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 5 ways retirees in Thailand lose money (and how to stop it)
Retiring in Thailand can be affordable and enjoyable, but many retirees lose money due to common mistakes. High living costs, scams, and unexpected expenses can quickly drain savings. There are five ways that retirees in Thailand can lose money and...
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130 tonnes of imported waste going back to Australia
Many expats living in Thailand are shocked when they see locals dumping their trash on the side of the road, but it turns out there is a much bigger perpetrator of illegal dumping in the kingdom. The Inter-Pacific Paper Company was caught by Thai authorities shipping 130 tonnes of illegal waste to Thailand from Australia. The Department of Customs contacted…
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Heavy rain kills 2 elephants at a Thailand national park
Tragedy hit Khao Yai National Park this week when park rangers discovered the carcasses of two dead elephants among the rocks near Heo Narok Waterfall. Access now has been closed to the waterfall in Nakhon Ratchasima Province as rangers try to remove the bodies. Khao Yai National Park chief Chaiya Huaihongthong yesterday revealed that the elephants died as a result…
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Cheapest All You Can Eat Buffet in Thailand | Lumpini Park
You must try this buffet located at Lumpini park in Bangkok, Thailand. Possibly the cheapest all you can eat buffet in Thailand, it has a wide variety of choices to choose from before or after you visit Thailand’s first ever public park. Join Natty and Jay as they try this buffet and visit Lumpini park and show you all it…
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US $6.1 million paid for rare Gorgosaurus dinosaur skeleton
Got a couple of million dollars to blow and loved the latest Jurassic Park movie? You just missed your chance to own a rare dinosaur skeleton, as a rare Gorgosaurus fossil just sold at auction for US$6.1 million. The high bid was the fifth most expensive dinosaur sales ever. Sales like this are rare as most countries consider fossils from…
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Children falsely accuse village drunk of murdering 6 year old in central Thailand
Yesterday evening, a 6 year old boy drowned in a lake in Lopburi province in central Thailand. The boy’s 7 year old brother and 5 year old friend told police that an alcoholic man who lives nearby strangled the child and held his body under the water until he died. However, the police’s investigation reveals that the children’s accusation is…
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37 million baht fines issued to Cambodian contraband thieves
Customs and excise chiefs revealed they will be handing out fines of 37 million baht after seizing contraband worth about 6 million baht on the Cambodian border. Excise officials, soldiers, and police yesterday captured almost 39,000 packs of various foreign cigarettes near a canal on the Cambodian border in the Aranyaprathet district of Sa Kaeo. They were discovered in 49…
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Happy Birthday to His Royal Majesty King Vajiralongkorn
The Thaiger joins the nation of Thailand in wishing a very happy birthday to His Royal Majesty King Vajiralongkorn as he marks his 70th birthday today. Celebrations have taken place around the kingdom to celebrate the royal milestone as the king becomes a septuagenarian. Born in Bangkok at Ambara Villa, Dusit Palace on this day in 1952, HM the king…
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Thailand’s second case of monkeypox recorded in Bangkok
A Thai man in Bangkok has tested positive for monkeypox, becoming Thailand’s second recorded case of the virus since the global outbreak began in May this year. At 2.30pm today, Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul revealed that the positive result from Wachira Hospital in Bangkok had been confirmed by the Ministry of Health. The 47 year old Thai man started…
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Thieves rob French millionaire’s house at gunpoint in northeast Thailand
Four thieves armed with guns and knives broke into a French millionaire’s house in the northeastern province of Chaiyaphum in the early hours of Monday morning and robbed millions of baht’s worth of cash and assets. The single-story home in the Noen Sa-nga district is jointly owned by 39 year old Waritsara Poobkhonthot and her French husband Stephane Greco, the…
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Southeast Asian Arts Forum 2022 is ready to rock n roll
If the arts, sustainability, and storytelling are your thing then you’re in luck because the Singaporean-based Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts is hosting a Southeast Asian Arts Forum 2022. The two-day hybrid forum, on August 4 and 5, kicking off at 1pm Bangkok time, wants to highlight where the arts stand in terms of sustainable practices in Southeast Asia. The…
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Study reminds that Long Covid, not just death, a hazard of infection
Much of the debate over the continued importance of the Covid-19 pandemic focuses on the milder variants lowering the death rate even when infections are on the rise. But Long Covid – the long-term effects of an infection that can last for weeks or months or longer – is an often overlooked, but potentially major, problem now and in the…
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Tenfold tourist increase due after Thailand-Saudi route opens
Thailand is expecting a tenfold increase in visitors from Saudi Arabia after the launch of the Bangkok to Jeddah route on August 19. Deputy government spokesperson Rachada Dhnadirek estimates that the upcoming launch of the direct air route between the holy city of Mecca and the Kingdom of Thailand’s capital city will push up the number of visitors from 30,000…
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Bangkok Airways flights resume to Da Nang, Siem Reap, Yangon
Flight traffic is growing in the post-pandemic era, and now Bangkok Airways has announced the resumption of flights to nearby international destinations Vietnam, Cambodia, and Myanmar. Thailand’s boutique airline will resume service in August and September to Da Nang, Siem Reap, and Yangon. Direct daily flights between Bangkok and Siem Reap, the Cambodian tourism mecca and home to the world’s…
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Elderly man hit with 10,000 baht electricity bill in central Thailand
An 88 year old man from Kamphaeng Phet province in central Thailand couldn’t believe his eyes when his most recent electricity bill amounted to almost 10,000 baht. Family members and neighbours are contesting the bill on behalf of the old man, who had to take out a loan to pay for his electricity this month. Grandpa’s bill from the Metropolitan…
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Illegal massage therapists from Thailand arrested in Malaysia
Malaysian police swooped in to arrest the author of a sex syndicate trafficking Thai massage therapists in and out of Malaysia. The man was one of 28 people apprehended by the Malaysian Immigration Department as part of a three-day operation from July 21 to 23 around Johor Bahru. Immigration Director General Datuk Seri Khairul Dzaimee Daud revealed the 40 year…
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Lulo Rose: Largest coloured diamond in 300 years found in Angola
What experts believe to be the largest coloured gemstone unearthed in 300 years, the “Lulo Rose” is a beautiful pink diamond that weighs in at an impressive 170 carats. Discovered at the Lulo alluvial diamond mine in the African nation of Angola, it was announced to the world by the Australian-based Lucapa Diamond Company that owns the mine on Wednesday.…
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Public Health Ministry requests, then retracts cannabis crackdown
First, it’s very illegal with harsh punishment, then suddenly it’s legal with no restrictions, then it’s banned for government, military, children, and pregnant women, then it was never intended for recreational use, and then cigarettes containing it will be banned. Now the rollercoaster that is the decriminalisation of cannabis in Thailand took another sharp u-turn as the Ministry of Public…
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Thailand deny Uyghurs deportation to China
Fears Thailand is in the process of deporting asylum-seeking Uyghurs back to China have been denied by the government. News broke yesterday that dozens of Uyghurs from all around Thailand had been rounded up and impounded in a detention facility in Bangkok, raising fears among non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that the government plans to deport them back to China. It sparked…
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Wanted Taiwanese call centre scammer extradited from Albania to Thailand
A Taiwanese man wanted for allegedly scamming Thai victims from a call centre operation in Dubai arrived at Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport yesterday afternoon to face Thailand’s justice system after being arrested in Albania in September. Tzu Yuan Kuo – or “Ayen” – was the “deputy leader” of a call centre gang scamming victims in Thailand, Japan and Malaysia from Dubai…
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UPDATE: Body of foreigner found dead in Phuket is US man
UPDATE: The foreigner’s body that was found in waters off Yanui Beach in Phuket’s main city district yesterday morning has been named as US citizen John Joseph Sheridan. The 74 year old’s body was discovered floating in the water after he apparently fell on sharp rocks and bled to death. Fisherman found Sheridan, from Pennsylvania, floating on the rocky part of the shore…
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Police in eastern Thailand give helmets to riders caught without them
Police in one province in eastern Thailand is giving free helmets to motorcycle riders caught not wearing them. The deputy chief of Trat Provincial Police, along with a team of traffic police, started this new approach today. Instead of fining riders caught without helmets, the police passed out free helmets to riders passing by a school in the main city…
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Killjoy scientist poo-poos Thai hermit’s supernatural power show
The video of a hermit showing off his supernatural powers by sitting in a large pan of boiling water has resurfaced after two years and gone viral. But, a killjoy scientist has dismissed the supernatural claim as nothing but smoke and mirrors. The video featuring the hermit, also a Thai tattoo artist, standing and sitting in a giant wok of…
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Thailand has 2 of the world’s most beautiful beaches, UK newspaper says
After all these years, Thailand continues to be renowned for its breathtaking beaches. Thailand has two of the “World’s 20 Most Beautiful Beaches” on a list published by UK’s Daily Star newspaper. Thailand’s Sunrise Beach was ranked in sixth place, and Maya Bay came in at 12th place on the list. Both beaches are located in South Thailand. Sunrise Beach is…
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Irony of mini coup not lost on Thailand’s Interior Minister
The irony doesn’t appear to be lost on Interior Minister Anupong Paojinda that there was something of a mini coup against him from within his party at last week’s censure debate. Gen Anupong, of course, is one of the three generals at the centre of the military coup which took place in Thailand in May 2014 along with Prime Minister…
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UPDATE: Latest information about Philippines earthquakes – four dead
Here’s the latest from this morning’s series of earthquakes in the northern Philippines. The most prominent shake today was a 7.1-magnitude earthquake that rocked the northern Philippines Wednesday morning, Filipino time. The tremor shattered windows of buildings in the central Abra province and shook office buildings more than 300 kilometres to the north in the capital of Manila. Four people…
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Bomb explosion injures 5 students in a Thailand school
Five teenage students were injured yesterday after a ping pong bomb exploded in the classroom of a technical college in the central province of Ayutthaya. One of the students was carrying the bomb inside a school bag and when he accidentally dropped the bag at about 11am it exploded injuring him and four of his classmates. Phra Nakhon Si Ayutthaya…
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Indian tourist in Pattaya claims his wallet with 17,000 baht stolen
In the continuing plague of Indian tourists claiming they had high-value items stolen from them on the streets of Pattaya late at night, an Indian tourist reported that his wallet, along with 17,000 baht inside, was stolen by a transgender person. The 29 year old tourist said that he was in Central Pattaya last night at around 1am when someone…
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Foreigner’s body found off Phuket beach
A foreigner’s body was found in waters off Yanui Beach in Phuket’s main city district this morning. Even though police found an American passport with the body, they stressed that they have not yet officially identified the man. The passport is for a 73 year old man. Police also found Thai and Korean cash with the body, as well as…
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Thailand’s cannabis cottage industry set to fly high
Yesterday, Thailand’s Public Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul once again defended his decision to decriminalize cannabis. Calls to reverse or suspend the legislation, by physicians, doctors, universities, and religious groups, fell on deaf ears and hundreds of new cannabis-related businesses in the kingdom breathed a sigh of relief. The decriminalization of the drug on June 6 has led to something of…
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Blaze breaks out at Pattaya hotel
A fire broke out on the seventh floor of a Pattaya hotel earlier this week. The blaze ripped through a storage room with electrical boxes at the LK Royal Suite Hotel on July 25. The hotel is located in Chon Buri’s Bang Lamung district. Luckily, no injuries were reported, and the fire was put out by the time firefighters arrived…
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