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Shortcuts on the way for motorists to bypass Lam Salee intersection in Bangkok
PHOTO: The Nation The BMA (Bangkok Metropolitan Administration) is looking for help from the Metropolitan Police Division 4 to find suitable shortcuts so motorists could avoid the notorious Lam Salee intersection. The Nation reports that BMA deputy governor Sakoltee Phattiyakul says the intersection has long been notorious for traffic snarls and the situation has just become worse with delays caused…
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Ministry probes rented electronic monitoring ankle bracelets from China
The Thai Justice Ministry is investigating the electronic monitoring ankle bracelets rented by the Department of Probation from a Chinese company. A Thai company has complained that the device can be removed by the offenders wearing them without the department being alerted. Thai PBS reports that the complaint was filed by Aekkaphol Kongphutorn, representative of Fort Corporation, one of the…
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Board of Trade want Bank of Thailand to urgently address the baht
PHOTOS & GRAPHIC: The Nation The Board of Trade are meeting with the Bank of Thailand tomorrow (August 8) to discuss the value of the Thai baht, its appreciation against the US dollar and Chinese yuan, and the impact on the country’s exports. Sanan Angubolkul, the Board of Trade’s vice chairman, speaking to The Nation, says the baht has appreciated around…
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Nine Bangkok bombing suspects in custody – Thai PM
PHOTO: Police cordoned off the area around two small explosions at the Chong Nonsi BTS and Mahanakorn Building The PM Prayut Chan-o-cha has announced that police now have nine suspects in custody in connection with the bombings around Bangkok last Friday. Speaking after the weekly Cabinet meeting, Prayut, also the Defence Minister, said there had been significant progress in the…
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Power off in Kamala, Phuket this Friday. Check if you’re affected.
Electricity will be out around large chunks of Kamala this Friday (August 9). The power outage will be from 9am-5pm, according to the Phuket Electrical Authority. Most of the town’s main businesses, restaurants and bars will be without power, unless they’re at the northern end of the town. Phuket Fantasea will not be affected. Areas affected include from the Khao Loob…
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3 boat crew found alive after boat sinks near Koh Naka Noi, one still missing
PHOTOS: Manager Online Following the sinking of a crab fishing boat yesterday (August 5), south east of Koh Naka Noi, four persons were filed as missing. Later today (August 6), the Royal Thai Navy officials report that they had have found three survivors. The three survivors include a 27 year old Thai man, Boonrit Khaojui, a 23 year old Burmese…
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Two Burmese migrants killed in Lampang van crash, 7 others injured
PHOTOS: Lampang13.com Two Burmese migrants have been killed and seven others injured when a passenger van crashed on the road from Tak to Chiang Rai. The van transporting them from Tak to Chiang Rai hit a tree on a Lampang road early today (Tuesday) around 3.40am in Lampang province. The van fell into the ditch in the middle of the divided…
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Friday’s homegrown terror attacks in Bangkok – what we know
Police continue their investigations to unravel the people behind last Friday morning’s bomb blasts around Bangkok and the likely related case of two unexploded devices found outside Royal Thai Police HQ the night before. At this stage police acknowledge that the attacks were most likely more about gaining attention rather than hurting citizens or tourists although four people were slightly…
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Monk builds Buddhist pagoda on Koh Pha Ngan out of beer bottles
PHOTO: kohphangannews.com When Buddhist monks have to figure out the gritty engineering problems to construct a pagoda for their spiritual enlightenment, they have to consider using bricks, timber, concrete, or maybe even beer bottles. When you’re building a pagoda on Koh Pha Ngan you have a ready supply of beer bottles from the monthly influx of tourists for the Full…
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Airbus starts manufacturing new A220 in Alabama, US
The new Airbus A220 aircraft was touring south east asian countries, including a visit to Bangkok on Friday, last week. Today the aircraft manufacturers officially began manufacturing the A220 in the US. The first team of A220 production workers began work at Airbus’ Mobile, Alabama-based production facility. Some Thai-based airlines, including Thai Airways, are reported to be interested in the…
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Police seeking arrest warrants for more suspects in Friday’s Bangkok explosions
PHOTO: New Straits Times Police will seek warrants for the arrest of two additional suspects believed to be involved in the planting and detonating of four explosive devices at the government complex and in front of the Thai Armed Forces headquarters in Chaeng Wattana on Friday. Investigating police say they’ve now gathered all available footage from CCTV systems in the…
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Tropical storm Wipha causes landslides in Tak
A heavy rainstorm passing through the north has triggered landslides that closed down a two kilometre long stretch of the Mae Sot-Mae Sariang highway in Tak yesterday, according to Khao Sod. Tak is west of Chiang Mai on the border with Myanmar. Five houses and one car were severely damaged but luckily nobody was hurt. Tha Songyang District Officer Prateep…
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Softening Chinese yuan no threat to Thai baht
The Chinese yuan dropped sharply to its weakest level against the US dollar in more than a decade, raising fears of further dangerous escalation in the US-China trade war. Yesterday, the Chinese yuan dropped below the 7 yuan to the US dollar threshold, marking the first time the renminbi has depreciated against the dollar since May 2008. The depreciation of…
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Potential for retirement properties in Thailand
by Bill Barnett of c9hotelworks.com While a number of property offerings in Phuket, Hua Hin, Pattaya, Chiang Mai and more recently in Bangkok have promoted themselves as retirement-centric offerings, the jury is still out on the broad success of the sector. Despite retirement communities and assisted living being mainstays in Western countries like the US, UK and Australia, these are…
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‘Wipha’ whips up some storms and floods around Chiang Mai
PHOTOS: Entry to a local school turns into a river – The Nation Flooded roads are slowing down traffic and movement around the Chiang Mai area as a result of the fallout from tropical depression ‘Wipha’ which crossed the North Vietnam coast, heading westward towards Thailand, over the weekend. Om Koi district saw flooded road sections, while a large tree…
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South Korean fugitive arrested in Chon Buri, and two other immigration cases
by Jessada Chantharak A 29 year old South Korean man, wanted for alleged involvement in an online gambling operation in his home country, has been arrested in Chon Buri. Police allege he had been “laying low” in Thailand for two years. The man was wanted under a Seoul Central District Court arrest warrant issued on May 2, 2017, and by…
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800 media professionals laid off or contracts unfairly terminated
The National Union of Journalists Thailand says the media situation in Thailand is looking increasingly grim with around 800 media industry staff either being laid off or having had their contracts unlawfully terminated. A portion of the media professionals also say they were not sufficiently compensated, in violation of Thailand’s labour laws. Also, many said they had not been paid…
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Wat, who and why? Thai PM wants to bring monk Dhammajayo to justice.
Government opposition MPs are questioning the motives of the Thai PM to take over the reigns of the Department of Special Investigations. Some say it’s retribution for failing to being to justice the fugitive monk, and spiritual leader of the Wat (Temple) Phra Dhammakaya, Luang Por Dhammajayo. At least one advocate of the fugitive monk Dhammakaya is a government MP,…
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Thai man sets fire to his Mercedes Benz because Daddy won’t pay bar tab
PHOTOS: Thai Rath What do you do if you run up a 5,000 baht bar tab and Daddy won’t pick up the cost? Incinerate the Mercedes Benz that Daddy had gone guarantor. That’s precisely what Kittisak Kritklao, the son of a property developer in Udon Thani, did after running up a bill of 5,000 baht at the Tawan Daeng Pub. He told…
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2,800 small Thai schools facing consolidation
2,800 small Thai schools with fewer than 40 students will be merged – this from the chairman of the Basic Education Commission. Associate Professor Dr Ekkachai Kisukphan says not all 18,000 small schools under the Office of Basic Education Commission that are located near one another would be merged. But the OBEC wanted to merge small schools each with fewer than…
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Minister books meeting to discuss 120 kph speed limits on Thai motorways
PHOTO: Thai Residents The new Thai Transport Minister Saksiam Chidchob will be chairing a meeting in the middle of August to discuss the proposal to raise the speed limit of private cars on Thailand’s four-lane highways to 120 kilometres per hour. Part of the proposal says that cars travelling in the far-right lane of a four-lane highway must also keep…
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New Parliament House opens for sittings of MPs next week
PHOTO: Artists impression of a completed Parliament House not he banks f the Chao Phraya. Only the parliamentary meeting halls are complete for use at this stage The Thai Parliament speaker Chuan Leekpai is ordering tight security at the new Parliament House in Bangkok’s Kiak Kai area for an inaugural meeting today. He declined to answer when asked by reporters…
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Weekend RCEP meeting move closer to the world’s biggest trading bloc
PHOTO: Asia Nikkei Whilst the UK looks to walk away from the EU trade bloc and the US continues to ramp up the trade war with China, the formation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which would be the largest trade bloc in the world, continues to gather pace. The RCEP, initiated by ASEAN in 2012, is a proposed…
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ATM destroyed in front of University in Pattani, police looking for 10 suspect attackers
PHOTO: Thai PBS Security officials are on high alert in southern Thailand after two explosions went off early yesterday, damaging ATMs in front of a University. Security is being tightened up at banks, markets, convenience stores and government offices in 12 districts of Pattani, one fo the three southern-most provinces. At this stage security officials are blaming separatist insurgents for…
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US vlogger cops a ‘vlogging’ from disgruntled Pattaya locals
SCREENSHOT: “Chuck Wow” in full narrative, just before being attacked A North American amateur ‘vlogger’ filming in Walking Street, Pattaya, has ended up annoying the locals and being attacked with his camera rolling. The video begins with “Chuck Wow” commenting on the body size of a prostitute standing outside a 7-Eleven in a stream-of-thought narration. “That girl is all kinds of…
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US President shares “thoughts and prayers” over Texas shooting while a second mass shooting happens in Ohio
PHOTO: France 24 US President Donald Trump and wife Melania have sent “heartfelt thoughts and prayers” to the families and friends of victims in one of two mass murder gun attacks in the past 24 hours. About 20 people were killed and 26 injured in a shooting rampage at a Walmart and neighbouring stores in El Paso, Texas on Saturday…
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Thai police suspect southern insurgents in co-ordinated ATM explosions in Pattani
PHOTO: Charoon Thongnual Suspected insurgents have blown up three ATMs in two districts in the Southern Thai province of Pattani, near the Malaysian border. The assailants escaped with banknotes from one of the ATMs. At this stage local police and security officials suspect insurgents were responsible for the bombings, but are still considering if the incidents could have been related…
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Most Thai motorcycle riders don’t wear crash helmets
Only 45% of Thai motorcycle users wear crash helmets, that includes riders and pillion passengers. With young people under 18 the results are a pitiful 22% of users wearing any head protection, even less for children. Dr. Werapan Supanchaimart, vice chairman of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, said at a seminar yesterday that the Thai Roads Foundation and Road Safety Watch…
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Immigration police spruik more successes with their biometrics systems
Immigration police have arrested three more unwanted foreigners for crimes committed in Thailand. The arrests follow people stopped at Immigration queues trying to enter the country last week. In reporting on the success of the biometric systems, police say the new systems helped identify the people and crimes they been allegedly involved in, even though the process of taking all…
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Representative of HM King and Queen visits Bangkok bomb blast patients
King Maha Vajiralongkorn and Queen Suthida instructed His Majesty’s assistant private secretary to visit the five individuals injured by the bomb blasts around Bangkok during peak hour on Friday morning. AVM Pakdee Saengchuto delivered flowers and gift baskets to the five victims in hospital and conveyed Their Majesties’ concerns. His first stop was at Saint Louis Hospital in Sathorn district,…
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