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Phuket sports: All change again in Bahrain
PHUKET: This season seems to be a battle of the pit-lanes, with McLaren leading the pit-boo-boo stakes, but several other teams are trying hard for this inglorious title. However, McLaren kept ahead in Bahrain. The wear on tyres was anticipated, though some teams, and in particular Mercedes, did better than expected. That is something to watch during the rest of…
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Chinese tourists injured in Phuket bus crash
PHUKET: More than 10 Chinese tourists were injured as a tour bus ran off the road on Patong Hill yesterday evening. Tung Tong Police were notified of the crash, at the bottom of the hill near the Kathu Shooting Range, at about 7pm. Police arrived at the scene to find a tour bus lying on its side beside the road.…
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Phuket Grand Dame Cape Panwa Hotel wins rights to Raceweek regatta venue
PHUKET: The organizers of the Phuket Raceweek 2012 today announced that the host venue of the annual regatta this year will be the Phuket’s “Grande Dame” the Cape Panwa Hotel and sister property the Kantary Bay Hotel. “Cape Panwa Hotel and its sister property, Kantary Bay Hotel, on the tip of Cape Panwa in the southeast of the island, will…
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Phuket hosts international conference on disaster nursing
PHUKET: More than 100 registered nurses from around the world are in Phuket for a three-day seminar on emergency nursing, including how to respond to disaster situations. The conference, organized by the Faculty of Nursing, Prince of Songkhla University, is focused on “Trends in Emergency, Trauma and Disaster Nursing: Using Evidence to Guide Decision-Making and Improve Nursing Care” and being…
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Phuket Rush Hour: Car flips over on bypass road
PHUKET: A car ended up on its roof in the central ditch on Phuket’s bypass road this morning when the possibly drunk driver of a saleng (motorcycle with side car) cut in front of the vehicle. The motorbike driver and the driver of the car both escaped injury, but the car’s only passenger, the driver’s 20-year-old son, sustained minor injuries.…
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Aussie tourist dies of heatstroke in Phuket
PHUKET: An Australian tourist found unconscious by the side of the road near Surin Beach has died from heatstroke, Phuket rescue workers have reported. A Cherng Talay Tambon Administration Organization rescue worker’s unit based at Layan Beach received a report at 2:39pm on Wednesday that a man had fainted by the road about 200 meters from Surin Beach. When the…
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Phuket sports: Masters of the trail
PHUKET: Young athletes on Phuket are being given a golden opportunity to take part in a brand new event coming to the island next month in the form of trail running. Following the recent announcement that Phuket will host episode two of the 2012 Thailand Trail Running Championship at the Thanyapura Sports and Leisure Club (TSLC) on May 6, organizers…
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PHUKET BUSINESS: Artificial reefs key to mass tourism dive industry
PHUKET: In the tourism game creating memories is everything, explains the Head of Development at Reef Worlds, Dave Taylor. “If you can create a tourism memory then you have won your game. You have won everything, because that’s a memory that never leaves a potential client, and they always come back to it,” Taylor told the Phuket Gazette in an…
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Officials to light up notorious Phuket road
PHUKET: Following the high-speed crash on April 13 that killed two local residents on the main road through Pa Khlok, officials are now looking to add street lights along the notorious stretch of dark road, and to add “reflective road studs” to help drivers stay on the road. Theera Prugsanan, chief of the Thalang Electricity Authority Office, told a meeting…
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Phuket residents panic over fish fright
PHUKET: Reports of Phuket Town residents panicking yesterday, fearing that the dead fish found in canal were an omen of an impending tsunami strike, prompted officials to investigate. The brackish water of the mostly dry Klong Saensuk canal, which runs past the Seahorse Circle at the east end of Ong Sim Phai Road, had about 10 kilograms of dead freshwater…
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Laguna Phuket Marathon prepares for record entries
PHUKET: Hundreds of runners from around the world will ‘Run Paradise’ in the seventh annual Laguna Phuket International Marathon on Sunday, June 10, to help stamp its status as Asia’s fastest growing family-friendly destination marathon. International registrations opened in October and since then entries have surged ahead of the same period last year, with total international entries now close to…
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Phuket Sports: Buriram Utd cling on for AFC title
PHUKET: Thai Premiere League champions Buriram United still have a fighting chance to advance from the group stages of the 2012 AFC Champions League, despite back-to-back losses this month to Korean league champions Jeonbuk Hyundai Motors. Now level with the Koreans on six points in Group H – the pot of death, Buriram’s good start in March was highlighted by…
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Phuket Sports: Cricket sixes ends with new champions
PHUKET: MG7 from Kuwait were crowned Cup champions for the first time of the 9th annual Phuket International Cricket Sixes following their victory in the Cup final over compatriots the Skylarks. Finals day of the 9th Phuket International Cricket Sixes was played under glorious sunshine at the Kata Group Sports Ground in Chalong, Phuket. The twenty-four teams competing in the…
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Phuket tourists, jet-ski operator scramble to stave off dolphin beaching
PHUKET: A pair of dolphins came dangerously close to beaching themselves on Patong Beach, on Phuket’s west coast, yesterday morning, but were successfully herded back out to deeper water. However, biologists from the Phuket Marine Biological Center (PMBC) still fear for their safety. The dolphins were first spotted in shallow waters opposite the Patong Beach Resort at about 9am. Initial…
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Disaster insurance to cover Phuket quakes, floods, landslides
PHUKET: Insurance coverage for homes and businesses damaged by natural disasters, including floods, storms, landslides, earthquakes and even tumbling boulders is now available in Phuket and the rest of Thailand again following the government’s creation of the National Catastrophe Insurance Fund (NCIF). The fund, launched on March 28 with a government budget of 5 billion baht, offers coverage through a…
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Plans unveiled for new Phuket water purification plant
PHUKET: Patong Municipality has announced a plan to build a 300-million-baht reverse-osmosis (RO) water treatment plant to increase municipal water supply and cut down on the volume of wastewater released into Patong Bay, on Phuket’s west coast. Although still in the initial study stages, a decision to provide Bangkok-based firm ITR Water Solution Co Ltd with 800sqm of municipal land…
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Phuket boy, 12, home alone escapes as blaze engulfs slum
PHUKET: A 12-year-old boy home alone had a lucky escape from his house on Tuesday morning, as fire broke out in the poor Soi Kingkaew community in Rassada, north of Phuket Town, destroying two homes. Suriya Inkaew was home alone while his mother, 56-year-old Gaysorn Yungyeun, was out collecting recyclables from trash to make a living. “I woke up to…
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Phuket guard in coma after arson attack
PHUKET: A security guard at ‘Phuket Healthy Nutriment and Snake Show’ remains unconscious in hospital after being knocked out by attackers and having his workplace being set afire early Monday morning. Anuchit Chaithongngarm, 25, is currently in a coma at Vachira Hospital Phuket after being hit on the back of the head with a heavy object, said Kongpol Phanuek, chief…
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Architect to deliver free Phuket seminar on “Seismic Design & Building’
PHUKET: Dr Amorn Pimanmas, Chairman of the Project Committee at the Engineering Institute of Thailand (EIT) and alumnus of the University of Tokyo, will lead a free seminar on “Seismic Design & Building” at the Boat Lagoon Resort in Koh Kaew this afternoon. Jointly organized by the Phuket Architectural Society and the Phuket Real Estate Association, the seminar, to be…
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Phuket Customs seize B21mn of illegal diesel
PHUKET: Phuket Customs officials have seized 47,000 liters of smuggled diesel hidden on board two Taiwanese boats off the east coast of Phuket Sunday. Officials estimated the total value of the smuggled diesel seized at 21 million baht. The two boats, the ChingChunFa 168 and the Chi Tsai 16, were seized one to two nautical miles north of Taphao Yai…
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Expert calls for NDWC to revise tsunami warning protocol
PHUKET: Lertsin Raksaskulwong, director of the Environmental Geology and Geohazard Bureau under the Department of Mineral Resources, yesterday called for the National Disaster Warning Center (NDWC) to revise its procedure for issuing tsunami warnings. Speaking at a meeting at Provincial Hall held to review Phuket’s tsunami-response procedures, Mr Lertsin said, “The events of April 11 were chaos. It seemed they…
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Phuket Gazette Reader’s Poll: How tolerant is Phuket to gay tourists?
PHUKET: A week-long Phuket Pride Festival that officially began yesterday is expected to attract thousands of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) tourists from around the region. In the latest Phuket Gazette online readers poll, we ask how tolerant is Phuket society of LGBT lifestyles compared with other places readers have lived in or visited? To have your say vote…
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Phuket Bike Week rolls to a close
PHUKET: After being moved forward a few weeks, the 18th Annual Phuket Bike Week was a success over the weekend, despite heavy rains that threatened to wash out festivities. Among those in attendance were Patong Deputy Mayor Chairat Sukbal, Royal Thai Navy officials and representatives of sponsor Chang beer. As in years past, most activities took place along the beach…
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Phuket go-go bars in Soi Bangla pass the AHTD test
PHUKET: Officers from the Anti-Human Trafficking Division (AHTD) of the Royal Thai Police and Internal Security Operations Command (ISOC) on Friday night inspected go-go bars in Soi Sea Dragon, off Soi Bangla in Patong, but failed to uncover any evidence of lewd behavior. Twelve officers from the AHTD Region 5 and ISOC, commanded by AHTD Region 5 Deputy Inspector Pol…
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Weird World News: Serving surf ‘n’ turf – from love to six feet under
PHUKET: This week’s Weird World News round-up serves up an awkward and dangerous mix of surf ‘n’ turf, taking you from cheap love, to a fishy and possibly untimely death and finally wrapping you up like a filet mignon and burying you. Japanese chefs balloon up over new blowfish laws A NEW law coming into affect in October is cutting…
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Airlines voice confidence in Phuket Airport emergency evacuation measures
PHUKET: Following the evacuation of Phuket International Airport after the 8.6-Richter earthquake on April 11, several airlines on Friday expressed their confidence in how officials handle the emergency exercise. At a press conference at the airport chaired by Airport Director Prathuang Sornkham, Thai Airways representative Jittrapong Narongwanich said all airlines that use Phuket Airport remain confident in the evacuation procedures…
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Phuket Opinion: Tsunami evacuation shortfalls resurface
PHUKET: THE pair of powerful earthquakes that struck off the coast of Sumatra on April 11 served as the perfect ‘live test’ of Thailand’s preparedness to conduct emergency evacuation of tsunami risk areas, exposing, once again, serious shortcomings in the government’s ability to relay important information to the public in a timely fashion. The 8.6-magnitude quake that hit at 3:38pm…
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FC Phuket 0 – 0 Suphanburi FC
PHUKET: FC Phuket played Suphanburi FC to a scoreless draw on soggy pitch at Surakul Stadium yesterday afternoon. Just over 1,700 turned up for the match, including a busload of orange-clad Suphanburi supporers who turned up for the match. FC Phuket’s best chance of the match came at 13 minutes, when Suphanburi keeper Prasit Nuamsala dived to his right to…
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Phuket to be ‘Atlantis of the East’? Not on Gov Tri’s watch
PHUKET: In the face of widespread rumors of Phuket becoming the “Atlantis of the East”, Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha has jokingly declared that he would be happy to resign his position if the island sinks into the Andaman Sea. “Rumors are rumors,” Gov Tri said. “I don’t think Phuket will sink. In fact, I’ll stake my position as a guarantee.…
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FC Phuket ready for Suphanburi elephant charge
PHUKET: FC Phuket are back into action with a tough match against Suphanburi FC this afternoon at Surakul Stadium. The field should be sloppy, as the stadium was hit with heavy rains last night and again this afternoon. Coming into the sixth fixture for the 2012 Thai Yamaha 1 league, Phuket are in 10th place with a win, three draws…
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