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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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Sponsored New in July: Save 10% for life on family health plans in Thailand
Cigna has a special offer this July for families in Thailand. When you sign up three or more people on a family health plan, you will save 10% on your premiums for life. This deal helps you get affordable, high-quality...
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Isolation centres being set up in Bangkok to provide basic care to Covid-19 patients
To help reduce overcrowding in Bangkok hospitals, Thai authorities have decided to allow Covid-19 patients with mild symptoms, or who are asymptomatic, to stay at home or at a community isolation centre rather than a hospital or field hospital. Public hospitals in the capital have been at capacity and Covid-19 cases are expected to continue to rise due to the…
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Sangkhla Buri district in Kanchanaburi enters 14 day lockdown
The Sankhla Buri district in Kanchanaburi, a western Thai province is locking down for 14 days and people are ordered to remain at home from 10 pm to 4 am to help prevent Covid outbreaks. The order was signed by Governor Jirakiat Phumsawat, who also acts as chairman of the provincial communicable disease control committee. Other restrictions include barring the…
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12 Sandbox travellers in quarantine request to leave Thailand
The strict rules and closed entertainment venues have discouraged many potential tourists from coming to the Phuket Sandbox just yet, but many who have arrived have expressed happiness to be enjoying the beauty of Thailand, even with the complex process and limitations on the ground. But predictably, one group of Sandboxers who have are in quarantine after one traveller tested…
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South Sudan: Dashed hopes after 10 years of independence
The euphoria following South Sudan’s independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011 was short-lived. Less than a year and a half later, the resource-rich country was plunged into a brutal civil war, at a cost of almost 400,000 lives. As a result of the civil war, 1.6 million people of the country’s 11 million people are currently displaced within South…
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67,000 Phuket residents try to register for Moderna, web portal crashes
Yesterday, nearly 70,000 people tried to apply for the Phuket Moderna vaccine reservations. The web portal crashed instead. The 67,000 hopeful vaccination registrants would have had their vaccines provided by Bangkok Hospital Phuket and Bangkok Hospital Siriroj. The crash did not sit well with many who had already found the registration process slow and rife with system failures and an…
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Supreme Court rules against former red-shirt leader
Former red-shirt leader Jatuporn Prompan has been ordered to serve back-to-back sentences in 2 defamation cases, according to a Supreme Court ruling. The Bangkok Post reports that Jatuporn will now spend another 11 months and 16 days in prison after a 2009 defamation case brought against him by former PM, Abhisit Vejjajiva. The activist was found guilty of defamation in…
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Vietnam issues final extension of stay for stranded travellers
Foreign nationals who’ve been stranded in Vietnam can now avail of an automatic final extension of stay issued by the country’s Immigration Department. The automatic extension allows foreigners who arrived on visa waivers, e-visas, and tourist visas from March 1, 2020, to remain in Vietnam until July 31 and to depart the country without applying for an extension of stay.…
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Friday Covid Update: 9,276 new infections and 72 deaths
9,276 new Covid-19 cases and 72 coronavirus-related deaths were reported today by the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration. With the spread of the highly transmissible Delta variant, the CCSA expects daily cases to soon hit 10,000. While today’s case count is an uptick over the past several weeks. Thailand hit a record high in new cases in mid-May with 9,635…
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JP Morgan includes Thailand in 5 economies most at risk from Delta variant
The investment banking firm JP Morgan says there are 5 emerging economies that are most vulnerable to the Delta variant – and Thailand is one of them. According to a Reuters report, the others are South Africa, Colombia, the Philippines, and Peru. The primary reason given for these findings is the low rate of vaccination, with analysts comparing the pace…
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Stricter Covid restrictions likely for Bangkok, other “at-risk” provinces
The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration meets today to consider a number of tougher restrictions aimed at flattening the curve of new infections in Bangkok and a number of other provinces. Yesterday, cases reached a record high of 7,058, with 75 Covid-related deaths. According to a Bangkok Post report, PM Prayut Chan-o-cha says the government, which is still resisting the…
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Haiti: Violence and politics culminate in presidential assassination
Haiti has become “a country in a state of shock” following the murder of President Jovenel Moise, Radio Metropole broadcaster Richard Widmaier told listeners as they tuned in to his news program from the capital, Port-au-Prince. The newscaster and station director later told DW that following the killing: “it’s like the streets of the capital have been swept clean.” Wednesday’s…
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Africalink 08.07.21 – 16 UTC – MP3-Stereo
South Africa’s ex-president Zuma starts serving jail term for contempt+++Nigerian kidnappings becoming the norm?+++Tales of returning migrants in the Gambia SOURCE: DW News
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Phuket taxi meeting: 20% fare cut, but doesn’t address gouging
The Phuket Office of the Public Relations Department has tried to paint a win for a meeting regarding overcharging taxis in the Phuket Sandbox, though the resolutions seem unrelated to the problem. During the meeting, taxi drivers agreed to a 20% discount for all fares until the end of the Covid-19 pandemic but did not address the problem of complaints…
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COVID: Public frustration grows as cases surge in Thailand
Public trust in Thai Prime Minister Prayut Chan-ocha’s government has reached new lows as the number of daily coronavirus infections spikes and the death toll rises. Confidence in Prayut’s regime was again undermined last week, following a leaked Health Ministry document that included a recommendation against giving health care workers an additional shot of the BioNTech-Pfizer vaccine. Administering the vaccine,…
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Troubled vaccine registration site replaced by hospitals
Abraham Lincoln famously advised people not to change horses midstream, but with the ever-changing vaccine rollout, the Thai government seems intent on test-driving the entire herd in the middle of the flood. A Tourism Authority of Thailand press release today confirmed the Department of Disease Control announcement of yet another new Covid-19 vaccine registration plan for foreigners. After the Thailand…
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Taliban advances in Afghanistan give Kashmir militants a boost
As the NATO mission in Afghanistan approaches its end after a two-decade-long war, the uncertain prospects for the war-ravaged nation are raising security concerns in India. Policymakers in New Delhi are mulling over the implications for the disputed territory of Kashmir and calibrating ways to ensure that a Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan wouldn’t embolden militancy in the region. Multiple reports…
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Thailand ranked 3rd to last worldwide on Covid-19 handling
In a display of just how far you can fall, Thailand, once ranked as one of the top countries in the world for Covid-19 handling is now almost at the bottom of the rankings, number 118 out of 120. The Nikkei Asia Covid-19 recovery index calculated data from 120 countries worldwide and ranked Thailand third from last. The study combines…
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3 foreigners arrested operating unlicensed Koh Phangan spa
Police in Koh Phangan arrested 2 Russian men and an American woman in a raid at a health spa following complaints from locals of illegal activities and Covid-19 restriction violations. They are accused of a range of charges relating to the legality of the business, though the information is unclear if they face any charges for breaking any Covid-19 rules.…
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Thursday Covid Update: Record high of 75 deaths; new infections in all 77 provinces
A record high of 75 Covid-related deaths was reported today by the Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration, raising the pandemic’s death toll in Thailand to 2,462. An uptick of 7,058 new Covid-19 infections was recorded today with new cases in all of Thailand’s 77 provinces. The latest and most severe wave of the virus continues to rise due to the spread…
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Laos Covid-19 cases rise as migrant workers return from Thailand
Covid-19 cases in Laos has spiked, reportedly due to migrant workers returning home from Thailand, bringing the virus with them. In Thailand’s latest wave of infections over the past several months, many of the workers had lost their jobs while others returned to their home country to flee from lockdown restrictions at construction camps and factories, primarily in Bangkok. Covid-19…
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Foreign Covid-19 case had Sinopharm, domestic infections bigger concern
More information is coming out now about the first Phuket Sandbox traveller to be infected with Covid-19 yesterday. The man from the United Arab Emirates was fully vaccinated with the Sinopharm vaccine more than 7 months ago and had tested negative before boarding his flight to Phuket. But while infections from abroad make headlines, the Phuket Provincial Public Health Office…
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CCSA to consider travel restrictions, other disease control measures
Travel restrictions are likely to be imposed over the next few days. The Public Health Ministry is proposing stricter measures, including limits on interprovincial travel, to control the spread of the Covid-19 following the emergence of the highly transmissible Delta variant. The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration is set to meet tomorrow morning and discuss disease control measures. Along with limits…
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Man in Chon Buri province arrested while allegedly trying to deliver drugs
A man was arrested in the central Thai province Chon Buri for possessing methamphetamine and yaba pills. 24 year old Nawin Triupot was arrested in the Sattahip district of Chon Buri as he was allegedly making a drug run to clients. Police seized 159.54 grams of crystal methamphetamine and 1,615 methamphetamine pills (yaba) on Nawin. The alleged drug businessman is…
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Woman infected with Covid-19 dies at home after waiting 6 days for hospital treatment
A 50 year old woman infected with Covid-19 died at her home in Bangkok’s Huai Khwang district after waiting for nearly a week for a hospital bed to become available. She died at 3am yesterday morning, just hours before an ambulance was scheduled to take her and her infected family members to the hospital, a source told the Bangkok Post.…
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Pair arrested in Pattaya for allegedly running “romance scam”
More people have been arrested for involvement in an alleged “romance scam”. This time the suspects were busted in the Pattaya area. The man, Robinson Ibuka Ade, from Nigeria, and Thidarat Biraban, a Thai national, were arrested recently on charges of joining to commit fraud and importing forged data into a computer system. Police seized 148,00 baht and $2,000 US…
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Machinist in Nonthaburi arrested for allegedly making, selling guns
Today, a factory machinist in Nonthaburi, a province north of Bangkok, was arrested for allegedly, illegally making, modifying, and selling guns out of a worker’s dormitory. Prajak Phoonphian, a 39 year old factory machinist was arrested early this morning after CSD police, acting on a warrant searched his dormitory at a lathe plant in the Pak Kret district in Nonthaburi.…
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Pattaya school for the blind struggling, requests public’s help
Some students are learning online at their homes but they don’t have the basic tools they need to learn A Pattaya school for the blind is reportedly struggling under the Covid pandemic as tourists and visitors that usually assisted the school in their charity and other efforts are now scarce. The school says they need mobile phones and computers to…
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UPDATE: PM calls for urgent meeting, expected to discuss “lockdown” measures
UPDATE: The Centre for Covid-19 Situation Administration meeting set for 10am tomorrow will address the “worsening situation” in Thailand, according to spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson, Natapanu Nopakun, who gives the daily CCSA meeting in English. Natapanu says the media has been “predicting the results” of the meeting, but he assures the public that there will not be…
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Man believes prostitute pickpocketed him in Pattaya
Last night, a German man lodged a complaint with police about his suspicion that a prostitute pickpocketed him. 68 year old Thomas Hatesaul alerted police at 11:30 pm that he was robbed on Soi 13/1 Pattaya Beach Road in Nongprue. He told police that he was walking by himself, to relax when he was approached by a woman. Thomas says…
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“Mastermind” arrested for posing as doctor, “selling” vaccines
A man, and what some media reports are calling a “mastermind”, has been arrested for allegedly selling (or not selling) vaccines through a Line App. The man was apprehended yesterday in the central Thai province of Saraburi. Police arrested 26 year old Weerasak Suksamdang near the TPI Polene building. They charged Weerasak with fraud and computer crimes. The suspect denied…
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