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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 Thailand health insurance that covers chronic conditions: What expats need to know
The Thaiger key takeaways Managing chronic conditions in Thailand requires health insurance that covers specialist visits, medications, tests, and hospital stays. Cigna offers high-coverage plans with access to top hospitals, direct billing, and telemedicine support for convenient long-term care. Expats...
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Phuket PSU chosen for Thai Cabinet meeting
PHUKET: The Phuket campus of the Prince of Songkla University (PSU) yesterday was selected as the venue for the upcoming Thai Cabinet meeting on March 19-20. Sombat Wattanapanich, Cabinet Secretary and Adviser to Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra, was accompanied on a tour of the potential venues on the island. Leading the entourage was Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha, Phuket Vice Governor…
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Senators “worried’ about Phuket beating, cheating, intimidating tourists
PHUKET: A delegation of senators from Bangkok yesterday were treated to a grave description of the problems plaguing Phuket’s tourism industry, including jet-ski ripoffs.The senators, all members of the Senate Standing Committee on Tourism, agreed that everything from the intimidation and beating of tourists to the lack of a strong public transportation system were having a serious effect on Phuket’s…
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Hookah bars targeting Phuket youth
PHUKET: The Phuket Provincial Office is planning to crack down on hookah bars and other businesses catering to a growing demand among island youths to smoke flavored tobacco known as shisha. The proliferation of venues offering shisha to youths has risen dramatically over the past year and the situation must be quickly addressed, a provincial panel heard recently. New Phuket…
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Phuket sports: Former FC Phuket player netted in Immigration raid
PHUKET: Former FC Phuket midfielder Abdoul Coulibaly was among 27 Africans arrested on Wednesday during an Immigration Police crackdown in Bangkok. The arrests were first reported on sport.mthai.com, a Thai-language website. According to the report, 25-year-old Abdoul was detained for not having proof of compliance with a requirement by Immigration that all foreigners residing in the Kingdom report their address…
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Phuket Weird World News: The littlest, the biggest and the not quite deadest
PHUKET: In this week’s Weird World News round-up we take a “peak” at a couple of neighbors, Nepal and China, as they dispute how big the mount really is, though there is no contest when it comes to who has the littlest wee man. Then China just gets strange as a gran comes back from the dead to do a…
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Rally round Phuket
PHUKET: Following the very successful Grumpy Old Men’s Club (GOMS) rally and car treasure hunt last year, the organizers this year have invited a number of Phuket’s foremost business, social and community organizations to join a great family day out and raise funds for their organization’s ongoing projects. The now-renamed Phuket Invitational Car Rally (PICR), to be held on March…
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Cuckhold takes revenge
PHUKET: A MAN in Chiang Mai recently confessed to taking brutal revenge on a 60-year-old man who slept with his wife. Cuckhold Kaew Intha, 47, shot Tue Jaima in the head – before hacking his penis off with a knife and placing the guilty member on the dead victim’s chest. Police from Maeka Police Station in the Northern province were…
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Phuket driver plows into 7-Eleven store
PHUKET: A man accidentally rammed his car into a 7-Eleven convenience store in Phuket early yesterday morning, smashing the shopfront window and injuring two men, one seriously. Just before 2am, Thalang Police were notified of the accident, at the 7-Eleven inside the PTT gas station on Srisoonthorn Road in Cherng Talay. Arriving at the scene, officers found a Phuket-registered Honda…
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A brave young man
PHUKET: “My dad always said to me that if you do your best it’s enough, and I think you lot did your best tonight.” Ed Speed, the 14-year-old son of Gary Speed, gave a lifting speech to the Wales national football team after their defeat by Colombia on Wednesday night. The match was organized as a memorial to Gary who…
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Phuket Police probe land titles as Norwegian Dokset’s motive for murder
PHUKET: Murder suspect Stein Havard Dokset today re-enacted his actions from nearly three years ago to show Phuket police the sequence of events that led to the death of Rungnapa Suktong. Arrested on Tuesday after a police raid discovered decaying human remains in a plastic trash can his basement bathroom, Mr Dokset today denied all but one member of the…
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Phuket murder suspect Stein Dokset already on trial for fraud
PHUKET: Norwegian expat Stein Havard Dokset, who this afternoon was charged with the murder of his ex-girlfriend Rungnapa Suktong, is already on trial for defrauding a Swedish man of more than 800,000 baht, the Phuket Gazette has learned. Lt Col Boonlert Onklang, Deputy Superintendent at Chalong Police, told the Gazette that a formal complaint was filed with Chalong Police on…
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Swedish man’s fall “accidental’, say witnesses
PHUKET: The Swedish tourist who died in hospital after falling from a third-floor hotel balcony last Friday night likely fell by accident, witnesses have told the Phuket Gazette. Matthias Andersson, who was in his 30s, had gone out to a nearby bar for 15 minutes before returning to his room, hotel staff at the Welcome Inn told the Gazette. Channisa…
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Phuket tourism high season draws annual blood-drive low
PHUKET: The Phuket Regional Blood Center is calling for blood donations to replenish stocks to counter the annual fall in donations during Phuket’s tourism high season. Each year from January through April, the volume of blood collected falls short of target levels, says Vichote Buraphachanok of the Blood Center. “The main reason that we fall short of our target levels…
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Ahoy Phuket! Ao Chalong Yacht Club calls for assistance to get ship shape
PHUKET: The Ao Chalong Yacht Club is calling for volunteers to lend a hand at a “working bee” on Saturday, March 3 – and is putting on free beer and a sausage sizzle for those who turn out to help. “Some of the jetty floats need replacing urgently because they are sinking. Floats that are being used to jack up…
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Phuket sports: Weekly round-up by The Golf Guru
PHUKET: The World Golf Championship (WGC) was played this week in the US. In fact 66 per cent of the World Championships have been played in the States which seems strange as it’s meant to be the World championships. I won’t go on about the old chestnut of the World Series baseball being for only American teams! The 2012 World…
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Phuket Gazette: Pedophiles arrested; Journalists attacked; Rhino poaching; French bill unconstitutional
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – World news compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Police arrest 17 suspected pedophiles across Europe PHUKET (News Wires): European police have arrested seventeen people and rescued eight children after a year-long investigation into online networks of alleged pedophiles, the European Police Office (EUROPOL) announced yesterday. The investigation is continuing. Europol said Operation Atlantic began…
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Phuket business: LED systems to dim costs
PHUKET: Businesses and private homes looking to reduce overheads and increase marketing and profit potential can benefit by tapping into the latest LED powered solutions. Osram-Traxon (Thailand), have partnered with SAPL-CAL Solutions and Boonsoong Technology Co Ltd to showcase its latest products at the Phuket Life and Drive Show, scheduled for March 28 to April 2 at the Homeworks complex…
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Phuket business: Axiom legal financing segregated portfolio
PHUKET: A little while back my article about litigation funding in general was published and at the time I was kind of sitting on the fence about the asset class. One of my main hang-ups had been with the fact that generally the access to it that I had seen up to that point had been via structured notes, which…
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Phuket Live Wire: An update on international download speeds in Phuket
PHUKET: Time for an update on how Phuket’s doing for real world, measured international internet speeds. I’m not talking about the advertised 10 megabits or 100 megabits-per-second lines that only exist in marketing drivel and a few internet service provider’s fantasies. I’m talking about speeds that you and I are measuring, in the wild, right here, every day. The short…
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Pregnant mother, family killed in Phuket road accident
PHUKET: A family of three from Uttaradit province died when their motorcycle was hit by a pick-up truck in the rainy conditions in Phuket last night. Also killed was the unborn child of the pregnant mother. Thalang Police were notified of an accident near the entrance to the Baan Wana housing estate on Srisoonthorn Road, about three kilometers west of…
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Phuket Gazette: Syria confirms deaths; Soldiers kill smuggler; EU tightens sanctions
PHUKET MEDIA WATCH – World news compiled by Gazette editors for Phuket’s international community Syrian gov’t confirms more than 3,800 killed during uprising PHUKET News Wires: More than 3,800 people have died as a result of violence during the ongoing uprising in Syria, according to figures the Syrian government has provided to the United Nations. Opposition activists claim the actual…
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Phuket welcomes newborn elephant “Pang Saifon’
PHUKET: The owners of the Kinnari Elephant Camp in Rawai this morning announced the birth of a baby elephant at the camp. Pang Saifon, born at 1:49am, is the second elephant to be born at the camp. The newborn weighs 75 kilograms and is in perfect health, said Jirayu Nirunwiroj, a veterinarian from the Phuket Livestock Office’s Animal Health Development…
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PHUKET TOURISM: Expert warns of traffic crisis for Phuket Airport
PHUKET: Capacity at Phuket International Airport is expected to reach critical levels this year with the thriving tourist destination projected to receive a staggering nine million visitors in 2012, according to a report released by leading hospitality consultancy C9 Hotelworks today. Bill Barnett, Managing Director of C9 Hotelworks and Phuket Gazette Property columnist, reports that the airport is officially capable…
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Phuket Gazette: Thai ‘wellness tourism’ to scoop up 350bn baht: TAT
PHUKET: The Thai government is projecting that the healthcare sector will earn a total of 350 billion baht (US$11.5bn), contributing much to the government target of becoming a “World Class Health Provider” by 2014. The projection covers the period of a five-year campaign from 2010 to 2014. The strategy follows Thailand being dubbed the “Spa Capital of Asia” in 2008,…
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Swedish Gripen jet fighters in tests over Phuket
PHUKET: The Royal Thai Air Force is conducting high-speed aerial flyovers of Phuket Town today and tomorrow in order to test its radar installation at Khao Mai Thao Sip Song, the island’s highest point, in Chalong. Following reports by concerned residents in Phuket Town, the Phuket Gazette contacted the Phuket Air Traffic Control center run by Aerothai at Phuket International…
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Phuket’s Soi Dog Foundation expands into Bangkok
PHUKET: Phuket’s renowned animal welfare charity Soi Dog Foundation (SDF) has joined forces with the Bangkok-based Soi Cats and Dogs organization (SCAD) to launch operations in the Thai capital. SCAD, a well established and highly regarded Thai foundation, will be integrated into SDF and Phimpakarn Petpichetchien appointed General Manager of the new operation, SDF’s founder John Dalley announced in press…
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Separate shootings leave two dead in Phuket
PHUKET: Two people died in separate shootings in Phuket last night. The first incident was an ambush attack in front of the Thepkrasattri Municipal Market, just west of the Thalang Junction on Don Chom Tao Road. A 25-year-old man identified only as “Pisut” was driving a motorbike along Don Chom Tao Road towards the junction at about 9:15pm when he…
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Phuket road victim identified as Aussie model
PHUKET: The young woman who died in a motorbike accident in Phuket early on Saturday morning has been identified as Lana O’Connell, a successful young model from the Gold Coast, Australia. Miss O’Connell was riding a motorbike along Patak Road toward Chalong Circle with her long-term partner Kenneth Trivett at about 3:30am when they struck a motorbike with sidecar. Mr…
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Two baby elephants seized in Phuket
PHUKET: Two baby elephants seized in Phuket today will be sent to an elephant reserve in the Northern Thailand province of Lampang. Meanwhile, investigators are continuing their probe into whether three elephant camps near Phuket’s Big Buddha image are encroaching on protected forest land. The transfer of the two baby male elephants – Popeye and Joey – follows officials from…
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Phuket sports: Golf guru weekly round-up
PHUKET: THE media hype around the USPGA tour this week wasn’t enough to get Phil Mickelson into the winner’s circle two weeks in a row. The Riviera Country Club, Pacific Palisades, California was the venue for the Northern Trust Open, formally known as the Los Angles Open, less than a block away from Sunset Boulevard. The Riviera C.C. is a…
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