailand could cost more than your whole trip
Thailand is a favourite spot for travellers who want to enjoy more while spending less. From cheap street food to low-cost hotels and fun attractions, it’s easy to stretch your budget here. But there’s one thing many people don’t think...
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Phuket Airport customs officers nail drug mule with B7mn of ya ice
PHUKET: Customs officers at Phuket International Airport on Tuesday arrested a drug mule attempting to smuggle 7 million baht of ya ice (crystal methamphetamine) from China into Phuket. The 37-year-old woman, Pornphat Wattanachaisen, was on a watchlist for possible involvement in drug smuggling when she departed Bangkok to China, said Phuket Airport Customs Director Montira Cherdchoo. “We learned that Ms…
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PGM CCM Rhaman Putra Championship Reduced to 54 Holes
The PGM CCM Rahman Putra Golf Championship, which is the second event to be played on the Asian Development Tour (ADT) this season, will be decided over 54 holes, tournament officials announced on Friday. The third and final round of the RM200,000 (approximately US$65,000) ADT event is scheduled to tee off at 7:45am (local time) and conclude on Saturday due…
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Vichit Bicycle Cup kicks off
PHUKET: This weekend will see the start of the Vichit Bicycle Cup 2014 tournament, which kicks off on Sunday, March 16. The competition aims to promote tourism in the area and encourage more people to use bicycles. On March 7, at the Suan Sriphunaat Park in Phuket, a press conference was held to announce the Cup and was hosted by…
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Phuket Business: Quality and convenient coffee
PHUKET: Getting great espresso or coffee for your home, office or hospitality business in Phuket can be a trying task at times. Dealing with messy coffee grounds, cleaning complicated espresso machines, getting a good froth with your milk and training yourself or your staff to make a consistently good coffee are just some of the troubles you have probably faced…
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Phuket Property Watch: Samui staying strong
PHUKET: One of my favorite movies in recent memory has to be Up in the Air. Given a hectic travel schedule, it’s certainly a subject I can identify with. One of the classic scenes has to be George Clooney, jumping into line behind some people of Asian descent at the foreboding metal detector and commenting how they “travel light”. Profiling,…
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Shark killed off Phuket Beach raises online ire
PHUKET: Photos posted online of a foreigner killing a small shark at Kata Noi Beach prompted outrage, but the act was legal, a marine official said. The pictures, posted on the Go Eco Phuket Facebook page (click here) yesterday, showed a man in the act of killing the shark on a rock. The post read, “We just received these awful…
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Phuket Queer News: Man finds fully protected truck floating with no wheels
PHUKET: Despite extreme measures taken to ensure the safety of his vehicle, a man woke up to his pickup truck “hovering” above the ground – without wheels. “I woke up at about 9am and was shocked to find my truck floating in the air with no wheels,” said 54-year-old Bumroong Sri-on at his house in Hat Yai, about 220 miles…
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30 cops for 30 gamblers in Phuket Town raid
PHUKET: Phuket and Bangkok police arrested more than 30 people for gambling on football in Phuket Town last night. About 30 officers took part in the raid at a shop near the Nimit Circle (also called the Seahorse Circle), said Phuket City Police Superintendent Sermphan Sirikong. “We went in at about 9pm and found more than 30 people either filling…
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Phuket Opinion: Casting aside modern conveniences for an island dream
PHUKET: With the seemingly endless parade of new condo developments springing up like mushrooms all over the island, it’s clear that quite soon, the majority of Phuket’s residents will be living in high density housing. When I first moved here, I too found it convenient to move into a modest, reasonably priced apartment block. I considered it a stop-gap measure.…
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Phuket Opinion: Preventing passport malpractice
PHUKET: The revelation that two passengers aboard the ill-fated Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 were travelling on passports stolen in Phuket (story here) once again highlights the need for a serious and sustained crackdown on the use of travel documents as collateral on motorbike, car, and jet-ski rentals. The need to end this ridiculous practice has already been the subject of…
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Raging Phuket black market passport trade
PHUKET: Police have admitted they are powerless to prevent motorcycle and car rental operators from holding foreign tourists’ passports as collateral against potential damage to rented vehicles. The news comes as the island’s top police officers try to stymie the fallout from international news reports branding Phuket a key source for stolen passports in the wake of the mysterious disappearance…
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Phuket Sports: A fun-filled football function
PHUKET: Yesterday morning, March 13, the Palm House International School Rawai hosted a football skills clinic for their students, as well as a group of fellow students from the nearby Wat Sawang Arom School. About thirty students took part in the activities, which were led by Phuket FC players Ricarte Dos Santos Tales, Namchai Yongyuth, Alef Poh-ji and Wuttichai Sooksen.…
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Phuket Gazette World News: New York gas explosion kills 7, demolishes building
PHUKET: Federal safety authorities launched an investigation on Thursday into a gas explosion that caused the collapse a day earlier of two New York City apartment buildings, killing seven people and injuring dozens of others. The still-smouldering rubble prevented investigators from getting close enough to examine the main pipe that supplies natural gas to the Upper East Side neighbourhood, said…
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Phuket Gazette World News: Israel launches retaliatory air strikes on Gaza
PHUKET: A small armed faction in the Gaza Strip fired rockets at Israel on Thursday, drawing retaliatory air strikes and pushing cross-border violence into a third day despite a truce called by the more powerful Palestinian group Islamic Jihad. The clashes have been the most intense since the Gaza war of November 2012. This time, however, casualties have been scant…
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Phuket Gazette Thailand News: Mass refugees found may be Uighurs; Budget deficit to double; Yingluck pleas for clemency
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – Thailand news compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Unidentifiable group of Muslims nabbed The Nation / Phuket Gazette PHUKET: A group of 220 reportedly Muslim immigrants, whose nationality and origin was not known to Thai authorities as of press time yesterday, have been arrested at a rubber plantation in the southern province of Songkhla.…
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Phuket Police push Line app to combat passport thefts at motorbike rental shops
PHUKET: Patong Police yesterday recommended motorbike rental operators take photos of renters and their passports and upload them to Line, a smartphone application, in order to prevent passport theft. The initiative follows the discovery that two passengers aboard missing Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 had boarded with passports stolen in Phuket (story here), at least one of them from a shop…
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Local Phuket student could be ‘The Star’
PHUKET: A local Phuket student is battling it out in the last rounds of The Star, a popular Thai singing competition broadcast on nationwide television every weekend. Phuket Governor Maitri called on fellow Phuket residents to cast their votes in support of Natthawadee “Nong Nut” Dokkrathin, a student from Satree Phuket School, who is one of eight final contestants on…
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Phuket’s annual Battle of Thalang festival returns
PHUKET: The annual Battle of Thalang festival begins at Victory Memorial Field tonight, marking Phuket’s stand against Burmese invaders at the site 229 years ago. The Victory Memorial Field recently received a 26-million-baht makeover and welcomed the addition of 2.5-meter-tall statues cast in bronze honoring the Nine Heroes (story here). Phuket Governor Maitri Inthusut this morning led a wreath-laying ceremony…
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Phuket Business: The juice of life
PHUKET: Are you sick and tired of feeling sick and tired? Yes? Then chances are you could be eating healthier, but like so many of us living hectic modern lives, you probably struggle to find the time to prepare healthy food. But now there is a solution – juice it up! Pura Organics, the island’s premier organic food supplier, have…
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Phuket Business: MICE expert to speak at AMCHAM event tomorrow
PHUKET: Tomorrow, March 14, the American Chamber of Commerce (AMCHAM) will host a tourism event at Angsana Laguna Phuket focusing on how to sustainably grow MICE business. One of the keynote speakers at the event will be Mrs Supawan Teerarat, vice president of strategic and business development at the Thailand Convention and Exhibition Bureau (TCEB). The TCEB is a government…
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Phuket Red Cross launches March mobile donation mission
PHUKET: The Red Cross Society in Phuket has announced its upcoming mobile donation clinic schedule for the month of March in hopes of restoring essential blood stocks. “We currently only have 20 units of blood type A, 120 units of type B, 190 units of type O and 50 units of type AB,” said Chief Pornthip Rattajak of the Phuket…
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Missing Flight MH370 strayed to south of Phuket, Malaysia military says
PHUKET: Malaysia’s military has traced what could have been the jetliner missing for almost five days to an area south of Phuket, hundreds of miles to the west of its last known position, the country’s air force chief said yesterday. His statement followed a series of conflicting accounts of the flight path of the Boeing 777-200ER with 239 people on…
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Phuket Gazette Thailand News: Six dead in elephant crash; Bt2-tn loan bill rejected; Rate cut brings little joy
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – Thailand news compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Six people and an elephant killed in accidents The Nation / Phuket Gazette PHUKET: A total of six people and an elephant were killed yesterday when a Pajero crashed into three wild elephants crossing Ban Beung-Klaeng Road at 4am yesterday in Rayong’s Wang Chan district. One…
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DNA test confirms body parts are of missing Phuket girl Nong Dear, 7
PHUKET: The human remains found in a Chalong pine forest last December are those of missing 7-year-old Nong Dear, police confirmed today. “The Institute of Forensic Medicine in Bangkok unofficially confirmed on Monday that the DNA of the body parts found in Chalong matches those of Nong Dear’s parents,” Capt Thada Sodarak of the Chalong Police told the Phuket Gazette.…
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Phuket Sports: Laguna reclaim top spot
PHUKET: Laguna remained undefeated and reclaimed top spot in the Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) Phuket cricket league by defeating The Village on Sunday, March 9 at the Alan Cooke Ground (ACG). Things started well for Laguna when they won the toss and chose to bat first, as most teams normally prefer to do. The extremely dry and hot conditions also…
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Phuket Gazette World News: Malaysia Air Chief denies missing flight tracked to Malacca Strait, investigates cockpit visit by Phuket tourists
PHUKET: Malaysia’s air force chief has denied saying military radar tracked a missing Malaysia Airlines jetliner over the Strait of Malacca, adding to the mystery surrounding the fate of flight MH370, which vanished on Saturday with 239 people aboard. A massive air and sea search now in its fifth day has failed to find any trace of the Boeing 777,…
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Phuket Gazette Thailand News: Teen slays own family; Yingluck faces protest murder charge; Pattaya tourism falls
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – Thailand news compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Teen suspect ‘confesses’ to shooting his family The Nation / Phuket Gazette PHUKET: A 19-year-old boy has allegedly confessed to shooting dead his parents and younger brother after he tried and failed to pass the blame on to the dead sibling, according to police. Pol Colonel…
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Tourist Police confirm round up of Phuket dive instructors
PHUKET: Tourist Police joined forces with the Chalong Police yesterday afternoon and took into custody more than 20 dive instructors as they disembarked from their respective dive tour boats at Chalong Pier. “I don’t think the Chalong Police pressed charges. To my knowledge, the dive shop staffers were taken to Chalong Police Station to have their work permits checked,” Urumporn…
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Unidentified body found off Phuket beach
PHUKET: Lifeguards stationed at the Karon Rescue Center, on Phuket’s west coast, recovered an unidentified body near Yanui Beach this afternoon. “The body was discovered a few kilometers offshore,” Kata-Karon chief lifeguard Uten Singsom told the Phuket Gazette. The remains had deteriorated extensively due to exposure in the sea, Mr Uten explained. “From the remains, our lifeguards believe it was…
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Phuket motorbike shop hands out wrong passport in return for a stolen one
PHUKET: Police investigating stolen passports linked to the missing Malaysian Flight MH370 questioned the owner of a Phuket motorbike rental shop from which one of the passports used to board the flight was stolen. Luigi Maraldi explained to the press yesterday that he filed a report to the Patong Police on July 25 last year confirming that his passport was…
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