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Illegal aliens: 50,000 workers register in Phuket by deadline
PHUKET: More than 50,000 illegal workers from neighboring countries were registered with the Phuket Provincial Employment Office during the grace period that ended on July 30. However, scores more still working illegally on the island, and an Immigration crackdown looms. Phuket Provincial Employment Office chief Thanawan Tongsukchote announced that 7,790 Thai employers registered their desire to employ a total of…
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Ultimate Frisbee takes off in Phuket
PHUKET CITY: A small group of ultimate frisbee enthusiasts are determined to see the sport take off in Phuket. A mixture of traditional football, American football and netball, the high-intensity sport combines skill, athleticism, speed and stamina. The driving force behind establishing the sport in Phuket is Chris Fisher. “Playing ultimate within the spirit of the game is hugely important.…
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Samui crash ‘will not affect tourism’
PHUKET / SURAT THANI: The chairman of the Southeastern Thai Hotel Association is confident that Tuesday’s Bangkok Airways plane crash at Samui Airport will not affect tourism on the island. Ruangnam Jaikwang said he believed ‘tourists would understand that the crash was an accident.’ The Bangkok Airways plane skidded off the runway before crashing into an old control tower. The…
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Phuket launches anti-drugs campaign
PHUKET CITY: Around 300 students from Phuket schools and 50 police officers took part in an anti-drugs march around Phuket City on Tuesday morning. The march was part of a five-day campaign organized by Phuket Governor Wichai Phraisa-ngop and police. Launched on Saturday, the campaign features a series of drug education sessions for children and teenagers. The aim is to…
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Phuket beaches take a pounding
PHUKET CITY: The problem of coastal erosion has been worsening in Phuket, the state-run Thai News Agency has reported. Residents in some areas of Phuket complain that coastal erosion is occurring at an average rate of as much as 10 meters a year due to both natural causes and coastal development. One hard hit area is the cliff-backed Lepang Beach…
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Samui Airport reopened
SAMUI / PHUKET: Samui Airport resumed operations at 2 pm today, Bangkok Airways announced in a press release. The first departing flight was Bangkok Airways PG100, which took off at 2 pm, bound for Bangkok’s Suvarnabhumi Airport. The co-pilot of the Bangkok Airways flight that crashed into an abandoned control tower yesterday afternoon remains in critical condition at Bangkok Hospital in the…
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Blood urgently needed for Samui air crash victims
PHUKET / SAMUI: Bangkok Airways is calling for blood donations of all blood types, especially from foreigners, following the crash at Samui Airport this afternoon of Bangkok Airways flight PG 266 from Krabi to Samui.The pilot was killed and a total of 34 people were seriously injured in the accident.Samui Airport has been closed following the accident. All flights to…
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Plane crash at Samui Airport
PHUKET CITY: A Bangkok Airways aircraft skidded off the runway at Samui Airport and crashed into an aviation control tower earlier this afternoon.The accident took place at about 2.30pm.The pilot, Chartchai Punsuwan, was killed in the accident.Rescue teams and workers rushed to the scene to evacuate the passengers.Initial reports said the 75-seat aircraft, arriving from Krabi, slid off the runway because…
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Almost half of Phuket’s hotel projects delayed
PHUKET: Up to 48 percent of all new hotel developments in Phuket are experiencing major construction delays due to the global economic downturn and concerns over Thailand’s political stability, an authoritative report has found. However, according to the Phuket Hotel Market Update Mid-Year Report (Click here to download the full report) released by respected hospitality consulting firm C9 Hotelworks, the…
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Dasta seeks listing for all of Phuket
PHUKET CITY: The agency pushing to develop the Ao Phuket mega-project off Saphan Hin has finished holding public hearings and says it has overwhelming support for listing all of Phuket as a special administrative zone for sustainable tourism development. Designated Areas for Sustainable Tourism Administration (Dasta) held the first in a series of public hearings with representatives from Phuket’s Muang,…
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Phuket FC lose at home again
WICHIT, PHUKET: A heartbreaking last-minute goal gave a 10-man Phatthalung side a shock 1-0 win at Surakul Stadium on Saturday, consigning the hapless Phuket Sea Dragons to their sixth straight home defeat. The defeat sees Phatthalung leapfrog Phuket FC in the table, leaving Somsak Waijerean’s men firmly rooted at the foot of the table in the eight team league. The…
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Lucky license plates up for auction
PHUKET: Lucky license plates will be up for grabs in Phuket later this month at the Phuket Department of Land Transport’s 5th Annual License Plate Auction. A total of 301 license plates will go under the hammer in the Prapitak Grand Ballroom at the Metropol Hotel Phuket between August 12 and 13. Some of the ‘lucky’ plates are expected to…
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Rassada storms into Masters Cup final in Phuket
RASSADA, PHUKET: A 30-yard thunderbolt from Englishman Dave Iszatt helped set the Rassada Municipality football team on its way to victory against Srisoonthorn in the 2009 Rassada Masters Cup semifinals last Wednesday. Rassada will now face Kan Eng 2, who defeated Kathu in the first semifinal. Iszatt, 51, is the only non-Thai playing in the tournament. The Rassada fullback played…
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Mystery motorcyclist blamed for Phuket pile-up
PHUKET: The erratic behavior of a mystery motorcyclist was the reason the driver of a souped-up Ford Sierra gave for wrecking his car, flattening vegetation and slamming into a pick-up truck in Phuket yesterday. The sporty-looking Sierra spun across two lanes on the road to Patong Hill, slid across the central reservation, collided with an expat-owned pick-up truck heading in…
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Phuket FC determined to win tonight’s game
PHUKET CITY: Phuket FC return to action tonight, determined to get their first-ever home win against last-place Phattalung. In their last match at Yala, the Sea Dragons appeared on course for a second successive away point until Yala pounced in the 88th minute to complete home and away victories against Phuket. According to Phuket FC coach Somsak Waijeran, the two-week…
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Freedom for giant turtle captured off Phuket
PHUKET: A green sea turtle rescued near Phuket in April this year has finally been given its freedom. The turtle, thought to be about 50 years old, was almost a meter long and weighed a massive 120kg. It was rescued off Koh Bon during an early morning raid by Phuket-based marine inspectors who had been tipped off about an illegal…
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New luxury hotel for Phuket
PHUKET: Leading global hotel brand Accor have signed an agreement to manage the 280-room Pullman Phuket Arcadia at Nai Thon Beach which is scheduled to open in 2012.The new hotel is aimed at the luxury market and is currently under development by the owners of the Hilton Phuket Arcadia Resort.Despite the economic downturn, investment in hospitality assets is on the rise…
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Townhouse demolition goes ahead for Phuket road expansion
PHUKET: Two townhouses which have been at the center of a court battle for 20 years are finally being torn down to allow road expansion in Phuket City to go ahead.The townhouses, located on a 500 meter stretch of Phunpol Road, have held up expansion of the road from two lanes to four.A number of restaurants, houses and businesses that line the…
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New tsunami buoys on the Phuket horizon
PHUKET CITY: Phuket could soon get more tsunami direct detection buoys similar to those installed along the Indian coastline earlier this year. The president of the National Disaster Warning Center (NDWC), Surawong Tientong, was on the island this week and met with Phuket Governor Wichai Phraisa-ngop to discuss the proposal. The first tsunami direct detection buoy in the Indian Ocean, funded by the US government’s USAID…
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Logging destroys 18 rai of Phuket forest
PHUKET: Illegal loggers got away with clearing a huge swathe of pristine national park forest on Kamala Hill near the west coast of Phuket for more than two weeks before officials moved in to stop them. Acting on a tip-off, Phuket Governor Wichai Phraisa-ngop led a team of Royal Forest Department officials and more than 30 forest preservation volunteers to…
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Accused teen set to fly home
PHUKET CITY: After spending more than five months in a Phuket jail, the German teenager arrested along with 43-year-old Briton Dax Young on child sex abuse charges in March is set to fly home next month. The 18-year-old, who cannot be named, pleaded guilty at the Phuket juvenile court today and was handed a four-year suspended sentence and fined 17,000 baht. He…
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Phuket to host shuttle launch
PHUKET: Phuket is set to give badminton a boost next month when it hosts the first Dunlop Phuket Open at the Saphan Hin sports center from August 5 to 9.The event is expected to attract Thailand’s top badminton players, who will battle it out with their rackets and shuttlecocks for prize money totaling 750,000 baht.The five-day event has been jointly…
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Missing American could be in Phuket
PHUKET: Police throughout the country have been asked to help find a 29-year-old American university student who is missing in Thailand.The student, Michael Griffin Harrie, 29, a second year veterinary medicine student who was studying for a month at Iwate University in Morioka, Japan, was last seen on July 14 while on a sightseeing trip in Thailand.He traveled to Bangkok…
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Phuket celebrates National Thai Language Day
PHUKET: Today, July 29, is marked by Thais as National Thai Language Day, and was celebrated in Phuket earlier this week with ceremonies involving more than 1,000 students, historians and prestigious scholars. The celebrations at Rajaphat University Phuket on Monday included a writing contest, a Thai folk song contest, traditional dancing and speeches by leading scholars on the importance of…
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Father killed in bid to save couple wired for death
PHUKET: A Phuket man was killed while trying to revive his son and his son’s girlfriend who were electrocuted in what police say may have been a bizarre ‘murder-suicide’. Police in Phuket Town said Jitti Choowong arrived home last Friday night to find his son Ekalak and his girlfriend dead on the floor of the home they shared in Rassada.…
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Water World set to make waves in Phuket
West Sands Water World in Mai Khao is the latest tourist attraction currently under construction in Phuket.Construction began last year and is expected to be complete by December.The water park is part of the West Sands five-star resort complex and was designed by Whitewater Industries, a world leader in water park design and a major player in the US water…
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Flower power for Phuket
PHUKET: Flowers of all kinds and colors have temporarily taken root at Saphan Hin in Phuket for the 17th Annual Ornamental Plants & Flowers Fair Phuket, which began on Friday and runs until Sunday.The flower fair’s covered market-stall area boasts more than 130 stalls of colorful flora and other ornamental items for gardens of any size.Among the items on offer…
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Search continues for missing teenager
PHUKET: Rescue teams have spent the day searching in vain for a 15-year-old boy who became caught in an undertow at Karon Beach and is feared drowned.The boy, Pattharadanai ‘Ooad’ Kampong, was last seen waving for help in heavy surf about 6pm on Sunday.Lifesavers saw him in trouble, and tried to save him, but were unable to battle through the…
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Suspected Phuket ‘gangster’ jumps bail
PHUKET CITY: An arrest warrant has been issued for a Pakistani man who failed to make a mandatory court appearance while on bail for attempted murder of a compatriot in Rawai in 2007, police say. The suspect, identified as Imran Ahmed “Munna” Qureshi, was arrested by the Phuket Tourist Police in October 2007 for the attempted murder of fellow Pakistani…
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Phuket Tourism: Patong performs best
PHUKET CITY: Patong is outperforming the rest of Phuket in a low-season that many local hotel industry experts describe as dismal.Phuket Tourist Association (PTA) President Somboon Jirayus said current average occupancy rates are about 30-40% in most parts of the island, down about 30% year-on-year, on average.Revenue is down even further because of all the discounts and promotions hotels are…
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